How many xpacs until WoW will go F2P with a SW:TOR like sub-option?

[Justpassing]

Never. If people have already paid for over three years of no content, they'll pay for whatever else...so why stop charging them?

[smokii]

tbh i think they should make all previous expansions F2P and the latest expansion content require a sub.

[ShmooDude]

Depends on how much income they get from services like WoW token, mounts, etc.

If/When it goes F2P/B2P, there will be a huge influx of players. Some of them will without a doubt buy lvl 100's, wow tokens, etc.
If their projected income from those players is high enough, and the current sub numbers are low enough, they might switch business model.

Pretty much this. Though one factor I'm sure they're going to consider is the "stigma" of what making WoW free to play would be. Many gamers tend to consider a game going from sub to F2P a "failure" and that in and of itself could have a negative effect on subs.

I remember waay back when (tried to find the source but couldn't) an interview with a dev stated that WoW only needed something like 600,000 subs to be profitable. I think this was actually back in vanilla and the discussion was about just how much they underestimated WoW's popularity and what their target numbers were developing it. Its probably a bit higher now with the expanded dev team but I doubt its much more than a million so there's a long way to go.

[HumbleDuck]

I think they will make it F2P after the last expansion, after the game is officially done, they will probably stop production, but keep the servers open as an F2P.

[Tiphess]

it wont go f2p. if anything legion will bring back a ton of people... not cause more to quit

pre-WoD flashbacks boys

[lightofdawn]

pre-WoD flashbacks boys

refreshing and new comment boys

let's wait and see how it plays out. i could be wrong, or you could be wrong. no way to know until legion hits

[Mosotti]

In 2019 I'll be the only one around.

[Deleted]

Not untill they drop below a million which wont be anytime soon.

[Packing an i5]

maybe in 2-3 more expansions when the downtime population of active players reaches less than 3 million.

[Tiphess]

refreshing and new comment boys

let's wait and see how it plays out. i could be wrong, or you could be wrong. no way to know until legion hits

I just meant to say the subs Will go back down after a few months as usual. Even if the new content is the best thing ever added to the game, they take too long to release it so it'll go down

[Boathouse]

Yeah, Don't treat me like an idiot. It doesn't matter. Don't justify low server pops considering the server pops haven't been this low is literally years. Are you smart enough to spot a game thats dying?

Uhh....dying is subjective

[lightofdawn]

I just meant to say the subs Will go back down after a few months as usual. Even if the new content is the best thing ever added to the game, they take too long to release it so it'll go down

oh it'll go down a little guaranteed, as it always does. i just predict that more stick with it since there is quite a bit to do at the endgame level

[Varitok]

Uhh....dying is subjective

Not really.

[Normie]

When WoW is down to about 500k subscriptions is when.

[Arganis]

When nobody cares anymore, which should be by the end of legion at this rate. In all seriousness though, I don't WoW will ever go FTP because they don't have a good way to milk what's left of the cow otherwise, for now anyway. I hope I never see the day the BMAH offers stuff for rl money, or worse Blizz starts straight up selling invincible for $45 a pop. That'd be the last nail.