We can see that many MMO’s on the market are arriving. Many use the classic payment method of monthly prescriptions for game time. Games like this include World of Warcraft, Tera Online, EVE online, etc. Some games only need to be purchased and the rest of the game is free, but also support an in game store where players can purchase in game items, experience boosts, etc. A game that falls into this category is Guild Wars 1 and 2 . Some are straight up free from the get go. Games that fall into this category include Star Trek online and Star Wars: Knights of the old Republic along with famous MOBA titles like League of Legends and Dota 2 (coming soon).
There’s no doubt that the Pay to play model may be a dieing breed in the coming years. Blizzard may have to start making changes on how they present World of Warcraft in the coming years as other mmos and genres evolve over time. The main purpose of this thread is to delve deep into one suggestion that I have as a future payment model for world of warcraft.
The suggestion is that WoW could become a hybrid between the pay to play model and the buy once and play for free model at the same time. Here is a rundown on how this model might be organized so that it can satisfy players who are currently playing world of warcraft and players who do not pay or who have never played it before.
- Players still pay for World of warcraft, Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, Cataclysm, and Mists of Pandaria
- Players are opted to either pay the same $15/month or not pay at all
- An in game store is added to the game. Allowing the purchasing of ingame items (pets, experience/honor boosts, transmogrification points(see below), etc.).
- Transmogrification and Haircuts require point currency to transmogrify gear and obtain a haircut.
No Monthly Subscribers are allowed:
- Access to content that player currently owns. (i.e. vanilla wow and xpacs)
- Access to Dungeons, Heroic Dungeons, Scenarios, and Looking for Raid
- World PvP, normal battlegrounds
- Must pay point currency to transmogrify gear or get a haircut
Monthly Subscribers are allowed:
- All content non subscribers have
- Access to Challenge mode Dungeons
- Access to Normal and Heroic Raid content
- Access to Arenas, Rated Battlegrounds, War games
- No need for point currency to transmogrify gear or get a haircut
- Access to weekly events (i.e. Fishing Extravaganza)
Things To note:
- A challenge to this payment model is how would we organize these changes to WoW without impacting any change to players who are currently paying for WoW right now?
- Another challenge is how do we keep the non-subscription wow entertaining and fun without the accessories that the subscription wow has.
- How do we encourage new players to subscribe to WoW while they level? Should the list above change a bit for this encouragement? For example, should players who are not subscribe not have access to guild perks, but still allow them to be in a guild?
- What other kinds of items should be included in the in-game store?
- Obviously some things like experience while leveling might come in conflict with items in the in-game store. How would we address this problem?
I would love to hear anyone's ideas and thoughts on this proposal on how Blizzard can change World Of Warcraft's payment model to a more open and free system. As you can see the ideas posted above are just bare and minimum. I would like to see each of these ideas in more detail as this thread ages.