Two key players are involved in bring free to play MMOs and MMORPGs to the players. They are the developers and publishers. Development studios are usually based in Korea or China and crafted for the local audience. When a studio wants to release its game in other region, it often doesn’t have the resources and/or knowledge required to operate a local office or localize the game for foreign markets. That’s where publishers step in.
Publishers pay developers a license fee for the privilege of hosting their game in a specific region, like North America or Europe. Developers also usually get a cut of all cash shop items. The developer is still responsible for designing new content for the game and fixing existing problems, but the task of marketing, customer service, and localization is passed to the publisher. Some of the biggest publishers today include Aeria Games, GamesCampus, gPotato, GamersFirst, and Outspark. None of these companies develop games themselves. Instead, they serve as an intermediary between players and the game studios.
Because many companies that publish games in America are based here while foreign developers are based in Asia, some interesting dynamics occur. Take for example the case of Eyasoft. They are the Korean developer behind two recent free to play MMORPGs: Iris Online and Legend of Edda. Despite being developed by the same studio, the two games are published in North America by different publishers. GamesCampus publishes Iris Online while gPotato publishes Legend of Edda. The two games are both anime styled, but still quite different. Edda has chibi style graphics while Iris boasts a Gypsy theme. Both have very traditional gameplay elements, but mix them with original features.
Not all developers rely on foreign publishers. Some companies are large enough to handle foreign localization and game development all in-house. Perfect World Entertainment comes to mind. Their US branch now hosts a number of free to play MMORPGs from the original Perfect World to more recent titles like Battle of the Immortals, Heroes of Three Kingdoms, and the upcoming Forsaken World. Usually as developers grow in size they take up the task of self publishing, and even expand to publish games by other studios. This is the case with Gravity. Best known for Ragnarok Online, they now operate a publishing portal in the US called WarpPortal. Besides publishing Gravity games like Requiem and Rose Online, WarpPortal now publishes Dragon Saga, the relaunched version of Dragonica Online.
There’s simple answer to which method is best, but my personal opinion is that in-house development and publishing is usually better for the players. When there’s a problem with the game, publishers are often helpless without the assistance of the developer. This can lead to confusion and a stalled game. Of course, most Western players wouldn’t have access to many Asian MMORPGs if it weren’t for publishers. I expect both publishers and developers to continue to expand globally. There’s still a lot of opportunity out there for new publishers willing to bring foreign games to local markets.