Should diablo 3 be free to play?

[Davemetalhead]

You signed a contract agreeing to spend money. That is not free. You mean to tell me, that you know without a doubt that you will be playing WoW for the next year. There is NOTHING that would stop you from paying for the game? What if you lose your job, or you get in a major accident and have hospital bills out the wazoo? You have NO IDEA what could happen in the next year. You signed a contract agreeing to pay for something, that is not free.

Can I guarantee that? Of course not, but I have every intention of playing for the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, etc, etc.

I am paying to play WoW, not D3. I am not paying any more by signing up for the annual pass. I'm not paying any less. I'm also not paying for Diablo 3. I'm paying to play WoW.

I have not changed my payment plan. I have not changed the way I pay.

Just in case you missed this - I am paying to play Wow, not Diablo 3. Diablo 3 is being given to me for free.

[KHShadowrunner]

And you only had to pay at least $140!

Wise ones are paying half that if not less for two games!

Also, the game is FTP. Free, to, play.
It is also BTP. Buy, to, play.
Finally, it is BTO. Buy, to, own. (or BTL, since you're always technically leasing)

---------- Post added 2012-05-04 at 01:53 PM ----------

Can I guarantee that? Of course not, but I have every intention of playing for the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, etc, etc.

I am paying to play WoW, not D3. I am not paying any more by signing up for the annual pass. I'm not paying any less. I'm also not paying for Diablo 3. I'm paying to play WoW.

I have not changed my payment plan. I have not changed the way I pay.

Just in case you missed this - I am paying to play Wow, not Diablo 3. Diablo 3 is being given to me for free.

Technically, this. You pay to play World of Warcraft with the AP. The AP did not -have- to offer anything if it really didn't want to. But it did, a free (!) copy of a game.

Which puts D3 even further into some weird category of FTO or FTL (only, not for the lose, but free to lease)

[Emberhelm]

Yeah that title is pretty misleading, thought you were referring to a subscription...

[Fuger]

Me and a million other people are getting the game for free...

Pretty much. The Annual pass just reached over and told me every thing I wanted to hear. Could have only been better if it came with free food catering service during the first week of Diablo 3 and MoP Releases.

[slayerbuffy]

No, you can't. You can't move the money your earned through the RMAH unto your credit card. You are forced to spend it again through the RMAH.

Dont speak unless you know what you are talking about. You can move your money made from the RMAH into your paypal account, to your bank account, then into CASH.

[Flimsy]

No why should it be f2p? everything in the game can be farmed there's no need to spend a penny on the RMAH, it's not like LoL and other f2p games that sell boosts and characters.

[lordjust]

Their intention is not to make money with the RMAH. They created it to try and prevent the black market exchange of goods. If people have a legitimate way of buying things they want, it reduces the chance of bad deals. I don't foresee that many gamers willing to pay real money for items, especially at the lower levels. It is not going to be a big deal. Everyone must realize that there has to be people willing to spend real money in order for blizzard to make money off the AH.

And that's why Blizzard takes 1$ per auction of equip and 15% per auction of trade goods and consumables. Blizzard sees that there will be a blackmarket for items and that people who run this market make a ton of money. So they decided that they want to take control of it so that they are the ones that make a ton of money. Just imagine how it will work in the game. You get one item or craft an item and sell it through RMAH for like 2$ a piece. 1$ gets to Blizzard and 1$ gets to your PayPal or Battle.net balance. Now you're not the only one who uses the RMAH to sell things but hundreds of thousands of players so that Blizzard gets hundreds of thousands of $. Blizzard will clearly make more money with the RMAH than with the initial sales and therefore the question if it should be F2P is a valid one.

But I don't think it should be F2P because even if Blizzard will make more money through the RMAH it is completely optional and you can achieve everything in the game without using it. In other F2P games you are forced to buy things from the store to get everything and therefore these F2P games are more like B2P because you have to buy content.

[Pancaspe]

The Sense of Entitlement of this Generation is sickening.

[Exoblade]

I've been wondering,With the whole "real money transactions" thing,which will earn Blizzard alot of money.
Shouldn't Diablo 3 have been free to play? Or at least follow a model like League of Legends (buy skins for money etc.).
Wonder what the opinion of the average gamer is so i've attached a poll.

Sorry but your just wrong there, The real money AH is for the fans to make money, its not going to make blizzard jack all. If you knew anything about Diablo 2 , big 3rd party web sites had currency (forum gold) that was used to trade and would be exploited by the owners / friends of the site.

Blizzard knows you can't stop the selling of items so they are making it legit in game so its safe for the fans to buy and sell , plus blizzard can keep control.

Again blizzard earns a flat fee from any AH item sold, either selling for 1$ or 1 million they earn like 10-15 cents? im not sure on the exact but its very small.

(edit) now looking at more of replies and what not , this has to be a troll so please close it adds nothing to anything....

[Avocado]

Considering the amount of work Blizzard has put into the game I don't think it should be free. On top of that, there's seems to be a community problem when there's no initial charge for the game, considering everyone has access to it. In my opinion, I'm happy that it's 60$. Although, I'd be unhappy if there was some sort of monthly fee.

