Gamasutra has been talking to Blizzard’s Rob Pardo about World of Warcraft, and other subjects related to Blizzard. Perhaps the most interesting bit of information that Pardo let out was the fact that World of Warcraft was going to be a free-to-play, ad supported game:
But how about the move to free-to-play worldwide when it comes to online games? Pardo explained of the knock-on effect: “It affects us quite a bit. We’ve been successful in Asia for 10 or 11 years now, so we’re more savvy with the Asian business models than most. But what’s difficult for us is that what’s acceptable and popular in Asia is so different from the rest. We’re a global company. And it works very well over in Asia, but not so well over here. And subscriptions work great here, but not so well in Asia. It’s really hard to make something that works in both places.”
He elaborated: “If you make it subscription here, and free to play in Korea, that doesn’t work, because it’s a global community, and the other regions wouldn’t like it, because everyone knows what everyone’s doing. And the game design might not support it.”
Interestingly, Pardo commented on this subject: “When were first going to make World of Warcraft, we wanted to make it free and advertising supported.”
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.”
