I haven't played my World of Warcraft characters for quite a while now, about 9 months. But it wouldn't be totally correct to say that I lost all interest in WoW. Rather the situation is that my low level of interest doesn't justify paying a monthly fee any more. And that gets us to spinks' thought of the day: Is it time for World of Warcraft to switch to a Free2Play business model?
I must say that I would be happier if both WoW and SWTOR (and all other MMORPGs) were Free2Play. I'm well beyond the point where playing many hours per month, every month, of the same MMORPG over and over is still fun to me. I'm currently subscribed to only SWTOR, but even there I'd rather stretch out my play experience over a longer period of time. As it is, I somehow feel sometimes as if I "should" play, to not waste my subscription, although I'm not really feeling like it.
Many people argue that Blizzard would never give up their monthly subscription model, because there are too many people still happily paying a monthly fee. But all previous games which switched to Free2Play reported at least a tripling of earnings; why should that not work as well for Blizzard, just at a larger scale?
And yes, I wouldn't even mind if they made money by selling gear, like Lord of the Rings Online now does. Not best in slot, but I'm pretty certain that if I restarted now, I couldn't even see any of the new content, because I don't have the minimum iLevel for it. Buying gear would be like buying access to that content. And in reality it is already possible to buy epics in World of Warcraft: You buy a tradeable pet for cash, sell it for gold, and buy epics with the gold.
So I say, bring it on! Make World of Warcraft Free2Play with an item shop. And Star Wars: The Old Republic as well, while you're at it!
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