WoW Annual Pass Subscribers Get Diablo III for Free

I'm so in.

I mean, just when I thought Blizzard was gonna lose its ground, they come up with stuff like this, It's a genius move, you pay the one year subscription fee, alright... It's quite some money, but if you're into WoW, you probably would anyway, specially now with 4.3 coming up you get to kill Death Wing while you grind up for the new expansion, expansion which, you already know what's it gonna be about, so, either you like it and go ahead with it, or you don't like what you're seeing and just don't, is take it or live it, but in case you are interested on the new expansion, with all the new stuff including the "Pokemon" fights, and if you were already planning on getting Diablo, which I am, you save up huge money, let's face it, I was going to pay 60 euros for Diablo, and each time I buy a 60 day subscription card, I pay 26 euros, I probably would pay 6 months of play during a year, which would cost me effectively, 78 that sums up 138€, which is already 18 euros more than I'd pay for the yearly subscription, plus you get an awesome mount, not excluding that you can play WoW a full year, other than you would paying for the 6 months. It's win win win win for me, and very tempting to a whole lot of people. With Star Wars: The Old Republic coming up, and Guild Wars pressing forward its release, this is a really bold move from blizzard, they're all IN, it's take it or leave it I guess. I like how they don't discriminate between their own games, they really just want you to be in the Blizzard "side" of gaming, as long as you're going blizz, they don't really care what you're playing as long as you're paying for their services and stick to their products, a lot of synergy here.

tied in to 12 month contract,

release utter rubbish

Blizzard : /Trollface

From a business perspective. I think if blizzard made all their games pay for, for half the curernt wow cost, and made the sub for all of the games. That'd be an interesting propasition, possibly more lucrative.

Combined with this idea, that a 1 year sub (loyalty) will be rewarded.

I don't like the idea of loyalty to an aged and run to the ground game however, but i don't mind being loyal to a great development house.

I have that tab open for it.. I just quit in july, I'm really unsure if i want be tied to it for that long, but the bonus's to it make seem like a great deal. I will have to think about this. Looks good though.

Lucky for them!

From what I understood by reading the stipulations, you would have to complete the year before getting the copy of Diablo 3. If so, then I think they are just hoping that people will accept the agreement & then get too impatient to wait a year & buy Diablo 3 anyways. Big Win-Win for Blizzard there. I could easily be wrong though, may have misunderstood.

well, that's one way to keep squeezing money out of people.

Star72, read it again. "You'll be able to download and play Diablo III as soon as it's available and once you complete the one-year term, it's yours to keep, even if you cancel your subscription. Tyrael's Charger will be available with Patch 4.3, and beta access will go live with the beta launch."

As far as pricing goes, if you count DIII's retail price ($60) and the year discount for the sub, its like getting 12 months for wow for 6 months worth pay.

They just need to retire WoW and come out with WoW II that lets users with "Modern" hardware that does not belong in a crypt for Indian Jones to find and be put in a museum.

So Diablo 3 sux that much?! Or WoW sux? Or maybe they both sux.

Yeah the part that I saw stand out was "once you complete the one-year term, it's yours to keep even if you cancel your subscription." So complete your 1 year agreement & THEN you get Diablo 3???

Ok, I get their whole point now. My bad for misunderstanding. Play immediately but don't get to keep the game unless you complete the year. Just a mis-understanding of the wording, sorry about that.

How bad are the WoW subscriber numbers going to be for the third quarter shareholder conference call for them to be doing this promotion?

Stop and think about this. If they thought WoW was in a healthy place, they would not be willing to eat D3 sale profits to prop it up. If you look at this promotion, it's to keep existing sibscribers from leaving, it doesn't even go toward new customers. You have to had a registered WoW accoubt by October 18th, 3 days BEFORE this announcement was made. This seems obvious that the sub losses they have had during the year of releasing new content for Cataclysm has been bad and they want to try their best to not let the slide continue during the year leading up to Mists of Pandaria.

Perhaps Blizzard would be better of trying to salvage WoW by actually IMPROVING the game and offering real content updates instead of promotions like this. They already said 4.3 will be the last raid content for Cataclysm, and the pretty much means there won't be anything in terms of patches until the 5.0 pre expansion patch.

Just sort of sad for people who really liked Warcraft to see what mess they have let the title get in to.

*sigh* Blizzard when will you stop listening to Activihack?

