Blizz should make WoW free to play

[l33t]

15$ a month is small 180$ a year isn't.
with the steam sells about to go on I could get so many games for 180$ I would be playing for at lease a year if not more.

First, it is not about cost, it is about not liking the game. Basically, since you don't enjoy game now, you won't enjoy it anyway. And a possibility to play it for free means you'll be only a leech player, never contributing anything to Blizz, just reserving a spot on the server for free.
Second. You for sure won't stop eating bread, or buy fuel for your car, or spend money in cinema etc etc just because in a year the overall cost will be equal to a couple games on Steam, will you? Also, 180$ in a year is as much small sum as 15$ in a month. Really, I'm wasting more money for a printer paper per year, lol.
It is so funny to watch people spent tons of cash buying a new cell phone every month or a new car every year and yet bitching about 15$. (And I'm not talking about you, Jtbrig7390, in this last statement - just for clarification).

[StationaryHawk]

They don't make money off of sheer number of players alone. The reason why subscribers are important is because they bring with them a subscription fee. Remove that, and you change everything.

[bigmac]

WoW will go F2P when their subs drop to 1-2 million and they are releasing an expansion within the same time frame.

Until then, there is literally no reason for WoW to go free to play... that would just be a business purposefully losing millions of dollars a month, which isn't something successful businesses usually do.

If you want WoW to go F2P, then I suggest you convince 5-7 million of their players to quit, and I am sure once that happens Blizzard will consider it.

I will for sure cancel my sub if this goes live in the US.

[Ypo]

I think that WoW going F2P is silly at its current status. They still have around 7 mil subs.

That said, since a lot of people argued on the "15$ a month is small 180$ a year" thing, while this kind of money is peanuts and many people (like me) play retail Blizzard WoW 100% free (I am not saying how because the moderators will ban me), your money would be better spent assisting your local charity, than assisting the Blizzard suits change their 2 year old Ferrari supercar with the newest model.

[Ielenia]

It still has an impact on the game, no matter if you use it or not. I don't buy gold from ebay either, but it does have an effect on the game.

No. No, it completely does not have ANY effect on the game, gameplay-wise. Mounts and pets. The pets don't give any buff to the owner, nor are any more powerful than any other pet in the game. The mounts don't give buffs to the owner, nor are they faster than any other mount in the game, already.

It has no impact, at all. If someone buys it, it affects you in NO way whatsoever, other than maybe make you jelly because his mount/pet is prettier than yours. That's it.

[Feel The Power]

They should charge the baddies money to do LFR

Infracted. Please post constructively and leave remarks about LFR to the threads in which that is the topic. [ML]

[ScottsdaleHokie]

LOL at the people that think WoW is far away from having 1-2 million subs. Of the 8 million only 3 to 3.5 are in the US/EU. You know, the only people that actually PAY a sub fee.

[Deleted]

They should make it F2P, that's the only chance me and everyone I played with could go back to this game. This or going back to TBC model in next expansion which is much less possible than F2P model sadly.

[Deleted]

No, they shouldn't make it F2P.
World of Warcraft still has around 8 million subscribers.
If they would go F2P, this game would be gone within 2 months.

Not to mention there's so many people that need to learn the definition of 'business'.

P2P or no WoW.

[SamR]

They should make it F2P, that's the only chance me and everyone I played with could go back to this game. This or going back to TBC model in next expansion which is much less possible than F2P model sadly.

So far it seems all the people who want F2P WoW are those who want to spend very little or no money playing it. I don't see how that's any type of value proposition for Blizzard. Considering that switching to F2P would cause many current subscribers to cancel their subs.

[Deleted]

So far it seems all the people who want F2P WoW are those who want to spend very little or no money playing it. I don't see how that's any type of value proposition for Blizzard. Considering that switching to F2P would cause many current subscribers to cancel their subs.

They could do it like ToR. Their F2P model still benefits subs. They have item shop filled with all sorts of stuff but not game breaking. It's actually only reason I play ToR (after few items I bought with in game currency as you can sell shop items on AH) I feel like actuall subscriber. I can do dungeons and pvp and it works out perfectly.

[anyaka21]

No, they shouldn't make it F2P.
World of Warcraft still has around 8 million subscribers.
If they would go F2P, this game would be gone within 2 months.

Not to mention there's so many people that need to learn the definition of 'business'.

P2P or no WoW.

I think you need to re-learn the definition of business.

For example: name 1 mmo that has gone out of business 2 months after going f2p.
And 'm pretty sure that when (not if) WoW does go f2p, it'll last several more years, just as those that have gone before it. IE EQ is still around, and if memory serves, released an expansion earlier this year too.
f2p is not the taboo it once was, it is now a viable alternative to a p2p model.
And while a f2p model might bring back people that can't afford to play, it would also bring back people that can afford, but just don't want to pay for a game that they feel has dropped in quality. So my options were 1) stay and pay my $15 a month, 2) transfer my toons, and possibly faction change with really no guarantee that I'll like the server or the guild I'd be tranferring too, and then if it goes bad, have to do that agian, 3) quit. Thus, I choose option 3.

edit note: example here: I was on a low pop realm, my guild folded. I didn't want to spend the money to transfer 4+ toons and possibly faction change to go to a larger pop realm that had a more stable environment. $180 a wasn't the issue, but spending more than that to transfer toons was way beyond what I'm willing to spend on a game.

