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  1. #161
    Over 9000! Gimlix's Avatar
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    WoW will die when they go F2P, because WoW has never been F2P, And we all know this wont happen in next 10 years.
    At some point the subs will stable, might be 8 mill subs might even be at 2 mill subs, but it will end at a point.

    And then we need to try to get them back x) Starting at the beginning x)
    Quote Originally Posted by Shekora View Post
    Goddamn it, Gimlix, why do you keep making these threads?
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    Goddamn it, Gimlix, why do you keep making these threads?

  2. #162
    Why the hell would the game go free-to-play with over 8 million subscribers? The Chinese subs only pay a fraction of the EU/US subscription, and seeing as the majority of lost subs came from Asia, Blizzard's income from WoW hasn't gone down a whole lot.

  3. #163
    Quote Originally Posted by HeatherRae View Post
    Name to me a f2p game with the same level of quality as WoW. No, seriously - name one to me.

    Do you honestly want WoW to go to the quality level of SWTOR? Really?

    WoW would lose far more paying subscriptions if they went f2p than if they remain subscription-based. They still have 8.5 million subscribers. Even if they lost 1.3 million every year for the next 4-5 years, they'd still have more subs than every other MMO out there.
    Seeing as quality is an entirely subject measurement I do not think that is a question that is possible to answer. Although on the subject of SWTOR what little I have played looked like a quality product if I was not a current WOW player I would have been inclined to take a further look at it.

    Obviously WOW would lose subscribers if it went F2P that is the whole point, it is free. To suggest that less people would play when something is free than when it costs money flies in the face of basic logic. Whilst it is not something I think they are going to do any time soon the comments from Kotick certainly hint that it is something they might consider.

  4. #164
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Jtbrig7390 View Post
    But they did not lose 1.3million in a year they lost it in 3 months.

    In total blizzard has lost around 1.7mil since MOP's release and blizzard has done stated they will be losing more.
    You're right. That is a far steeper fall than the one I was projecting. However, I stick to my point: they better ensure their next expansion manages to sell big numbers, by keeping current subscribers, attracting new ones and appealing to gamers who already left, and MANAGE to KEEP them, preferably longer than a few months, or else it's GG.

  5. #165
    Quote Originally Posted by Nivis View Post
    In WoW's case, it definitely still does work.
    Its working now but it is also taking its toll.

    6 months of MOP and wow has lost 25% of its player base and blizzard has done said they will lost more......

    ---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 06:08 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Zeverin View Post
    You're right. That is a far steeper fall than the one I was projecting. However, I stick to my point: they better ensure their next expansion manages to sell big numbers, by keeping current subscribers, attracting new ones and appealing to gamers who already left, and MANAGE to KEEP them, preferably longer than a few months, or else it's GG.
    That is the thing there is barely any new ones and if there is they rather go play a b2p/f2p MMO and not have to drop 60$+ for a 9 year old game.

    That also cost's you 15$ a month.
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  6. #166
    Epic! videotape's Avatar
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    WoW will go free-to-play when it is more profitable to do so than it is to maintain the subscription model. Subscription retention is to some extent going to be tied to how much Blizzard invests in the game. As it dwindles with respect to the amount of money they pour into customer support, content development, and general operational costs, it will eventually make sense to significantly scale back their WoW-related operations. In doing so, they will have to switch to free-to-play in order to retain players.

    Because players generate revenue in other ways (e.g., purchasing services or store frill, providing a user base to which new products can be marketed reliably) it will probably still be profitable by some measure (if not strictly monetary) to maintain a baseline level of support without subscription revenue.

    If your definition of "soon" is "in 5 years," then you might be right. If it's anything less than 5 years, you're not using your brain very hard.

  7. #167
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    id probably log in ever now and then if it were f2p since for me personally the game isnt worth the $15 a month.

    hell id probably even log in every now and again just to level a toon if they increased the trial to say level 60? something will change in a) the subscription price b) the cost of all the expansions or c) the free trial.

    while everyone is welcome to their opinion about the quality of the f2p/b2p games the amount of content available in those games is far greater than blizzards 1-20 trial. anyone new to WoW isnt going to experience enough content 1-20 for them to justify spending the amount of money it takes to get up to MoP + sub fee. just my opinion

  8. #168
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    Quote Originally Posted by Endemonadia View Post
    (ill ignore our confrontations on the lowpop realms thread for now! lol)


    Quote Originally Posted by Endemonadia View Post
    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!
    Given the lead times required to design these things I would guess that TESO is in something of a tough spot. When it was started way back when, it's not unreasonable to think it was budgeted around the idea of pay subscription. Now? I think that's highly questionable. So the problem becomes "Do we do this as a pay-to-play game and change it later which everyone will conclude that it's a massive failure OR do we go with the market and extend the time it takes to get a return on investment OR do we adjust our expectations to something more like Trion's. I don't envy the business people responsible for that decision.

    You didn't mention Neverwinter which is another cat out in the wild.
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  9. #169
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gimlix View Post
    WoW will die when they go F2P, because WoW has never been F2P,
    Why will Wow die if it went F2P?

    There isnt actually any reason why it would die.

    The truth is that Wow will NEVER die, its impossible the game is too big. Also, it wont go F2P anytime in the forseeable future because the revenues from Wow are so large and the shareholders want profits.

    Quote Originally Posted by Gimlix View Post
    At some point the subs will stable, might be 8 mill subs might even be at 2 mill subs, but it will end at a point.
    i doubt very much that Wow subs will go back up, theyll continue to drop until they stabilise. At what final number nobody knows.

    If u read about current subs fee gaming then u will see the entire industry is dying out fast. Gamers simply dont want to pay monthly fees for games anymore. Free games quality is now very high and people r happy to play F2P.

