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World of Warcraft: Blizzard - Inching Towards F2P?
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In today's Free Zone column, Richard Aihoshi takes a look at the recent announcement that World of Warcraft was free to play through the first twenty character levels. Richard looks at the decision from a 'gimmick' perspective and from a business perspective and offers his thoughts on what the future may hold. Read on and see if you agree!
In an open letter to his Activision Blizzard counterpart, GamersFirst CEO Joshua Hong was quick to congratulate the giant publisher, which he called "the last bastion of the subscription-only online gaming business", for taking the "first big step" toward F2P. To my mind, the latter three words focus on the crux of the matter. Has WoW made the first move in a direction that will bring further changes to the way the game operates? Or are we only seeing a one-off marketing shift where nothing further will follow?
Read more of Richard Aihoshi's The Free Zone: Blizzard - Inching Towards F2P?
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Comments
I think it is more of a marketing strategy for them because it seems more people are leaving the game than we are lead to believe. For a game that supposedly has 11 mill suibs I don't see why you would need change anything at all unless there was a pressing concern somewhere. I imagine their next mmo will be a f2p game.
the only reason for wow to go free to play would be an imminent release of titan
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I looked around on the changes over at the website, what had happened since I left and what's coming. By god, it's more awful then I remembered it. I once loved this game...
It's a good idea but with a huge amount of content unaccessible how will it maintain interest for long? If interest is lost and boredom grows players will still leave, even if unsubbed and can login for free.
We have a very unstable economy. People are having to work 2-3 jobs just to make ends meet. While $15 a month is awesome for unlimited entertainment, the one thing people don't have is the time. What these developers need to do is bridge the game between those with time and those with money but little time. To get more people into the game, they need to be able to get people leveled and geared quickly so folks can run with their guildmates. That is not to say that everyone deserves to be able to down all content in said games in a P2W model.
IMHO, what Blizzard can do to "speed up" the process is have a "Welcome Back!" package. They can come back for ten days free and at the end of the 10 days if they subscribe for 30 days, then they can have their choice of a piece of bind on pickup 365 gear and every month there after. That way, they don't have the best gear, but over time they will always be able to play with their friends/guildmates. Consider it like a Vet rewards program.
The way the game is currently, it takes players with little time entirely too long catch up much less keep up with their guildmates, in gear.
Power to the Sheeple
Well, as with many such things, the problem is one of context. Blizzard is much more than large enough to pretty much do what they wish to at this point. Certainly, F2P(in various forms) has been demonstrated to be a profitable business model in some segments of the western markets. Not nearly as profitable as it is currently in the eastern markets, but again, thats a matter of context.
The hysterics who foam at the mouth, and howl about the "end of the world", are just that, hysterics. Business is business, and the business of business is *profit*. How that is arrived at is again, a matter of context. Its all about managing peoples perceptions and expectations. One example of how NOT to do that is the recent flash fire, explosion in CCP's EVE on line.
Who ever is in charge of such things over there (if they even have someone), should be fired, and replaced with someone who understands that market sector, and can demonstrate some commen sense (and can keep some of the Dev's away from the public, *please*...). I suspect they have spent way too much time listening to their Chinese partners, about the sweet cash shop profits to be had in the eastern markets, and have forgotten that the western markets are still rather different.
I really don't think that this is the first step to F2P for WoW. It actually makes sense for a trial to be unlimited. Why the hell would you want to make your trial limited by time? It's not like you get much more out of the trial. It's the same old restrictions and you either buy the game or you quit. Simple as that.
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That would be ridiculous, they would never do that. handing gear out would be a sure fire way to an end, specially in a game surrounded by the shear fact that the point of the game is to Obtain Gear. the best thing they can do and they already did is make RAF go to lv 80. It will make people buy 2 accounts.
Hold the phone there, Betty. Re-read what I said. One piece a gear a month... Didn't say fill out all 18 gear slots with their first re-sub. It would take them 18 months to get fully geared. It would give the casual gamer a reason to stick around.
