Things have not been going well for The Old Republic. First there was the news dropped in some shareholders notes that the game had bled 400,000 users, a staggering 25% of the total subscriber base at its peak. Then there were the layoffs at BioWare Austin. All of this seems to be forcing Lucasarts and BioWare to make some tough decisions. Kotaku had a telling quote from the game’s lead designer, Emmanuel Lusinchi.

“The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well,” he says. “Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on.”

Going Free-to-Play would dramatically lower expectations for the game’s quality and content, which might be something that needs to happen. TOR simply wasn’t the World of Warcraft killer everyone hoped it would be. The model could also provide new revenue streams int he form of micro transactions.

Whether this happens or not, something needs to change if TOR is going to avoid the same fate as Galaxies.