WoW going free to play sooner than later?

[galluk]

Doubt they will go free to play, but they really should really do away with buying the old expansions to progress. Should just buy MoP and get everything.

For a new player, it's a gate. Have to buy base, BC, LK, Cata, and MoP to get everything. I know there is a pack for base/BC/LK, but still your asking a new players to drop $80, and a monthly fee to start an almost 9 year old game, when they can spend $50-60 on a new game.

[Rotted]

I dont even need to watch the video

8 Million people paying atleast 9.99 a month or 46 for 6 months, theres no way in hell it will go free to play any time soon

Maybe when Titans been out for a while it could be on the cards, but if they keep a healthy number above 2 million (best guess) it will stick to free to play

[Seranthor]

Oh and guess u saw u were wrong about your calulations on the subs drop at 6months after MoP release right... your silence kinda proves that

U made the schoolboy error of thinking the 1.3mill subs drop was at wednesday this week (8th May 2013)... it wasnt it was the sub count at 31st march 2013

Schoolboy error? I know when the quarters end... and I also know that your blinding hatred for Blizzard and Wow fuels you even today, almost a year after you quit... I'm dying to ask... why are you still here?

[ComputerNerd]

That argument comes mostly from people too damn stingy to pay the subscription.
For me there is little else that can provide similar amounts of entertainment for the same amount of money.

Doubt they will go free to play, but they really should really do away with buying the old expansions to progress. Should just buy MoP and get everything.

For a new player, it's a gate. Have to buy base, BC, LK, Cata, and MoP to get everything. I know there is a pack for base/BC/LK, but still your asking a new players to drop $80, and a monthly fee to start an almost 9 year old game, when they can spend $50-60 on a new game.

A thought I had myself recently, being a pretty big entry barrier.
The barrier of skill might be somewhat reduced, and is the right direction to take but this requirement for purchasing considerable numbers of expansions is not.
I am not sure if buying everything for the price of the current expansion is warranted, but at least having a simpler pricing option for new players to get up to date would be welcome.
A fixed price for all previous expansions, and then the latest on top of that.

I would like to see the "free" accounts expanded a bit more.
Whether it would ever be realistic to do so, but I think that could be an opportunity say with a cap of 60 to potentially show off raiding to new players.

[Seranthor]

Oh I am, you made made yet another factually incorrect statement about WOW's finances that it made $1.4 billion last year. You then attacked someone else who said that WOW had never made $1.6 billion per annum which he had taken from another person's post and told him that he should look at the earnings transcript.



Thanks for the concern, yes I do fully understand what he meant and he absolutely correct that there is no point moving to a F2P model unless there is a financial gain, however that had nothing to do with what I was saying.

I certainly did point them at the earnings transcript... Now, I am convinced that Wow will go F2P when ATVI/Blizzard feels it will be more profitable to do so, not before. There is my solid, unwavering position.

[Deleted]

lets give up billions of revenue....said no one ever

[Marema]

Anybody who thinks that if subs went down to 2-3 million people it would go F2P. You are clearly clueless how much money that many people still shell out in subs alone. Maybe if the game got below 1 million it might go F2P but even then I'd wager that it would have to drop to 500k for that to happen. And by then it will be a few years down the road and Blizzards new flavor of the decade game will be out and all of us will be paying to play that instead.

Most of you must have forgot how many people are in the Q when Blizzard releases a new mount at the Blizzard store. Selling 1 mount every 6 months alone would make up for money from lost subs.

[Sunnydee]

before it ever goes fully free to play:

1.) Titan will be released
2.) Servers will merge to save on hardware costs + increase overall player happiness levels :-P (albeit lost revenue from server transfers)
3.) Pre-current expansion content will go F2P
4.) Subscriber numbers will have to drop below the point of no return, that's not going to happen any time soon. WoW will lose players but just like every other MMO out there it will level out at a point (think 4-5million mark) where the drop in players will no longer be significant and hold there for multiple years.

pretty much. so can we stop wasting internet with these pointless threads? thanks

[sizzlinsauce]

It's just hype and nonsense. It's not going to go free-to-play until the sub numbers dip so low it's not worth maintaining a subscription fee.

exactly. the biggest change i see them doing is making the glorified demo into a "pay here and there till you decide to buy the game. IE "$5 to make your glorified demo into a 1-40 max" etc etc till they eventually get to a point where it offers the rest of the game.

[Pann]

Pann, you'll clearly note Quilzar said that if HE could make it... no damn place did Quilzar make any claim that Blizzard or Wow was making 1.6B a year... Really... you should try and pay attention to whats going on before you come at me. Thus, anyone that claims that Quilzar said that is either factually incorrect, being intentionally misleading, or... outright lying... What say you?

Well, erm, thanks for that. I don't ever recall saying that Quilzar said that, in fact I did not even quote him. I quoted you for saying to someone else that they should read the transcript and calling them wilfully incorrect for stating that WOW did not make $1.6 billion.

[Jtbrig7390]

I dont even need to watch the video

8 Million people paying atleast 9.99 a month or 46 for 6 months, theres no way in hell it will go free to play any time soon

Maybe when Titans been out for a while it could be on the cards, but if they keep a healthy number above 2 million (best guess) it will stick to free to play

Not all 8 million is paying at lease 9.99$ there is still some subs from china good chance its around 2mill so that means its 6mill paying around 9$.