Power to the Sheeple
I just think that the buisness suits who run Blizzard are going to pull a suprise this year and reveal a teaser info for their Titan mmo. Everyone knows it is going to be full sub, casual, and very friendly to those familiar with the WoW-mmo genre. They also are aiming for 2013 to launch. That means staggered progression of WoW to F2P. First of all you get the alteration to their trial...then you get vanilla WoW...then Burning Crusade WoW, and finally Cataclysm itself.That will allow many bored veteren hardcore players to just go casual slowly, but not have the burden of a sub and will bring the F2P crowd into the house. The model is one that means the WoW cash cow will continue to be milked, but with F2P we are talking a cash shop and cash buy-in to features/content model. When WoW goes fully at F2P we will nearly be at 2013 and the WoW crowd will head over to titan mmo and pay a full sub for the next genration Blizzard mmo.
Yeah, i am well aware what you said. Handing out gear none the less. that would be stupid.
WoW is slowly heading the UO road, UO was a game the first generation mmo players loved, then some expansions hit, and they got the blame the game going downhill.
same whit WoW, ppl just getting bored of it, a leaving trent is kinda vissible now and ofc expansions get the blame. marketing is just doing carefully what it must to try and snatch a few new players in.
I think Blizzard just got tired of all the 15 day trial accounts that were being created by people every 15 days.
WoW 2004/2005/2006 was amazing
WoW 2011 90% kids who like to talk down to any1 dare asking a question.
asking for help
asking direction in dungeon
asking what to do in a battleground
asking anything = flamed to death, and people wonder why no new players join World of Warcraft
Game has THE most rotten community in the history of all mmo's ever created.
I was there when WoW was born, but i will not be there when wow die, and she shall die slowly consumed by her own hatred for players.
Nah, this site has the most rotten community. Do you see how that works?
The only people I encounter on the official forums are morons that constantly whine about how horrible it is. It's this group of individuals that clog up the pipes, making the game worse for everyone else. Hating for the sake of hating - no thank you.
Eleanor Rigby.
Well this could be the start of F2P look at other games that had this type of set up theres only one thats not F2P now that I know of and thats Warhammer Online but they will be F2P soon or hybrid soon to. Look at Wars first 10 lvl thing in it more people play free there then sub more will be in WoW for the 3 or 4 instances alone then play through all the other content which they still can goto just can't lvl.
To me the hybrid/F2P model has done well for allot of games like Lotro/EQ2x/DDO and even CO has a large increase in players. AoC is even getting filled up by allot of new players trying the game. And there should be no grip about this model its better for most games look at the ones that have taken on a hybrid model they are all doing allot better now anyways. Its time companies take on the change not just because all others are but its needed when theres more F2P on the market then P2P anyways has been for 6 years or more. I have been playing F2P games sense well before WoW so they have been around awhile and even if WoW goes F2P it will be like all other games it will grow from the influx of players both paying and and some not paying as much. I welcome the hybrid model and think make them all this way.
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u know the game got ruined by the forum activity regarding balance / content .
and blizzard employees were dumb enough to take on the "player" suggestions and u got the game patches up,down,up,down regarding fixes, and basically it got to the point where there was no turning back, so they kept it like a guy on a rope with a bar for balance (circus) + the bad content newly added -out of context- to the normal game universe.
50% of the player base is responsable for the negative influence .
and Blizzard cuz they took note of bad suggestions - they did it for the money and comodity of the comunity - without thinking what will do to the game.
Compare Vanila WoW Universe,gameplay,story, to the latest .
the latest dungeons are not even "china" difficulity, they are just arcade, might aswell play them with a gamepad and a mario -gameplay- dexterity .
and u can feel it in the game, they just wont admit it , they went over the line and can't return the game into a proper balance after the 1st expansion .
