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World of Warcraft going the way of Diablo 3
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lol.
you: If it only took 277k players for WoW to break even it would take SWTOR far less to maintain.
quote: 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.
What does this all mean? EA is saying as long as they are pulling 500,000 subscribers to break even with a near virtually identical subscriber fee. That means that WoW's requirement of 277k to break even doesn't seem that far off, and is completely in line to the original point I was making. That point is that as long as they have 277,778 subs, theoretically they are making a tiny profit and anything else is bonus.
As to WHY they are going F2P, its simple. They are gambling on people spending optional money. If sub fee's offer nice bonuses, those who were paying it now will almost assuredly keep paying it anyway. This means they aren't likely to lose money. The KEY is, however, that new people will come on board to it now that its F2P. This means theres a new group of people who either MIGHT opt to pay the fee for the additional goodies, or might spend it on shops which is additional revenue for EA.
Yes you are right. That's why I said EITHER shut down or "paused" like D2. They might not have to totally nuke WoW out of the surface of this world.
lets leave it at 13 years. this game wasn't even in D1 20 years ago.
Considering that we weren't in a colossal debt 13 years ago? I'd say the buying power was actually LESS then than it is now
edit: and WoW never replaced D2. Diablo was always Blizzards weakest IP behind starcraft and warcraft
LOL. The Nation needs to hire you as their financial minister then. Without debt? Any country can do well without debt and don't forget consumers came from all over the world, not only THIS Nation.
Diablo WAS the weakest IP behind WoW. But it was then. It is the other way now.
ok. I don't necessarily know where you've been for the last 15 years, but A) we were in a surplus when Clinton left (as in we had no national debt) and
we were in a trillion dollar debt when Bush left (which also happened to be our nations greatest financial collapse after the great depression.
No, Diablo is STILL Blizzards weakest IP. Even with the sales figures behind D3 and the declining subs in WoW. Although, to be fair, Diablo was surprisingly a stronger IP than the WC rts series.
Source: http://www.statisticbrain.com/blizzard-entertainment-statistics/
Let just kick that number 277,778 subs out of the picture since it can't never be verified.
OK. let's also assume WoW will not be shut down just to stop this argument until more official information is released.
Now, will they go f2p after seeing results from SWTOR, Aion and other bigger competitors? So by your reasoning, since EA could survive without turing f2p but turned f2p for more profits anyway why should WoW also turn f2p to get more profits?
Notice I put "paused" in quotation? If I changed it to "put in back burner" will that make your happier? Either way, it doesn't have much bearing to the argument.
my guess is that SWTOR, Aion and so on went F2P because the difference in subscription numbers they had and subscription numbers they needed to turn a profit was relatively small. I'm guessing they did the math and found they'd make more money by opening the market to more people and offering goodies that people could buy.
WoW will go F2P eventually. Thats inevitable. The question is when and how many subs are needed before its more lucrative to go F2P. My guess is probably around 1M. As for when? Maybe in another 4-5 years.
Just as a food for thought. Candy Crush is a completely free game where in you can buy a bunch of goodies. They reported to have made $500M in one year. Never underestimate the purchase of goodies.
Source: http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=ab93a88c-adfb-45bc-b7a5-2cfde7a5e1b2
Remember the buy one year WoW sub get Diablo 3 free promotion? That's creative accounting. It is just robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Never overestimate these F2P things either.
82% of Farmville gamers never spend a dime.
Only 3% spend 20 dollars.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28322/Study_21_Percent_Of_Gamers_Aware_Of_FarmVille_Play_It_Daily.php
"Despite the game's popularity, 82 percent of FarmVille players do not spend any money in the free-to-play game. Around 5 percent spend $1-5 in the game, and about the same amount spend $6-10. 3 percent of FarmVille users, though, spend more than $20 a month. Those figures aren't surprising considering that 57 percent of players also said they don't like spending a lot of money on gaming (46 percent of "average console gamers" said the same)."
According to these figures ... WOW would need around 150 million active players each month to compare with a 8 million sub based game...
Again further proof WOW would need to go under 1 million subs to turn F2P.
The number of hardcore Blizzard fans is already bigger than that 1 million number anyway.
F2P for costly MMORPG's is a catastrophe. The publishers want to recuperate some initial invested money of old sub based games...
Nothing more nothing less ...
I remember, the promotion counted for 1 million of D3's 12 million copies sold....not sure where you are going with that.
I think you missed the word "gradually" there.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There, fixed it for you.
Everybody should stop this discussion as the verdict is in:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-09-blizzard-confirms-in-game-micro-transactions-for-world-of-warcraft
There will be a cash shop coming to WoW near you.
The new discussion should be: WoW's new cash cow... What's in your wallet?
"First, we’ll be testing the in-game store with some new kinds of items we’re looking into introducing (in Asian regions, at the outset) based on player feedback: specifically, an experience buff to assist with the leveling process, as well as an alternate way to acquire Lesser Charms of Good Fortune."
And there we have it ladies and gentlemen: keys for bonus loot.
People should have seen this coming.
And those who don't think this will eventually lead to F2P is naive. Once they verify they have whales, and i bet there will be many more whales in WOW than other games, F2P is a no brainer.
If people ae willing to pay a subscription *and* use a cash shop, then why drop the subscription?
Not if you can catch more whales by dropping the sub. In fact, most F2P conversions essentially proves that (making more money).
There is obviously a balancing point ... but sooner or later WOW will pass it.
I don't doubt that WoW will go F2P at some stage but it's nowhere close to the point where switching to F2P and being whale supported would be more profitable than what it brings in with subs right now in the west.
WoW lost almost 1.5 million subs in a 4 month period. At this or a similar rate a f2p option is much closer than you think.
How many of the 8.3 millions will be willing to pay a $15 a month sub and a the-sky-the-limit-microtransaction-fee?
I don't think too many of the 5 millions friends from the east, particularly the comrades in China, will do that since almost every online game they can play are f2p.
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