When WoW Goes Free to Play I will...

[Erous]

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?

[The Stormbringer]

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

[RoKPaNda]

Going f2p would be a horrendous business decision. I doubt they'll do it.

[Ulfric Trumpcloak]

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?

[Zandalariprelate]

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

Indeed, also currently people wants to play single player with a few rpg aspect like GoW or a full rpg like Witcher 3/Dark Souls, the market of blizzard is very small but currently they are the only one giving something decent compared to the grind and rng fest of black desert.

[Freshouttajail]

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

They were all crashing and burning before going F2P tho. There's not enough MMO players to make all these games survive, it's just natural that some of them just die.

[The Stormbringer]

Indeed, also currently people wants to play single player with a few rpg aspect like GoW or a full rpg like Witcher 3/Dark Souls, the market of blizzard is very small but currently they are the only one giving something decent compared to the grind and rng fest of black desert.

I would argue FFXIV is still pretty good, even if I don't play it that often. And I did enjoy Legion, even if I took a year off a few months after release.

[Whistl3r]

Never.
Going.
To.
Happen.

[RobertMugabe]

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?

WoW is as toxic as it could be for a game of this type. I've played some other MMO's that went F2P and also private servers and they didn't stant out in terms of toxicity. That's just a myth for the most part that free games attract toxic players. The most toxic players are usually the more dedicated people that would pay anyways.

However, F2P games can have a negative impact on the game design.

That being said though, I don't think that WoW is ever gonna become a F2P game. They may remove the sub fee though and make the base game more expensive (and require you to always buy the expansions).

[Zandalariprelate]

I would argue FFXIV is still pretty good, even if I don't play it that often. And I did enjoy Legion, even if I took a year off a few months after release.

I agree FF and ESO are currently doing a very good job(ff has to reboot themself because the first version was shit) but their lack of players and the anime look in ff doesn't help a lot to retain people and ESO has the problem of Skyrim where a lot of people get dissapointed and just left. Rift was my favorite mmorpg aside of WoW but currently I am playing more the CS battle royale(shame I know) and getting all achievements from Dark souls 3

[Big Thanks]

I ROFL at the idea of WoW going free to play.

Makes no sense.

Unless for some reason you think there is only 500k people subscribed.

[Hottage]

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.

[Erous]

I ROFL at the idea of WoW going free to play.

Makes no sense.

Unless for some reason you think there is only 500k people subscribed.

No, I definitely don't feel that way. But, investors are concerned that in general, the gaming industry is being hit hard by popular F2P models like Fortnite. As noted in the article, it's especially concerning for investors and Activision Blizzard as their earnings are expected today. What better way to attempt a shock and awe then to make their most popular paid model, F2P. Again, just speculating. This of course could change into an attempt at another battle royale but from Activision Blizzard.

[Monster Hunter]

Indeed, also currently people wants to play single player with a few rpg aspect like GoW or a full rpg like Witcher 3/Dark Souls, the market of blizzard is very small but currently they are the only one giving something decent compared to the grind and rng fest of black desert.

New worlds in 2020 is wows next big market challenger and it looks really good imo from the alpha footage.

But aside from that I'd agree that people just don't want the wow / everquest style of mmo much anymore.

- - - Updated - - -

This of course could change into an attempt at another battle royale but from Activision Blizzard.

Part of my brain is thinking that won't happen the ftp br market is already saturating and peaked, but then the other half is pointing out hero's of the storm, so wouldn't be the first time blizz chased the market.

[Schizoide]

WoW will inevitably offer a F2P option at some point but I don't see it happening until the playerbase dramatically shrinks due to fear of losing all those subscription fees.

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.

[sam86]

if wow go f2p, we will have gutted exp that are slim version of prior exp, bugs everywhere that u see flying npcs u can't hit, hidden wall bugs, and patches get smaller and smaller, with rng up to 11 and titanforging everywhere
good thing wow didn't go f2p

[Lochton]

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?

If WoW goes F2P, I would see myself quitting before seeing my loved home fall into ruin..

[Schizoide]

By the time subs drop to such a level that the game goes F2P, you will most likely have quit already, so it's kind of a moot point.

[Wyattbw09]

If you find yourself playing a official free to play version of WOW, you know your in Elysium and your already dead.

[Schizoide]

Lots of games launched B2P and have been very successful. Guild Wars 2 comes to mind. And of course tons of games launched F2P and are awesome, like Path of Exile and Warframe.

When you talk about games that launched buy with a subscription then converted to B2P and are still successful, that's where Elder Scrolls Online comes in. I can't think of any other examples, though. Most games that converted from subscription to B2P didn't do well.