WoW May go Free-To-Play; Diablo II Turns 10

would still cost too much to talk me into playing.

Hmmm free to play...Just the reason I would see If I liked it...I never supported buying a game and then playing to play.

which is why I never played WoW.Then again I tried the free trials and didnt like it.So I doubt I will play it.

Its a waste of time, money and especially its a waste of hard drive space.

God help me, I will never play an MMO ever again.

same here. i did the 10 day free trial. the game was a blast on day 1. by day 3 it was repetitive and boring.

I still play Diablo II from time to time. It's changed quite a bit though with all of the (baal+spam)bots...Anyway happy anniversary and here's to hoping Diablo III will entertain me 10 years down the road also. Cheers.

I fail to understand why a bunch of people who, by their own admission, do not like the product, feel compelled to comment upon a change in the subscription schema. That would be like me (decidedly NOT an Apple fan) commenting on a proposed change to iTunes or the app store... I'm not going to do it.

As for the suggestion that they may go to a free-to-play model? I really don't see it in the foreseeable future. Ultima Online an Everquest were the hot games of their day; they are definitely way past their prime, and they still charge for subscriptions. WoW has far more content, and a far greater subscription base than both of those games put together in their prime. Anyway, that's my take on it.

Cause they need online attention?

So instead of he who has the most free time winning, it will become he who has the most free time and/or most free cash to waste will win. Sounds like a great recipe for attracting casual gamers!

wow is too complicated lol

Just because, we can.

He's really just stating the obvious. eventually something may beat WoW and then this may be a way for them to up subscribers and make money through microtransactions. I do play WoW and enjoy it alot when i play (1-2ish hours a week) but he's talking many years down the rad when they actually need the user boost and when a number cruncher somewhere decides activision would make more money selling gold themselves and items than charging 15 bucks a month for subscripion per person the change will happen.

its a buisness and they'll make money how they can but hopefully blizzard being who they are will keep bringing good content and it'll stay a fun relevant game like diablo for years to come even after its no longer the hot ticket game it is today

Windows 9 will be out before WoW is free. For them to want to go free, they will probably have to die down to under 500k subscribers, which will take a while, even if they introduce a new MMO. And even at 500k or even 100k subscribers all they need to do is combine the severs to maintain the same population densities for player interaction. Drop the price to 10 or even 5 a month, and you have a good income source from an old IP.

Not if they do it right. I agree that you should not be able to buy game-changing items (like higher levels, better weapons, etc..), but you'd be amazed at the money people spend on things like clothing, pets, visual effects, etc...

Maybe Blizzard should charge you to watch your female Night Elf dance, but at the same time they shouldn't let you buy a weapon or armor with better stats. Though with something like 11-million paid subscribers at its peak, I'm not really sure Blizzard wants to change their model. They'll never compete with the influx of free games from Korea anyway.

They've probably made billions on WoW already so allowing people to play the 5-year old game for free wouldn't exactly be charity.

Ok so to address a few concerns:

@Jellico: You pretty much nailed it. I don't understand how people who don't play MMO's, or MMO's with subscriptions, or people who have never even played WoW, could even comment on this article. Please don't comment if you have no basis for your opinion.

@everyone else, during Activision-Blizzard's quaterly financials call, it was revealed that 98% of Blizzard's income is from WoW. If WoW were to move to a free to play model, a few things would have to happen first:

1. New MMO to cater to new players and to bring WoW players over as well. Blizzard is working on a next gen MMO to do just this.

2. WoW would then subsequently have to drop to a VERY low subscriber base, something on par with D&D online or LotR online.

While blizzard does have about $3 billion in cash with zero debt, they still are a for-profit company and wouldn't just throw money away by making WoW a free-to-play without very good reason.

Could see me getting into wow again if this happens. This year im lucky to get 3 hours a week gaming with studying and family issues and since 2months of wow costs the same as a new game it wasn't really worth it. At university i've went onto runescape just to kill an hour between some lectures (not enough time to get a coffee or go to the library then get back. Since its free its perfect!

