PAX East 2011: Will World of Warcraft ever go free-to-play?
by Fox Van Allen 
Mar 17th 2011 at 9:00AM
To date, World of Warcraft has weathered the competition. Its subscriber numbers have reached an all-time high (now over 12 million), with its latest Cataclysm expansion selling nearly 5 million copies in the first month alone. The game should remain popular and successful for years to come. Still, even Blizzard admits: It can't stay on top forever.
So what happens when the game starts losing a significant amount of its subscriber base? If what happened to Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online and Dungeons and Dragons Online is any clue, World of Warcraft might move to a free-to-play model. Since switching to free-to-play, both of Turbine's games added subscribers and increased revenues.
This past weekend, I sat in on the free-to-play MMO panel held at the PAX East 2011 conference in Boston. Afterward, I caught up with Robert Ferrari, VP of Publishing and Business Development for Sanrio Digital (Hello Kitty Online), to discuss WoW. We discussed the free-to-play industry and whether or not World of Warcraft could eventually find a place in it.
"WoW has to be looking at a free-to-play model currently," Ferrari theorized.
Trouble on the horizon?
To be sure, World of Warcraft is sitting in a terrific spot right now. It has a strong, incredibly loyal user base. WoW is easily Blizzard's most lucrative intellectual property.
That can't last forever, though. In a recent interview with Gamasutra, Blizzard COO Paul Sams said he expects Blizzard's upcoming Titan MMO will eventually eclipse World of Warcraft as the company's top intellectual property. From Gamasutra:
"I see World of Warcraft as having many more years in front of it," Sams forecast. "We have over 12 million subscribers. We're continuing to grow and we feel very good about them. We're going to continue to support that product for many, many years to come."
Certainly, World of Warcraft could remain profitable and supportable in its current form even if Titan starts eating away at its user base, so moving in a free-to-play direction would not be something Blizzard would do lightly. It's a major change that requires an entirely new business model, along with a huge new set of risks.
Understanding the free-to-play model
The most important thing to understand about the free-to-play model is that a game simply can't be free for everyone. Running an MMORPG costs money, and running an MMORPG on the scale of World of Warcraft requires a lot of money. Servers are expensive. Customer service is expensive. Creating new content is expensive. In a free-to-play model, these expenses are covered by whales -- a small portion of the gaming population that willingly pays an exorbitant amount of money for an exorbitant amount of in-game extras.
According to Ferrari, the industry operates according to the 80-20 rule -- that is, 20% of the players provide 80% of the revenue. That is, of course, very different from the way the subscription-based World of Warcraft currently operates.
Perhaps more importantly, the free-to-play model is risky. In response to an audience member's question as to whether or not his game risks not running a profit, Ferrari responded with a very short and matter-of-fact "yes."
How could WoW survive as a free-to-play game?
First and foremost, a change to a free-to-play model is a gamble. Blizzard would be betting that in giving people an option to play without a monthly fee, it would be able to drastically expand its player base.
Before you write that off as an impossibility, consider this: A change to free-to-play would be essentially opening World of Warcraft up to far more markets overseas. Ben Colayco, CEO of free-to-play publisher Kill3r Combo Interactive, explains that free-to-play MMOs are especially popular with younger players in places like South America and Asia, where paying $50 for software (not to mention a $15 monthly fee) is simply untenable.
"People in these places, they say, '$50 is more than my parents' salary,'" Colayco relates.
The business model bets that while these new players won't be able to afford a $15 monthly subscription fee, they'll still be enticed into spending some money. Players of Nexon's popular MMORPG Maple Story regularly spend smaller amounts of real-world money on in-game outfits, increased levels of experience gain, and even changes to in-game mechanics. Three dollars, for example, buys you the ability to remove the soulbound restriction on an item, allowing you to make a one-time trade.
Spending money for items in game rather than spending money on the game itself is known as the microtransaction model. It's the free-to-play MMORPG industry standard.
