When WoW Goes Free to Play I will...

[Wyattbw09]

Pretty much all other MMOs that went F2P were heading towards the toilet anyway, hence the reason for going F2P in the first place.

ESO appears to be doing quite well in the free to play model. I’m pretty much assuming by free to play you really mean buy to play since I doubt WOW would go straight free to play without selling each xpac

[Razzako]

Why is still even up for discussion, they announced Classic pricing model would be a subscription tied to live, that won't change any time soon... Stop circlejerking already.

[Bryntrollian]

I don't think WoW will go F2P at this point

[Boricha]

It would only push me further away if they did.

[xStevooo]

The fact the game is still purchased based and charges for a subscription in 2019 is just laughable, the pathetic service charges on top? LOL.

The game has never really warranted having a sub fee, and the state the game is in today is dire.

Hopefully it will whittle out and something new replaces it, MMO's are a thing of the past for me personally.

[Alopex Major]

The other possibility is a highly restrictive F2P mode like SWTOR, with a money and currency cap, character slots cap, slower movement, bank slots and inventory caps, equipped item quality caps, and auction caps all making the game truly unpleasant to play for free. Possible, but not fun at all. I think (hope) Blizzard would strongly resist doing that.

Buy one thing from the store and a lot of that goes away. I'd actually prefer if WoW was f2p because then I could log in, RP, play a little without having to commit a full month to it. That's one thing that's great about SWTOR if I'm not currently subbed (though I am right now).

[Laqweeta]

World of Warcraft already is free-to-play if you invest enough time in it, and it's been free-to-demo for years.

Blizzard has exactly zero incentive to turn it's money printing machine into fully-fledged F2P cesspool.

Wow is no longer the top money maker in Activisions repertoire. I’d wager Hearthstone is.

[Pandragon]

Continue playing other games, like i've done for the last year and a half.

WoW is not going free to play any time soon. They still have over 1m subs, probably around 2 or 3m. Each one of them is paying $15 a month. At 2.5m subs, blizzard is making $37.5m a month...Why would they give that up?

Not true. A lot of us are technically paying $20 a month cause we pay our subs with a token.

[Dilbon]

Wow is no longer the top money maker in Activisions repertoire. I’d wager Hearthstone is.

Hearthstone is currently going downhill fast, so most likely not. Overwatch maybe?

[chiddie]

I’m not sure that the monthly fee is THAT barrier nowadays.

People really interested will play regardless the fee and people not interested won’t become suddenly fond of WoW the second the fee disappears. Numbers will probably rise for a little while but revenues will fall hard in the long terms.

[MoanaLisa]

Read the article. I have no idea how you decided that this means that WoW is going to a F2P revenue model. What I read was that Activision doesn't have an answer to Fortnite. This is likely to be a tough year for the gaming industry with a lot of companies trimming down.

Those are my thoughts.

[The Stormbringer]

Hearthstone is currently going downhill fast, so most likely not. Overwatch maybe?

You have evidence to support this? I'd love to see the numbers.

[Zan15]

Probably quit. I'm assuming I'm seeing the writing on the wall with articles like this one from a reputable investment site: https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/...n-it-repo.aspx.

I've been telling myself for years that I'd be afraid of how additionally toxic the community would become with a full free to play model, but how likely is it? Investors think it's possible, most of the original staff is out, Blizzard's vision leadership is also out. The WoW token is already a step in this direction, allowing gold price to drive the economy as well as play time for those who work to keep their sub active in this.

The Blizzcon accouncements, especially the Diablo Immortal announcement, drove investment in the company south. It seems that the Diablo Immortal model will be a free to play model, which is what the execs at Activision I feel assume the future of gaming to be. The popularity of Battle Royal F2P models I'm afraid are what's going to drive decision making instead of sticking to grass roots on what made Blizzard games popular in the first place.

Thoughts?

Lol fool....reputable investment site: ....are you insane?

[Unholyground]

Why go F2P? All other MMOs that have done that have crashed and burned.

They could definitely go "Buy 2 Play" though and give you unlimited game time when you have purchased the most current expansion, or hell at least six months, if BfA showed me anything it is that they cannot justify the cost of their expansions anymore especially with their monthly fee and how poor the launch quality has been more often than not. As much as I love WoW unless they do something really spectacular in 8.2 I am going to continue to focus my time elsewhere.

[Aurora]

I'd probably enjoy the world feeling vibrant again and playing with people who are excited to discover and explore the different aspects of the game. The community is so jaded and anti-social these days that new blood might be exactly what it needs.

[Dilbon]

You have evidence to support this? I'd love to see the numbers.

Nothing official, just that the game is incredibly unfun to play right now and many popular streamers have quit.

[The Stormbringer]

They could definitely go "Buy 2 Play" though and give you unlimited game time when you have purchased the most current expansion, or hell at least six months, if BfA showed me anything it is that they cannot justify the cost of their expansions anymore especially with their monthly fee and how poor the launch quality has been more often than not. As much as I love WoW unless they do something really spectacular in 8.2 I am going to continue to focus my time elsewhere.

B2P has struck me as a decent model, but I have my doubts they'll do it, especially when they announced WoW Classic would be piggy-backing off of the main game subscription.

- - - Updated - - -

Nothing official, just that the game is incredibly unfun to play right now and many popular streamers have quit.

You mean those 'play ranked and only ranked all the time' streamers? Good riddance, they were boring. I've been having plenty of fun playing Hearthstone, and I know that Kripp, Trump, and a few other very popular streamers are still going strong.

[Aeula]

I’d be okay with the game going buy to play. Though depending on their monetisation method they could do some serious damage to themselves.

[Aucald]

"I Quit" threads don't tend to produce much in the way of constructive discussion or debate. Closing this.