World of Warcraft: SPECULATION: Wording Hints at F2P Future for Azeroth?

SBFord

World of Warcraft: SPECULATION: Wording Hints at F2P Future for Azeroth? - Free Mobile MMORPG List and MMO Games - MMORPG.com

During today's Activision-Blizzard investors' meeting, the company revealed that World of Warcraft has lost another 100,000 subscribers since Q2 2015, with active numbers hovering around the 5.5M mark representing a nine-year low.

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Thupli

Would play a world of warcraft 2

TaishiFox

Argh.. here we go again.. We've had this before and the answer is still NO

BillMurphy

TaishiFox said:

Argh.. here we go again.. We've had this before and the answer is still NO

You're probably right, but it's SO fun to speculate/editorialize.

TaishiFox

BillMurphy said:

TaishiFox said:

Argh.. here we go again.. We've had this before and the answer is still NO

You're probably right, but it's SO fun to speculate/editorialize.

Eh, wishful thinking in which Blizzard are just too greedy to comply with.

DurinnMcFurren

I wish it would go f2p, but I suspect they just don't want to be embarrassed by their poor numbers anymore. Which is too bad. I was really hoping to see the numerical effect which the return of flying and the announcement of Legion would have. Yes, flying had already returned, but it took me a while to come back to the game after it came back anyway.

Horusra

TaishiFox said:

BillMurphy said:

TaishiFox said:

Argh.. here we go again.. We've had this before and the answer is still NO

You're probably right, but it's SO fun to speculate/editorialize.

Eh, wishful thinking in which Blizzard are just too greedy to comply with.

Why would they go f2p?  Another flippant use of "greedy" without understanding business.

Albatroes

BillMurphy said:

TaishiFox said:

Argh.. here we go again.. We've had this before and the answer is still NO

You're probably right, but it's SO fun to speculate/editorialize.

I disagree since its been done to death. Even blizzard themselves have stated that they are full aware of the sub annual increase and decrease. Couple that with the numbers of their active subs being x5 more than probably the second best MMORPG in the market (whatever that is since not many even have 1m ppl actively paying in a 3 month period) so they will know that when legion hits, numbers will go up and tank after 3 months again. 13M (or w/e draenor had when it fully released) x50$+/- 15$ sub is more money in a month than many games make in their lifetime. So to simplify, WoW is fine and will always be fine with the current business model. They dont lose money with the token, they actually make more money with it.

klash2def

Oh great! The annual "WOW GOING F2P AMIGAH" article! 

Asamof

nice click-bait article

Warlyx

100k? HA! , thats bull$!$! ,...wondering how blizz twisted that "metrics" in order to say 100k

azarhal

Instead of going and speculating that they are moving to F2P, people should probably wonder what are those new metrics that will now replace the sub-numbers...and if those metrics are better, why they didn't bother with them until the game reached 5.5millions subs.

bladedancer

klash2def said:

Oh great! The annual "WOW GOING F2P AMIGAH" article! 

Indeed. In addition, I don't really see the point in making a World of Warcraft 2?

nimander99

Confirmed, WoW 2 will be the "WoW killer" if it ever comes out

SBFord

@azarhal I agree 100%. As a current WoW subscriber, I can tell you that my once-high population server is a ghost town. I almost fell out of my chair at only 100k being lost when I would have put money on 1M+. I also further agree that the nebulous wording of the "metrics for success" is troublesome. If you look at the investor graphic created, Destiny's, Hearthstone's and Diablo's numbers are all touted, but not WoW opting instead to call it (and rightly so) "the world's most popular MMO" (or something like that. It's almost as if they don't want numbers coming out and showing that, while still arguably successful, it is a dying game that will continue to show negative growth between expansions in a continuously descending arc. I would "guesstimate" that WoW subs will go back to 7M with Legion and, as has always happened, sink below the pre-Legion sub numbers within 6 months and continuing downward until the next expansion and so on.

R3d.Gallows

Dont hold your breath. I seriously doubt there will be WoW2. Why make another MMO when you can make cheap games like Hearthstone or Overwatch which will bring in comparable money at fraction of the production cost?
I can see them continuing to cut parts off WoW (so to speak) and making them into separate titles. Overwatch is WoW's battlegrounds (kind of) so maybe a hub based multiplayer dungeon game is next.

danwest58

I hate F2P lets state that right now. However I am going to be honest. Yes WOW is going F2P soon, it already has the needed in game Market for that and it would take very little to push it F2P. Blizzard knows that WOW is dying and reoccurring subs will continue to fall after an expansion is released. They also choose not to fix it because they know they will piss off the current players who sub for a chance at people who like myself want nothing more than Vanilla WOW or TBC WOW. If there is anything more I will not play because the making WOW so casual has killed the game. You can also add in the saturation of the market yet that didn't peak until Cata.

