Yes, WoW is the largest MMORPG out there, but I just upgraded Lord of the Rings Online to The Mines of Moria. At least the storyline's a bit better than WoW as it ties in to one of the best literary fantasy universes.

Though my wife and I started on $15 a month, we went lifetime for $199 each. All we have to do is buy the expansions. My minstrel, her champion and many crafting alts will be quite busy for years to come.

You write: "First, theres a signifigant amount of that monthly fee that goes back into the company via system maintenance, upgrades, programming, etc.". You don't read much news do you?

According to Blizzards own financials (September call, 2008): 

Total cost of Warcraft since 2004: $200 million. Total. In 4 years. Everything included: servers, programming, buildings, maintainance, everything.

Total take for Warcraft: estimates of $75 to $150 million. PER MONTH. That's a low-end estimate of $3.6 BILLION in those same four years.

That's hardly a "significant amount going to maintenance", as you claim.

Me? I don't play, but damn, what a sweet business model.


The subscription price is competitive with almost every pay MMO on the market. Two things to realize. First, theres a signifigant amount of that monthly fee that goes back into the company via system maintenance, upgrades, programming, etc.. Second. Not every one of the 10 million subscribers pay 15$. Some like in korea pay signifigantly less as they play in cyber cafe's by the hour, so while they are definately comftorably making money, lowering the fee would invariably mean lowering the quality.

Just wont happen since the online support from gamemasers and such.The price is actually low.The thing with LH is the absolut nerfing and wasting of all work done on lowlevel areas.For the only reason to get 1 people to 60 fast thus forcing them to buy 2. BL then nerf all monsters and nerf the xp required to level so the can get fast to 70 while they have a intresst and then 3. to buy Lich King .Congratulasion Blizzard ,this is good for you but not for a new player -He dont play the actual game that was intented the Game now is about LV 70-80 eg all other content wasted away to Force player to get LH. I think this is bad, Wen a monster at same level as me dies from 1(one)blow I will leave this game siince its come about industry greed ,not Gaming

They hunger for money. Their profit margins can't swell enough so don't expect any price cuts.

Yeah for more of the same. I love Blizzard fanbois. Lets ALL roll a deathknight and go grind something for 58 hours so we can get a crappy reward.

I am wondering since its release years ago and the price of the game and expansion why not drop the subcription price to the current players who have been on it for more than a year or two as a thank you for there support.

Activision Blizzard (as they are now called) are a multi billion pound corp and with StarCraft 2 (hurry up darn nab it) and Diablo 3 coming next year there's even more money. Hell StarCraft 2 is coming in 3 seperate games to tell each story of the 3 Terran, Protoss & Zerg.