Before Blizzcon, the biggest question I heard people asking about WoW’s subscription model is “will they ever go free to play?”. It’s a good question. Numerous other MMOs have dipped their toes – or dived headlong – into the FTP market. It works for LOTRO, it works for other games. I’d read people wonder whether Star Wars TOR would be the last paid subscription MMO.
Blizzard has been playing around with various revenue models. Things like the purchasable mounts and pets are a very high end microtransaction, which is what Free to Play games live off of. I was actually surprised that there haven’t been cheaper items for sale yet, or a Blizzard fake currency. Many games make you buy Points or System Cash or some other unit of currency, which you then use on microtransactions. There’s a lot of reasons for that – everything from the “it’s not real money” effect to it making impulse buying more likely. Blizzard doesn’t do that. Their microtransactions have yet to affect gameplay. And there have been remarkably few of them.
Then there’s the D3 real money auction house, and the infamous tradable kitten pet – Blizzard experimenting with ways to let players turn in game gold into real world money, and vice versa. Since neither is live yet, no one has any idea how much success either of these will be – but it looked like Blizzard was thinking about heading down that path. Another bit of support to people who thought WoW might someday go free to play.
But then came Blizzcon, and the announcement of the WoW annual pass: sign a contract that you’ll stay subscribed for a year, and you get a shiny horse, access to the Pandaria beta, and Diablo 3 as a digital download, included. (Not “for free”: There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. It’s the “free” cell phone you get with a two year contract).
Maybe some people reacted “meh”. At this point everyone I know and play with has signed up. That has huge implications. It tells me my raid is going to be around – so I can continue to invest time and angst into it. It tells me that I’m going to see these people for a year – so maybe I should Real ID a few more of them. It tells me that they are all potential D3 game partners – see above note – and by the way nobody else wants to be a wizard, right, so you can send me all your loot?
The implications for Blizzard as a whole are even stronger, though. Having created this deal, I see it as highly likely that next year or 9 months from now they will announce another set of incentives to get people to sign on for a further year. And after that…. well, I think after that it’s not going to be the WoW Annual Pass. It’s going to be the Blizzard pass, and I believe there will be two levels:
Level 1 gets you access to Battle.net and the standalone games like Starcraft and Diablo. It’ll be cheap, like $7 a month, but as they integrate more and more services into Battle.net – and therefore need more and more resources – it’s going to be hard for them not to try to find some way to get the Starcraft players paying monthly.
Level 2 will be the full Blizzard pass. It will allow access to Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, World of Warcraft – and the new MMO that they’ll be announcing, the one that is supposedly called Titan. And it’ll be more expensive than a current WoW subscription, probably along the lines of $20 a month.
Blizzard doesn’t just want your WoW money. People get bored of WoW, but gamers are more likely to turn to another game than another hobby entirely. Blizzard wants to be the other game you turn to. They’ve got a triple threat: the best RTS out there. A hack-n-slash game that has all the depth and background and assets that only Blizzard can provide. And the number one MMO – whatever detractor say, WoW is still king. And it will still be a top MMO in two or three or five years when they announce their new MMO, and I would bet good money they learned from Everquest’s mistake. Everquest released Everquest 2 while Everquest was still amazingly popular – and it gutted the game, split the playerbase between EQ and EQ2 players. Blizzard doesn’t want that to happen to WoW. Figuring out how to launch the next industry-topping MMO without killing their golden goose is probably not easy.
I could be wrong. I hope I’m not. WoW is a great, great value for my entertainment dollar ($13 a month, times 2, we already have to have high speed internet anyway. We can’t go to a movie that cheap. Heck we can’t get a babysitter that cheap). A Blizzard subscription would be even better.
Agreed – I was super excited about the pass, and D3 is what pushes it over. I have no plans to play in the Beta, but still – it’s a nice incentive.
The nicest thing though – is that if you do go out and buy the D3:CE they’ll just add 4 months to your 12 months of sub so it’s a 16 month sub with all the CE stuff as well.
They’re doing everything right with this. And I’m glad, it’ll insulate the a bit against the coming competition.
Actually the 4 months count toward your 12 month obligation. So you only have to pay another 8 months out. I’ll probably get the CE for the pet and the goodies 🙂
I’m planning on getting in the beta and taking a good look at the monk class – if it’s a heals style I fall in love with, that will change my expansion plans a lot.
I’m curious though, to see how many people signed up who might have left the game in the next year otherwise. I wasn’t going anywhere regardless, so it was a no-brainer for me … oh look, free stuff for something I would have been paying for anyway!
I should sign up, for D3 anyways, but I otherwise have not signed up for it. Though if Starcraft 2 is any indication of how new games go, D3 will be left unopened on my computer desk…one of these days, I promise I’ll install Starcraft 2, and to think, I bought it on release day.
I signed up – heck, I paid almost a year in advance anyway so it’s not costing me much more so the “free stuff” is a bonus. Don’t know a thing about D3 or how it plays – guess I should hit the website and find out.
I’m probably most looking forward to the beta testing although a shiny new horse with angel wings looks good.
I’m like Trout – once I find something I enjoy other stuff tends to just sit there, unused…
Maybe we can be D3 partners then, I am totally inexperienced with that sort of game and I kind of expect to suck for a while.
I’ve played both D1 and D2. . . extensivily. The interface is about as simple and easy it can be for hack and slash game. The reviews I’ve read of D3 state that its almost exactly the same as before. So sucking at it is going to be a 10 minute thing.
I played D1 a lot, but only dabbled in D2. But I’m certainly jazzed about D3 🙂
Interesting theory. Of all the theories I’ve heard for how WoW’s subscription model might change, that seems the most plausible. Although I still wouldn’t be surprised if nothing much changed — it’s not like they’re always going to have WoW betas or new games to offer.
Good point what repgrind said about whether or not the people who signed up for it were going to play anyway. I signed up because I was likely to spend the next year playing anyway — the mount, Diablo, and the beta key are all gravy to me. I’m somewhat skeptical of whether someone would bother with this if they weren’t sure they were going to keep playing — but then, I’m always amazed by how many people are willing to buy something they don’t want just because it’s on sale or part of a special offer.
Also there is a difference between “planning to keep playing” and “definitely would”. Some of the people who signed up because they are sure they will keep playing might burn out three months from now. Also – the real key is that now *Blizzard* knows they are going to keep playing. However many year passes they sell? That’s a number they can show their investors. It’s certainty in uncertain times.
D3 is so much better than D1 or D2!
No more potion spamming to stay alive (you can’t since potions have a CD on use).
Classes don’t have to save talent points since you automatically get your abilities as you level.
You don’t have to save your stat points since they automatically go up as you level.
You can decide what abilities you want your NPC to learn (think new talent system for Panda land), and you can respec them.
Shared stash among all of your characters so you don’t have to mule.
Shared trade skills since it’s “your” npc’s that learn them, and those NPC’s can be accessed by all characters.
You can sell directly from your inventory, no more going back to town do dump your items.
I can’t wait!!!!
Those are all super great changes. Bliz really knows how to target things that suck fun out of a game and nuke those things.
That does sound a lot better. I $#%^ing hated having to assign the skill and attribute points — bloody annoying system. And having played Dungeon Siege III, I already know that the removal of potions is a good thing.
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