Star Wars: The Old Republic gained two million players since free-to-play transition

It's been nearly half a year since Star Wars: The Old Republic transitioned into a free-to-play game. So, how did it go? Pretty darn great, if you asked Jeff Hickman, executive producer on the game.

In a new blog post, Hickman owns up to the shortcomings of SWTOR's rapid decline at launch. "Last spring, there was some uncertainty surrounding Star Wars: The Old Republic as we were starting to lose subscribers and players were growing frustrated," he said. "In fairness, many of the complaints and worries were justified."

"We just weren't sufficiently focused on improving the core experience," Hickman said, noting that the game has changed significantly since launch. Not only did the switch to free-to-play add "vitality" back to the game, but new features like Group Finder made it easier for friends to find each other and play new content.

According to Hickman, since the free-to-play transition, the game has added two million new accounts. "Our new, high capacity servers are teeming with people," he boasted. "This means more people to play with, more growth for your guilds, more Warzone matches, and more ways for players to continue to advance their characters."

The success of SWTOR as a free-to-play game shouldn't be surprising to most, given the numerous people that predicted resistance towards a subscription model. We're sure somewhere, Garnett Lee is drinking a beer saying "I told you so."