Should wow go free to play?

[Al Gorefiend]

this takes me back, people said things like this when they introduced the star pony...
thats over decade ago and we are not a step closer, still only cosmetic shite on store

people said things like this a decade ago when people suggested WoW going F2P. Its not slippery slope doomsaying, industry facts.

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this is already happening in a way. token sales probably beat the earnings from box and sub sales....and to keep the box and sub numbers high you need to have a high quality product. to make money off whales you dont. only oversight blizzard had is that with the exodus of the playerbase you also get much less whales as wel because whales will invest alot of money only where alot of people can see them.

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this.

and maybe, to reduce confusion, we should rename this topic to "is wow really worth a subscription?" the answer is a big NO

Lets take this one step further.

Is -ANY- game worth $15 a month? Was that WoW's initial mistake from the get-go?

[Relapses]

Is -ANY- game worth $15 a month? Was that WoW's initial mistake from the get-go?

Considering Blizzard simply lifted the model that both EverQuest and DAoC before it had proven successful, I doubt they're guilty of much more than just making a game that more people wanted to play.

[Al Gorefiend]

Considering Blizzard simply lifted the model that both EverQuest and DAoC before it had proven successful, I doubt they're guilty of much more than just making a game that more people wanted to play.

Maybe subscription models made sense back when server technology was expensive, and MMOs were experimental.

[Hellobolis]

Guild wars or wild star sure but people have been claiming FFXIV has been bigger since like 2015 non stop, laughing as you put it at any one saying other wise.

Nothing has changed no one had any info then no one does now just people who want FFxiv to be on top days it’s obvious and people who want wow to be on top do the same both laughing at each other then nothing to actually back up raid laughter.

well in 2015 i'd say it depends on what metric you use. cause wow hasn't been #1 for a long time when it comes to number players, accounts, income, and what have you depending on context and what you compare to. i can totally see an argument for ffiv making more money than wow 5 years ago seeing how crazy some asian people are with MTX and that was stil before wow became much more heavily monetized.

still you can't say nothing has changed. general consensus is that wow has been on the decline for many many years, and ffiv still seems to be on the up and up or at least stable. now i'd be one thing if wow was on the decline from 10m players, but i don't think anyone is that optimistic anymore even when giving wow the benefit of the doubt so it's not unreasonable to think they might be getting close to eachother.

it's definitely not that these competitors are becoming more successful than wow, it's just wow thats fucking up last few years.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

well in 2015 i'd say it depends on what metric you use. cause wow hasn't been #1 for a long time when it comes to number players, accounts, income, and what have you depending on context and what you compare to. i can totally see an argument for ffiv making more money than wow 5 years ago seeing how crazy some asian people are with MTX and that was stil before wow became much more heavily monetized.

still you can't say nothing has changed. general consensus is that wow has been on the decline for many many years, and ffiv still seems to be on the up and up or at least stable. now i'd be one thing if wow was on the decline from 10m players, but i don't think anyone is that optimistic anymore even when giving wow the benefit of the doubt so it's not unreasonable to think they might be getting close to eachother.

it's definitely not that these competitors are becoming more successful than wow, it's just wow thats fucking up last few years.

See I would agree with you but after a quick google stuff like this thread comes up and there are tons more like it on tons of other sites.

https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...-on-the-market

Just go through the first two or so pages and you see the exact same thing you see now almost word for word “wow’s lost half its players” “wows on the decline FFxiv is on the rise” “wows under 2m” “wow will/should go F2P” and so on and so on and so on. It’s like looking at a thread made today if it wasn’t for the post dates you’d think it was an ongoing thread right now.

[chorx]

free to play automatically turns into "pay to win"

Not true at all. Most modern F2P models are structured around cosmetics and “seasonal” unlocks for a cost.

[kranur]

Not true at all. Most modern F2P models are structured around cosmetics and “seasonal” unlocks for a cost.

yeah ... no

I'd rather unlock stuff by playing the game, not by inserting coins, be that cosmetic or not.

[lolmmofuture]

they would probably make more money if they go f2p from all the whaling....

[Santti]

Maybe. It's going to happen at some point, and would bring back a lot of people. I might even take another look myself when that happens, but probably not.

[minteK917]

Should probably have a better trial instead. Mabye let people hit lvl 50 with some restrictions on stuff for free if they make an account. They wont because of the boost, but the boost is a scam for already existing players, hooking new players is easier if you let them spend time to play on a character for very long, its kinda like a drug dealer, you want the first free dose to be fucking good and addicting, current free trial is shit and almost nobody gets hooked at lvl 20. Id even go as far as overhaul pvp make an effort to scale pvp off stats, but not off level and allow everyone lvl 30-60 in one pvp bracket. This way free trials people can pvp with maxed people, might have a bit less stats due to itemlevel, but again it means you string them along to want to buy in if they enjoyed the pvp enough. How long can wow substain the same decline milking their own player without trying to have some new ones, i dunno, feels like you can do both and not need to only do one of them. Right now they are just in milk established player mode, while they should also go in find new addicts mode.

