Skip to Content

Find your next home with Luxist's "Estate of the Day"
AOL Games

Blizzard may have considered free-to-play for WoW, but won't change the model now

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Business models, MMO industry, Free-to-play

Gamasutra recently spoke with Paul Sams, chief operating officer at Blizzard Entertainment, just after the WorldWide Invitational came to a close. Alongside questions about the framework around Diablo 3 and the potential of user-generated content, the site referenced the recent revelation that World of Warcraft could potentially have been a free-to-play title. Sams offered, in response to the question, that he doesn't see the company changing the game's business model any time soon.

Echoing the points made by individuals such as Min Kim and Ray Muzyka, Sams noted that changing the business model would likely neccessitate a substantial revamp in game design - something they're not prepared to do. "The game has been designed in such a way to where we determined the business model to wrap that around what the game experience was." Sims also puts forth that the company has no plans to create a 'kiddie' version of the popular MMO, nor to port it to handheld systems.

Check out the interview for a number of other interesting topics, including Sams' followup to Mr. Pardo's rebuke against Microsoft over its Xbox 360 focus.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Massively Features


Featured Games

Events Calendar

NameDate
Fallen Earth Launch Q2 2009
Global Agenda Closed Beta July 2009
CrimeCraft Launch Aug 25 2009
Champions Online Launch Sep 1 2009
Cities XL EU Launch Sep 3 2009
Aion Launch Sep 22 2009
Earth Eternal Open Beta Q3 2009

Massively Podcast


New episodes every Wednesday. Now playing:
Episode 59, for Wednesday, July 1st, 2009.



Archive | RSS | iTunes | Zune

Featured Galleries

One Shots
Hands on with Cities XL
Earthrise wallpapers
Runes of Magic: The Weeping Coast
Aion Beta: Asmodian Ascension Quest
Aion Beta: Asmodae
Aion Beta: Crafting your Asmodian
Runes of Magic: The Elven Prophecy
GamerDNA: A brief look at free to play games