How can WoW still justify a subcription model?

[00slash00]

Next month Tera Online goes free to play (from what ive heard its legit free to play, not TOR free to play). now i wasnt a fan of tera online. i got bored of it before my trial even ended, due to the lack of interesting story (i know its an mmo but im sorry, i still need at least a relatively interesting story in order to stay interested for such a long time) and the absurdly overly sexualized character models (even for a jrpg). however, this thread isnt about the strengths ad weaknesses or tera online. this thread is about the fact that tera going free to play seems to mean that WoW is about the only paid subscription mmorpg left. now i know WoW has been around the longest so it has the most content and most people who play WoW are there because they have a lot of friends there. but even taking that into account, how can WoW justify being about the only paid subscription mmo around? i guess the obvious answer would be "because so many people are still willing to pay." but why are SO many people still willing to pay, now that almost every (if not every) major mmorpg can now be played for free? Do you think there will ever come a point where WoW players just feel that the game isnt worth it, until blizzard starts following the free to play model which has become standard?

 

[xefaros]

WoW isnt justified for a sub model.Originally it hoped on the lore bandwagon of warcraft and now messed so hard the lore that will overshadow previous titles.When it came out it had 2 great things wasd responsive combat and ease to play that within a 2year span stayed the same while other games went on improving upon those things.Now whats left of it is a Facebook and mainstream hype that holds people glued to their characters on the grounds of nostalgia.Everyone knows patches made the game worse but noone want to loose what they invested.Simple as that.

 

[Orange12345]

I guess simply because they can? I am not really a fan of free to play games in the first place so I would actually rather pay a subscription as long as I get everything and don't have to deal with any micro-transaction bullshit

 

[bananafishtoday]

Don't underestimate how strong an influence social bonds can have on whether people are willing to pay. It justifies the cost for most players as long as those players' friends are still playing and there's still stuff for them to do. (Not even just friends, but people in general. Google "network effect.") I haven't played since BC, so I dunno what the game's like now. But if people are sticking around, you're more likely to stick around, while if people are quitting in droves, you're more likely to too.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

how can WoW justify being about the only paid subscription mmo around? i guess the obvious answer would be "because so many people are still willing to pay." but why are SO many people still willing to pay, now that almost every (if not every) major mmorpg can now be played for free?

Damn it. I had my "because people keep paying it" answer all set up, and you beat me to the punch. I have a forum wise-ass quota to meet, here, slash. Would it kill you to work with me a little?

It's been discussed before in other MMO threads...MMOs have STAGGERING player retention. You get "attachment" in much the same way people get attached to their platform of choice. You keep your XBOX for 7-8 years, you keep your MMO for 7-8 years. They're LIFESTYLE games, for a lot of people. A hobby in and of themselves. We have games much, much older than WoW still holding an audience and still charging that audience a sub fee.

People make friends, they make guilds. They build little virtual lives full of little virtual memories for their little virtual selves. They have trouble leaving that behind. And when they do, for a little bit, a content patch or an expansion sounds the call, and they return home like faithful hounds.

WoW was a breakaway hit, in part because of Blizzard's reputation at the time of its release, in part because the field of competition was particularly weak and ripe for a champion, in part because they hit at just the right time as multiplayer/online games were exploding due to better net infrastructure, and in part because the game was just really good. It rode the crest of its own popularity and became popular for being popular. It transcended its genre, which had previously been something of a hardcore niche, becoming a pop cultural touchstone. People played WoW because EVERYONE was playing WoW. It was vital. It was vibrant. The servers bustled with activity. It was a water-cooler game, that everyone you knew had a character in.

So yeah. Imagine what kind of retention THAT fucking game has. It has more people paying subscriptions despite its waning appeal because it had a massive player base to draw on. You're unlikely to see another game dominate the way it did, unless a new genre of game comes along to be pioneered. MMOs are just too saturated now.

 

[WoW Killer]

Wasn't there a very recent thread with more or less the same synopsis?

Anyway, WoW is a freak. It came at just the right time and gained the kind of subscription numbers that weren't thought to be possible. These days, it's more a case of "where do I go?" than "why do I stay here?". There are MMOs with good niche markets out there, but WoW is the best WoW-clone there is. New MMOs can't compete with the level of content WoW provides.

 

[Rawne1980]

WoW is the exception to the rule in MMo's.

Before WoW came along, MMO's didn't have millions of players. It was a niche genre. WoW brought it to the masses.

Now we have people throwing massive budgets at MMO's thinking they will get millions of subs and it isn't going to work like that. ToR was a massive flop in that it spent a huge budget to bring out what is essentially WoW with lightsabers. It was never going to be huge.

