I have seen many examples of previously stagnating games switch to a free-to-play model in order to revitalize their population, but I can't exactly say I've ever seen a game attempt do the reverse. As such, I am genuinely curious to see what will happen once the currently free-to-play card game Faeria transitions to a buy-to-play model and cancels its mobile versions at some point this summer.

"After the release of Oversky (the first big expansion), we weren’t entirely sure what path forward to take for Faeria," reads the rather lengthy developer blog post. "One thing was clear: It was important for us to adapt our plans to maintain the game’s financial viability ensuring not only that Faeria will live on for a long time, but to guarantee we will be able to continue creating new and exciting content much more frequently."

"First of all, Faeria will be transitioning into a buy-to-play game. While we love the concept of free-to-play, we haven’t been able to find the right balance to make it financially sustainable for Faeria, and making this change will allow us to focus our energy on creating regular high-quality content for the foreseeable future."

As you might imagine, this transition will mean that Faeria's economy will have to be completely reworked from the ground up. The details are currently in short supply, but according to the developers you'll have a much smoother and quicker access to both new and excising content. Chances are you'll have to pay for the vast majority of it, but depending on the price that might not be too big of an issue as having easy access to a full collection in card games is often a good thing.

I suppose this is the end of random card packs for Faeria

"In our effort to refocus our work on Faeria around our community of PC players, we have decided to cancel Faeria on iOS & Android and support for the current version will be removed within the next few months. Pulling our resources away from mobile development for Faeria as it exists, including the time it takes to merely maintain a working version, will give us more of the room we need to making the PC experience as amazing as possible."

The final thing worth mentioning is that Faeria will be getting a brand new expansion alongside the buy-to-play launch this summer. The exact release date hasn't been revealed  just yet, but the developers did announce that they will be releasing brand new content every single month afterwards in order to keep Faeria's meta fresh and interesting.  Whether they will succeed or not, I have absolutely no idea, but it's certainly going to be an interesting experiment to follow.

You can read a little bit more about this transition over at the official website.