Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft is not enough free-to-play?
How about "Activision has also partnered with Tencent for the release of Call of Duty: Online in China, a free-to-play online shooter built specifically for the Chinese market."
How about "Blizzard is currently developing the free-to-play competitive online game Blizzard All-Stars based on the successful Warcraft III mod, DotA, the game that inspired both Riot’s League of Legends and Valve’s DOTA 2"?
"Whether that means a free-to-play future for the world’s most popular MMO remains to be seen. - Forbes editor"
The ATVI globlin says to Mr. Panda: Free is good!
So ? what has this to do with WoW ?
The only valid f2p games are small games with small teams and limited content. Facebook games, iPad games etc.
Blizzard did a marketing survey and saw that iPad sell more than PC's, that MMORPG's are too costly to produce these days and that WoW subscriptions go down in a free to play market ...
So ? what's wrong with following the market and produce f2p games BESIDES WoW within the same Lore ?
It is really funny to see WoW fanbois still think ATVI is the biggest and baddest online game developers.
Ever heard of Tencent, Perfect World, Wargaming, Nexon and many other? Many f2p online game companies have bigger teams and global communities than WoW. If you don't know Tencent has 5 times the employees as Blizzard, go QQ Moar with the employees fired by Blizzard. Even the lesser known PWRD (to the western gaming world) employ more people than ATVI. Even the Russians are coming, Wargaming and Mail.ru have well over 1k employees and growing bigger by the day.
Going f2p is not wrong. In fact, it is absolutely the right thing to do in business sense under the current market environment. If all the other ATVI games are going without subscription then why can't WoW also go f2p?
For those WoW fanbois still in the dark, you better wake up from the dreams WoW is still the biggest and baddest beast. Not anymore, said the Wall Street analysts:
The bottom line is: World of Warcraft no longer rules in China.
The answer is VERY simple.
NO F2P game makes more money than the subscription based WOW.
If by ruling you mean FREE player numbers , you may be right.
If by ruling means REVENUE per quarter, the others still trail MUCH AND MUCH behind WOW.
You forget that F2P games cite "accounts created" like WoT. The vast majority don't pay ANYTHING in free to play games.
Studies of Farmville (75 million players) showded that 82% of that free to play game paid ... ZERO dollars.
Only 3% paid 20 dollars or more.
So come back when you had some account lessons.
F2P works in smaller projects , but not in full fledged AAA designed MMORPG's. These beasts are too costly to produce ...
UNLESS you consider trashy games like World of Tanks are ... MMORPG's which they simply are not as they are simply map based games you play with on line gamers, but these games are not world supported MMORPG's (despite their possible titles).
Former AAA sub based titles that went free to play are simply in their last stages of money making, don't expect the same AAA status from F2¨P launched games though.
lol, who would have thought. WoW is losing ground because, "the game requires too much time and effort.” With World of Warcraft, “you have to get online almost every night if you want to be someone big in the game,”
That's right, someone even WoW, despite Blizzards attempts to make the game as casual friendly as possible STILL requires too much time and effort.
I think that statement right there is more damning than anything else I've heard about the MMO industry. I suppose that's a good thing though, if we shrink back to a smaller community. Start over.
lol, who would have thought. WoW is losing ground because, "the game requires too much time and effort.” With World of Warcraft, “you have to get online almost every night if you want to be someone big in the game,”
That's right, someone even WoW, despite Blizzards attempts to make the game as casual friendly as possible STILL requires too much time and effort.
I think that statement right there is more damning than anything else I've heard about the MMO industry. I suppose that's a good thing though, if we shrink back to a smaller community. Start over.
In one part part you are right of course: the shrinking.
In the other part your future looks ... well bleak.
Why do you think Blizzard put on hold the Titan project for at least 3 years ?
Simple answer: the subscription based game market vanished (besides WOW and EVE) and is replaced with F2P junkie gaming elements.
The problem is though ... that even a 8.3 million subscription game WOW beats anything in the F2P market money wise...included those bragging with 100 million players.
So the consequence is: shake out of the complete industry as money is going to FREE to PLAY gamettes which have hardly anything to do with open world designs as we have known them in the past.
Enter WoT, enter CCG's, enter Dota fixed map games, you could even cite the instanced map based GW2 (no mounts , no fast travel except loading screens and why not even D3 designs).
