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World of Warcraft going the way of Diablo 3
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Hmm .. blizz is exploring it now.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/9377319765?page=9#177
And i quote "We are currently exploring the possibility of adding a way for players in certain regions to make purchases directly within the game. As part of this process, elements related to this will be appearing on the PTR. We’ll provide additional updates on our plans as development progresses."
5 years the very least? If Blizz is exploring now .. it may happen sooner.
I am not asking anybody to believe. Blizzard won't tie up their resources and monies and let that game go down to the sub level of UO or DAoC. They pulled the plug on Diablo 2 for 10 years when they didn't even have other viable products. Now, they have many huge money makers and WoW sits at the end of the list in term of their financial statement.
According to
http://www.1up.com/news/world-warcraft-cost-blizzard-200m
as of 2008, it cost Blizzard a total of $200M in TOTAL upkeep over the course of 4 years. That means it cost Blizzard $50M a year to keep WoW running. This includes servers, customer service and so on.
Now, 50M a year translates to it costing $4,166,666 a month. In order to get that kind of revenue, WoW would need only 277,778 players in order for them to break slightly above even.
How dare you use facts on these forums....
Again, how does the possibility of XP gain potions for Asian players even remotely suggest WoW going F2P anytime soon? Stop dodging the question....At the very most (IE...goes from simply testing the tech on the PTR, to getting approved...to getting announced, to getting implemented), they are adding some items to theoreticle Asian cash shop.....stop connecting dots that arnt there....
I usually report people for doing that. Pretty sure it's against the TOS.
Baaammmmmmmmmmmmm, right in the kisser !!
This didn't come from an official Blizzard site. It didn't even come from the site you put on the link. That site simply said "according to some person" I don't know. And it didn't list other expenses such as marketing and advertisement.
So his source is to be completely ignored in favor of your complete thin air fabrication? Got it...
It suggests they are expanding the use of cash shop. Expanding the use of cash shop is one essentially ingredient to move to F2P.
Are you denying they are exploring the F2P option?
I am denying that the 1 datamined item indicates F2P anytime in the next few years...yes....you disagree?
That's so silly to think Blizzard would actually shut down WoW when it still has over 5 million subs. Little different from shutting down Diablo 2 servers, that game wasn't exactly still bringing in the money. Blizz makes a killing just selling new mounts for WoW. You really think they would say "sorry 5 million people giving us $15 a month we can't afford the game anymore so we're closing it".
And if you really think WoW costs anywhere near $75,000,000 a month to run you are beyond crazy.
Thin air? What thin air? Didn't I tell you what Blizzard did to Diablo 2 and Titan? Again, you don't have to believe it but writing a post to just disagree other's post without reasoning is called trolling and I believe it is against the policy of these forums.
I am pretty sure there is something in the TOS that cautions against completely making things up. D2 isnt an MMO...and titan is getting redesigned...not "postponed for enhancement"...please, stop making things up, its really not helping the discussion.
http://kotaku.com/5050300/how-much-has-wow-cost-blizzard-since-2004 stemmed from there.
Blizzard isn't going to disclose that on their site, however I've checked nearly half a dozen different websites and they are all repeating the same numbers. Also, it did list expenses. It stated that the $200M was ALL costs directly related to WoW over the course of 4 years, including everything from server upkeep to level designers to marketing and advertisement (not that there realistically was much advertisement)
All sources are repeating the same 200m figure. If you are able to find something different, by all means.
Way to report a news and forgetting to most important part of it which is : "We are currently exploring the possibility of adding a way for players in certain regions to make purchases directly within the game." Pretty sure this will only be for Asian market only.
to be fair, Diablo 2 was a 1 time purchase which, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_PC_video_games only sold 4M copies over time. Even putting it at $60 purchase (it was $40 back in those days), that only amounts to $240,000,000. WoW EASILY pulls in more than that in 3 months even with the lower sub count. You can't readily compare the two
This is the internet. You just need to upload 1 piece of information, whether it is a file, a picture, a vid or whatever. It can go viral and be found in a thousand sites easily. Apparently they all came from this person nobody even know of.
Just use common sense on a company to company or game to game analysis. If it only took 277k players for WoW to break even it would take SWTOR far less to maintain. Why did EA turn it f2p citing drop in sharp drop in profits when they last report their sub at 1.3 million?
IP and development costs, for starters...And you know, you prob shouldnt tell ppl to use common sense, then go ahead and compare a game running with an IP owned by blizz...to one that has to pay IP fees as high as Star Wars...
And for the record, if WoW got as low as SWTOR did, it would prob go F2P by that time as well...none of that lends credit to your point of WoW shutting down/F2P with 5 mil subs though...
You also need to take the time, market environment and the company's status into consideration. At the time when D2 was paused $240 million was a lot and Blizzard didn't have anything else to raise money. If you look at D3 today, it can outgrow WoW with many ways to monetize it, such as RMAH, cash shop and whatever some creative people can think of.
Yes, IP costs some money but said even with 500k sub they would make a profit. So regardless of the how much IP costs they turned f2p when they still have the money of 800k sub to fill their wallet.
I also want to add in other games like Aion. NCSOFT don't have to pay royalty for their own IP and Aion still turned f2p and now, despite of how good many people said of GW2, as of last financial quarter, Aion took in 80% of what GW2 did. Get the picture about the powers and temptation of f2p?
http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/15/3652132/star-wars-old-republic-free-play-level-50
"The choice to go free-to-play is guaranteed to get more casual players on board, and EA has said it will continue to break even as long as subscriber numbers stay over 500,000."
doesn't sound too far out of left field.
just an FYI, that $240M wasn't up front. Thats why I said OVER TIME. That $240,000,000 is over the course of 13 years
What's your point? Is 1.3 million more than 2.5 times of 500k?
How much would the buying powers of $240 million 10-20 years ago nowadays? And again, how much were Blizzard making besides D2 at the time they paused it?
For every business, there is an opportunity cost. If a company believe they can find better opportunities with their seed money they will plant it elsewhere? Wasn't that how WoW replaced D2? Isn't it what you see going with D3, Skylander and other hugely successful cash cows that pushed WoW to the last place and become the burden of Blizzard in Wall Street analysts' reports?