Now this must be a first! A Tale in the Desert changes its business model from Free2Play to subscription based. After a million headlines of games heading in the other direction, this is an interesting move.

I believe the economics of this is based on the fact that A Tale in the Desert is very, very niche. It doesn't profit much from a Free2Play approach, because it can't really hold casual players very long, being too far away from people's expectations. So for a very small and dedicated player base, the subscription model probably works better.