With Mists of Pandaria looming on its horizon, World of Warcraft will likely continue as the #1 MMO on the planet for a good while yet. Still, it seems prudent for Blizzard to contemplate ways to keep it on top, one of which is opening up new F2P elements and expanding the real money marketplace. See why we think so in our latest edition of the WoW Factor.

Here’s what I’m proposing, nay betting, Blizzard will do in time: Instead of a straight up “freemium” hybrid model, Blizzard should open up all of WoW’s 1-60 content for free, populating the now long-stagnant lower level areas, and monetize it with various cosmetic and convenience items. Hell, the monetization is already there with the plethora of extras you can buy on Battle.net, so why not add in a “Bazaar” to the UI and let people spend their Blizzard monies, perhaps even what has been earned in Diablo 3, on WoW trinkets and baubles to fluff up their experience? And then, once players have hit 60, offer them reduced price upgrades to further expansion content, and require subscriptions for anything Outlands and beyond. You already give players unrestricted access to the 1-20 game, why not add the last 40 levels and help keep the lower half of the leveling content populated?

Read more of Bill Murphy's The WoW Factor: Should Azeroth be F2P to 60?

Given that buying four expansions is going to cost something like $100 or more, it certainly wouldn't hurt them to get people into the game and playing through a lot of content for free. I would think that initial cost is a huge hurdle to get people to jump over.

Originally posted by palulalula
Only over my dead body! Dude are you ok? You want trolls like me to contaminate Azeroth?? No F2P for wow!. F2P is for weak

*sigh

Why should a game with close to 10 mil subs go f2p? I know you mentioned it's only to lvl 60, but i really don't think Blizzard are that desperate to make it f2p up to lvl 60. 

It was kind of said in the article already but, if people are paying for a sub AND buying stuff in the cash shop already, why would they not just add more stuff to the cash shop and keep charging subs?

Originally posted by lizardbones

Given that buying four expansions is going to cost something like $100 or more, it certainly wouldn't hurt them to get people into the game and playing through a lot of content for free. I would think that initial cost is a huge hurdle to get people to jump over.

I don't agree with that logic though. Why would F2P 1-60 get people in if the F2P 1-20 hasn't already. It reminds me a bit of SWTOR devs, who believed that their payment model was the reason they were losing so many subs, when in fact it was the lack of content and poorly executed game as whole, amongst other things.

Case in point, I think WOW is just getting "old"; as the years pass by I believe it is getting harder and harder for more players to justify paying 15 bucks of month for what WOW has to offer; especialy in a market where more games are switching over to a hybrid B2P/F2P model.

Though I do expect MoP to bump WOW's numbers a bit, I don't think it will stop the "bleeding". Not only do I think that MoP will be the worst selling WOW expansion since "Vanilla", but I think that shortly after MoP releases, WOW's numbers will continue to sink.

In lieu of the continual loss of subs, Blizzard may very well experiment with a hybrid payment model for WOW, but I don't think that will solve the problem. If Blizzard wants to stop the bleeding, instead of just throwing out more of the same (MoP) or changing their payment model, they need to do some major content and gameplay restructuring. Question is... is it too late.

If WoW is F2P till level 60 AND you can use the AH, then you'll see an even more screwed up economy with botters going on a 24/7 rampage because "You can just make a new account".

Originally posted by Elizabethe
Never!

Thats my girl! :)

As that would amount to about a weekend's worth of leveling, and then there still wouldn't be much you could do (like the current f2p to 20), I don't see what it would matter.

It really has no pro or con over what is currently there.

Hihihi so basically just turning WoW freemium, expanding cash shop to freemium & f2p level and just calling it diffrently?

I don't think it'd be a terrible idea - if anything, it could be a nice way for people who played the game at launch and left to see all the changes Cata made to each classic zone.

But, like people have said, it wouldn't really matter too much - unless people started going level 60 raids, or spending a lot of time in BRS, Scholo, and Strat, free to 60 would still feel like a trial.

If F2P is Honey

and WoW is a shit sandwich

Then sure it will taste sweet, but it will STILL be a shit sandwich.

Originally posted by purewitz
WOW needs to either go F2P or die a slow painful death. As much as some people may not want it, F2P  & B2P are becoming the standards of MMO business models. P2P is going going the way of the dinosaurs. In the beginning P2P saved people from having to pay by the hour to play a game, but people don't want to pay a monthly subscription any more in today's world economy. Alot of people also don't want to throw away money on something they might not like, because they don't have the money to lose.

 

Riiiiiight...

There are nearly 10 million subscribers to WoW alone, not counting the number of people that still pay subs to LotRO, TOR, and others.

I hope you're not an analyst, because you are terribad at it.