For the "real" MMORPG player this simply means money is no longer going their way for devleopment.
Look at Blizzard : free to play 15 man team Hearthstone will probably bring in more money than a new free to play MMORPG AND it is MUCH easier to make and develop.
So this IS the end of an era, not because WOW looses subs in a F2P world with iPAds, but because people think free to play will garantee the same quality, which of course is not the case as the revenue is too low to justify "huge" open world MMORPG projects like WOW-Azeroth once was back in 2004.
lol, who would have thought. WoW is losing ground because, "the game requires too much time and effort.” With World of Warcraft, “you have to get online almost every night if you want to be someone big in the game,”
That's right, someone even WoW, despite Blizzards attempts to make the game as casual friendly as possible STILL requires too much time and effort.
I think that statement right there is more damning than anything else I've heard about the MMO industry. I suppose that's a good thing though, if we shrink back to a smaller community. Start over.
In one part part you are right of course: the shrinking.
In the other part your future looks ... well bleak.
Why do you think Blizzard put on hold the Titan project for at least 3 years ?
Simple answer: the subscription based game market vanished (besides WOW and EVE) and is replaced with F2P junkie gaming elements.
The problem is though ... that even a 8.3 million subscription game WOW beats anything in the F2P market money wise...included those bragging with 100 million players.
So the consequence is: shake out of the complete industry as money is going to FREE to PLAY gamettes which have hardly anything to do with open world designs as we have known them in the past.
Enter WoT, enter CCG's, enter Dota fixed map games, you could even cite the instanced map based GW2 (no mounts , no fast travel except loading screens and why not even D3 designs).
For the "real" MMORPG player this simply means money is no longer going their way for devleopment.
Look at Blizzard : free to play 15 man team Hearthstone will probably bring in more money than a new free to play MMORPG AND it is MUCH easier to make and develop.
So this IS the end of an era, not because WOW looses subs in a F2P world with iPAds, but because people think free to play will garantee the same quality, which of course is not the case as the revenue is too low to justify "huge" open world MMORPG projects like WOW-Azeroth once was back in 2004.
Time to play Angry Birds. 400 million players...
Obviously you don't know how to read these Wall Street reports. First of all, they don't just tell you WoW is not doing well just because their revenue and subs are dropping while their competitors are gaining strength just NOW, They are talking about the trends they see.
Many people often make the mistakes about the next WoW killer but they seldom think the next WoW killer can actually be WoW killers. Suppose a new online games can only take away 1% of WoW's pie. No big deal, right? Sorry, deadly wrong because 100 new comers will take the whole pie away. People, even sometimes seasoned analysts may overlook competition can actually come from within. Hence said, the new F2P games Blizzard is making now are also WoW killers.
Now, let's look at these "small companies and small teams"... Sorry to disappoint you but the likes of Tencent, EA + Disney, WB have huge warchests and seasoned workforce that can easily build multiple WoW killers in a short time or just by buying existing ones.
They've been doing these microtransactions for YEARS. YEARS!
Server transfers, race change, gender change, name change, sparkly horses, cloudy dragons, chimera pets, panda pets.
Bitching about it at this point seems a tad ridiculous.
"ZOMG they're putting their microtransactions IN THE GAME" (as opposed to being a battle.net browser....)
This is gaming quicksand at it's best. QUICK DO SOMETHING TO STOP PEOPLE FROM LEAVING IN DROVES. Chug chug chug (only forcing people to leave quicker).
The thing that I want to bring attention to is most of the articles act like this is something new! WTF?
In the name of all that is holy and sacred please read before making such remarks. Blizzard has been doing micro transactions on their website for years now. All they are doing is adding all these items in game store just for sake of convenience.
Stop acting like if it is a new thing or a move towards F2P.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
From what I understand the community could only be improved if it went f2p. Of course we will no doubt hear from those who believe a sub magically means a game community is better.
So many people getting worked up over a video game and shiny digital objects.
The world will go on people and ultimately we will all realize that these stupid objects really mean absolutely nothing.
Even if you did spend hours on your ass exercising your fingers on a keyboard.
No, it was not "work." It was wasting time.
You spend hours watching a sport game or a movie too but I don't think everybody will consider it a waste of time.
