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World of Warcraft, the Orcs and the Humans could go free-to-play

I didn`t know why this name sounds so familiar to me, but when I opened the first page concerning World of Warcraft, I remembered everything: it was the game, that I used to play with my friends during high school.

World of Warcraft was born in 1994 and presented to gamers all over the world a spectacular world of Orcs and Humans. At that time it was named simply, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, but as time flew by, the game reached the tenth anniversary and the universe of fights got enriched with more characters and more dangers. In 2008, the game reached more than 11 millions of players, which is an incredible record, let`s admit it.

Probably the success of the game is due to the fact that it exploits a world of fantasy, where anybody can be a hero of humanity, fighting the Orcs and other malefic characters. It`s just like in “Lord of the Rings”, while playing, you feel responsible of saving the world.

Another hot point for World of Warcraft will be its possibility of getting free-to-play someday, in the next future. Today, the game is still based on active players, that pay a small amount of money each month, in order to play it from the comfort of their homes or at job (if you dare to do it, although I don`t recommend you, I got penalized, when my boss caught me playing). But the Lead Designer Tom Chilton declared that it`s definitely possible. Tom Chilton seem not to hurry and make the big step, not until others games manage to be a serious competitor for World of Warcraft and so, his product has to diminish the standards. I have to admit that he has a realistic vision, although the pressure in games` world for becoming free is enormous. A serious manager has to think of the risks of getting free-to-pay: no more direct revenues, cannibalizing the other games related as subject and perhaps, the loss of interest regarding the respective game (who could play a game, which is democratically open to everybody, without feeling that the uniqueness is gone?!).

Anyhow, it looks that the managers of Dungeons & Dragons online took their chance of becoming free-to-play and that this step proved to be a smart move, as their revenues increased by 500 percent! I`m very curious what World of Warcraft will do in the future, but until that moment, I propose you a small delight coming from the fabulous World of Wars: as a player and member of the Alliance, you can be Human, Dwarf, Night Elf, Gnom or Draenei. If you are hardly expecting the new series, called “Cataclysm”, you can be even a Worgen. On the other side, the bad guys are reunited into the Horde, and they can be the spooky Orc, Undead, Tauren, Blood Elf or Troll and starting with “Cataclysm”, you can be a Goblin.

I can hardly wait to start playing again World of Warcraft…

Denisa Chirita

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