There have been tremors in the Force lately, concerns about the ability for BioWare MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic to carry on. After many of its players have abandoned ship in favor of other games, devotees to the game have wondered about whether or not the game would even continue running. But the BioWare council has converged, and they have decided to roll the game into a free-to-play to bring players back, providing bonuses to those who already subscribed.

A GameRanx article shows pieces from an interview with Bioware’s Austin Michael Bromberg where he talks about making the switch.

“We did a lot of research and found that people who gave it a try but left found the subscription to be the biggest barrier. So it was a pretty straightforward decision for us…One thing we’re doing is rewarding subscribers with in-game currency for all the time that they’ve been subscribers, and lapsed subscribers will have currency for the time they were there, which offers them a reward for coming back.”

SW:TOR tried to change up the MMO formula a bit by adding a concrete story progression, but many players simply found free-to-play alternatives. Hopefully making this switch will allow the game to become profitable for the company and keep it running.