Now this is something that I think everyone who keeps an eye on the MMO market was expecting. Wildstar, from a team of ex-WoW veterans (among others) launched 2 years ago with a decent amount of hype behind it. It looked like WoW, played like more recent MMOs and had the years of changes and developments that people would expect. That was surely the recipe for success? It turned out, however, that making a game too similar to WoW, and asking people to pay for it, was a poor choice. Why would they pay to play a game like WoW, when they could just play WoW?
The masses spoke and now Wildstar is going free to play. You can still buy the game and pay your subscription if you like, which gives you bonuses and other bits and pieces while you play, but the main game is now free (with a few restrictions) to everyone. That’s the market now.