It is not unethical to sell popcorn, sodas and other snacks in a sport game or a movie. By the same token, it is ok to sell entertainment enhancing items in an online game.
And I suppose your just fine with watching 10 minutes of television commercials after you paid $30 for your movie, pop and popcorn.
Amazing how people love getting sodomized by their favorite developer/movie/sports/entertainment industry
The problem is though ... that even a 8.3 million subscription game WOW beats anything in the F2P market money wise...included those bragging with 100 million players.
I feel like robot while i repeat this again but wow has not got 8.3 million subs , asian players pay per hour not subs (excluding korea iirc ) it was 5$ for full month =720 hours at china iirc .
The problem is though ... that even a 8.3 million subscription game WOW beats anything in the F2P market money wise...included those bragging with 100 million players.
I feel like robot while i repeat this again but wow has not got 8.3 million subs , asian players pay per hour not subs (excluding korea iirc ) it was 5$ for full month =720 hours at china iirc .
The average income of someone in china is 8 times less than that of some one in the US so that $5 translates to $40, that's and expensive sub assuming he plays non-stop.
Also bare in mind their are restrictions in China to how much time one can spend on computer games each day so a fixed sub does not make sense.
If I only play 1 hour a week and still pay my sub does that mean I SHOULD be counted? yet that guy in china who plays 2 hours a week SHOULD NOT be counted?
How many hours should one play before they're counted? 10 hours? 20 hours? 100 hours?
If you think everyone in china players WoW for only 1 hour a month then you need to get a reality check.
Truth is Blizzard lay down in writing for all to see (go check any press release about numbers) how they count their subscribers and by their definition which seems above board to me we get to the ~8 million number. Hate the definition all you like but the number that it equates to cannot be argued with.
The problem is though ... that even a 8.3 million subscription game WOW beats anything in the F2P market money wise...included those bragging with 100 million players.
I feel like robot while i repeat this again but wow has not got 8.3 million subs , asian players pay per hour not subs (excluding korea iirc ) it was 5$ for full month =720 hours at china iirc .
In fact, - and viewing this thread - the exact number of WOW subscriptions is no longer relevant.
Why ?
Player wise: Patch 5.4 Virtual Realm play: as from now players will always be in full populated Realms and worlds. From 200k to 8 million players: they simply add realms to the VR. No more "dying" or "unbalanced horde/Alliance" realms anymore...ever.
Money wise: the cash shop is NOT for a f2p WOW, it is to add F2P games onto the WOW franchise: Hearthstone and BAS in the future. Those F2P WOW games will need the cash shops and they'll bridge the gap to WOW play which will stay with a sub.
The cash shop will work with coins to buy or "earn" (by winning a card game for example) and you pay coins to add anything in all games attached: be that card packs, new heroes in BAS, a new fluff mount in WOW.
The average income of someone in china is 8 times less than that of some one in the US so that $5 translates to $40, that's and expensive sub assuming he plays non-stop.
Also bare in mind their are restrictions in China to how much time one can spend on computer games each day so a fixed sub does not make sense.
If I only play 1 hour a week and still pay my sub does that mean I SHOULD be counted? yet that guy in china who plays 2 hours a week SHOULD NOT be counted?
How many hours should one play before they're counted? 10 hours? 20 hours? 100 hours?
If you think everyone in china players WoW for only 1 hour a month then you need to get a reality check.
Truth is Blizzard lay down in writing for all to see (go check any press release about numbers) how they count their subscribers and by their definition which seems above board to me we get to the ~8 million number. Hate the definition all you like but the number that it equates to cannot be argued with.
What an active player really is could be discussed of course, but I do think that at least an hour a week with occasional vacation breaks is a good measurement.
From what I hear Blizz count people who have money left on their account so exactly the number of players that are active could be discussed. Not that they still aren't the largest western MMO or anything but it is really Blizzards monthly earnings on the game that matters, not the exact number of players anyways. Which of course is why they add more stuff for players to buy.
But the question here is if making the game F2P actually would increase their earnings or not. It do for smaller games, we seen that a lot but that doesn't prove it will for a game of Wows size as well. If Activision believes it will they will likely lobby for Blizzard to make the game F2P but Blizzard do have some self reliance so don't read too much into this just yet.
I don't think many would be surprised if the game went F2P but the same could be said for it staying P2P.
