I have no idea why they charged for RB when they did. I have asked questions and received answers saying that it was a business strategy. I strongly disagreed with the decision and have stated that quite clearly many times before. Timing is of extreme importance when it comes to matters such as these. I believe that it not a good idea to throw a price tag on a game that is in beta and has little content (however great that content may be) when you have a vast and ever-so growing player base.

I think it is possible that the developers had a plan set for Rokkitball from an early point on. It seems to me that IA had a set period for which they would start charging for RB - they knew when they were going to start charging and stuck to that. What they failed to take into mind was how successful the game would become when they offered it for free on IA. In other words, they failed to see the changes that occurred to their original predictions and did not adjust their business plan to take advantage of those misinterpreted predictions in the least bit (or not nearly enough).

It is great to have a strategic plan set up from the beginning, but a huge part of successful business strategy is being willing to adapt to changes that happen in the process of carrying out your original plan. Being willing to adapt to such changes is called emergent strategy.

The poor business decisions made by IA for Rokkitball were a result from not using efficient emergent strategy. 

Of course, this is what I  personally think. I could be wrong