Why is it stupid now but not during WotLK?
Well whatever Blizzard does with the game I really don't see myself coming back to play. The problem I have is you can run through content too fast. People say Vanilla is the nothing but the past but the content seemed endless because you could not run through all of it once you hit 60.
I think going free to play would be a terrible idea for WoW. It's increasingly becoming such a 'casual' game that I would think tons of people would never feel the need to subscribe again, versus all the people currently subscribed to it right now just to have it around when they feel like playing it for a couple hours.
I would be one of them (although not currently subscribed for other reasons), because that's exactly what happened with LOTRO and EQ2. I never played either hardcore, and now I don't need to give them another penny to play it casually when I feel like it. I can almost guarantee I will pay Blizzard another $15 at some point to come back and play a bit, versus guaranteeing I would never pay them again if any part of the game went free for my level 85s.
Blizz has basicly had a cash shop for quite a while all ready:) Just limited to mounts, true, but they have the basics there.
I see this as nothing more than a way to get more new people to try the game. In todays market with all the F2P games out there, and more going that route all the time, just makes good sense.
Give any new people a better reason to DL wow and take a look rather than dl some of the other F2P games.
I do not see them going the full F2P route like others though. I am more of the belief that they will go something along the lines of SOE and the station access thingy. Join B-net and buy 1 sub to one game or go the all access way to everything.
We will see once we get more info on their new MMO.
All it is , is an advertisment ploy . It gives them a reason to use more adds + with the words FREE
added. Makes people give it a second look ! Maybe.. just maybe some people will try it out. Fact is its still just a trial thats very limited. WoW wont go F2p , not anytime soon anyway. I am a WoW player and love the game , but truth is getting new players just isnt going to happen. We will see the game slowly lose players. WoW has hit its peak and will do nothing but decline in population over time. when its all said and done WoW will stil have a healthy player base for a longtime.
so thhere is no need for a F2p model..
Yep, why should Blizzard go F2P, when they can sell everything and still be P2P?
In fact I believe, if they would offer 5000 stacks (20) of virtual piece of shit (throwable) - of course limited, only 5000, only this week - for 29$, they´d sell them all for sure.
Actually this is a bad example. Because then I would buy many stacks, renew my subscription, join a raid, and throw it at everyone... again and again. *rawr*
I'd agree more with those who feel it's a marketing ploy more than an inching towards F2P.
WoW is losing subs, and the subs it's losing seem to be the longer-term ones, people burning out and just plain getting sick of it. No better way to address it than by trying to lure in those who have never played the game (or those that don't generally play P2P MMOs because they balk at the monthly fee). Having a short term trial (what was it 14 days with a level 10 cap?) doesn't give the ultra casuals much time to check it out. This will give them more time, and maybe lure more people into subbing up.
The only way I can see WoW going F2P anytime in the near future is if (a) subs take a massive nosedive - not all that likely or (b) they're going to be ready with Titan quicker than they thought (not so likely either). I can see them extending it to level 60 - all of Vanilla basically if their subs continue the slow bleed they've seen since Cata. That way new players only have to buy the three expansions and no longer need to pay for the base game.
All the level 20 thing is is an extended trial.
Its nowhere close to free to play.
Tons of other games have these "unlimited trials" and nobody talks about them going free to play because they know its not the same thing. Then you have World of Warcraft where everybody makes some big deal out of nothing simply because its #1.
Jeremiah 8:21 I weep for the hurt of my people; I stand amazed, silent, dumb with grief.
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Ya, I like your thinking here. You hinted at the real problem. With WoW, it's no longer just paying $50 for the game. It's all the expansions as well and that isn't cool. $60 when ever you start instead of over $100 invest is more than fair. Sure, long term subscribers might not think it's fair, but they need to grow the game and with all the F2P gimmicks out there, getting rid of the huge upfront investment to continue playing after the free trial would be huge in growing the business.
Power to the Sheeple