As mentioned before, Tabula Rasa will close on February 28th after being a free-to-play game for under 2 months. It is definitely a shame that a quality game like Tabula Rasa did not start out as a subscription free game rather than going the increasingly risky pay-to-pay route. With the exception of Lord of the Rings Online, not many pay games have found much success since World of Warcraft has achieved its dominance.

If Tabula Rasa had started out as a free MMO, it would have been one of the best. Two months, or under in this case, is not enough time to truly see how the game would have been if it started out as free. Everybody knew it was closing so Tabula Rasa’s final months was likely hurt by gamers not wanting to get attached to a game that was not going to last.

If Tabula Rasa had started as free, it could have been not only a dominant MMO shooter but a dominant sci-fi MMO. Besides being a solid MMO with plenty of action, having Richard Garriott’s name on the game guaranteed attention. If an item shop would not have worked, then the powers that be could have tried premium accounts for more areas of the game. Oh well, I guess we will never know for sure. So long Tabula Rasa, we did not know you long enough!