Once upon a time the folks at Blizzard Entertainment thought they could support the entire world of World of Wacraft by ad revenue. This would have created an MMO experience which would cost you nothing but a bit of annoyance by ad providers; what would the total audience be if the game was free?
Had WoW launched free of charge they would probably have significantly more users playing the game, but the ad revenue from the sheer amount of people would be nothing compared to a monthly charge for eight million subscribers.
Although only a small number of those subscribers are US based, they’re still raking in the cash compared to an ad-based model, even if they were to have triple the subscribers.
However, the Blizzard exec noted: “We didn’t want to charge a subscription, but as we researched market conditions, we realized that wouldn’t support us.”
It’s possible, perhaps, that Blizzard would have fallen under its own weight had they created a world where anyone could play for no charge. Imagine the server utilization, the volume of traffic and the support calls they would get for triple or quadrupal the player base with only ads paying the checks.
Granted, a free system would be excellent in theory, but in practice, making us pay is the only way to throttle our addictions. Sad, but true.
(Thanks, gamasutra)
@Notch selling Mojang to Microsoft: I was a bit apprehensive when I first heard this story. Though we have no confirmation I’m taking the silence as to mean a deal is being discussed and nothing is finalized yet. The more I thought about it and after listening to your take on it I think it could be alright. I’m just concerned with what they might charge for using the PC version. I’ve also come to be used to Mojang having added features with each new version release and I hope that continues. I’m not so bothered by Notch selling the company since he’s walked away from Minecraft when he did the Full release a couple years ago. I hope that we will also still be able to use our own custom skins, resource packs and mods for the PC.
@Good games worth paying for: I do agree with the sentiment that quality games are indeed worth paying for. Like Skyrim was and I’m sure a lot of hard work went into that game. The quote “a terrible game lasts forever” is right when you have the Atari ET as an example.
@80’s shows: I got both the Dungeons and Dragons and Captain N show references , I loved both shows as a kid.
@FFVI: I knew I had forgotten to mention Terra from FF6, I feel that the first half of that game was about Terra and Celeste the second half the game. I remember the argument I got in with my friend over this when he noticed that I wasn’t using Edgar or Locke in my party and he questioned me “Why aren’t I using the main guys?” My response was “what main guys? Terra and Celeste are the heros and he got so mad and yelled at me that Edgar was the hero. How can he be the hero, or Locke, when you can beat the game without them at all? More over the whole story revolved around the Espers and the empire trying to use them.
And just FYI I am a guy but that doesn’t mean I can’t emphasize with women or feel rejected when I hear things like “Girls won’t like you if you play games, why don’t you play a sport instead?”
I also did misunderstand your point Paul, thanks for clearing it up.
@QOTW: I remember making a few custom units in CIV 2 and using the map editor. I’ve played around with programs like RPG Maker and other similar RPG games like Neverwinter. The amount of work in making even the smallest dungeons or quests is just tremendous so I have to give it to those who make entire games worth of content and quality work. You do get what you pay for.