Yes. Players in World of Warcraft can already exchange real-world money for in-game pets and mounts. And of course, players can spend money on name changes, faction changes, and server changes. These microtransactions already account for a good chunk of Blizzard's revenue. And given the success of the $25 Celestial Steed mount last year, Blizzard is likely to revisit microtransactions in the future. It would be foolish not to.
If World of Warcraft goes free to play, however, Blizzard would need to include even more opportunities for players to voluntarily open their wallets. This could mean it would start including more and different types of vanity items: more pets and mounts, roleplaying outfits, in-game effects, and a buffed rate of XP gain. Maple Story even conducts something akin to an in-game item lottery. The possibilities for microtransactions are almost literally endless.
Think it can't work? You may be right, but consider this: The going price for the Reins of the Swift Spectral Tiger loot card is somewhere between $600 and $1,000; the Mottled Drake regularly sells on eBay for $200. These two cards (albeit rare) are proof that the market is not yet saturated. Blizzard's whales exist, but it's other people who are profiting off of them.
Would WoW's gameplay be restricted for free players?
Another standard mechanic that free-to-play MMOs use is "restricted content" -- giving the free-to-play customer one experience, while giving paying players another. To a limited extent, World of Warcraft already does this; players enjoying WoW's free trial cannot surpass level 20, send in-game mail, or utilize the in-game auction house or engage in trades.
Is that the direction a free-to-play World of Warcraft would go? Opinions at the free-to-play panel were mixed.
Colayco stands philosophically opposed to restricting content. "Good free-to-play games don't put up a velvet rope," he says. "They let you play everything. They only put up a pay barrier for getting items in game."
Ferrari, meanwhile, believes that World of Warcraft would instead move to a hybrid model -- one that includes both microtransactions and the proverbial velvet rope, where you'd pay X amount to get a given level of content.
Would quality suffer?
Without a question, the biggest challenge for World of Warcraft in transitioning to free-to-play would be convincing the players that the switch wouldn't negatively impact quality. "People think there's no quality in 'free,'" says Ferrari.
One of the best parts about World of Warcraft is the level of polish that you get with the game. Sure, bleeding-edge raiding content is released in a partially untested form, but that's out of necessity. There's high competition for world-first kills, and Blizzard obliges the competitive desires of players by keeping its most advanced content "secret" until it goes live.
That can be frustrating for those advanced players, especially given that Blizzard frequently hotfixes content as these top raiders play. But think about that for a second -- we're playing a game in constant flux. The game designers are constantly working to see what's wrong and make things better. They don't fix everything right away, of course, but few developers get things right as often as Blizzard does.
Moving to a free-to-play model doesn't mean Blizzard won't have to devote the same level of resources to World of Warcraft. Quite the opposite, according to Colayco: "It's hard running a free-to-play model. We have to work harder to keep players interested, to keep them interested in purchasing items." Ferrari chimes in that his company is creating new content and pushing it live on a weekly basis. Competition for the player's attention (and pocketbook) is huge.
That leads to a question, though: How much of those resources will be going into updating and improving the gameplay experience, and how much will go into marketing the in-game items that foot the bill?
The bottom line
All of this is speculation, of course. There's no concrete proof that Blizzard is currently considering a free-to-play model for WoW. And if Blizzard does decide to move to a free-to-play model, there's no reason to believe that World of Warcraft will look anything the way it does now. Blizzard could simply choose to create a whole new game for its franchise and try to migrate its World of Warcraft subscriber base over.
One thing is for sure, though: World of Warcraft's success has massive implications for both the subscriber-based and free-to-play markets. According to Colayco, "the free-to-play market is viable only because Blizzard -- and a few others -- have saturated the (subscription-based) market."
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has destroyed Azeroth as we know it; nothing is the same! In WoW Insider's Guide to Cataclysm, you can find out everything you need to know about WoW's third expansion, from leveling up a new goblin or worgen to breaking news and strategies on endgame play.
