I am a little confused because there are plenty of games out there that are free to play and one time purchases who do the same thing.
Took me a while to think about it and it came down to art work. The art work in this game truly is unique, not to mention the music, and the rich stories. Aside from that though, there’s not much difference between World Of Warcraft and other generic mmo’s.
Feel free to share your thoughts.
All the sub free games I’ve ever played really suck compared to wow. Guess the revenue goes to maintaining the game and creating new content.
Because it always has been. Game was made before the time of paid DLC, cosmetics and loot boxes.
Why stop charging if people will pay?
A lot of free to play games are usually pay to win, I’ve noticed. The micro transactions in this game are truly minimal.
Though $25 a simple database transfer is maybe a little ridiculous, but at least your not paying for weapons or gear.
the way i look at it, im paying for classic which i don’t mind paying monthly for.
retail is the knock-off, trash ftp game which i like to log into and farm out the gold emissaries for a free month from time to time.
there is a reason why they’re free to play…
Blizzard likes money and they want yours.
Because they can do it. There really isn’t any other answer. WoW is sub based because it has the subscriber numbers to do it without being F2P with premium or whatever like other games do.
Have you seen a F2P game that didn’t stop at a certain level unless you paid to go to a higher level or not have the best gear in a cash shop .
Having an online server requires constant income to maintain.
Making a constant stream of new content requires constant income to maintain.
F2P games get that constant income by making the game painful to play to lure players into paying to make the game enjoyable.
WoW avoids that by just making you pay to access the game in the first place, so they can make the base product as enjoyable as possible.
People can go back and forth on the reasons, and I encourage it.
However, simply put…Blizzard keeps the sub model because it’s still profitable to do so and a corporation’s, any corporation, main goal is profit.
Character services like name, race, and server changes are so expensive because they want to discourage using them constantly, not because the process itself is difficult.
It’s still only .50 cents a day to play a beautiful game with other people or by yourself 24/7. I personally think it’s a pretty good deal. No where in my life can I have this much fun at this price.
$20 canuck bucks a month isn’t that bad considering other crappy Triple A skinner box games cost $80 for 5-10 hours of actual content.
Why would they turn off subscriptions when somewhere between one and five million of them get paid each month?
It’s really this simple. People will continue to pay for a sub for this game so why would they make it free?
If a game can retain the most players in the MMO genre compared to its competitors who offer a one time purchase product why would they just get rid of the subscription fee?
They can go half way and keep the subscription, but that subscription can be applied to the store.
Because you never slaughter a cash cow.
Besides, the token system changed the dynamics of the subscription costs for some.
They dont want poor people playing their game
Say you are the publisher of a newspaper. As internet news and free papers have proliferated, you taken a hit on subscribership. Yet you still have a very loyal customer base that doesn’t mind paying per month.
Do you go free and join the rags that lay wet in my driveway until I finally go out to throw them in my recycle bin? Or do you continue with your profitable subscriber based business model?