Blizzard's Casual Focus in World of Warcraft Essential, F2P Sensible for the Future

COLOGNE, Germany. August A free-to-play World of Warcraft would make sense for Blizzard eventually, lead designer Tom Chilton told Polygon during Cologne, Germany's Gamescom.

"For Blizzard it makes sense [to go free-to-play] at some point. But a lot of the risk is in making that transition. You hear stories about developers going free-to-play and getting double the number of players, but you don't always know it works out that way and how long it stays that way. We really don't know what the rate is before people drop off and lose interest."

Free-to-play is part of the casual revolution, one that, in terms of mechanics, World of Warcraft has adopted in its latest expansion, Mists of Pandaria, according to Chilton. The move has been "very successful" for the company, Chilton added.

"We would have been in bad shape had we not done that," Chilton revealed. 

Chilton admitted that "new experiences for the hardcore audience" is the MMO's weakpoint right now, although he also noted that providing that hardcore content will be a focus for World of Warcraft at a later date, likely through future expansion iterations.

SOURCE: Polygon