Should World of Warcraft go free-to-play?

There's only one Western subscription MMO that can stand to lose 1.3 million subs in three months and shrug it off: World of Warcraft. But shrug it off doesn't appear to what Activision-Blizzard is doing. During the investor call that revealed the heavy sub losses, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick acknowledged the changing market and his plans to adapt with speedier content. "It's important to note that the nature of online games has changed," he said, "and [that] the environment [is] becoming far more competitive, especially with free-to-play games." And Blizzard president Mike Morhaime suggested the company is "studying" the comings and goings of players and how to entice former players to return.

Well, we don't have to look much further than Star Wars: The Old Republic's recent rejuvenation to figure out that free-to-play is one of the better ways to entice gamers to return (and open their wallets). Surely, Blizzard has to be wondering whether F2P might be a huge boost to the game as it's approaching its ninth birthday later this year. What do you think -- will World of Warcraft eventually go free-to-play, and more importantly, should it?

TH

is shit game with declining subs so yes it will eventually until it gets on with the times of 2013 and develops better graphics than minecraft.

Lol, dont really think so, until it gets to a really big problem where its heading to them not able to make enough money for futher devolopment it will stay as it is

General Yoghurt wrote:Lol, dont really think so, until it gets to a really big problem where its heading to them not able to make enough money for futher devolopment it will stay as it is

The facts have shown that f2p boosts revenue, it doubled BioWares.

Although the results have yet to be seen for a large sub based game like WoW, the evidence is anything BUT suggestive that it's more financially viable to go f2p.

Saying that, Blizzards store probably out-sells most f2p games anyways, and that's while being p2p.

TH