Now with that said the IGN video did have a point its no longer a question on if wow will go f2p its when will it go f2p "or add some sort of system that is f2p/sub" the MMO market is so huge people have choice.

Free to play games is on the raise hell even Sony has a few on the ps3 and will have many more on the ps4.

Also there is other places people can go to get more bang for there buck.

feel free to yell at me but it is what it is the sub base MMO is over and has been for quite some time only 3 sub mmo's remain Eve/Rift/Wow and the only one out of the 3 that has been growning in subs "slowy" over the past couple years is Eve.

"will admit I don't know about rift but from posts I seen its taking a hit as well"

[Deleted]

*snip*

Subscription-based MMO's have had their day and a new business model that looks more like B2P/F2P is taking over. Until that proves not to work either which perhaps at some point will be true as well. It's true that there are more than a few perfectly free games that can absorb a lot of time and never cost a dime.

Agreed and well defined Moanalisa

(ill ignore our confrontations on the lowpop realms thread for now! lol)

Its true that Blizzard are doing a fantastic job at keeping people paying monthly subs in such an era of online gaming, for that they must be commended. but in truth that simply proves they have a fantastic marketing division and not necessarily a great product. Those of us who have played the other MMOs at the top level can see a whole list of things other MMOs are diong better than Wow, therefore we make the deduction it cant be quality of game which keeps people paying for Wow. It always appears to me that the only peopel who think Wow excells in quality are those who play massive amounts of Wow and next to no other time in other games.

Its not just subs-based MMOs which are suffering its all subs-based games. There simply arent many games out there now who demand a monthly fee.

One warning i will post here is that IF Elder Scrolls Online releases as F2P then that will put the cat amongst the pigeons on Wows side of the fence... watch this space!

[Jtbrig7390]

That argument comes mostly from people too damn stingy to pay the subscription.
For me there is little else that can provide similar amounts of entertainment for the same amount of money.



A thought I had myself recently, being a pretty big entry barrier.
The barrier of skill might be somewhat reduced, and is the right direction to take but this requirement for purchasing considerable numbers of expansions is not.
I am not sure if buying everything for the price of the current expansion is warranted, but at least having a simple single-price option for new players to get up to date would be welcome.
A fixed price for all previous expansions, and then the latest on top of that.

I would like to see the "free" accounts expanded a bit more.
Whether it would ever be realistic to do so, but I think that could be an opportunity say with a cap of 60 to potentially show off raiding to new players.

Why pay 15$ a month for wow when I can get the same or more content"fun" from a f2p game or spend 60$ one time on a b2p game.

[Seranthor]

Well, erm, thanks for that. I don't ever recall saying that Quilzar said that, in fact I did not even quote him. I quoted you for saying to someone else that they should read the transcript and calling them wilfully incorrect for stating that WOW did not make $1.6 billion.

What was inaccurate is him saying that someone else said that Blizz made 1.6... THAT is what was inaccurate... I admit I could have worded both thoughts better... what I should have said was that no one said that Blizz made 1.6B, if you want to know how much Blizz made go check the transcript...

[Dylis]

Wow won't be free 2 play anytime soon if ever. To those that say wow will die when or if it does go f2p are insane, free 2 play will bring in a massive amount of players it would probably break records tbh. But blizz will never allow wow to go f2p until it stops turning a profit which will be sub 1mill subs. 1.3 mill subs lost is not even a scratch to the amount of cash this game is bringing in.

[ThatCanadianGuy]

Maybe when Titan comes out?

Until then, I doubt it.

[Dinousek]

FF11 STILL not f2p and go hunt up their sub numbers. and just came out with a new xpac after so many years. Really good games with a strong core subscriber list do not need to go f2p. Wow included.

[Kakokun]

The guys in the video never said that WoW will go F2P anytime soon though.

Honestly I bet 90% of the people commenting in this thread didn't even watch the video. They actually make a lot of good points.

[Pann]

Subscription-based MMO's have had their day and a new business model that looks more like B2P/F2P is taking over. Until that proves not to work either which perhaps at some point will be true as well. It's true that there are more than a few perfectly free games that can absorb a lot of time and never cost a dime.

I think another thing of note is that F2P game might not actually cost the player any money the players are more tolerant to advertising when they are not paying. In WOW's case how much would a company pay for an ad at the top of the launcher?

What was inaccurate is him saying that someone else said that Blizz made 1.6... THAT is what was inaccurate... I admit I could have worded both thoughts better... what I should have said was that no one said that Blizz made 1.6B, if you want to know how much Blizz made go check the transcript...

You said that made $1.4 billion and then there was some confusion between a couple of posters. I know how much Blizzard made and $1.4 billion was not from WOW.

[Jtbrig7390]

Wow won't be free 2 play anytime soon if ever. To those that say wow will die when or if it does go f2p are insane, free 2 play will bring in a massive amount of players it would probably break records tbh. But blizz will never allow wow to go f2p until it stops turning a profit which will be sub 1mill subs. 1.3 mill subs lost is not even a scratch to the amount of cash this game is bringing in.

Do you not know basic math????

even tho china is the main part of the sub lost and they pay less its still nearly 25% of the player base gone since the release of MOP and blizzard has done stated that by the end of MOP the subs will be lower so that 25% could turn into 50%...that is a huge amount of profit gone.

Will wow go f2p 100% not for a long time but I bet here soon "within the next couple years if not the end of this xpac/start of the next" wow will have a f2p/sub setup.