Filed under: News items, Rumors
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Drakkenfyre Mar 17th 2011 9:08AM
Hopefully, no.
All the people who go "I want it free to play!" don't understand how that changes games.
They make money, reguardless. Instead, they will just charge you for items in the game.
99.9% of "free" MMO's have microtransactions. And those usually are game-changing. You can't advance without buying items. Sometimes spending thousands and thousands of dollars (Allods Online has ridiculous amounts of microtransactions and fees, they actually charged you money to clear their version of res sickness if you didn't want to wait hours and hours. Another MMO had you "renting" equipment, and if you got all options (to actually be competitive in game) you were spending over $1000 a month, and people were doing it.)
You want Epics to cost you? You want instances to be paid-for? You want consumables to actually cost money? Items made in professions now sold only in online shops?
While Blizzard would never go down the road some of those games have, they would definitely start charging for other items.
gamerunknown Mar 17th 2011 9:30AM
Not to mention the ease of creating a free to play account will drastically alter the community. In Flyff for example the gold selling spam made it impossible to actually see other player's comments in the starting area. Trolls and scammers in RuneScape could simply continually make new accounts using a proxy. While there are unsavory characters at level 85 in WoW, you know that they've had to pay $100 or so to get to the level they're at and likely wouldn't want to repeat that process. That said, I think it's reasonable to let players in countries have a lowered subscription fee based on the average wage in that country (I think that's what is currently in operation in China at the moment anyway).
Coren Mar 17th 2011 9:38AM
Did you even read the article or is this just a hidden "first!" Post?
Your post is a bad rehash of some parts of this article. Downvoted for several reasons.
Anathemys Mar 17th 2011 9:39AM
The problem is, once Blizzard thinks WoW is ready to become a free-to-play game, there's no stopping them. I would'nt even mind epics costing money, personally, because I don't raid all that much. I mainly do smaller type stuff, so as long as that remains free and viable, I'll be happy.
Plus, even if WoW did go free-to-play, I'm not sure how many microtransactions they'd have to implement "right away." I mean, the WoW fanbase is very loyal and well-looked after. I'd be willing to bet that large numbers of current subscribers would sign up for the pay subscription (if it was reasonably priced), just to make sure the game keeps functioning how they like it to. For instance, if Blizzard made WoW free-to-play, and added a VP Subscriber fee of fifteen dollars or less, I'd think that a whole lot of current subscribers would sign up (including myself). Personally, I think that Blizzard has done a magnificent job with WoW, and if I could afford it, I'd pay.
Blizzard's been investing in the best trust fund for years: Loyal Fanbase. People with a history of caring about their customers and making their fans happy are not going to find a shortage of either very quickly.
Noyou Mar 17th 2011 10:09AM
Free to play = Free to quit- for me. I'd probably sit around staring at my PC screen for days not knowing what to do with all my time :p
Bynde Mar 17th 2011 10:20AM
FTP would make me look for a new subscription based game.
DarkWalker Mar 17th 2011 11:06AM
Not all free to play are equal. While I don't like the revenue model of most Asian F2P MMOs, I really liked LotRO's model - to the point I'm currently subscribing it. The game as a whole has also become quite better since becoming F2P, at least in my opinion.
Drakkenfyre Mar 17th 2011 11:11AM
Coren, it's a response to the people who go "I want it to be free!"
Because too often, those people don't see long term, and think only that not having to pay is great. They don't understand that the developer will still make their money. You just will have to buy things. Those people will read the article, and not get it, and still go "I want it to be free!"
And I don't do first posts, ever.
Twilit Soul Mar 17th 2011 11:13AM
Yeah, I feel very unhappy contemplating the potential changes this would bring. I personally hope Blizzard never has to go free-to-play, and certainly never chooses to.
