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Anardana Tao Kai Tze *cough*
The guys at WoW Insider are not happy bunnies...
Eeep...
Somebody made a very good point there- if Warcraft was free the quality would degrade into something absolutely awful. The fees that people pay monthly help keep the game up and running, help provide new content for players and keeps n00bs out.
1) Give WoW away for free
2) Overload servers with millions of players and no money for upgrades
3) ???
4) Profit!
I've played free MMO's where the quality wasn't all that bad. Not as 3-d as WOW but not as irritatingly pixelated either.
Warcraft: For Free!
Put it this way: you think if Warcraft was suddenly made free millions more people would join? Yeah, I would say so but the experience they would get in game would be of a significantly lesser quality than what subscribing members get at the moment and to be honest thats what a lot of people pay for- a decent quality game experience. There would be overloaded servers and day long wait lists to play. There is only so much a server can handle- and when a server is filled or it fries what happens? Buy more servers to accommodate your larger user base. But buy servers with what? You have no income from the subscribers cause there isn't any- your a free MMO remember? Then your staff start getting cranky when they aren't getting paid and they quit, so what though, hire more staff? With what, think air? Hate to break it to some people but its not a valid currency!
Gaia Battle: For Free
You think Gaia Battle System will be free? In the sense that logging on and playing it wont cost a dime, yeah its free. But why do you think there is this huge sponsor push? Why do you think Cash purchased items were introduced? How long before Gaia starts introducing battle rings purchased through cash that give insane power boosts? Gaia will need a revenue to fund the Battle System and all that goes with it.
Gaia: Making Monies
Companies need to make money- fact. They do this in different ways. If a company doesn't run a subscription for their service they make their money through advertisements and sponsors directly aimed at their users. This is what Gaia does- this site is littered with bullshit ads and sponsors so Gaia can make money, so you don't have to pay. Now consider somebody who 'donates' to Gaia- they don't have to deal with most of the ads but they do have to put with the sponsors and all their s**t floating around. Donating once a month to Gaia is practically like a subscription.
Warcraft: Making Monies
Go to the WoW website, no sponsors, no advertisements for other companies, no in game items from some pissy company or a random anime. No way to purchase your epix with real life cash. Last I checked a big a** MTV store never popped up in Stormwind where I could deliriously deck out my character with the latest in prat pixel fashion from the mother of all corporate whores- MTV. Im pretty sure us Warcraft folk like it like that and thats why we are willing to pay, thats why WoW has a subscription, so we don't have to put up with that crap.
Bottom Line
Warcrafts subscribers pay for the experience, the updated content, the fact they don't have to deal with ads that would otherwise spoil their game experience and ruin the environment. Since Gaia users don't pay a subscription you have to deal with MTV stores, you have to deal with sponsorships and advertisements that are on practically every page of the site. Unless you donate. Which is still like paying a subscription so its not really free then is it?
But what about a subscription free version of WoW like Hellgate London? Thats BS because you think people really want to play half a game? Have a limited experience? What do you exclude from a game like WoW?
By all accounts there is a big amount of moaning about warcraft- buffs and nerfs for classes and all that. But nowhere near as much as there is on Gaia- why? Because Gaia doesn't target a specific group of people, thats why a lot of people don't get Gaia, its hard to define because their market isn't with an easily identified. Besides WoW players have more of a right to moan about their game than Gaians, cause Warcrafters pay for what their game, Gaians don't.
Warcraft is a very specific group of people- those who have a PC/Mac with the power to run it, those interested in fantasy/mmo, those who have the internet and those who have the money to pay for the service, people who like the style and orientation of the graphical content. Now with that in mind how many of the 800 million teenagers are left? 100 million? Less?
Right. Im stopping myself or Ill rant forever and I think topic has gone stale.
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