Yes Vanilla and TBC Sucked for players who were casual and refused to make friends. However it didnt suck for people who knew how to make friends and schedule time to play with friends. Thing is we were more loyal and willing to stick it out though we never made Nax 1.0 or Sunwell. The content was 100 times more engaging than farm X instance 25 times to get geared up, then farm the SAME instance on a harder mode another 25 times to get geared up for the SAME instance on a much harder mode 25 times just to get to Mythic. Sorry this shit gets Boring. Thats why I am getting tired of FFXIV and other MMOs. Its the same God Dam Treadmill and yes you could say TBC was a treadmill however instances were tough you failed, you didnt clear it the first time you stepped in unless you worked well in a team. Now its Whack a mole easy unless you get to Mythic. Anything else is a waste of time.

O another thing Expansions now have what 7 maybe 8 instances. TBC released with 15 instances and that's just Leveling thats not including the new one they added plus the Heroic versions. AND the instances were HARD they required TEAMWORK and CROWD CONTROL. So you didnt run 5 to 7 in a day to get your tokens. They were run to help level, they were run for fun, they were run for gear. The casual player was very capable to do this content with a good small group of friends and you could feel like you progressed. Today an instances feels like you are just on a treadmill NOT a part of an adventure with friends. Thats what we lost in todays MMOs to mainstream these games for Grandpa and Grandma and everyone with 15 minutes a week. Not for people who like to play a RPG with friends. No its made into a treadmill.

Bluefear77

Rhoklaw said:

The MMO market has gone from mainstream to niche. Too many game developers wanted a piece of the WoW success pie and inadvertently tainted the market with trailer trash games. It's like the mobile gaming market has somehow infiltrated the MMO market and secretly destroyed it from within. The MMO genre is and always will be a market for Role Playing. It's the only reason for persistence is it not? Leveling, progression and a never ending story? MMO's need to go back to the roots and stop trying to incorporate every type of gamer into the genre. There is no room for cheaply made, F2P, cash shop shenanigans here. This is the wrong audience for that nonsense.

I don't know if I've ever read a more accurate and insightful post on these forums.

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rodingo

No matter what happens to WoW I think any sane, objective person will agree it had one helluva run

gervaise1

First: the possibility of Activision Blizzard no longer releasing sub numbers was raised - and discussed - on these forums. With the view that this would be the last quarter they did so. One for the forums! (Think it was Kyleran who first raised it.)

Second: whilst their is no requirement for AB to release WoW's sub numbers I am pretty sure they have to provide fiscal information about elements of the business which constitute significantly - 20% I believe.

And whilst WoW's sub numbers have only dropped from 5.6M to 5.5M reported revenue has fallen from $221M to $155M - nearly a third. This could be due to Q2 having started the quarter at 7.1M and finishing at 5.6M; less cash shop revenue; the impact of tokens - a combination of all of these. What it points to is a less profitable WoW.

So could WoW go f2p?

My view is that WoW won't go "free-to-buy", at least not soon. Consider what happened with Wildstar and then thing much bigger.

There are other options though: reducing the sub - which Rift did; introducing "cheap" 6 and 12 month subs; or scrapping the sub and moving to a paid base game, paid expansions and paid content patches.

I suspect though that AB may be planning to wait and see if the film brings people back to the game.

Edit: the purchase of King would also reduce the % contribution made by WoW.

Xanzo

I hope it stays as a subscription game. If you want to pay monthly for a decade old game, high five to you.

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Volgore

It's neither F2P nor WoW2.
I guess Blizzard has just found a legal way to hide the decline of WoW by not having to release sub numbers anymore and instead give the shareholders a different bone.
Perhaps they'll extend their item shop some more and give the shareholders some other turn-over numbers.
In the end, it's the money that counts to them, not the player numbers.

gervaise1

SBFord said:

If you look at the investor graphic created, Destiny's, Hearthstone's and Diablo's numbers are all touted, but not WoW opting instead to call it (and rightly so) "the world's most popular MMO" (or something like that. .

Shortly before their last results there was a policy change which limited people from owning no more than a year's worth of tokens. And reading forum comments some people have a lot of tokens! I suspect this has created a problem. What is a subscriber? Up until now WoW's numbers have been so big that it has been able to claim biggest subscriber game with impunity. As the number drops - factor in people playing with tokens (bought by someone else) - and that claim is less clear cut.

Activision Blizzard "do not know" how many subs TESO has; or SWTOR; or FFXIV etc. It probably has more but probably won't cut it in court if you say it does and it turns out that some other game might be able to challenge the position.

Forum posters called this as well!

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