I'd also like to point out that I'm not trying to make a value judgement on people that can't afford to play either, as some have. People that can't afford to pay can be just as good or just as bad as people that pay to play. Granted I do realize that free can bring out people that could care less about the game and treat the experience as such, but again, there are also many people that treat $15 a month as nothing and are complete douches even in a sub market as well.

[Acry]

I think with this ingame store they are going to give it a try in Asia, then if things go bad enough in the US then you might see it in 2 years.

[SamR]

They could do it like ToR. Their F2P model still benefits subs. They have item shop filled with all sorts of stuff but not game breaking. It's actually only reason I play ToR (after few items I bought with in game currency as you can sell shop items on AH) I feel like actuall subscriber. I can do dungeons and pvp and it works out perfectly.

Well, current ToR subs benefit from more access to stuff than freebies in a F2P model. But before they went F2P, ToR subs had access to everything in the game and didn't have to pay extra for it. So going F2P hasn't benefited ToR subs as a whole, it just made them less gimpy than the free players.

[Deleted]

I think you need to re-learn the definition of business.

For example: name 1 mmo that has gone out of business 2 months after going f2p.
And 'm pretty sure that when (not if) WoW does go f2p, it'll last several more years, just as those that have gone before it. IE EQ is still around, and if memory serves, released an expansion earlier this year too.
f2p is not the taboo it once was, it is now a viable alternative to a p2p model.
And while a f2p model might bring back people that can't afford to play, it would also bring back people that can afford, but just don't want to pay for a game that they feel has dropped in quality.

I'd also like to point out that I'm not trying to make a value judgement on people that can't afford to play either, as some have. People that can't afford to pay can be just as good or just as bad as people that pay to play. Granted I do realize that free can bring out people that could care less about the game and treat the experience as such, but again, there are also many people that treat $15 a month as nothing and are complete douches even in a sub market as well.

I'm sorry, I do know the definition of 'business' quite well.
Just take a look at the costs to keep the servers online, to pay the staff, and to pay a lot more.
It'll be millions.

It just seems highly unlikely that IF they go free to play, they'll still make a lot of profit.
I wouldn't call WoW the regular MMO to be honest, it's quite different.
And I think that Blizzard will make less money with a F2P with microtransactions system than with a steady 1 million subscribers.

I have to agree that the 'within 2 months' statement wasn't quite accurate.

[Ielenia]

LOL at the people that think WoW is far away from having 1-2 million subs. Of the 8 million only 3 to 3.5 are in the US/EU. You know, the only people that actually PAY a sub fee.

Wow... Talk about pulling ignorant, arrogant ideas out of their own dirty behinds...

So... Nobody in Japan pay a subscription fee for WoW, huh? I guess Blizzard is nice enough to let Japanese players play for free. Oh, also, in Brazil and the rest of South America... they all also play for free, right? Oh, the people in Australia, look at them, playing WoW for free, too... Blizzard is such a nice guy... After all, per your own ignorant words, only the United States and Europe pay subscription fees to play WoW. Tsk tsk, you poor, poor bastards, having to pay to play a game others play for free...

(the last paragraph was nothing but sarcasm, for the people that didn't get it.)

[anyaka21]

I'm sorry, I do know the definition of 'business' quite well.
Just take a look at the costs to keep the servers online, to pay the staff, and to pay a lot more.
It'll be millions.

It just seems highly unlikely that IF they go free to play, they'll still make a lot of profit.
I wouldn't call WoW the regular MMO to be honest, it's quite different.
And I think that Blizzard will make less money with a F2P with microtransactions system than with a steady 1 million subscribers.

I have to agree that the 'within 2 months' statement wasn't quite accurate.

again, its not if WoW goes f2p, it's when it goes f2p. Meaning not now, but when they do, I'm pretty sure it'll be profitable.
And as I've stated in other posts, I'm prett sure they have 3-5 f2p models ready to go and will use the one they think will make the least people quit, while making them the most amount of profit.

[toychristopher]

I think with this ingame store they are going to give it a try in Asia, then if things go bad enough in the US then you might see it in 2 years.

Actually it sounds like they are going ahead with an ingame store, but not necessarily going free to play. It seems a little over the top to me to have an in game store AND a subscription, but according to this thread I don't know much about anything, so maybe it's not.

[Jtbrig7390]

Actually it sounds like they are going ahead with an ingame store, but not necessarily going free to play. It seems a little over the top to me to have an in game store AND a subscription, but according to this thread I don't know much about anything, so maybe it's not.

I agree like I said early in the thread its a really bad form of double dipping.

[bigmac]

I agree like I said early in the thread its a really bad form of double dipping.

Yes it is! Giving them money monthly just to create ways to charge us more.

All those that oppose the incoming cash shop...cancel now and let them know why.