this game dead?

That's a limited survey though, isn't it? Xfire users only?

But by providing players, surely it opens the door for such players to subscribe and buy from the CM.

Quoting from dulfy:

Electronic Arts held a Q3 conference call today and released some earning calls with information related to SWTOR.

Extra content and free-to-play contributed $185 million, up 50% led by FIFA and Madden Ultimate Team and Star Wars: The Old Republic. These revenues relate to businesses on PC or consoles, where consumers pay for additional digital content — including virtual characters, map packs and micro-transactions associated with browser based games or MMO’s – like Star Wars. As a reminder, on November 15th we launched our free-to-play option for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Very early indications have been positive and we are pleased with the initial results but it is too early to know how successful this will be in the long term.
Subscriptions, advertising, and other digital revenue contributed $79 million, growing 18% over the same period last year. The current year includes a full quarter of Star Wars subscriptions, but it was offset by a decline in other licensing digital revenue. As a reminder, the non-GAAP revenue continues to exclude our Battlefield 3 Premium subscription service. For the third quarter, Battlefield 3 Premium generated $28 million in sales, bringing the total premium revenue for the first three quarters to approximately $108 million. We will recognize these sales as revenue in the fourth quarter when we release the fifth expansion pack, entitled End Game, and as another reminder, all of the development and delivery costs have been recognized in the previous quarters.

Basically, this means that F2P for SWTOR is doing quite well, but it is early to tell how successful it will be in the long term. Subscription revenue also increased, partly due to SWTOR, but the earnings were offset by other properties within EA.

Then, by definition, when they do that they are not f2p, right? F2P does nothing for this game for revenue. As soon as a player equals revenue, they are either Subscriber or Preferred.

They are no longer a F2P player, but that's why they started. You can't just say "well they're not paying anything so they provide no benefit". They do provide benefits. People are more likely to try a game that's free than one that you have to pay for. More people trying your game means more potential subscribers. They all increase population which helps keep servers healthy. Having F2P also increases word of mouth since you have more people trying it (feeding back into my previous point), so even if one person doesn't subscribe his buddy might at his suggestion.

Q3 call was like 6-7 months ago, wasn't it?

Half a million subscribers is pretty good. And I believe EA has said in the past they make more money off the F2P players that buy on the cartel market. So if you combine the subscribers with the Cartel Market revenue I'd say this game is probably really stable.

"EA and Disney have signed an agreement to create a number of games on the Star Wars franchise," said EA President of Labels Frank Gibeau. "Our agreement unlocks a whole new future of Star Wars games that will span consoles, PCs, tablets, mobile, and more."

The Simpsons™: Tapped Out was a top-5 grossing iOS game in the March quarter, generating almost $10 million* in digital net revenue in the month of March, and totaling almost $50 million* since launching in August.