Will WoW ever go F2Play?

[skitzy129]

Do I ever hope it does, then these people with the misconception that free to play means a drop in quality would finally realize that's not true.

WoW doesn't even offer that much content or quality, and WoW's profit margin and the amount they spend on other games goes to show how little (relative to the total) goes back into WoW.

I've tried an absurd amount of F2P MMOs and none of them stack up to the quality WoW provides. Almost all of them have insanely clunky combat and hideous interfaces.

[Deleted]

As long as there are thousands of people buying pets/mounts in Pet Store on top of paying a subscription fee it makes no sense to go F2P, which would basically just mean expanding their Pet Store.

They already have the best of both worlds. Subscription + microtransactions which people are naive enough to support.

[Forumchibi]

WoW won't ever go F2P unless another MMO comes out that can compare with it, such as Titan (which will be interesting since both of them are their own product, maybe they'd do a double subscription discount). In my opinion, there's currently no real competition, with WoW being so massive and being such a quality game in comparison to everything else. I think that's mostly evident in the number of subscribers and people who return to the game - it may not be perfect, and yes it can get boring after a while, but it's still better than a lot of the rushed and poorly maintained games out that are out right now.

So if they can still make more money off monthly subscriptions than they can off of a micro-transaction store, they'll keep it going as long as they can, until something truly awesome comes along and steals a majority of their players away. They'd be silly not to.

GW2's F2P system is pretty open if I recall (besides buying extra bag slots, bank slots, and more characters past 4), and supposedly when TERA goes F2P next month you also won't get that many restrictions. But otherwise, most games with a F2P system are generally overated. It sounds all well and good to play something for free, until they start nickeling and diming you for basic game functions. In SWTOR you can still pay a monthly fee, or else you have to buy everything individually - for a while you had to buy your action bars even.

Again, it depends how you do it, but would I not pay for WoW if I could only have one character, could only have so many inventory slots, no bank access, no AH access, only run 2 dungeons per week, was not allowed to run any raids, was not allowed to talk in chat (although most of my chat channels are turned off anyway, lol) etc.? Essentially you're playing the trial account, and that would not be pleasant, even if I wasn't paying anything for it.

[Oekss]

Yes. After Titan releases.

[Beefhammer]

Games go to the F2P because they cannot really compete with WoW.

Games that go F2P are game that are not profitable and they hope the switch will make some fast cash during the micro transaction blitz that occurs at the switch. It has nothing to do with competing with WoW since no game out there really competes with WoW. Rift does well on its own but there was no noticeable drop from WoW when it came out and the same with GW2. Like GW2, games that are F2P from the start do so since they realize there is no chance their game will make it with a sub.

---------- Post added 2013-01-11 at 01:37 PM ----------

wow would have to lose more than 90% of its current player base before f2p model would be "worth" it. silly to f2p a game that rakes in about 150+ mil a month from its current subs alone

Only about 4-5 Million accounts are $15 a month, 1-2 M are $9 a month and all the Asian accounts significantly less since they buy time cards that they pay per hr/min. Not saying they don't rake in tons of cash. But its not nearly $15 a month for all 10M.

---------- Post added 2013-01-11 at 01:40 PM ----------

Yes, yes it will. But not anytime soon. Maybe in 5-10 years.

And if they do it good (for example like GW2, with selling only cosmetic stuff mostly, they could also sell mounts and pets), it will actually lead to a increase in people playing.
If they will do it bad (selling patches, selling power and not having the people who don't play be able to get same benefits by playing, selling raids or whatnot) it will be a final nail in the coffin.

I think it will go the GW way of everything being free except expansions. I do think they will slowly raise the free trial cap over time and possibly you get to level to max for free with low limitations of crafting, races and classes.

[Terielx1]

I hope not. I hate the F2P model. I have to go to the goddamn store to get almost anything. That's lame-sauce.

...free to play doesn't always mean in game cash shop that is pay to win, guild wars 2 is a perfect example of a cash shop that has almost no influence on the game, the few things they actually do have in their cash shop is either cosmetic in nature or things like XP boosts (which is essentially just us buying BoA gear) and even then the cash shop currency can be bought with in game currency so you really don't even have to spend money on it

[Amorac]

Expecting Blizzard to someday offer a subscription for Battle net, giving full access to all their games and both MMO's when Titan gets released, and not needing to paying (full price at least) for new releases/expansions.