More free players means more people to play with/against, makes people feel the game is more alive, makes less people quit. Id even go as far as say, wow has so little button to press now, if even FF14 can get away with letting people play shit like dragoon on a controller (you can plug kb/m in ps4/sp5), so can wow. WoW is massive, im pretty certain if blizzard came to sony and microsoft and said they wanna make wow crossplatform, it would be some instant agreement, fucking HiRez games could get it for smite lol. So i dont think the game needs to be free to play, it needs to go into models that tries to do more then just milk its slowly shrinking player base over the years.

-More generous free trial, lvl 1-50 any class, allow them to do pvp with max level players. Mabye no trading, no player mail and no AH access (you already made it shit with the boost, you dont wanna power the bots even more by giving them free trials.)
-Get this game on consoles, all of them if you can, if someone wants to play on the god damn switch and the game can run, just let them.

[Th3Scourge]

And YOU should THINK for YOURSELF instead of just BLABBERING about what other PEOPLE put in your HEAD "Oh blizzard changed something lul beta, man what a totally original comment i just made that totally i came up with it". Pretty sad

Hahahaha keep huffing that copium. You are actually paying them to test their product, rather then actually receiving a completed product that you paid a box price for.

Why should players have to endure a year of dogshit where feedback was given since the shadowlands announcement at Blizzcon 2019 and completely ignored? It's idiots like yourself that just bend over and take the giant shaft from Blizzard that keep this cycle of garbage going and took an exodus of players not putting up with this anymore for the smallest change to come about

[Nnyco]

Hahahaha keep huffing that copium. You are actually paying them to test their product, rather then actually receiving a completed product that you paid a box price for.

Why should players have to endure a year of dogshit where feedback was given since the shadowlands announcement at Blizzcon 2019 and completely ignored? It's idiots like yourself that just bend over and take the giant shaft from Blizzard that keep this cycle of garbage going and took an exodus of players not putting up with this anymore for the smallest change to come about

Waa blizzard doesnt listen to my feedback waaa. Blizzard just did what they thought was right, now they changed their mind. Its not some open beta bullshit, parasite system or whatever buzzword some youtuber spouted in your head lately. Just because you paid for the product doesnt mean they are obliged to listen to your feedback, dunno who put that mindset in your head but maybe you should stop huffing THAT.

[Swnem]

lol no, I really don't. You realize there are other games out there in the market to compare to, right? Receiving a patch every 9-10 months is garbage, doubly so when it's a game with a monthly subscription fee attached to it, triply so when that same game with a sub also has a huge in-game store and is basically p2w with the ability to directly buy gold...

Are you sure you've been out there trying other mmo's?
Covid aside, there are only 2 other mmorpg's with better content cadence than WoW. FFXIV and ESO perhaps (not 100% sure on the second as i don't actively play it).
I'd like to know what other mmorpg's out there that are comparable. These are games with a new large expansion every 2 years. I think Eso is every year?

Sure, WoW is very delayed atm and more importantly the content itself is trash. But F2P mmo's have it worse. Generally smaller patches with less content and no 2 year expansion.

Also, if you think a 6 month mount us bad, wait till you get cash shop patches. No content, just stuff to buy on the cash shop.

But, i will circle back to my priginal post. I don't care. Go F2P all you want. Will just make it easier for me.

[Th3Scourge]

Waa blizzard doesnt listen to my feedback waaa. Blizzard just did what they thought was right, now they changed their mind. Its not some open beta bullshit, parasite system or whatever buzzword some youtuber spouted in your head lately. Just because you paid for the product doesnt mean they are obliged to listen to your feedback, dunno who put that mindset in your head but maybe you should stop huffing THAT.

They don't listen to feedback, they listen to what the analysts tell them will drive the most MAUs for a given period. Every system they have introduced for the last 2 xpacs has been an objective failure because they failed to listen to feedback. If you think you are anything other than a beta tester at this point then good luck to you.

[Toby451]

F2P would make me instant quit they day they announce it and never look back.



Just go look at any of other number of Free to play MMOs. Its infinitely worse than paying a sub and just having a few toys/mounts gated behind the shop.

[Cosmic Janitor]

They don't listen to feedback, they listen to what the analysts tell them will drive the most MAUs for a given period. Every system they have introduced for the last 2 xpacs has been an objective failure because they failed to listen to feedback. If you think you are anything other than a beta tester at this point then good luck to you.

