$20 per WoW Player

How much is each player worth to a MMORPG company? Well, Blizzard is willing to buy them for the equivalent of $20 each, but for US players only, the rest of the world must be worth less. :) It was announced that every one of the 1 million US players will receive a code by e-mail which will allow a friend to play for 10 days. At $15 per month, 10 days is worth $5. Then if the friend buys the game and upgrades his buddy-key account to a real account, the player who gave him the key will receive a free month of WoW, worth another $15. Thus $20 per new player.

Given that the US version of WoW is now 11 months old, and even the more casual players should be able to reach level 60 in WoW in a year, this is probably a good move. While predictions of a 75% rate of subscription losses are probably exaggerated, it is pretty certain that people are leaving World of Warcraft every day. WoW was still on place #2 of the PC games sales charts in the US last month, but with lots of new games coming out for christmas that might not last. Better let your current players spread the word while you still have current players. Given that most of WoW's problems are concentrated at level 60, and other problems are caused by people getting bored of WoW, it is probably easier to make new players happy than to please the people that already played a year.

I wonder if the European version will follow with the same marketing strategy in 3 months, as the Euro version came out 3 months later than the US version. Doing it now would be better timing, so people could still put WoW on their christmas wishlist. Not that I would have any use for such a buddy-key, all my friends are already playing WoW, and since this is their first MMORPG, they haven't lost interest yet.
- posted by Tobold @ 1:19 PM Permanent Link