Now we come to WoW being what 8 or 9 years old?

In that time people have invested hundreds if not thousands of hours into their characters and made friends they play with on a daily basis.

It's hard for people to just walk away from something they have invested so much time into so they will keep playing.

Especially when a lot of the newer MMO's have basically copied the same formula. Why would they leave one MMO they are already established in to play another similar one?

 

[Eddie the head]

People pay for it? For one reason or another people will pay for it. Why I don't know or care, but I have seen some pretty crappy justification for it.

 

[rbstewart7263]

how can WoW justify being about the only paid subscription mmo around? i guess the obvious answer would be "because so many people are still willing to pay." but why are SO many people still willing to pay, now that almost every (if not every) major mmorpg can now be played for free?

Damn it. I had my "because people keep paying it" answer all set up, and you beat me to the punch. I have a forum wise-ass quota to meet, here, slash. Would it kill you to work with me a little?

It's been discussed before in other MMO threads...MMOs have STAGGERING player retention. You get "attachment" in much the same way people get attached to their platform of choice. You keep your XBOX for 7-8 years, you keep your MMO for 7-8 years. They're LIFESTYLE games, for a lot of people. A hobby in and of themselves. We have games much, much older than WoW still holding an audience and still charging that audience a sub fee.

People make friends, they make guilds. They build little virtual lives full of little virtual memories for their little virtual selves. They have trouble leaving that behind. And when they do, for a little bit, a content patch or an expansion sounds the call, and they return home like faithful hounds.

WoW was a breakaway hit, in part because of Blizzard's reputation at the time of its release, in part because the field of competition was particularly weak and ripe for a champion, in part because they hit at just the right time as multiplayer/online games were exploding due to better net infrastructure, and in part because the game was just really good. It rode the crest of its own popularity and became popular for being popular. It transcended its genre, which had previously been something of a hardcore niche, becoming a pop cultural touchstone. People played WoW because EVERYONE was playing WoW. It was vital. It was vibrant. The servers bustled with activity. It was a water-cooler game, that everyone you knew had a character in.

So yeah. Imagine what kind of retention THAT fucking game has. It has more people paying subscriptions despite its waning appeal because it had a massive player base to draw on. You're unlikely to see another game dominate the way it did, unless a new genre of game comes along to be pioneered. MMOs are just too saturated now.

Tell you what bloated well split em see!? you take the north end of the forum and Ill take the south capiche! lmao

OT: Idk but its certainly a testament to something good or bad that people still do.

 

[Twilight_guy]

How does Blizzard justify it. They look at their budget, see a positive number and go about there business.

Blizzard has been around for long enough to not see the entire game but to also be the entire game. WoW isn't an MMO, it's the MMO. They don't change there policy based on fleeting trends. That said, they haven't completely not responded to the free-to-play trend. They have gone free to play in a small manner. Its capped at level 20, (think there might be some miniscule price to get the initial files maybe) but its free to play the game to a certain point. That's different from how it used to be. Blizzard isn't going to jump on the bandwagon so long as they are making money. They might change little bits in response to good ideas but they are far to big (and there game is far too old and resilient to change) for anything earth shaking like full free-to-play to happen.

Also, poor choice of words, no company needs to ever justify anything in a capitalistic market. Money runs things not some measure of reasoning or morality or justification.

If you want to know why people play WoW, you're going to have to go research it on your own. It's a question worthy of a college thesis in and of itself. Eventually Wow will end, as all things do (in fact Blizzard has been planning on it happening for a while now) it's not really possible to guess what will eventually do it, but it will likely be a combination of the various things that continually plague it now in combination with some major change that aggregates things even more.

 

[RhanathShadowhand]

Blizzard is slowly turning it into F2P model, if you haven't noticed...

1) All the hardcore stuff was gone and replaced with sissy casual stuff such as pandas and... pokemon... (I love pokemon, but not in World of Warcraft...) and easy raid bosses and quests that just take you to point a to point b without having you ever touch a button and tell you it's done.

2) They have a "blizzstore" or some shit. You can buy IN-GAME PETS for 20-25?... Expect to see Ashbringer there. And The Frostmourne. And other legendary stuff.

3) They started merging older expansions. You might think "oh that's just to get some people back, they lost so many players y'know...". Well no. That's a preparation to F2P. One day, they'll come up and say "Well here, now you have all the expansions, right from the start!" and sometime later they will say "Well you can play this game for free now!".

4) They let people be whichever race they want, right from the start, even if they don't have the required expansion. This is not useful, but they must have thought "well this might help F2P-erializing the game...".