Coren Mar 17th 2011 11:41AM
Drakkenfyre, if people take that from the article they have to read between the lines a lot. The article is pretty neutral.
And I pretty much read all commemts and your name rings a bell. Generally i believe i don't agree with you, but I respect your clear opinions. This post was uneccesary imho since you give reasons why not to go ftp which are discussed upon in the article.
Anyway, I'm on the fence for ftp. I like free, I don't like unpredictable payments.
Drakkenfyre Mar 17th 2011 12:02PM
My comment comes from the people I have seen who clammor for free MMO's, and even being told what that would cause, still want it.
It was not a direct response to the article.
Fa110u7 Mar 17th 2011 1:26PM
What about Vindictus and its FTP model? I signed up for that and while the gold seller spam was ridiculous the game was very good. I did eventually get bored after leveling all three toons to around 30 but it was still a great game. From what I could tell the micro-transactions were not required to make the game playable at any level, it was mostly cosmetic. $0 down and $0 monthly worked out very well for them, unfortunately there wasn't a lot of depth to the game compared to WoW.
tornax Mar 18th 2011 11:40AM
I agree, F2P based only on microtransactions is kinda rat race (or money race), I had this conversation with my friend many times, he's kinda MMO maniac who like test every possible MMO out there. He told me some time ago that Lord of The Rings Online went F2P and they kept monthly subscriptions. Subscribers have normal access to almost everything (big bags, normal XP gain rate etc) still not the things like race / faction change and, as far as I understand, other players are allowed to pay selectively for those XP gains, bags, whatever they prefer so they have selective access to subscriber account features.
ubergrendle Mar 17th 2011 9:13AM
WoW still has several years of 'top dog' status, but i think we've seen the peak of WoW in the past 1-2 years... probably around early ICC. Cataclysm launched with huge sales for the expansion and a ton of people returning, but warcraftrealms tells the real story -- average player online time has dropped precipitously the past 3 months and is now lower than the dead time mid-summer 2010 (when ICC was 6+ months old, and there was no new content to be seen). Cataclysm has become stale very quickly for a blizzard product and while the quality is there i just think the wow paradigm is becoming a bit tired.
With guild wars 2, SW:TOR, Rift, Tera, and Diablo 3 all slated for different times this year, i just can't see the majority of the wow audience remaining subscribed for the next 21 months until the next expansion.
Blizzard will have two choices at some point -- try to maintain active player numbers, by offering a 'free to play' option, or consolidate some realms. If the trend continues (and that's a BIG if) they're probably 12-18 mos before they'd want to pull the trigger on this. F2P might even be a selling feature for the next expansion -- it certainly will require alot of development effort.
CrimsonKing Mar 17th 2011 9:42AM
I wouldn't base your claims solely off of warcraftrealms to get an accurate view of how many people are playing and when. I don't argue the fact that yes there are people, probably a lot who have gotten bored and left for other games. You have to take into account though that some people using the warcraftrealms mods might stop using those particular mods but continue to actually play the game. Also I'm sure that there are new players coming into the game who have never heard of warcraftrealms, and if they have or do might not even bother with it.
Now I could see Blizzard merging some of the pvp realms that seem to be consistently in the low pop status if they ever find themselves needing to cut down on costs.