[Antifanatic]

The Sense of Entitlement of this Generation is sickening.

Also the missinformation :P

Its simple people of the interwebz:

- you will buy Diablo 3 to play it.
- you will NOT pay a monthly subscription to be able to keep playing it.

- within D3 there are 2 Auction Houses ( ingame currency and also the real word currency )

Why the 2 Auction Houses?

- The ingame currency (gold) Auction House purpose is to sell/buy items to improve your chars.
- The real money Auction House uses real world currency to sell/buy items also to improve your chars.

Why does one even need the real money Auction House?

- You dont. You dont even need the ingame currency one because plenty of loot drops from the monsters. Its just a matter of how fast u want to improve your char.
- Selling/ Buying items with real money was a practice on the previous Diablo games via 3th party sites. The RMAH will make this practise much safer minimizing the risk of scams.

You will be able to use your Battlenet currency ( profits from the RMAH ) to buy Blizzard games or even pay your Wow subscriptions.
You can also convert the Battlenet currency into real money by syncing battlenet with paypal.



People that signed for the Anual Pass get a Diablo 3 copy for free.
You are paying only the WoW monthly subscription for 12 months which most would pay anyway. You can see the Anual Pass as quite a bargain for most who signed up.

Is Blizzard making money with the RMAH?

- i really hope so in order for them to keep the proper support for Diablo 3.

Please read this for more info:

us.battle.net/d3/en/services/auction-house/how-to
us.battle.net/support/en/article/syncing-paypal-with-battlenet

[Tokas]

nah im all up for b2p

[Youarefired]

Can someone enlighten me?

Obviously I am missing the point of this thread due to the fact that Diablo 3 is already free to play.

[DrakkulGrimortalys]

By your logic, going to see a movie should be free because they get you on the popcorn. Having trouble understanding why paying $60 for something that may ultimately equate to paying $2 an hour or less for something entertaining (and this is assuming you only get 30 hours of out of it and stop) is a concern just because they have another method to generate income later.

[BLSTMASTER]

Is Blizzard making money with the RMAH?

- i really hope so in order for them to keep the proper support for Diablo 3.

I really hope they support d3 for a loooong time, like they did with d2!

[bobty]

Me and a million other people are getting the game for free...

More like you are getting it as part of a package. It's like in the 90s when the "20% extra free" marketing was all the rage on drinks etc. It wasn't like you could just have the "free" part. So by extremely simple logic you are paying for it whether or not you think this to be true.

There is a reason why "nothing in this life is free" applies to so many things, yet people fail to understand this.

Anyway, as far as Diablo 3 being completely free: of course not. There are no subscription fees which make it perfect for a wide variety of players.

---------- Post added 2012-05-06 at 12:37 AM ----------

Can someone enlighten me?

Obviously I am missing the point of this thread due to the fact that Diablo 3 is already free to play.

The OP basically doesn't understand the definition. Examples of Free to play are Dungeons and Dragons/Lord of the rings online and League of Legends.

For those unsure this sort of model lets you play the game for free but generally means that you either gain access to certain aspects of the game a lot slower(ie. farming in game credits) or not at all. I still remember when Infantry went from completely free to having purchasable "perks"

[PBitt]

No? You pay for the game once, as it should be, and I don't think all that many people will use the real life auction thing long-term as you have to be willing to lose money if you want a chance to even make any...but still, the players that will profit from it will make more money than Blizzard's cut. And then all these thousands of people that never partake in the cash AH will get a free multi-million dollar development game for their collection and Blizzard will lose a ton of money. Besides, they already gave the game away for free to over a million people through the AP. Gaming is pretty cheap if you know which games are worth buying full price and which are not. LoL, for example, does not have nearly as much development cost associated with it, so they can get away without charging people to buy their initial game.

[Stormgnoef]

diablo 3 is f2p after you buy it.

[Joshdatroll]

I mean, they've established that franchise as not having a monthly premium to pay, so if they made it the standard $15 a month, I think that people wouldn't buy it. Same way with SC. They've established a paradigm, and to shift from that would be disastrous for those IPs.

Personally, I think the RMAH is a fucking genius idea, and whomever came up with it, should get a promotion. Micro-transactions in games these days seems to be the way the F2P games are going. There isn't a truly free to play game. This takes micro-transactions to a whole new level, though, in that, if you're willing to dole out the money, you have a distinct advantage. But, unlike other micro-transactions, players have the opportunity to make money, giving a distinct incentive to farm gear, do end-game content, etc. etc. The money that Blizzard will make from this model, I predict, will just be astronomical once people hit level cap and buckle down to farm content.

[Fuger]

i really hope so in order for them to keep the proper support for Diablo 3.

This is Blizzard not infinity ward. They patch and fix their games for years after they have been out. SC2 is modern proof of this and the history of Diablo 2 is even more proof.

This is why I will pretty much buy any blizzard game. I trust them to make a quality game and balance and fine tune it even after years.