Should World Of Warcraft Go Free To Play?

By Author: Chris Coker
Total Articles: 18
Comment this article

No, I'm not nuts, and I'm certainly not suggesting that Blizzard's seemingly unstoppable massively multiplayer online juggernaut switch from its current lucrative pay to play subscription model, at least not right now.

But in two or three years from now, when the sheen has worn off the kick in the pants that is sure to be World of Watercraft Cataclysm, will it be worth considering the free to play path?

Does World of Warcraft need to go free to play? The quick and simple answer right now is definitely not, at the present time WoW still finds itself in the position of being the single most popular subscription-based massively multiplayer game on the market, with over twelve million folks happily forking over fifteen bucks a months for the pleasure of playing.

Consider the fact that publishers like Turbine have successfully completed the transformation of a pay to play MMO in the form of Dungeons and Dragons Online into a profitable free to play model. And Sony Online Entertainment have launched the family friendly MMO, Free Realms on that same model to incredible success, more recently Crackdown developer ...
... Realtime Worlds launched Grand Theft Auto-alike APB in model very clearly built on the free to play format. But Blizzard doesn't need to do this.

Dungeons and Dragons Online has met with great success since becoming free, so much so that Turbine's other MMO, Lord of the Rings Online will be following suit. However, the very reason Turbine took DDO in that direction is that its subscriber base was shrinking. Similarly, SOE had to launch Free Realms as a free game because of its target audience, APB, if it really wanted to have a chance of making a good dent in the market needed a competitive edge, and what better edge than to get folks to try a GTA-type game for free?

What I'm getting at is that Blizzard has no such constrictions with World of Warcraft. Being the market leader, takes the lead and can dictate their own terms, until such a point when WoW starts hemorrhaging subscribers simply due to old age, or the pull of a competing MMO (likely itself made by Blizzard), there's just no need to change things up.

However, at some point the game will in fact get old. Folks will start to move on to other games, and Blizzard, like any good company, will want to get the most of out its product, it's at this time that the company should seriously consider adopting a free model.

In fact, you might argue that Blizzard has been testing the waters for such a model with its increasing raft of premium purchasables: first we just had pets that had no effect on gameplay whatsoever but were merely aesthetic.

Witnessing the positive reaction to that, Blizzard then introduced items that could be purchased in-game using WoW gold, except these epic mounts could also now be purchased using real world money. Sure, there was some grumbling from long time players who had put in the hours and effort to earn the WoW gold to make an in-game purchase, but by and large the positive response by consumers was staggering, as the newly available items made millions in just a few days.

Will it stop there? You can bet it won't, Blizzard have slowly started building a premium level of purchasable services above their subscription model, it started with standard MMO trappings like character server changes, but since then we've seen pets, mounts, and now even mobile applications.

Right now this new premium layer is content to just sit above the subscription model, however, you can't help but think that over time it will continue to get even more robust, with more special items available for purchase. How long till we see the first item, armor piece, or weapon that has effects on gameplay? Impossible to say, and it might be a long time off, but it's almost inevitable.

I can imagine that a lot of hardcore WoW-heads might turn their noses up at the thought of World of Warcraft going free to play, but the truth is that such a conversion has been proven to be possible, and it's been proven to work (again, look no further than Dungeons and Dragons Online) and such a conversion would no doubt result in a massive explosion of growth for the game, and possibly the MMO market. There are a lot of folks out there who want to play WoW but can't possibly because of the price barrier to entry, but also because of the monthly play costs.

A free to play model is a lot more enticing, and a model might even be adopted where folks pay for game time directly, such as in APB, where gamers pay specific amounts of time, rather than just the entire month.

Don't get all excited though, massive changes like those outlined above would take months, if not years to plan and implement in a game the size and scope of World of Warcraft. It's a hugely popular game for a reason, and folks love the gameplay, a free to play model that's not very carefully implemented would have a good chance of completely wrecking that, and as mentioned earlier, a core base of fans will likely resist such a move at first.

The fact is that any move towards a free to play model would have to be extremely carefully considered, and would have to be seen as gamer-centric. I'm not saying Blizzard should give out free WoW gold or rare items to get players interested, but rather that the new model should adequately reward players who pay for premium items, while also being satisfyingly fun to play for those who don't wish to shell out money on a regular basis, the quickest way to kill a free to play game is by bad word of mouth, especially if the word is that there's no point in playing unless you cough up some cash, as ironic as that sounds.

So what have we learned? World of Warcraft isn't going free to play any time soon, but that's okay, it doesn't need to. However, at some point such a transition seems more than likely, given the precedent set by other games, and Blizzard actually seems to be laying the groundwork for that.

Chris Coker is a freelance writer and avid gamer. He has written on all aspects of the MMO industry, focusing on his latest favorite, Star Trek Online. Check out some of his posts where he dishes out everything from ship interiors to energy credits to good old-fashioned grinding.