WoW could and should be Cheaper!

With the success of World of Warcraft it comes as a surprise to me that they havenÂ’t done something else revolutionary – lower the price. With over 5 million subscribers, one would think that lowering the price a bit could bring in more users and possibly keep users longer. IÂ’ve been a fan of MMOs, I really like the idea behind them but I just canÂ’t see myself shelling out $15/month for a game. Sure, if you consider that games cost around 50-60 bucks for a few short hours of fun, then an MMO isnÂ’t a bad idea, but some people just canÂ’t afford it or donÂ’t want to.

There are so many MMOs out there that one would think it would be ideal to capture as many players as possible and keep them playing. There have been cheap MMOs that are still around today, take a look at The Realm. The graphics are ancient and the community is quite small, but I absolutely loved that game for well over 3 years. Since the community was so small, it was like another family. There were scammers, and house robbers and tons and tons of traders. The mods actively participated in random games to hand out rare items and the developer, yesÂ… one developer, did the best he could to give the players more content.

The Realm is still around today and it only costs about $5/mo and $60 for 1 year. ThatÂ’s not too shabby, but people looking for awesome graphics will obviously stay away from it. Without going into a full review of the game, I must say it does have a lot to offer and is a lot of fun for those looking for something different.

It is my firm belief that World of Warcraft could, and should, lower their price by quite a bit. According to a MMO chart that shows how many users each MMO has, WoW is in first by a few million. Most people will complain that it would be unfair to lower the price because other people have paid for it already. Well, two things. Firstly, thatÂ’s life. Secondly, Blizzard could give them some free time to compensate or in-game gold or some special token that can be used to get some spiffy prize in the game, the possibilities are endless.

One game that should be taken into account in all of this is Guild Wars. NCSoft did a fantastic thing by releasing this free MMO. It uses some novel ideas and since there are no monthly fees, itÂ’s fairly popular. The developers also plan on releasing expansions at full price to help pay for their expenses. If Guild Wars can be successful, and be free, then WoW shouldnÂ’t have any issue at providing a lower cost to their amazingly popular title. Blizzard could release WoW expansions ala Guild Wars to help bring in revenue, but is it really needed? One might say that WoW canÂ’t decrease their cost because it costs a lot to maintain the staff and servers and create new content. While this is true I have one thing to say. At 5 million subscribers and making a general assumption that they all pay monthly, then Blizzard is taking $70,000,000 a month to the bank. ThatÂ’s 70 MILLION dollars a MONTH, way more than the cost of the servers, staff, a few cities, maybe some private islands, and lots and lots of happy bosses. If Blizzard were to lower their price from $14/mo to $5/mo then theyÂ’d still be making $25,000,000 a month, which is still incredibly high, not to mention all of the new players that would join in.

With the success of World of Warcraft it comes as a surprise to me that they havenÂ’t done something else revolutionary – lower the price. With over 5 million subscribers, one would think that lowering the price a bit could bring in more users and possibly keep users longer. IÂ’ve been a fan of MMOs, I really like the idea behind them but I just canÂ’t see myself shelling out $15/month for a game. Sure, if you consider that games cost around 50-60 bucks for a few short hours of fun, then an MMO isnÂ’t a bad idea, but some people just canÂ’t afford it or donÂ’t want to.

There are so many MMOs out there that one would think it would be ideal to capture as many players as possible and keep them playing. There have been cheap MMOs that are still around today, take a look at The Realm. The graphics are ancient and the community is quite small, but I absolutely loved that game for well over 3 years. Since the community was so small, it was like another family. There were scammers, and house robbers and tons and tons of traders. The mods actively participated in random games to hand out rare items and the developer, yesÂ… one developer, did the best he could to give the players more content.

The Realm is still around today and it only costs about $5/mo and $60 for 1 year. ThatÂ’s not too shabby, but people looking for awesome graphics will obviously stay away from it. Without going into a full review of the game, I must say it does have a lot to offer and is a lot of fun for those looking for something different.

It is my firm belief that World of Warcraft could, and should, lower their price by quite a bit. According to a MMO chart that shows how many users each MMO has, WoW is in first by a few million. Most people will complain that it would be unfair to lower the price because other people have paid for it already. Well, two things. Firstly, thatÂ’s life. Secondly, Blizzard could give them some free time to compensate or in-game gold or some special token that can be used to get some spiffy prize in the game, the possibilities are endless.

One game that should be taken into account in all of this is Guild Wars. NCSoft did a fantastic thing by releasing this free MMO. It uses some novel ideas and since there are no monthly fees, itÂ’s fairly popular. The developers also plan on releasing expansions at full price to help pay for their expenses. If Guild Wars can be successful, and be free, then WoW shouldnÂ’t have any issue at providing a lower cost to their amazingly popular title. Blizzard could release WoW expansions ala Guild Wars to help bring in revenue, but is it really needed? One might say that WoW canÂ’t decrease their cost because it costs a lot to maintain the staff and servers and create new content. While this is true I have one thing to say. At 5 million subscribers and making a general assumption that they all pay monthly, then Blizzard is taking $70,000,000 a month to the bank. ThatÂ’s 70 MILLION dollars a MONTH, way more than the cost of the servers, staff, a few cities, maybe some private islands, and lots and lots of happy bosses. If Blizzard were to lower their price from $14/mo to $5/mo then theyÂ’d still be making $25,000,000 a month, which is still incredibly high, not to mention all of the new players that would join in.