Blizz should make WoW free to play

[Argarock]

TBH it seems to me like that's where they're going

with all the new items that has popped up in the cash shop, and will pop up there in the coming months, it seems like they're feeling the water for the possibility of going free to play

[Mihalik]

Having more players does help an MMO make more money though. IT's free word of mouth advertisement. Friends try to get their friends to play and each person playing the mmo might spend money in the cash shop. You have all the people who are paying money and subscribing now, plus you attract a bunch of people who might spend money.

Also, no one wants to play a "dying" mmo. While WoW is far from dying empty servers, deserted auction houses, and long queues can certainly give that impression. By attracting free to play customers you will have a population boost on realms and ensure people have other people to play with. Free to Play is genius because it subsidizes those customers who aren't willing and increase the game experience for everyone.



I think a lot of people in this thread are really unaware of what else is out there in the MMO market. There are a lot of very high quality free to play games that are not "pay to win." Arguably WoW is "pay to win" right now since you can't even play if you don't pay, and if you can't play you can't win.

The sensation of you playing a dying game, is realm specific, "battlegroup" specific.

Try a high population server.

On mine there is a tug of war 18 hours a day between Horde and Alliance between Goldshire and the Duel area at Stormwind. You have to form a group and pvp for every Horde commander in Barrens, and there is a carpet of corpses from the Dark Portal to Honor Hold/Thrallmar and the pvp towers in Hellfire Peninsula change hands once every 2 minutes.

The empty servers problem will eventually be fixed by massive server mergers, when it will become completely unsustainable.

As someone mentioned before, WoW turns 1.3 Billion or more USD a year even with current subscription rates. Can you grasp how much fucking money that is? Half the game industry would kill their own grandmothers for that sort of money. There are major film studios that don't make that sort of money a year.

And that's just subscriptions. Blizz would be mentally retarded to give that up. Why not keep all the subs money AND put in an item shop?