Tom Chilton says Blizzard is considering a F2P model for WoW

[Arnock]

Stumbled across this article today.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/23/465024 ... the-casual

"For Blizzard it makes sense [to go free-to-play] at some point. But a lot of the risk is in making that transition. You her stories about developers going free-to-play and getting double the number of players, but you don't always know it works out that way and how long it stays that way. We really don't know what the rate is before people drop off and lose interest."

[Flex]

earlier quote from Now Gamer

I definitely think that free-to-play MMOs will be around for a very long time. At some point it's possible that World of Warcraft could end up being free-to-play, but I do think there's always room for there to be subscription games.

I've thought from the beginning that Titan would be F2P from the ground up, that's probably what the recent core redesign is about, them reaching the same point.

[Worldie]

The thing is, going for F2P would surely bring a lot of new players (and possibly several old players back as well).
But it will also lower the quality of the average players (remember "lower level/rankings" of F2P games are plagued by trolls and kids).

It would also mean WoW would lose the Subscription income, so should have to gain that income (which is quite sustantial) from another source. Probably we'd start seeing stuff like Exp / Honor / VP / CP gain bonuses on the store for example.

[Lieris]

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F2P business model and new expansion to be revealed at Blizzcon?

[Nikachelle]

The thing is, going for F2P would surely bring a lot of new players (and possibly several old players back as well).

I doubt the old players bit. Most people don't quit because of the cost. One of the biggest deterrents is the cost when you're first starting, but you quickly forget about it after you're already deeply involved. And it's not like the subscription costs have ever gone up (at least, not that I can recall).

I do agree that F2P will bring a whole new player base. And probably one you don't want since everyone's 8 year old children will be signing up.

[Fetzie]

Yeah, you think LFG/R chat is obnoxious now, imagine what it'll be like with the LoL crowd signing up.

[Shamora]

I am willin to bet that Blizz has always been considering a F2P model cause it would be foolish not to at least consider all their options. However I don't think this means that WoW is goin F2P anytime soon. I don't believe that WoW is anywhere near low enough numbers that lossin subscriber money for F2P cash from a portion of a potentially increased player base is gonna be profitable enough for Blizz to suffer through the switch.

[fuzzygeek]

Pertinent: "at some point."

[Newsom]

"it's possible" != "it will eventually happen"

[Worldie]

I doubt the old players bit. Most people don't quit because of the cost. One of the biggest deterrents is the cost when you're first starting, but you quickly forget about it after you're already deeply involved. And it's not like the subscription costs have ever gone up (at least, not that I can recall).

What I meant with that was, that I think several old players who quit out of boredom would (at least, I would) consider coming back in super-casual manner, as once the game is free you really don't lose anything by playing once in a while.

[fuzzygeek]

They really need to get the desktop chat client running. We have people that quit some time ago that would hang out in chat, which would almost certainly lead to hanging out in game. It's the ties that bind.

[Worldie]

It used to work well (I have a friend who had the beta test, and he could chat just fine from it, even though he coulnd't tell me what he was chatting with due to NDA at time).

Not sure why they removed it.

[Fetzie]

It was disabled due to a bug they needed to fix and they never got round to implementing it again.

[kenshin648]

They should go with a model similar to guild wars, where you pay for the base game and the expansions.

If they do something like that, it would be reason enough for me to start playing again.

[Worldie]

Remember that taking off the subscription is going to take off 7kk+13€ per month = 91 million euros per month of income.

That's not a small amount, and it has to come from something else. Losing 91 millions per month would mean having to dramatically reduce the people that work on WoW.