They were making very little on the game before, due to the very small playerbase that DDO had. Now their hope is that they can attract more people to the game and get them to use the virtual store.

That's the "catch" as some may call it. The game is free to play now, but there are some options that you must pay a small fee to unlock and it is now also possible to buy items and things if you are too lazy to grind for them.

It's certainly an interesting system, and I really hope it works for them. This is a very unique situation though. I think the only reason going free-to-play was viable in this case is that Turbine can keep DDO going with virtually no overhead costs, because it runs on the same hardware as Lord of the Rings Online which is their cash cow.

So that's the story as I understand it. I don't think support from Wizards really plays into it at all.