If you don't want to pay a monthly fee you get to pay full price for their releases and no chance at beta access, only ptr.

A bit like the annual pass.

[Beefhammer]

As long as there are thousands of people buying pets/mounts in Pet Store on top of paying a subscription fee it makes no sense to go F2P, which would basically just mean expanding their Pet Store.

They already have the best of both worlds. Subscription + microtransactions which people are naive enough to support.

Why are they naive? Why is spending money on things that may you happy a bad thing? Why is supporting a company you like bad?

---------- Post added 2013-01-11 at 01:45 PM ----------

Yes. After Titan releases.

Again I do not think it will be what you people think it will be.

---------- Post added 2013-01-11 at 01:46 PM ----------

Expecting Blizzard to someday offer a subscription for Battle net, giving full access to all their games and both MMO's when Titan gets released, and not needing to paying (full price at least) for new releases/expansions.

If you don't want to pay a monthly fee you get to pay full price for their releases and no chance at beta access, only ptr.

A bit like the annual pass.

I have been thinking this for years. This would be like a cable subscription where you have access to all things Blizzard.

[Terielx1]

Unless you have as much content as WoW on launch, there's no future in subscriptions. SWToR learned this in the hard way.



As long as there's 10 million people willing to pay for subscriptions it's not gonna happen. When the number of subs drop below million they'll probably go free but zero chance before that.

Swtors content was only a small part of the problem, they could've easily kept the P2P model if they had released a game and not a beta.... content patches with simple things like combat logs that should've been in the game at launch, a raid that was only half done in the release, raids that were constantly buggy, crafting that was constantly buggy, im not saying an MMO should be OMGNOBUGSPERFECT at launch because thats ineviitable, but had they released swtor mid to late 2012 instead of 2011 it would have worked alot better for them but EA doesn't seem to understand the difference between a box sales game and a subscription game

[capitano666]

Ever ? Who knows.

In the near future ( 15-20 years ) ? No.

Agreed, they may need to do that in a distant future, but for now they still hold a huge (and I mean huge) slice of the market.

[glowpipe]

f2p games aint the future. they think it is now. But they lack production value and look at the player base of those games now. its low with a shitty community.

wow wont go free to play anytime soon. And the whole f2p hysteria will soon settle down. Atm its a sign of a dying game

[K i s u]

Ever? perhaps someday in the very distance future.. but I don't see it happening. For now at least they have a very huge sub base and unless those numbers completely plummet it wouldn't be a valid option, they use some of that income to keep improving the game.. F2P for me is a sign of a failing game and one with a shelf life.

[Kubiszot]

It seems a lot of MMOs are now shifting to the Free to Play model. Just wondering if Blizzard will do the same? Also if they dont and future MMOs will adopt the free to play model will that hurt WoW?

A lot of MMOs but 2nd hand MMOs... I mean WoW is now most popular MMO in the world so I think they don't have to make it F2P now or in the future

[Deleted]

as long as it makes money, it wont go f2p. they are a company after all.

[Deleted]

Maybe with Patch 11.0 or 12.0

[Deleted]

will never happens - if you had a monkey shitting gold would you kill him?

[Deleted]

Not anytime soon. And I hope it doesn't. From MY own PERSONAL experience, F2P games end up so limited you just spend almost as much as in a subscription game just to have the QoL stuff you'd get in WoW or whatever (and sometimes not even close).

[LazarusLong]

Right now I think the main problem would be acquisition of new players. For a few months we've seen very aggressive sales on battle chest and things like scroll of Resurrection giving free Cataclysm upgrade. So I think we will see starter edition bumping to 85lvl in a year.

[GeordieMagpie]

Perhaps when their next-gen MMO comes out.

[Deleted]

Perhaps when their next-gen MMO comes out.

Even then I doubt it. Even with only a million subs WoW would be profitable. Blizz will have an easier time upgrading the graphics too when average tech evolves.

I honestly don't think that Blizzard are stupid enough to let WoW die if there's still a demand for it. Someone would have to make a better game in this genre before WoW would die.

I'm looking forward to Titan though.