Rob Pardo reveals World of Warcraft originally designed as free-to-play

The hit MMORPG World of Warcraft which has garnered more than ten million subscribers was originally designed around a free-to-play business model complete with advertisements. At least that’s what Rob Pardo, the vice president of game design for Blizzard, revealed in a recent talk at the Paris Game Developer Conference. Care to find out more, then head on over to the full article.

The vice president of game design at Blizzard, Rob Pardo, revealed a very interesting factoid at this year’s Paris Game Developer Conference.

It seems that the hit MMORPG World of Warcraft which has garnered more than ten million subscribers was originally designed around a free-to-play business model complete with advertisements.

Pardo stated that “we [Blizzard] wanted to make it [World of Warcraft] free and advertising supported.” However, after going over the numbers, they saw that it just wouldn’t support the company.

Considering the amount of support from the gaming community the game has gotten, could Blizzard have gotten more money by making it free to play while offering players in-game items for cash and charging advertisers for a certain amount of views? What do you think?

Via Gamesutra