Every single major pay to play MMORPG from World of Warcraft to the more obscure Nexus: Kingdom of the Winds has an MMORPG free trial. Gamers today can practically play ANY MMORPG for free, including the pay to play ones, even if its just for a short while. Heck, I tried out both Pirates of the Burning Sea and Poxnora the other day. I didn’t really like either, but after trying those games I wanted to give NCSoft’s newest title Aion a try, but to my surprise they don’t offer a free trial. NCSoft offers a free trial for their other games including Guild Wars and City of Heroes, but they don’t offer a free trial for Aion. That’s absolutely nuts. There’s no way I’m going to fork over $30+ to purchase Aion without at least trying the game first.

I’ve actually paid for numerous MMORPGs in the past. I’ve held a subscription for Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot for years. Same with World of Warcraft. I got into both of these MMORPGs through free trials. World of Warcraft, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot all offer 14 day free trials which let gamers get a good feel for the game. I honestly think NCSoft is losing out on some serious cash as well as players by not offering a free trial. I’ve seen so many awesome HD trailers for Aion, but I’ll never give the game a chance because it doesn’t have a free trial. NCSoft needs to wake up and step it up. Come to think of it, Star Trek Online doesn’t have a free trial either. How dumb is that? That’s another game I wanted to try, but I can’t. There’s no way i’ll buy a game without trying it so, Atari is also screwing themselves over.