While everyone is crowing about the benefits of switching to a free-to-play business model, Blizzard remains steadfast in keeping World of Warcraft on a subscription plan. In an interview with VentureBeat, Blizzard chief operating officer Paul Sams talks about why subscriptions are a better fit for the game and the company.
“As it relates to free to play, I do think that is an interesting business model. But it is not going to allow those companies to create the type of complexity and experience that a subscription-based title like World of Warcraft can have. The fact of the matter is, the companies that make high-quality games have to have monetary backing and they have to be able to generate revenue that covers the costs of initial and ongoing development,” said Sams.
Sams explained that the difference between sub-based games and free-to-play titles was like the difference between Disneyland and other theme parks.
“The free-to-play games serve an important role. Like the theme parks that compete with Disneyland. You can go see all of those experiences, and then you will come and do it all with us. We are going to create the most immersive experience and the most engaging, deep experiences,” he added. “That is because we can put a big budget behind our efforts that the free-to-play games can’t match.”
“That is not to say you cannot have an awesome free-to-play game that costs less to make. There are lots of examples of those successful games. I do think that with the free-to-play games you may reach audiences that you don’t traditionally reach with the subscription games. That makes sense because you are not going to find a lot of casual first-time gamers signing up for a $15 a month subscription.”
The COO admits that he loves some of these smaller titles, because they allow developers the chance to create new types of games.
“I like these other games personally and I dig the fact that small development teams can work on games again. There was a period of time that was not possible because the budgets had gotten so big,” said Sams. “Now we can see small groups making mobile and iPad games. That is positive for us. That means a lot of developers can spread their wings and build new kinds of games. We want them to graduate to doing bigger games, and we hope to draw from them from a talent perspective.”
The subscription service can’t completely be dead, as Trion just recently released Rift to seeming success, and EA is still banking on BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic.