    Kotick himself states this concern in the conference call report.

  10. #170
    Quote Originally Posted by Butler Log View Post
    Even with a quarter of the current subs they would be taking in $360M per year just from the subscription fee.
    Except their entire Asian base only pays about $2 - 3 a month, not $15.

    Assuming that the bulk of the player base is from Asia currently, say 65%, that's only 2,905,000 million American / European customers or $43,575,000 a month from them alone.

    Assuming 1 / 4 of the player base and the same above statistical guess, that would be 726,250 American / European customers at $15 a month or $10,893,750. Definitely not a small amount, but probably nowhere near what's needed to keep WoW chugging along at the current level of development.


    Will it go free to play? Most likely, when it hits about 2 - 3 million subscribers or most of the American / European market are gone.

  11. #171
    WoW would have to dip a ton more b4 it would go F2P. the number dipped same as the reason they did b4, RaF and ppl cant bot in pvp as much without the AF command. i mean ppl were doing full AV raids alone b4. oh noes we are only gonna make over 100mill a month? woe is us. lets go to non monthly pay type where we will make less money even tho we have about 5x the amount of players of all the other mmo's.


    /facepalm posts like this make my brain hurt bc of the stupidness

  12. #172
    Dumb idea. The next xpac will bring those numbers right back up. Who knows how high they'll go, but it's still not worth it to make it f2p
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  13. #173
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    Quote Originally Posted by MoanaLisa View Post
    You didn't mention Neverwinter which is another cat out in the wild.
    I havent checked anything about the Neverwinter series so i dont even know if its going to be an MMO! lol

    i bought Baldurs Gate on release day and loved everything about it. It remains one of the milestones in RPG and fantasy gaming so id love to see Neverwinter hit the ground running and deliver us something great

    They have the backing of another king in fantasy gaming with Dungeons & Dragons on thier team so who knows....

  14. #174
    Quote Originally Posted by Bathory View Post
    Dumb idea. The next xpac will bring those numbers right back up. Who knows how high they'll go, but it's still not worth it to make it f2p
    If you think that the next xpac will bring those numbers right back up I really want what you smoke.

    Blizzard has stated the numbers will be lower by the end of MOP even if they said tomorrow the next xpac is burning legion with demon hunters the numbers will not go back to where they where.
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  15. #175
    Is WoW going to go free to play anytime soon? It's funny, I actually posed this question to a very credible source. The response was always about the same, regardless of how hard I shook it. The responses were as follows:

    "My sources say no."
    "Very doubtful."
    "My reply is no."
    "Don't count on it."
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  16. #176
    Quote Originally Posted by TheWerebison View Post
    Is WoW going to go free to play anytime soon? It's funny, I actually posed this question to a very credible source. The response was always about the same, regardless of how hard I shook it. The responses were as follows:

    "My sources say no."
    "Very doubtful."
    "My reply is no."
    "Don't count on it."
    And that source would be??????? until this is told ill just say ur whole comment is bs.
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  17. #177
    Quote Originally Posted by ridamark View Post
    WoW would have to dip a ton more b4 it would go F2P. the number dipped same as the reason they did b4, RaF and ppl cant bot in pvp as much without the AF command. i mean ppl were doing full AV raids alone b4. oh noes we are only gonna make over 100mill a month? woe is us. lets go to non monthly pay type where we will make less money even tho we have about 5x the amount of players of all the other mmo's.


    /facepalm posts like this make my brain hurt bc of the stupidness
    Why would it have to drop more before it went F2P? The ways you can monetise F2P games are endless not only are F2P players more open to a cash shop, how many WOW players would sit through a 5 min ad for a few valour points? Or how many would sign up to a free trial with one of our sponsors for an epic? How much would a company be prepared to pay for an ad at the top of the launcher? The lower the number of players the less they would be able to make from sponsorship/advertising.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bathory View Post
    Dumb idea. The next xpac will bring those numbers right back up. Who knows how high they'll go, but it's still not worth it to make it f2p
    It is not going to happen the people are not coming back.

  18. #178
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kakokun View Post
    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.
    I chose not to forfeit 11 min of my life to be trolled by IGN... sorry.

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  19. #179
    Free Food!?!?! Tziva's Avatar
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    My very first MMO was a game called The Realm. It came out around 1995 (if I remember correctly) which probably makes it one of the first MMOs ever. The game is laughable even compared to older MMOs - graphics are basic cartoons, you "zone" to each room/screen, and combat is turn-based. Despite that and a lot of other limitations that would never been acceptable in today's world (you only get four characters, and you if you don't allocate stat points correctly at creation, you're fucked later and have to reroll), the Realm still exists. Furthermore, it is still on a pay to play model and, at $7 a month currently, its sub fee has increased over the years - something even WoW probably couldn't get away with. Yet people still play and it's still profitable to the company under that model.

    (that The Realm still exists and costs is also a good argument against the fallacy that P2P means better quality than F2P)

    What I am getting at is that the type of income model an MMO uses drastically depends on its history, its player demographics, the number of players it has, and the current market place. What works for one MMO doesn't mean it will work for another. The existence of other pay to play games doesn't necessarily mean that WoW won't change it's business model in the future, nor does the fact that F2P games are the "future" of online gaming mean WoW won't stick to P2P. Some games that survive on P2P probably couldn't on F2P, and some that are free to play would die as pay to play. It really depends on who the players are and how many there are.

    Right now, even with dropping subscriptions, WoW is still a highly successful game. It has an established history as P2P, and millions of players who have demonstrated they are willing to pay $15 a month for access to the content. While I think it is possible, maybe even likely, that WoW will one day become F2P I personally don't predict it happening until their subscriptions are much, much lower.


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  20. #180
    Guess IGN is now the Fox News of video game news.
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