When World of Warcraft allowed players to make a free account to play until level 20, it was a tacit counter to the number of free-to-play MMORPG options there are out there. They say they’re happy about the reception to that move and that they’re open to the so-called “freemium” game model.
“It’s a very interesting business model and approach,” said Blizzard COO Paul Sams. “Whether or not we will end up doing that at some point or not, I don’t really have the information to share. But certainly it’s possible that could happen with an existing product that we have.”
“I think what you tend to see is that happening when games are on a decline or they don’t have a user base that can support itself through subscriptions,” said Sams. “So then they’ll introduce the new model in hopes of being able to generate a different type of revenue to support that community and ongoing content. So it certainly is possible, if we find ourselves in that circumstance, or if we come up with a game where we think that’s the right business model, the most appropriate for players to experience it. We don’t have any opposition to the concept, it’s just that at this point we haven’t decided to make a game where that is the model. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t.”
Source: VentureBeat