The average income of someone in china is 8 times less than that of some one in the US so that $5 translates to $40, that's and expensive sub assuming he plays non-stop.
Also bare in mind their are restrictions in China to how much time one can spend on computer games each day so a fixed sub does not make sense.
If I only play 1 hour a week and still pay my sub does that mean I SHOULD be counted? yet that guy in china who plays 2 hours a week SHOULD NOT be counted?
How many hours should one play before they're counted? 10 hours? 20 hours? 100 hours?
If you think everyone in china players WoW for only 1 hour a month then you need to get a reality check.
Truth is Blizzard lay down in writing for all to see (go check any press release about numbers) how they count their subscribers and by their definition which seems above board to me we get to the ~8 million number. Hate the definition all you like but the number that it equates to cannot be argued with.
What an active player really is could be discussed of course, but I do think that at least an hour a week with occasional vacation breaks is a good measurement.
From what I hear Blizz count people who have money left on their account so exactly the number of players that are active could be discussed. Not that they still aren't the largest western MMO or anything but it is really Blizzards monthly earnings on the game that matters, not the exact number of players anyways. Which of course is why they add more stuff for players to buy.
But the question here is if making the game F2P actually would increase their earnings or not. It do for smaller games, we seen that a lot but that doesn't prove it will for a game of Wows size as well. If Activision believes it will they will likely lobby for Blizzard to make the game F2P but Blizzard do have some self reliance so don't read too much into this just yet.
I don't think many would be surprised if the game went F2P but the same could be said for it staying P2P.
1. According to Blizzard the player needed to be active in the last month or he would not be counted in the total subscription number. So no access during the past month = no active subscription.
Of course as usual Blizzard is lying according to the dudes around the internet.
2. Just a few days ago Blizzard in Korea (what are they doing there ?) confirmed WOW will not go free to play.
3. The Blizzard cash shop will be using a "new" Battle coin as standard currency. It is rather clear that Battle coin comes from BattleNet and Blizzard is more than WOW games, so this Blizzard shop will cover mostly the new free to play game called Hearthstone instead of WOW.
A smart man may already see the effects it could have in the long run: linking games and virtual items.
Hearthstone will be a boost to WOW, while Diablo 3 was a WOW drainer. Hence the new mutual Blizzard store.
Blizzard will stay far away from real in game money like Diablo 3. Lessons learned.
.
I predict the following.
By mid/late 2014 the subscriptions of WOW will be full on the rise again by using the mechanic in part 3. Simply because you'll get combo play of WOW, HS and Blizz DOTA.
The f2P WOW themed games can boost active subscriptions by adding stuff to WOW subscriptions. It will work in both ways. You either gain extra stuff with a WOW sub or a WOW sub gives you extra stuff in these F2P games.
Anyone will play free to play Blizzard games (massively) and most people will say "what the heck", why pay 10 dollars for 10 packs of HS if I get a WOW sub along with it. Even more will be done with Blizzard ALL Stars.
It is quite obvious with their new BattleNet coin system and even more apparent : HS is already announced in China to go along with WOW.
With that CCG and DOTA system it will be a long long time before they reach bottoms of active WOW subs and the money gained from such a combo system is practically endless as the fixed WOW subs will be attached to free to play games with ... the same currency even.
Cheers for Blizzard to not let go the fixed subs, because once you leave that, you'll never return.
In a couple of months, the ATVI elitists will have to call a consortium of venture capitalists including a "small company with small team" truly-free model pioneer by the name of Tencent bosses.
Comments
The answer is VERY simple.
NO F2P game makes more money than the subscription based WOW.
If by ruling you mean FREE player numbers , you may be right.
If by ruling means REVENUE per quarter, the others still trail MUCH AND MUCH behind WOW.
You forget that F2P games cite "accounts created" like WoT. The vast majority don't pay ANYTHING in free to play games.
Studies of Farmville (75 million players) showded that 82% of that free to play game paid ... ZERO dollars.
Only 3% paid 20 dollars or more.
So come back when you had some account lessons.
F2P works in smaller projects , but not in full fledged AAA designed MMORPG's. These beasts are too costly to produce ...
UNLESS you consider trashy games like World of Tanks are ... MMORPG's which they simply are not as they are simply map based games you play with on line gamers, but these games are not world supported MMORPG's (despite their possible titles).