AmIEvil Mar 17th 2011 9:54AM
Actually, I think the Expansion is killing WoW. I have played since Vanilla, and got BORED with the game and took a 10 month leave. The thing about Vanilla was that if FELT like grinding. And, as much as I can think back to +12 Frost resist on an item, let's be honest, the game boomed under TBC. It opened up more of the game from Hardcore to Casual (not once a week, but an hour or two at most a day). Then WotLK comes along, and there were PLENTY of people who never saw the inside of Naxx raiding it! Opened it up for the masses. Then, we had the Heroics (which were a step up from Normal, but not much more) and all of a sudden, you had time to play ALTS as well as your main. ToC brought EPICS to all. The badge system simplified and showing return, meant you could Gear up an Alt in 232-245 gear in a reasonable amount of time played, not all your time for minimal return. Then, you can start joining ICC raids as you could get yourself geared for it. Look, ICC was no cakewalk, and as the 30% buff eventually made it forgiving, it was still not a guaranteed success at all. Just look at your trade channels, see alot of Raid PuG's anymore? Also, when it takes sometimes an hour to do a regular random dungeon because of the group makeup? And, don't forget your 20+ minute queue for DPS. Alot of us have time for a SINGLE dungeon run. What happened to the 15-20 minute heroic dungeon time Blizzard was aiming for WotLK? The participation of our Level 17 Guild is pathetic the past 6-8 weeks. And, after talking with others, it is mirroring their log times as well. It seems that Blizz may have shot too far up on the curve. We like mechanics, we do not want to just AoE everything in a Heroic dungeon, but trash is taking too long. Forget the fact I have only been able to complete 2 (are you serious Blizz) Random Cata Heroic PuG's. The game itself is chasing people away. If I can't go wit a Guild / friend run, I am not bothering anymore. And to be honest, I can't find 5 role fillers on anymore to do this from 7-9pm EST. I really Hope Blizz is watching the log times of it's mass of players (which are the casual, we do outnumber the HC raiders). I fell this is the crossroad of the game. 80-85 leveling wasn't as long as expected. But just gearing up to enter Raid's, run Heroics with PuG's with 80-90% success, is FAR off. Don't hand me everything, but allow me to run dungeons enough and get reward from them to move up, instead of, my eyes bleed because someone stood in the poo, and we only have 1 CC in the group.
The Dewd Mar 17th 2011 10:34AM
AmIEvil pretty much nailed it. While there are high-end raiders and never-stand-in-the-poo types who finished all the heroic achievements (Glory of the Cata Hero or whatever it's called) very quickly after hitting 85 that first week in December, there are many of us who are still struggling. I have yet to see the 30-45 minute heroic no matter what toon I'm on. My main is a feral/feral druid so I have no useful CC outside of Grim Batol or Beauty's pups - and I have to drop out of cat form to use it. Throw me into a group with a DPS warrior and we have to rely on the 3rd dps to do all the CCing. It seems like the only way to zoom through a heroic these days is when you no longer need to do so.
I'm running out of pre-raid upgrades so I mostly help out my guildmates by healing on my Paladin to gear her up for ZG/ZA. There's no point in working on my druid right now because I'll use 4.1 to step up from 346 blues to 353 epics. My guild isn't raid-ready so I'm not going to kill all my time working on buying T11 gear with points.
Scott.robinson209 Mar 17th 2011 12:19PM
Like it was said Warcraft realms may not be the absolute in obtaining info, it is still a good snapshot of what is going on.
I have to agree with the OP though. Wow has always been "my" game of choice but while I still play I am longing for and looking for a new game to play. The expansion has brought on what I would consider a new game per say.
I have been playing since release as a holy priest and leveling him was my first priority in cata. After running dailies and some dungeons I stopped. Many reasons influenced that decision but for me it does not "feel" like wow in a sense.
I lvled a dps character and 1-80 although revamped, still feels like wow. Once I got past 80, the feel, not just of the game but the mechanics of it all have drastically changed and I my opinion not for the good.
Bottom line is I can honestly say this is not the game I have loved playing for the past several years.
DarkWalker Mar 17th 2011 1:07PM
Cataclysm completely drove me out of the game.
About all my dungeon running was done in 30-minutes gaming windows spread around my crazy schedule, running in LFD-assembled random heroics.
With WotLK, it was not only workable, I would end up putting over 10 weekly hours of heroic tanking per week.
With Cataclysm, even with instant queues as a tank, there is no way to finish a heroic PUG in half an hour.
