Change has been rumbling through the online gaming industry for some time now, and no company better represents this shift than Sony Online Entertainment. In the past year alone, two flagship SOE titles have made the transition from the traditional subscription-based revenue model to the more flexible microtransaction-based free-to-play model: DC Universe Online and EverQuest II. Of course, these two weren't the first to make the big shift for SOE, as their popular children's MMORPG, Free Realms, has already been pushing its popular microtransaction goodies for close to three years now.

Regardless, it seems like change is here to stay, and with SOE experiencing some phenomenal success with their free-to-play transitions, I decided to sit down with SOE's Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, Laura Naviaux, to talk about the future of online gaming microtransaction models, SOE's vision for 2012, and much more. If you're at all interested in what's going on with the online gaming industry and the revenue models that govern it, take a read!

2011 is over, and we’re going to party like it’s the end of the world in 2012. Which it might be, if the Mayans are right! But whatever happens, Turbine has made sure that 2012 will be a huge year for Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO). I had the chance to chat with Executive Producer Fernando Paiz, who gave us a brief overview of the state of the game in 2011, and what to expect in this new year. Big news is on the horizon, including a new class, an increase in the level cap, and the first premium expansion, which will bring players out of Eberron and into the Forgotten Realms for the first time. ZAM has the scoop: read on for more!

The Riot Games staff is always a whirlwind of activity, with constantly shifting goals and projects that inevitably pick up more momentum as they go along. It's hard to believe that it was only two and a half (well, a little bit less) years ago when League of Legends and Riot Games were the new kids on the block, eager to carve a place for themselves in the industry. Now League of Legends is pretty much the face of the microtransaction & MOBA industry, and they've been making incredible gains within the eSports community. To bring in another year of League of Legends and last month's launch of Season Two, I decided to catch up with Riot Games to talk a little about the past of League of Legends and what might be on the horizon for future projects. Read on!

SWTOR fans are all on edge these days as we get closer and closer to the beginning of Early Game Access (tomorrow!). Of course, given BioWare's plans to stagger Early Game Access until the 20th, there are hundreds of thousands of players puttering around Torhead, starving for any new information to tide them over until next week. Luckily, ZAM's got you covered, and Editor-in-Chief Chris "Pwyff" Tom got the chance to speak to SWTOR Game Director James Ohlen about SWTOR's ambitious post-launch development plans, legacy system, official game canon, and much, much more. There's a lot to read here, so let's get started!

Last time I spoke to Funcom's Craig Morrison, Age of Conan was just making the shift to free-to-play, and we were all waiting expectantly to see how it would pan out. Of course, everything went according to plan (or even above that!), and the team has already seen some huge population growth. Now, with AoC's recent developer update detailing updates 3.1 to 4.0, I decided that the time was right to catch up with Craig once more to catch up on what's been happening in Age of Conan as well as to shed some light on his big plans for updates 3.1 through to 4.0. Read on for some exclusive new details on AoC's PvP plans, Dreamworld single server technology, and more!

It's been a while since I last made a visit to check out alaplaya's Land of Chaos Online, so when they debuted their highly anticipated Evolution expansion, I decided to track the team down to have a chat about how Land of Chaos Online has been going thus far, and how the team has been faring in introducing new characters and features into the game, as well as touching lightly on some future plans for the game. You can read on for all the glorious interview details!

It's no secret that we're big fans of Spiral Knights' simplistic hack 'n slashing mayhem, but it's been a little while since we had the chance to hop into the game to see what new things were on offer. Just four months ago, Spiral Knights was announcing that they had hit one million player accounts, and they've been almost constantly generating content for their players, ranging from adding in a shiny new PvP arena, as well as the addition of Shadow Lairs.

Eager to catch up on how Spiral Knights has been doing in the past few months, as well as what's to come for this gorgeous retro game, ZAM Staff Writer Mike "Krelumian" Schaffnit had a brief interview with Three Rings Design on all things Spiral Knights. Read on!

Yesterday, I finally got the chance to talk about my exclusive hands-on time with Funcom's The Secret World. Of course, trying to fit every morsel of information into a single article can be a daunting task, so I skipped over some of the more obtuse concepts, choosing instead to focus on the overall game and how I found it. This didn't stop me, however, from swinging by The Secret World's official forums to host an impromptu Q&A session, so if you're craving even more hands-on information from me, the first four pages of that topic are filled with me writing essays in response to one-sentence questions.

Anyway, during the event we also got the chance to sit down with either Senior Producer / Creative Director Ragnar Tørnquist, or Lead Content Designer Joel Bylos and Lead Designer Martin Bruusgaard. According to the luck of the draw, my interview was to be with Joel and Martin (two for one!). Joel said that they give more information than Ragnar anyway, so I decided to jump on my chance. The following interview is a bit long, but if you're even remotely looking forward to The Secret World, you'll definitely want to read through all of this. So read on as as I get to talking with Joel and Martin about The Secret World's endgame content, how the team wants players to be progressing through the game, and much, much more!

On Wednesday afternoon, we sat down with DC Universe Online's creative director Jens Andersen and executive director of development Lorin Jameson, in a roundtable interview, to discuss the upcoming downloadable content update based on the Flash. "Lightning Strikes," gives players access to new missions, instances, maps, as well as a brand spanking new power type: electricity.

The second major DLC pack for DCUO, "Lightning Strikes" follows in the footsteps of "Fight For the Light," the Green Lantern-centric DLC that was released earlier in the year. Similarly priced at $9.99, "Lightning Strikes" will introduce a new style of map: a large scale shared instance where up to 50 players will be able to work in concert to save the inhabitants of Central City from a new enemy known as "Paradox Reapers." Also in this DLC pack are new story-based duo missions taking place inside the Flash Museum, in which players will be able to travel back in time using a new feature called the "Cosmic Treadmill." Heroes and villains alike will be tasked with protecting the past from an enemy who wishes to stop a young Barry Allen from ever being struck by lightning (hence the title), and thus, becoming the Flash. This looks to be an interesting and original take on origin stories, a subject matter that Hollywood has beaten into the ground with the fury of a thousand Brett Ratners.

With their announcement that Lineage II would be going "Truly Free" with the launch of their Goddess of Destruction expansion, there were obviously a lot of holes to fill and facts to learn with how the team would go about this transition. I got the chance to get a quick Q&A in with Lineage II's Associate Producer, Nico Coutant and L2's Executive VP of Publishing, Matt Turetzky, in order to find out more about what going "Truly Free" really means. I suppose you could say that it's a fairly straightforward definition, but it never hurts to confirm! Read on for the interview!