WoW going free to play sooner than later?

[Wildtree]

Holy fucking citation needed.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=17062
That was the situation in 2008.. Asia outnumbered the rest of the world right there. The balance has never changed ever since.

[stellvia]

Holy fucking citation needed.

This isn't debate club, it's widely known info for many years now. If you want the info Google it. I have no reason to lie to strangers on the internet to win an argument about a video game where you fight internet dragons.

EDIT: 10 seconds in Google: http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

Blizzard only directly maintains NA and EU servers. Half of the total when it was 12M. And I explained how CRZ load-balancing dramatically lowers hardware requirements.

[Xjev]

I think if WoW goes F2P it will easily have 50m+ active players

[stellvia]

I love seeing titan being brought up like its their save all end all best fkn thing ever creation. I personally hope if falls flat on its face from being OVER HYPED... like every other game in the past 5 years. They cant even fix issues with their old ass game now they built from the ground up.

The key difference here is it's being "overhyped" completely by the players. Blizzard has been just about as tight-lipped about an in development project as one can be. We know almost nothing about it. They aren't marketing it. They aren't hyping it. It just exists.

How is that their fault?

[TJ]

You seem to have a short memory.

"Blizzard executives have stated that they expect that sub numbers will fall even lower than what they currently are by the end of the year"

So to have some delusional sense that the game will stay at 8 million is quite comical.

Doesn't matter, f2p wouldn't happen until at least 1-2 million. So to have some delusional sense that a drop of 6 million will happen in 7 months is comical.

[Mekh]

So, let's say they did. Where is the money going to come from?

[Wildtree]

I think if WoW goes F2P it will easily have 50m+ active players

This can be very true, given the games cult status around the globe.
Everyone who plays any computer or online games at least knows the games name.
F2P would end up in large amounts of players who throttle around for literally free, and then it would vary greatly. Resulting in many paying less than now, others may end up paying more than now. Given the self entitlement culture the game has developed, the "hardcore" vs "casual" debate would be settled once and for all. The hardcore has it's top tier content, IF they rake out more dough for it. The casual players who aren't interested in top end challenges would certainly not pay for that content part.
The final winner may very well be Blizzard with more revenue than the subs ever made them.

---------- Post added 2013-05-10 at 05:55 PM ----------

So, let's say they did. Where is the money going to come from?

Micro transactions...
You wanna run dungeons? you pay for the access...... you wanna run them on heroic? you pay for access.
you wanna raid? you pay for access.. you wanna raid hardcore heroic? you guessed it... pay time..
You wanna level faster? pay time.
The list can be endless on micro transactions.

[pinkz]

the huge sub loss was in the asian market, this has occurred before starting in WOTLK due to mostly PVP imbal. it is not the other F2P games that are denting WOW in that part of the world. asians actions concerning WOW have basicly said more than once they are not putting up with the issues (content/PVP) that need to be dealt with that others (insert countries) complain about, and nothing is done.

asian markets proved that even WOW's pokemon attempt would not hold them, along with grinding achieves, or other filler till content

if we followed their actions, and quit threatening to canx subs and do it, imo blizz would listen, even though i'm sure they are going WTF right now

blizz has blue posted in the past concerning going to a different type premium F2P systems 1 or 2 blizzcons ago

saying all that now, i do not think it will go total F2P, but i was surprized when WOTLK was added so quickly into WOW basic game package which occured pretty much at the beginning of MOP. where as they took along time to make BC part of basic WOW

CRZ helped but still hasn't addressed extreme low pop servers which causes severe struggling to get things done due to poor economies. spend 3-4 days looking simple stuff like heavy sharpening stones, minor wizard oil, bags, etc. or having to vend stack after stack of ore,, herbs, leather, cloth, potions, etc after weeks of no selling on AH's.

[MoanaLisa]

I think if WoW goes F2P it will easily have 50m+ active players

That could be a problem all by itself if you think about it.

[Deleted]

I never played a F2P game so can someone tell me how much you pay for the game (as an average user) "for content" per month / year whatever. I always read like "its free!" "they make more money" "nobody pays a single cent" "WTF". Numbers please because it doesn't make any sense to me hat f2p is the better deal. Imo F2p is for hardfrozen franchise coreplayers who will play the game no matter what and hence buy what they can get. But as casual who plays a game because it's free? Or as someone who doesn't even know that there are ppl in wow who care about mechanics and stuff?

[Voldur]

Wow will go f2p when there are only 500k players left. And that will probably never happen in Wow lifetime

[Wildtree]

the huge sub loss was in the asian market, this has occurred before starting in WOTLK due to mostly PVP imbal. it is not the other F2P games that are denting WOW in that part of the world. asians actions concerning WOW have basicly said more than once they are not putting up with the issues (content/PVP) that need to be dealt with that others (insert countries) complain about, and nothing is done.

asian markets proved that even WOW's pokemon attempt would not hold them, along with grinding achieves, or other filler till content

if we followed their actions, and quit threatening to canx subs and do it, imo blizz would listen, even though i'm sure they are going WTF right now

blizz has blue posted in the past concerning going to a different type premium F2P systems 1 or 2 blizzcons ago

saying all that now, i do not think it will go total F2P, but i was surprized when WOTLK was added so quickly into WOW basic game package which occured pretty much at the beginning of MOP. where as they took along time to make WOTLK part of basic WOW

Yes, i was surprised too, how fast they bundled this time around. The entire game from vanilla up and including mop for $40.00... T

[Deleted]

why are people so obsessed with free to play?do they like getting baited and treated like shit in order to be forced to spend money in the cash shop?

[Farora]

Blizzard will lose more than they gain if Wow goes f2p.

[Wildtree]

Wow will go f2p when there are only 500k players left. And that will probably never happen in Wow lifetime

The game ends before that....
WoW is a huge game that requires mass amounts of employees and real estate to run it. You need more than 500k subs to break even on the overhead expenses.
An F2P switch will happen (IF it happens) at sub numbers of around 4 - 5 mio. Anything lower than that starts to get into the red numbers.

[MoanaLisa]

Yes, i was surprised too, how fast they bundled this time around. The entire game from vanilla up and including mop for $40.00... T

It could be a little higher than that I suppose but they really need to think about making the entire bundle available at a price point that is reasonable. Certainly no more than $60 and not on sale either. All the time.

There was a post a while back about possible active players if it did go F2P at some point. Given that the number would likely be extremely high...possibly higher than anything they've had to deal with in the past, I'm trying to imagine the logistics and costs for doing that. It could be rather...substantial.

[markos82]

Wow will "die" long before it s F2P.... No one is willing to run servers that cost few mill/month, to pay GM and so on and to lose cash... So no, WoW will never go f2p...

[Deleted]

are you fucking serious ? a Game will NEVER go f2p with 4-5million subs.

[Ferocity]

An F2P switch will happen (IF it happens) at sub numbers of around 4 - 5 mio. Anything lower than that starts to get into the red numbers.

No, at such point it is better to deal with expenses. Cut down on customer support, on management, and so on. F2P is to be considered in the very end, when cutting any more expenses doesn't look viable.

[Wildtree]

It could be a little higher than that I suppose but they really need to think about making the entire bundle available at a price point that is reasonable. Certainly no more than $60 and not on sale either. All the time.

There was a post a while back about possible active players if it did go F2P at some point. Given that the number would likely be extremely high...possibly higher than anything they've had to deal with in the past, I'm trying to imagine the logistics and costs for doing that. It could be rather...substantial.

The current regular price is $80 for all together, but they just had a promotion going a short while back where you got it literally for like 40 bucks.