Former AAA sub based titles that went free to play are simply in their last stages of money making, don't expect the same AAA status from F2¨P launched games though.
lol, who would have thought. WoW is losing ground because, "the game requires too much time and effort.” With World of Warcraft, “you have to get online almost every night if you want to be someone big in the game,”
That's right, someone even WoW, despite Blizzards attempts to make the game as casual friendly as possible STILL requires too much time and effort.
I think that statement right there is more damning than anything else I've heard about the MMO industry. I suppose that's a good thing though, if we shrink back to a smaller community. Start over.
In one part part you are right of course: the shrinking.
In the other part your future looks ... well bleak.
Why do you think Blizzard put on hold the Titan project for at least 3 years ?
Simple answer: the subscription based game market vanished (besides WOW and EVE) and is replaced with F2P junkie gaming elements.
The problem is though ... that even a 8.3 million subscription game WOW beats anything in the F2P market money wise...included those bragging with 100 million players.
So the consequence is: shake out of the complete industry as money is going to FREE to PLAY gamettes which have hardly anything to do with open world designs as we have known them in the past.
Enter WoT, enter CCG's, enter Dota fixed map games, you could even cite the instanced map based GW2 (no mounts , no fast travel except loading screens and why not even D3 designs).
For the "real" MMORPG player this simply means money is no longer going their way for devleopment.
Look at Blizzard : free to play 15 man team Hearthstone will probably bring in more money than a new free to play MMORPG AND it is MUCH easier to make and develop.
So this IS the end of an era, not because WOW looses subs in a F2P world with iPAds, but because people think free to play will garantee the same quality, which of course is not the case as the revenue is too low to justify "huge" open world MMORPG projects like WOW-Azeroth once was back in 2004.
Time to play Angry Birds. 400 million players...
Obviously you don't know how to read these Wall Street reports. First of all, they don't just tell you WoW is not doing well just because their revenue and subs are dropping while their competitors are gaining strength just NOW, They are talking about the trends they see.
Many people often make the mistakes about the next WoW killer but they seldom think the next WoW killer can actually be WoW killers. Suppose a new online games can only take away 1% of WoW's pie. No big deal, right? Sorry, deadly wrong because 100 new comers will take the whole pie away. People, even sometimes seasoned analysts may overlook competition can actually come from within. Hence said, the new F2P games Blizzard is making now are also WoW killers.
Now, let's look at these "small companies and small teams"... Sorry to disappoint you but the likes of Tencent, EA + Disney, WB have huge warchests and seasoned workforce that can easily build multiple WoW killers in a short time or just by buying existing ones.
I see this has been added now:-
http://eu.blizzard.com/store/browse.xml?f=p:221005502,p:221005503,p:221005504&utm_source=internal&utm_medium=blog&utm_content=all-helms&utm_campaign=helms-eu
For me this should not be in a subscription game.
http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7818811955
This was the response on EU forums.
( 12 Euros,£10 is just over 15$ )
They're not stat items , no problem here. They're no different to mounts just they're mounts.... that.... sit.. on... your... face?
The thing that I want to bring attention to is most of the articles act like this is something new! WTF?
http://ca.ign.com/articles/2013/07/09/world-of-warcraft-may-add-microtransactions
http://www.destructoid.com/blizzard-talks-about-world-of-warcraft-microtransactions-257787.phtml
http://www.gamespot.com/news/blizzard-exploring-micro-transactions-for-world-of-warcraft-6411086
They all need to stop pretending this is anything new they are adding or exploring. They have been doing this for years.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/
In the name of all that is holy and sacred please read before making such remarks. Blizzard has been doing micro transactions on their website for years now. All they are doing is adding all these items in game store just for sake of convenience.Stop acting like if it is a new thing or a move towards F2P.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
I never said that in my post stop being an ass.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
And I suppose your just fine with watching 10 minutes of television commercials after you paid $30 for your movie, pop and popcorn.
Amazing how people love getting sodomized by their favorite developer/movie/sports/entertainment industry
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I feel like robot while i repeat this again but wow has not got 8.3 million subs , asian players pay per hour not subs (excluding korea iirc ) it was 5$ for full month =720 hours at china iirc .
