Originally posted by Thorkune

With all of the AAA mmo's (except WoW and Rift and EVE Online and Ultima Online and Asheron's Call and Dark Age of Camelot) being F2P/B2P...

Most of the AAA MMOs with a decade or so of content under their belt are still subscription MMOs. 

even if all goes wrong for WoW (which is 100% not a case) I don't think such change will occur this year.

The fact for me is, any game they release thats a MMO won't require they switch what has worked and made them the most money. You can hold me to this that 2013 blizz-con will reveal Titan (Star Craft MMO???) and it will be a subscription MMO with a RMAH.

Knowing them, If you are a subscriber to WOW and pre-order Titan they will give you special in-game stuff for being a sub to WOW, but you have to remain subbed to get them. these guys will be able to print money, they have no reason to change because the indusrty is failing and needs to find better ways to stay afloat, blizzard is the reason they need to go F2P.

Let's see... 9.6 million active accounts times $12 per month (let's say EVERYONE buys 6 months at a time):

• $115.2 million per month
• $1.4 billion per year

Gee thats think about this WoW claims to have 9 or so Mil players that is around $135,000,000 a month in subs.

Even if that 9 Mil subs is not correct and paying subs is even 1/2 that at 4.5 Mil subs there bringing in around $60,000,000 A month just in subs.

Gee lets make the game F2P because I really dont want my 60,000,000 a month, come on people think about it.

Might want to think about these pollls before you put them up.

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Originally posted by BitterClinger Let's see... 9.6 million active accounts times $12 per month (let's say EVERYONE buys 6 months at a time):

• $115.2 million per month $1.4 billion per year

That's just subscription fees alone! That doesn't include mounts, pets, transfers, name changes, faction changes, and other paid services they offer.   No amount of non-contributing F2P gamers are going to turn ANY game into a billion dollar per year franchise.

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This 100 x this

Why would they when they are sitting on an astonishing amount of subs? Granted around 50-60% will be from the east and the revenue is less from them but thats still over 4 million active subscribers in the west, which is a lot of chaching!

Originally posted by BitterClinger

Let's see... 9.6 million active accounts times $12 per month (let's say EVERYONE buys 6 months at a time):

• $115.2 million per month
• $1.4 billion per year

That's just subscription fees alone! That doesn't include mounts, pets, transfers, name changes, faction changes, and other paid services they offer.

 

No amount of non-contributing F2P gamers are going to turn ANY game into a billion dollar per year franchise.

Wrong.

None of their Chinese player base pays $15 a month.

They go to Internet cafes and pay about 6 cents per hour and their government limits their play time.

I would love to see their actual subscribers that pay $15 a month. I bet it would surprise a lot of us.

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Originally posted by Ghern

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Originally posted by BitterClinger Let's see... 9.6 million active accounts times $12 per month (let's say EVERYONE buys 6 months at a time):

• $115.2 million per month $1.4 billion per year

That's just subscription fees alone! That doesn't include mounts, pets, transfers, name changes, faction changes, and other paid services they offer.   No amount of non-contributing F2P gamers are going to turn ANY game into a billion dollar per year franchise.

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Wrong. None of their Chinese player base pays $15 a month. They go to Internet cafes and pay about 6 cents per hour and their government limits their play time. I would love to see their actual subscribers that pay $15 a month. I bet it would surprise a lot of us.

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Unless something major has changed its just under half that are western subs

Originally posted by Ghern

Originally posted by BitterClinger

Let's see... 9.6 million active accounts times $12 per month (let's say EVERYONE buys 6 months at a time):

• $115.2 million per month
• $1.4 billion per year

That's just subscription fees alone! That doesn't include mounts, pets, transfers, name changes, faction changes, and other paid services they offer.

 

No amount of non-contributing F2P gamers are going to turn ANY game into a billion dollar per year franchise.

Wrong.

None of their Chinese player base pays $15 a month.

They go to Internet cafes and pay about 6 cents per hour and their government limits their play time.

I would love to see their actual subscribers that pay $15 a month. I bet it would surprise a lot of us.

Whatever the Chinese subscribers pay, World of Warcraft is a $1 billion per year franchise. This is confirmed by their financial statements.

Originally posted by BitterClinger

Originally posted by Ghern

Originally posted by BitterClinger

Let's see... 9.6 million active accounts times $12 per month (let's say EVERYONE buys 6 months at a time):

• $115.2 million per month
• $1.4 billion per year

That's just subscription fees alone! That doesn't include mounts, pets, transfers, name changes, faction changes, and other paid services they offer.

 

No amount of non-contributing F2P gamers are going to turn ANY game into a billion dollar per year franchise.

Wrong.

None of their Chinese player base pays $15 a month.

They go to Internet cafes and pay about 6 cents per hour and their government limits their play time.

I would love to see their actual subscribers that pay $15 a month. I bet it would surprise a lot of us.

Whatever the Chinese subscribers pay, World of Warcraft is a $1 billion per year franchise. This is confirmed by their financial statements.

But...but...how can that be? The Chines pay less and I've read posts here on the forums that US/EU subs are 1.5M tops! It's not possible those forum posts were full of crap is it????

Why would a game with 700 times more players than most other AAA MMOS out there go FTP, especially when their subscriber numbers are up 600k year over year?

I love the forums on this site, always find a good chuckle ;)

Originally posted by doodphace

Why would a game with 700 times more players than most other AAA MMOS out there go FTP, especially when their subscriber numbers are up 600k year over year?

I love the forums on this site, always find a good chuckle ;)

I thought they were down from last year? I could have sworn i read 10.2 million this time last year?

Originally posted by deakon

Originally posted by doodphace

Why would a game with 700 times more players than most other AAA MMOS out there go FTP, especially when their subscriber numbers are up 600k year over year?

I love the forums on this site, always find a good chuckle ;)

I thought they were down from last year? I could have sworn i read 10.2 million this time last year?

It was "over 10 million" at the launch of MoP...it was 9 million this time last year.

WoW already has millions of paying customers... F2P is redundent for this game. It has nothing to gain and only money to lose.

The only thing I could possibly see down the road is a lower sub when Titan releases (whenever that may be).

They're chugging along prettyy good,so why take a possible hit in sub cash flow?When Titan releases I could see a reduction to maybe $10 a month or a hybrid sub/ftp like Lotro or EQ2.Maybe a combo price for Titan and WoW for a reduced price (if TiTan is sub based).

The reason i don't see it happening besides subs is because i believe when titan comes out its gonna be free 2 play from start. I think its gonna be a game built from ground up to be a free 2 play title. 

They will keep sub at 15 for wow as long as there subs stay up in the 9 million range, i could see them dropping it or going free 2 play if there subs dropped to under 4 million but not unless something drastic happens to the subs they have now. 

Originally posted by doodphace

Originally posted by deakon

Originally posted by doodphace

Why would a game with 700 times more players than most other AAA MMOS out there go FTP, especially when their subscriber numbers are up 600k year over year?

I love the forums on this site, always find a good chuckle ;)

I thought they were down from last year? I could have sworn i read 10.2 million this time last year?

It was "over 10 million" at the launch of MoP...it was 9 million this time last year.

Nope was 10.2 million

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