Have you seen a lot of interest in the $200 lifetime subscriptions that you offered to open beta players (the Founders)?

Oh absolutely. The initial response to the Founders Membership was awesome. And we had forecasted a pretty reasonable number of players, but we had about three times that number of players subscribe to the offer. Which was surprising. In fact, it was so much larger that we're actually just about to announce - although we're not bringing back the Founders pricing that a lot of players have been asking for- we're going to be rolling out a lifetime membership offer for $299 for players who missed the original Founder's offer to come in and join a lifetime membership.

There's been a growing number of subscription-based MMO games coming to market. Do you think the industry is starting ask a bit too much of gamers' wallets? Asking them to buy the game, and the subscriptions and to support multiple games?

Well, you're kind of asking three questions with that one.

Yeah, I sort of am.

One question might be, do you feel like subscriptions are going to be a part of the business model going forward? On that one I'd say there's always going to be a place for subscriptions in online gaming, but we believe there's going to be a place for other kinds of business models, whether it's ad-sponsored models or micro-transactional.

So that's one, question, so the other is with all the competition in the marketplace today are the games chasing an ever-shrinking pie?

Actually, the way I was looking at it is from the perspective of, is the genre starting to feed too much on itself? Because if a gamer can only afford to play one or two games is it limiting its growth to ask $15 a month for so many games from a limited pool of gamers?

Well the pool of gamers is still growing. I think everyone would agree that we're adding more players into the space all the time. For me the dynamic question is how fast the U.S. market is going to start looking like the Korean market. The Korean market went from one predominant player in Lineage now to being really fractured down to a much smaller percentage of market share. So each group now has 10%, 20%, 30% of the market? And as more products come in here, you're going to see similar dynamics. You're going to see fewer and fewer one hit wonders and you'll see more challenges to try to get products market share. So you'll see more competition around market share than it will be just about pure numbers.

So, basically, your opinion is that the market's going to continue to grow and can support having more diverse options for people that are choosing between playing one or two of those games? That the large pool of players will be able to support that?

Yeah, there's definitely pressure, though, right? I think the market has seen over the last year that the standard for success has been raised with products like Lord of the Rings and World of Warcraft. So with other games, unless you have the full feature set, unless you've got the production quality, unless you have a flawless launch, why do I want to play your product?

And that level, that barrier to entry, is very high for new products. So you're going to see fewer and fewer products that can cross the chasm.

Last question. Do you think an MMO that's been successful, for a long period of time. It's paid for it's past development, it's current upkeep, and it's probably funded another project as well. It's still got a large subscriber base and going strong. Should the developer or publisher, what have you, feel an obligation to reduce the price, the monthly price charge to players?

(long pause)

That's a great question. I guess it depends on what the company is doing. Is the company sharing its success in other ways? So, I wouldn't have a problem -and I have been this person- it wouldn't be a problem if I'm the customer, if the company's still giving me great content.

So, like a constant stream of updates?

Yeah. So, if I'm actually getting value for the dollars that I'm paying then I think that's great. If I think the company's more or less abandoned the product, they put out an expansion product every two years and have gone off to work on some other project then I probably don't feel loved.

Looks like we're about out of time.

Thanks so much!

Thanks for taking the time!

For more information on the free content update hitting The Lord of The Rings Online, check out this official press release or visit the game's official web site at www.lotro.com .