World of Warcraft has finally gotten with the times. You can now play the game and all but one of its expansion packs just by paying the monthly $16.50 fee.
As of today, you can play World of Warcraft and every expansion except the most current one — in this case Battle For Azeroth, which isn’t out yet — the moment you subscribe for $16.50.
There’s no longer an upfront fee for the game, or for any of its expansion packs. Just subscribe and you can craft, war, and everything in between (live, love, laugh, fight boars).
It used to be that, if you wanted to play World of Warcraft, you had to pay the piper repeatedly: For the base game, for expansions, for a subscription. In recent years, Blizzard had adopted a “Battle Chest” format, where the base package came with a fee separate from a subscription, but it included most of the expansions.
Now Blizzard’s done away with that bit of increasingly anachronistic complication.
WoW’s next expansion, the once-again Horde-vs-Alliance-focused Battle For Azeroth, will be out on August 14. It’ll cost $69.95, which is obviously a lot more than $16.50. It isn’t required if you’re just starting out, but the new endgame will be outside your grimy green orc grasp without it.
So in case you were worried, fear not: Blizzard still wants your money.
Comments
10 responses to “You Can Now Play Most Of World Of Warcraft Just By Subscribing”
Yes that’s a good idea, but as someone who has been playing and paying for this since original release and swapped from US to AU servers, the cost to separate characters that are horde and alliance currently stuck on the one server is ridiculous (>$30 per character), and of course the number of characters you can have per server is restricted.
Aren’t they adding some community features to let you group with people on other servers? Or is that just for chat and dungeons. Sorry, I haven’t played since WoD.
Nah you can group up with friends cross realm just can’t trade with them. Not sure how communities will work though should be interesting.
I have no idea about price changes in WoW, but assuming the subscription has always been $16.50 a month, and there’s been 6 expansions at around $60 a pop. That means a day one subscriber has paid over $3000 for this game. Sweet Enola Gay, that’s a lot of money.
Over 14 years though (I played at launch, yet keep forgetting just how old it is)
Around $222 year – But if you use the 60 day cards, more like $264 a year (If using the cards, $3700 since launch if I did the maths right)
My wife and I have bought every expansion so far but we usually play for a few subscription cycles and then cancel it when the game dries up. We tend to re-sub when more content is out, usually right before a new expansion drops. I feel like we get our money’s worth though.
My wife’s MOTHER plays the game also and she hasn’t let her subscription lapse since the the first expansion came out. Add to that numerous name, race and server changes and things bought on the in-game shop, each of which have a hefty cost associated and I’d say she’s spent much more than $3000 on the game by this point. It’s basically her only vice.
Sorry, to be clear, I didn’t mean it as a negative. I know for a lot of people that never let the subscription run out that WoW is one of the only games they spend money on, so looking at that $3000 on almost 14 years worth of entertainment is pretty darn good.
I also have read that you can use loot to pay for your subscription now, so theoretically that cost will come down. It’s just amazing to calculate the longevity of something that a lot of people weren’t sold on when news first came out.
Funnily enough most of the people I know will jump back on each new expansion, play for a few months then cancel.
But yeah your right it is one heck of a money-maker for Blizzard.
Mildly interesting story about WOW … and you have just rocked my world. Your mother in law is a gamer.
Mind. Blown. And huge respect to her.
Hahah it took them over a decade to “get on with the times” (of a decade ago) when MMOs switched to monetize only the subscription. Maybe in another 10 years they will get on with the times of making the game free to play.