The reason why they'll go F2P?
1) Because F2P is more profitable, and we all know that Blizzard is all about profit.
2) They're working on a so-called "Next-Gen MMO" codenamed Titan. They don't want WoW to cast a shadow over Titan. They are slowly killing it, casualizing it, and turning it into a bigger money cow at the same time...

 

[SinisterGehe]

Mainly because wow has massive numbers MILLIONS of active and loyal players. And it is the only damn MMO in which you can not buy power or shortcuts. You make an account, you level it just like everyone else did (Even tho the required effort has dropped A LOT compared to vanilla). You can get every in game item if you work towards them and to get the best you need to work with other people. It has still the best raids that I know of any MMO, even tho LFR and recent nerfs have made them bit ... plain. but it is still the best.
Also it is the only damn MMO I know that whore itself out with "PVP - A LOT OF PVP!!! COME PVP IN OUR GAME!!! PVVPVPVPVPVPV!!!" It has really good questing content, really good dungeons (even tho they get easy few months after release due to overgearing and that bollocks) and good raids!

Also it has subscription, because people are still willing to pay it. Hell I would be paying it if I would have time to play it, but I am stuck with work commitments.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I never really saw the appeal in the first place so ya, it boggles my mind that people are willing to shell out money every month on it.

 

[Adromeq]

I never really saw the appeal in the first place so ya, it boggles my mind that people are willing to shell out money every month on it.

I never saw the appeal of drinking / smoking yourself into an early grave, but millions do that too.

 

[mooncalf]

i guess the obvious answer would be "because so many people are still willing to pay."

In a nutshell! I'd agree that at some point in the future Blizzard will inevitably decide the general trend of subscriptions is a negative one and announce whatever measures they hope will keep interest and investment alive.

I would respectfully indicate however that any statement boiling down to "It's only natural they'll stop asking money for this." is the proverbial pants-on-head. F2P is not the only thing they can do, for instance they could bundle it with the sub for their next MMO.

It would be enticing if WoW was free to play, no doubt, but I think capitalism trumps wishful thinking in this case.

 

[Prosis]

People pay it. The value of something is ultimately decided by what people are willing to pay for it.

When the game first came out, the fee was justifiable. Now, consumers have invested a ton of time, and they're used to paying $15 a month. Thus, to them, the game is worth paying the monthly fee.

 

[RhanathShadowhand]

I will only answer this, because all I could read from the laughter was this:

Also, Pandarans were part of WoW lore before WoW even existed.

Pandarens weren't orignally supposed to be a featured race, but a joke.

The pandaren started as a creation of lead artist Samwise Didier and an April Fool's joke, but they got a massive response from Warcraft fans. When the expansion to Warcraft III was announced, the Pandaren Brewmaster was added as a neutral hero, available and playable on nearly every melee map. One Brewmaster, Chen Stormstout was included as an optional playable hero in the expansion's orc campaign. Due to this popularity, pandaren were rumored to be the new playable Alliance race to be introduced in the Burning Crusade expansion. Their possible appearance in WoW has been hinted at multiple times by Blizzard. On October 21, 2011 at BlizzCon 2011, Blizzard officially announced World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria as the fourth expansion, and the pandaren became the first playable race available to both the Horde and the Alliance. The WoW community has become somewhat divided over the expansion.

As you can read above, it wasn't really really supposed to be included, but it was the fans who wanted pandas. Feel free to cry some more about pandas being the lore. They have never been a part of the original lore, and they'll never be part of the original lore. Only the modern lore.

PS. Captcha: Total Shamble
Should've been "Total Shame"

 

[00slash00]

i guess the obvious answer would be "because so many people are still willing to pay."

In a nutshell! I'd agree that at some point in the future Blizzard will inevitably decide the general trend of subscriptions is a negative one and announce whatever measures they hope will keep interest and investment alive.

I would respectfully indicate however that any statement boiling down to "It's only natural they'll stop asking money for this." is the proverbial pants-on-head. F2P is not the only thing they can do, for instance they could bundle it with the sub for their next MMO.

It would be enticing if WoW was free to play, no doubt, but I think capitalism trumps wishful thinking in this case.

do you really think they could get away with a subscription model in their next mmo though, especially if their next mmo isnt just wow 2? when jesse cox was invited to try out the preview of elder scrolls online he had nothing but good things to say about it and thought it was fantastic. then the devs asked him and a number of other people who were invited to try it, how much they thought people would be willing to pay each month for it and they all said the same thing, "zero. no one is willing to pay a mothly fee for mmos anymore." wow can get away with a subscription model because it started as one, back when that was the standard. but the standard has changed and im not sure people would be as willing to pay a monthly fee for a completely new mmo anymore