That is not quite right. The analysts tell them what makes them the most money short term, because while MAU are a cute way to skirt the subscriber metrics (that back then only made sense in the west anyway), what the company cares about is money and only money. As long as the profit is up everything is fine. If they lose 100 normal customers while gaining one whale, then that is a perfectly fine deal in their books. Why ban bots immediately, despite being fucking obvious, when you can let them make the money back and a little bit of profit, so keep buying new accounts worth multiple months of subscriptions? It's all about balancing the books. MAUs are just PR at the best of times, investors won't care as long as profit is up and the stock has other franchises as well that make more money anyway.

[Th3Scourge]

That is not quite right. The analysts tell them what makes them the most money short term, because while MAU are a cute way to skirt the subscriber metrics (that back then only made sense in the west anyway), what the company cares about is money and only money. As long as the profit is up everything is fine. If they lose 100 normal customers while gaining one whale, then that is a perfectly fine deal in their books. Why ban bots immediately, despite being fucking obvious, when you can let them make the money back and a little bit of profit, so keep buying new accounts worth multiple months of subscriptions? It's all about balancing the books. MAUs are just PR at the best of times, investors won't care as long as profit is up and the stock has other franchises as well that make more money anyway.

More hoops to jump through = more time spent in game = more 'engagement'

They know that many many players are short-term subscribers so a broken system that requires a lot of engagement will generate the higher short term MAUs, while the whales cover the shortfall in actual subscribers and flashy 6-month store mount subs lock in their revenue in the current reporting period.

Fortunately for us, many events have converged that have forced Blizzard's hand, and they don't have the public goodwill to implement systems in such a way that shores up their short term MAUs at the expense of an enjoyable player experience

[srambo]

people said things like this a decade ago when people suggested WoW going F2P. Its not slippery slope doomsaying, industry facts.

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Lets take this one step further.

Is -ANY- game worth $15 a month? Was that WoW's initial mistake from the get-go?

im not sure how you can say it was a mistake since its the most popular and biggest earning mmo there ever was.....that model worked some time ago, now, with their new monetization practices aka selling the game completion and gear for real money it sure as hell aint worth a sub....tbh it aint even worth the box price but there's simply no other way to regulate exploiting and harassments of totally f2p accounts besides a financial barrier to entry. but now you have games coming out that give far far more for less money, wow has to shape up and keep up with the times. they cant piggyback on the back of addicts and nostalgia forever if they want to attract new customers or keep the existing ones.

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That is not quite right. The analysts tell them what makes them the most money short term, because while MAU are a cute way to skirt the subscriber metrics (that back then only made sense in the west anyway), what the company cares about is money and only money. As long as the profit is up everything is fine. If they lose 100 normal customers while gaining one whale, then that is a perfectly fine deal in their books. Why ban bots immediately, despite being fucking obvious, when you can let them make the money back and a little bit of profit, so keep buying new accounts worth multiple months of subscriptions? It's all about balancing the books. MAUs are just PR at the best of times, investors won't care as long as profit is up and the stock has other franchises as well that make more money anyway.

it seems like blizzard is testng how cheap of the product they can make while maximizing the profits, and it seems they kinda went too far. short shighted increase in profits might have done long term profit serious damage. you cant just milk the product dry without investing into its development. i mean, you can if you aint planning on keeping the game alive for as long as it could. companies have to realise that if a game has no players that the whales leave as well since whales need people to admire their "achievements". if there are no people to do that, they are worthless and whales move on to another game.

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Waa blizzard doesnt listen to my feedback waaa. Blizzard just did what they thought was right, now they changed their mind. Its not some open beta bullshit, parasite system or whatever buzzword some youtuber spouted in your head lately. Just because you paid for the product doesnt mean they are obliged to listen to your feedback, dunno who put that mindset in your head but maybe you should stop huffing THAT.

they aint obliged to listen to customers warning them about their flawed systems before release, and they can make a dogshit game.....sure...its their right, its their game....and they can lose customers like they did....what exactly is your point?

[Cosmic Janitor]

it seems like blizzard is testng how cheap of the product they can make while maximizing the profits, and it seems they kinda went too far. short shighted increase in profits might have done long term profit serious damage. you cant just milk the product dry without investing into its development. i mean, you can if you aint planning on keeping the game alive for as long as it could.

Yea, they definitely did misjudge the discontent with the product this time around. It worked out well enough in Legion and BfA, bit in SL they missed the turning point. How much they have hurt the product is certainly up for debate, but I think alot of people have realized that there are other games of all types out there. I think many people will react faster in the future to changes in the game and will hesitate less to drop it, even if they come back soon.

[Lolites]

people are mad we get 2-3 shop mounts a year, while we get a hundred ingame, with f2p we would get 2-3 a year ingame while 100 on shop...

not to mention we would most likely get non-cosmetic microtransactions - which is something "doomsayers" whine about being inevitable since star pony - and i cant see that making game better...