14 DAY TRIAL // In the gaming industry, we've seen quite a lot of trends appear and disappear just as fast. But one of them, which is seemingly here to stay, consists of the micro-transaction-based online titles. We've seen quite a few experiments in this field by Electronic Arts, which has already released Battlefield Heroes and is developing NFS World Online as free-to-play titles that will charge money when players want to buy new items or exclusive content.
But one of the biggest online titles, Blizzard's World of Warcraft, is still demonstrating that subscriber-based projects are still profitable, having over 11.5 million monthly clients that pay to play the addictive MMORPG.
But that being said, Blizzard doesn't rule out the fact that micro-transactions might come to the online game, in terms of shifting it to a free-to-play mode. Don't forget that Blizzard still charges players for things such as moving to another server.
“I certainly think it's possible that we could do some kind of micro-transaction stuff,” Blizzard's Tom Chilton said. “Whether or not World of Warcraft ever goes the direction of, I guess like Anarchy Online has gone the direction of going free-to-play with micro-transactions. Whether we ever shift to a free-to-play model is really too hard to say at this point. Anything I say now could easily five years from now end up seeming like, oh my gosh, that was an incredibly dumb thing to say, how naive!”
This isn't a firm statement, but it does hint at the fact that Blizzard is carefully analyzing its rivals and is studying every possibility for its biggest title and money-maker. Whether or not such ideas will be implemented in WoW or in the other online projects it currently has in development is still anybody's guess.
Would you like to see WoW become free and charge for exclusive or epic items, or do you think that it is perfect just the way it is? Leave us a comment with your opinion.