Besides, I don't find tanking heroic PUGs any fun anymore; it's too much frustration for too long. Wereas I could go through 2 or 3 hours of WotLK random heroics and feel like I was having fun, after 30 minutes of wiping in a Cataclysm's heroic PUGs I'm almost to the point I want to throw my computer our of a window.
It's not my only gripe with Cataclysm, but unless Heroics drop down to 30 minutes or less with at least a 95% success rate (or Blizzard implements some other way to gear for Raids with similar efficiency that can be done in 30 minutes chunks) I will not even consider returning, no matter how good the rest of the game turns out to be.
Since Cataclysm WoW was such a fun killer for me I went back to LotRO, bought a couple GW expansions, DCUO with a lifetime sub, and I'm considering pre-ordering GW2 and SW:TOR; 6 months ago, I was playing just WoW, and having fun with it.
As for if WoW might go F2P, AFAIK it was first intended to be a F2P game, and given Blizzard's history, I think they are constantly evaluating if the F2P model might bring better revenues. As soon as their analysis point to a high enough increase in revenue to make up for the risk and cost of a change in model, I believe Blizzard will do it.
Skarn Mar 17th 2011 2:49PM
@AmlEvil,
A lot of what you are seeing is simply because it's a new expansion and a gear reset. At the end of Wrath, dungeon runs were a blazing 10-15 minutes (or less) primarily because gear levels had gotten so high. Even without any raiding at all, players had very high level epic gear from badges. This gear vastly overpowered dungeons meant for blue 5-man dungeon gear. Very similar in fact to running the dungeons with 5-10 extra character levels. Going from this overpowered state to an even-con state was a huge shock for many people. Even if the Cata dungeons had the exact same level of difficulty as the Wrath ones at launch, this still would have been a big shock. As big? Probably not, but it'd still be noticeable.
Why didn't we see a similar shock between Vanilla/BC and BC/Wrath? Two reasons: Badges and Dungeon Finder. The badge system in Wrath, as mentioned, offered very high level gear to just about anyone. This was a new feature of Wrath, something not present in Vanilla or BC. It's true that the badge system started in BC, but it wasn't as extensive. Even though some Sunwell gear was available from badges, it was only 2-3 pieces. In Wrath, anyone could get full tier sets! Non-raiding players in BC just weren't as geared out as non-raiders in Wrath, so they didn't get as big a gear reset. On top of that, Wrath dungeons were a bit easier than BC dungeons, so the "power-shift" would have been fairly mild. Another factor would have been the longer leveling process. A longer leveling time in Cataclysm would've helped that "super-powered" factor wear off a bit more.
Even bigger than the gear shift is the impact of the Dungeon Finder. Quite simply, it's convenience made running dungeons easy. Never before had getting a dungeon group been so effortless. It also fostered a lack of investment. Since there was no effort involved in getting the group, the group didn't matter. Previous to Dungeon Finder, the others in your group were people. Now they often feel like little more than NPCs. People forgot that groups used to mean something. They forgot the time and effort it took to get a good group and now assume that it's their right to have that automatically. Dungeon Finder has some really great benefits, but it's also fostered some really negative stuff too.
Overpowered gear combined with the ease and non-involved nature of the Dungeon Finder has, in my opinion, fostered the current state of Cataclysm. Have harder dungeons contributed? Yes. Are they the source of the problem? No. The age of the game is also a factor. I've seen several people saying they're bored of the game now and I think a lot of that just has to do with the game getting old. Even as much as Blizzard tries to keep it fresh and new, Cataclysm has the same model that WoW has always had. Run dungeons, get gear, run raids.
As a side note, the notion that the game is grindy NOW surprises and baffles me. The game has always been grindy. Wasn't chain-running Heroic dungeons in Wrath for your alt "grindy?" Why is Cataclysm "grindier" than Wrath? We ran dungeons for rep in Wrath. Did the same dailies every day out at the Argent Tournament. Ran the Heroic every day for more badges. But Cataclysm is grindy? Huh? I just don't get it.