World of Warcraft originally planned as free-to-play
by Kyle Horner 
Jun 24th 2008 at 4:15PM
Filed under: World of Warcraft, MMO industry, News items
Blizzard's own Rob Pardo recently dropped something of a bombshell about World of Warcraft at the Paris GDC event when he revealed in a keynote that the game was originally planned as a free-to-play experience. He also adds that, "We didn't want to charge a subscription, but as we researched market conditions, we realized that wouldn't support us." Pardo also discussed how Blizzard drove into the MMO genre in astonishingly tongue-in-cheek fashion: "Very naively, or else we might not have done it." The notion of a free-to-play World of Warcraft makes us wonder just how the game would have panned out had Blizzard stuck to their original plan. Might MMOs have become as big a business as they are nowadays? Who knows, but it's fun to think about the possibilities nonetheless.You can find the rest of Pardo's discussions within Gamasutra's website. He discussses everything under the sun in relation to Blizzard. Multiple franchises, the Activivision-Blizzard merger and making communties for games are just a few of the many topics covered.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ravious said on 4:56PM 6-24-2008
Yup, and Jeff Strain led the ArenaNet defectors away after they decided to make a subscription based MMO.
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Krystalle Voecks said on 10:03PM 6-24-2008
Word to the wise: Spam-linking will get you ban-hammered.
If you want ad-space for your game guides, buy it.
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Squee said on 10:46PM 6-24-2008
WoW would be much more of a hit than it is now, maybe not monetary for Bliz..., but I'm sure their number of players would double if not triple. They would still make millions on advertisement because the game is so hugely popular.
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ScytheNoire said on 10:10AM 6-25-2008
With more competition coming in the MMO market, they should lure people now. Give away the original 1 to 60 content area, and make it free to play online for that area. Since the new zones would have to be pay to get to, they could lure in people who still haven't played, and expand their market against new competition.
Of course, being as I'm tired of WoW, and they can keep raking in the money even though they are losing players, no reason they would do this. But I think it's what older MMO's should do, and do more often. Giving a free taste of crack is so important towards luring in new addicts.
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