The average income of someone in china is 8 times less than that of some one in the US so that $5 translates to $40, that's and expensive sub assuming he plays non-stop.
Also bare in mind their are restrictions in China to how much time one can spend on computer games each day so a fixed sub does not make sense.
If I only play 1 hour a week and still pay my sub does that mean I SHOULD be counted? yet that guy in china who plays 2 hours a week SHOULD NOT be counted?
How many hours should one play before they're counted? 10 hours? 20 hours? 100 hours?
If you think everyone in china players WoW for only 1 hour a month then you need to get a reality check.
Truth is Blizzard lay down in writing for all to see (go check any press release about numbers) how they count their subscribers and by their definition which seems above board to me we get to the ~8 million number. Hate the definition all you like but the number that it equates to cannot be argued with.
In fact, - and viewing this thread - the exact number of WOW subscriptions is no longer relevant.
Why ?
Player wise: Patch 5.4 Virtual Realm play: as from now players will always be in full populated Realms and worlds. From 200k to 8 million players: they simply add realms to the VR. No more "dying" or "unbalanced horde/Alliance" realms anymore...ever.
Money wise: the cash shop is NOT for a f2p WOW, it is to add F2P games onto the WOW franchise: Hearthstone and BAS in the future. Those F2P WOW games will need the cash shops and they'll bridge the gap to WOW play which will stay with a sub.
The cash shop will work with coins to buy or "earn" (by winning a card game for example) and you pay coins to add anything in all games attached: be that card packs, new heroes in BAS, a new fluff mount in WOW.
/ end thread.
What an active player really is could be discussed of course, but I do think that at least an hour a week with occasional vacation breaks is a good measurement.
From what I hear Blizz count people who have money left on their account so exactly the number of players that are active could be discussed. Not that they still aren't the largest western MMO or anything but it is really Blizzards monthly earnings on the game that matters, not the exact number of players anyways. Which of course is why they add more stuff for players to buy.
But the question here is if making the game F2P actually would increase their earnings or not. It do for smaller games, we seen that a lot but that doesn't prove it will for a game of Wows size as well. If Activision believes it will they will likely lobby for Blizzard to make the game F2P but Blizzard do have some self reliance so don't read too much into this just yet.
I don't think many would be surprised if the game went F2P but the same could be said for it staying P2P.
1. According to Blizzard the player needed to be active in the last month or he would not be counted in the total subscription number. So no access during the past month = no active subscription.
Of course as usual Blizzard is lying according to the dudes around the internet.
2. Just a few days ago Blizzard in Korea (what are they doing there ?) confirmed WOW will not go free to play.
3. The Blizzard cash shop will be using a "new" Battle coin as standard currency. It is rather clear that Battle coin comes from BattleNet and Blizzard is more than WOW games, so this Blizzard shop will cover mostly the new free to play game called Hearthstone instead of WOW.
A smart man may already see the effects it could have in the long run: linking games and virtual items.
Hearthstone will be a boost to WOW, while Diablo 3 was a WOW drainer. Hence the new mutual Blizzard store.
Blizzard will stay far away from real in game money like Diablo 3. Lessons learned.
.
I predict the following.
By mid/late 2014 the subscriptions of WOW will be full on the rise again by using the mechanic in part 3. Simply because you'll get combo play of WOW, HS and Blizz DOTA.
The f2P WOW themed games can boost active subscriptions by adding stuff to WOW subscriptions. It will work in both ways. You either gain extra stuff with a WOW sub or a WOW sub gives you extra stuff in these F2P games.
Anyone will play free to play Blizzard games (massively) and most people will say "what the heck", why pay 10 dollars for 10 packs of HS if I get a WOW sub along with it. Even more will be done with Blizzard ALL Stars.
It is quite obvious with their new BattleNet coin system and even more apparent : HS is already announced in China to go along with WOW.
With that CCG and DOTA system it will be a long long time before they reach bottoms of active WOW subs and the money gained from such a combo system is practically endless as the fixed WOW subs will be attached to free to play games with ... the same currency even.
Cheers for Blizzard to not let go the fixed subs, because once you leave that, you'll never return.
In a couple of months, the ATVI elitists will have to call a consortium of venture capitalists including a "small company with small team" truly-free model pioneer by the name of Tencent bosses.
Good luck, guys!
Lol.
Where's the like button?
MUNDO!!