I may play again then, 1 hour a day. It'll get boring solo but at least it's not $15/mo.

Wow is a good game, but to be honest i worry about them now. They have repeatedly missed their ETA of Diablo 3, and yes i still play D2 now and then. Come on guys, instead of offering some new Wow game for free start making bux and get D3 out the door already!! Enough is enough waiting already!!

Fear Star Wars : The old republic, Blizzard, Fear it. For it is made by the almighty BioWare. LORDS of RPG's and soon lords of MMO's!

As per WoW and other games:

You would have to drastically change the desire for players to play the game to work with "Free to play". The free is a lure and the microtransactions and or Premium Subscription is where they get their money from.

The trick is having a decent Free experience and making the pay one far far better and worth people throwing money at regularly.

You have to understand that there is no such thing as "Free to play" unless you want to look like a total newb level 1 Pirate in starter gear. You gotta buy those Platinum Dubloon Space credits to unlock Captian Awesome mission mode.

Alot of new ftp games are coming out. I think this will be the trend if mmo's are to survive. Game companies can get more money this way too. And maybe they can hang on to those players leaving because of their accounts being hacked. I can't believe thats still going on over there. I haven't played the game in 2 years and my account was hacked into. The game hasn't even been on my pc for 2 years.

I already play WoW for free.... private servers are pretty mature, still some bugs and some stuff does not work but 99% is perfect. Most private servers are funded by microtransactions and the private servers allow game changing stuff per pay (things like extra skills and items) but its not too bad it doesn't totally destroy the game. (unless your a PvP addict then you would find yourself spending money for the advantage.)

If Blizz went the same way they would do fine, they would make lots of money and maybe then the gold spam would finally die... (Thats a +1 for the private servers, I have never seen any sort of gold selling spam.)

They will change it to free when the micro-transaction model makes more profit (not revenue) then the subscription model. The end.

Lotro will take 1-2 million WoW players overnight when it goes free to play. Mark my words.

Blizzard knows this too, that's why they are talking about it now. We are finally looking at the end of WoW's MMO domination, but it will still be a year or two before it is really noticable.

I've played/loved/hated WoW in cycles, and I have to admit it's still the best MMORPG on the market.

Brand new games rarely come along that are worth their price, MMOs fill in the waiting times for such titles. Think about it.. 4 months to play a game that may not be the best ever but is still fun and social--and well maintained--costs the same as a new console title that may or may not live up to its hype. Everyone talks about such a fee like it's some kind of violation of the wallet but not everyone gets their rocks off playing halo and COD.

I wouldn't ever claim that MMOs are the best games around but they fill the time between the 2-3 new titles I'd like to play each year very well. I used to also believe that paying to play a game I bought is ridiculous, but it seems like great titles are so few and far between these last few years. If quality games came out more often, or if gamefly's service were more on par with netflix's, I'd take my $180/year elsewhere.

Why give anything away when you have people truly addicted to it?

IOW (and IMHO it translates): "We, The OWNERS of Blizzard and Infinity Ward, and other game houses we expect to make us a minimum of $100 million, feel we are about to get our butts handed to us. Rather than killing it and alienating millions of players, we think we can milk the players another way, by borrowing a model that makes $$$ by selling in game pseudo-currency to buy special power-ups and armors. We're also afraid that after we get our butts handed to us, our previous practice of "gimping" and "nerfing" various classes will come back and bite us too, as our loyal subscribers will flock to the competition's new title that we couldn't control and milk for our own profits. Sincerely, Activision."

To everyone that says it's boring by day 2/3 etc. Yes the game can get repetitive. It's end game stuff thats awesome.

This is non-news with a misleading headline. The interviewer mentioned how MMO's are using the free to play model and then asked if
WOW would ever consider it. Chilton basically said 'no - not untill the game is dead, then maybe'