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What’s More Likely: COD Subscriptions or Free-to-Play WoW?
The world is a strange place. Yesterday’s impossibly unlikely event quickly becomes tomorrow headline news. What’s just over the horizon? Who can say, but it’s fun to speculate. What do you think is more likely Call of Duty requiring subscriptions or World of Warcraft going free-to-play?
The Call of Duty Franchise Takes On A Paid Subscription Model
Sure, to date, no FPS has successfully pulled off the paid subscription model. And the genre has pretty much established that online multiplayer should be free out-of-the-box content, but think about this for a moment. When Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 released, players across the country loudly complained about the mess of bugs and exploits found in multiplayer. A developer would have more incentive to provide its players with constant updates, services, and new content if it had a million or more users constantly dishing our $10-15 dollars a month. Activion’s CEO, Bobby Kotick has even said he’d like COD to be the next WoW.
OR…
World of Warcraft Becomes A Free-to-Play MMO
Sure World of Warcraft has open access to our bank accounts right now, but does it really need it? Given WoW’s install based, Blizzard could already be making millions off in-game advertising. Plus, if it opened the doors to the free-to-play market, that base would likely grow, providing Blizzard with that many more customers with which to sell cheaper in-game items. Tons of games have already proved that free-to-play is big business – Free Realms, Dungeons and Dragons, and MapleStory. WoW may be the undisputed champ right now, but in a year both Final Fantasy XIV and Star Wars: The Old Republic will be out, and if these games start eating into WoW’s user base, Blizzard’s dated MMO might have to change its model.
What do you think?
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