No, you get it at release, but if you cancel the one-year WoW subscription before one year is up then you don't get to keep your access to Diablo 3. This prevents people from signing up for the year pass, then getting Diablo 3, then cancelling their WoW sub. Though I'm not sure how'd they save money if it locks you in for a year...but hey, Blizzard is just watching their backs.

Seriously bro, it isn't that complicated, you're trying to make it like Blizzard is false advertising when they aren't.

Eh they're listening to investors and shareholders, which is what every public company on the planet does. Can't blame them.

I don't see how this is a bad thing really. For those who play WoW religiously, you get a free D3. For those who don't, you're still most likely going to buy D3 like you always have planned to.

And yes, obviously they're trying to boost WoW subscription numbers. But, lets be honest here: WoW is FAR from dying. Even now they have at least 6-8 times more subscribers than any other MMO on the market. Is the glory days of WoW over? Yes, most likely, but it is still a hugely popular game.

I don't understand why those stupid companies listen to investors and shareholders when it should only be the customers who buy their damn products. =/

I dont see how this is a big deal. You aren't forced to pay for a wow sub to get DIII. You can always just pay $60 and get the standalone game. This is for WoW players would play both, or at the very least cancel their sub while they played DIII. This way you keep your wow sub and get DIII free.

So if you dont care about WoW, you shouldn't be posting anything. This deal is for WoW players who want DIII as well.

Because your opinions and desires do not matter in the end if you are going to end up paying for the product/service regardless. This is the real reason why healthcare in America costs way more due to lack of regulation and the fact that you are going to choose to get treated if anything severe happens to you. They know this and therefor charge extreme amounts and the quality of healthcare itself tends to be sub-par for most.

They know that these games are going to rake in extreme amounts, they know even that gamers tend to be extremely weak willed when it comes to resisting buying a big name title. Just look at what happened to the MW2 boycott for the PC, the vast majority that boycotted bought it anyways despite not being able to get a single on of their demands met.

If you truly want video games to get better and the business practices involving them to improve then you have to stop buying them when they fail to meet your expectations or when the company does something shady like sue a indie developer because they were going to use a commonly used word in their game's title.

lost interest in WOW after Cataclysm came out. Just so many changes contantly. If they ever came out witha Vanilla WoW server I would come back again maybe but not for some stupid panda expansion. I will just buy D3 later

So basically you get to play two games for the price of one. Very smart...

It is crap like this that people have been turning to private servers in droves. From both sides many long time retail players looking for something that isn't retarded and noobies who don't want to pony up the cash for something that sucks. There are plenty of Vanilla and TBC servers out there as well WOTLK.

Yeah I already corrected myself, but thanks.

The thing for me is, I sign up for longer contracts for price breaks, not freebies, and there is no price break for committing a year to WoW here.

Getting Diablo 3 for no added cost is a great thing for a lot of people, but I have more than one WoW account so a price break on a year-long contract would be worth more to me. (I already take advantage of the 6-month pay plan, it would have to be better than that.) I mean, if I were hot for Diablo 3 it would be different, but I'm not.

As for the new Xpak - I was against the Panda thing at first, but I've pretty much come around (Multi-boxing 5 Pandas just sounds too cool to me, hehe.) The Monk class looks good, and the WoW devs do classes well.

I haven't read thru all of your comments, but I feel the real reason for this "deal" is the anticipation of the account cancellations due to this games launch. People won't want to pay for WoW while there playing Diablo. They will both be huge time hogs & there wont be a point in trying to play both when one is free after you buy it. They are trying to get that money up front & get you committed to diablo.

wow is dying , and yes diablo 3 is going to help kill it some more cataclysm was a bust firelands more so

Free in a monetary sense. But at what cost to your soul!?

As a member of our first MMO, feel free to try our other one!

my wow subscription is ending december 18th. star wars mmo is being released december 20th. december 19th will be the most awkward day of my life. having to *shudder* go outside of my bedroom.

the next expansion looks like shit anyway. i'll wait to see the reviews on diablo III and buy it by itself.

oh and one more thing... boobs. loool. boobs are awesome.

I don't play wow anymore after 7 long years of playing, so it wouldn't matter to me anyways, but I'd much rather pay the $50 for Diablo 3, rather than pay almost $180 out for WoW, when I don't even know if I'd play it for that much longer when getting into the contract. It's far more fiscally responsible just to pay for D3.