Tag: World of Warcraft

Blizzard: Will Not Up WoW's Free Trial


World of Warcraft may still be at the top of the game, but if the past few years are any indication, it is a title that may be lost in the foreseeable future. Since it hit its peak just a couple of years ago, World of Warcraft has seen a substantial loss of players, down to the current level of approximately nine million. Still, this figure doesn’t appear to have frightened the top brass at Blizzard Entertainment.

In an interview with Gamasutra, Blizzard stated that the developer has no plans to increase the current free to play limit. Producer John Lagrave commented that there are special parts of the game that he would rather reserve for paying customers.

“We looked at whether Level 20 would give you a good sense of what our game is, and we think it does. We’ve definitely slid some of the pay-for features into the first 20 Levels,”

Sorry, gamers who for one reason or another are still holding out.

International Sanctions Shut Down World of Warcraft in Iran


Iranian gamers may be waking up to find that access to a number of games will be going away in the coming weeks. According to the BBC, while the Iran government would like you to believe that the games are being banned as “western propaganda” used to “poison the minds of the youth population in Iran,” the real culprit appears to be international sanctions against the country. While many publishers already have no intention of releasing their games in Iran, this does mean that gamers in Iran will find their IP addresses blocked from accessing previously available services.

Blizzard responded to recent comments of Battle.net being blocked in Iran with the following:

We can’t speak to reports surrounding the Iranian government restricting games from its citizens. What we do know is that United States trade restrictions and economic sanction laws prohibit Blizzard from doing business with residents of certain nations, including Iran. We’ve recently tightened up our procedures to ensure compliance with those laws, which means we must restrict access to our games by players in those nations.

Iranian youth may want to consider a proxy if they intend on continuing to poison their minds with western propaganda.

(Source: BBC)

World of Warcraft Mobile App Now Free For All


Good news, World of Warcrafters, your game just became a little bit freer. As a convenience service, Blizzard launched the World of Warcraft remote. This service allows players to connect to the auction house remotely, chat with their guild, review prices, and bid on items even if their character is not at an auction house. Up until now, this service cost about $3 a month on top of your regular Warcraft subscription. As announced today, Blizzard has made all of the features of WoW Remote available for free.

Starting today, all of the features that were previously part of the optional World of Warcraft Remote subscription service are now available for free to all World of Warcraft subscribers.

Players who had already been paying for WoW Remote have received a thank you note, as well as 7 free days of game time and a non-combat pet.

(Source: World of Warcraft)

Blizzard Servers Breached


Grab your authenticators and rev up the conspiracy machine. With all the server breaches that have happened over the past year or so, it seemed inevitable that Blizzard would eventually be the victim of such an attack. A security notice on Battle.net has been posting warning users that a security breach has resulted in delicate information being released.

According to the notice, encrypted passwords, security questions, email addresses, and mobile authenticator information was stolen in the breach. Mike Mohaime points out that the information leaked is not enough to recover an account, however users over the next few days will be forced to change their secret questions and mobile authenticator users will be required to update to a new version of the software.

All in all the breach was bad, but as several sites are pointing out, it could have been much worse.

(source: WoW Insider)

World of Warcraft Dropping More Weight: Another Million Subscribers Lost


World of Warcraft is a paradox in and of itself: While the subscription numbers continue to drop, Blizzard has been very quick to point out that the game just continues to become more profitable. The problem, according to Blizzard, is that players are becoming bored with grinding content in between expansion packs. To stem the flow of gamers, Blizzard has offered everything under the sun minus the kitchen sink to bring back their ex-customers. So far, Blizzard has offered full upgrades to Cataclysm, free level 80 characters, a copy of Diablo III for subscribing for a full year, and more. To take care of what they see as the source of the leak, Blizzard has committed to less downtime between expansions and more content.

The latest numbers from Activision show World of Warcraft standing at 9.1 million subscribers, a ten percent drop from last quarter. Warcraft’s new expansion, Mists of Pandaria, launches later this year and hopes to stop, if not reverse, the exodus of players.

Despite this bad news, World of Warcraft remains the top subscription MMO by a wide margin.

(Source: Gamasutra)

Now This is How You Charity: World of Warcraft Server Blade Charity


It is that time of the year again! Blizzard was once again out and about and ready to give. Blizzard auctioned off two thousand original World of Warcraft server blades, with the proceeds to go to St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Well the final tallies are in, and Blizzard has raised $330,000.

“Each winner in this auction will own a small monument to those collective experiences. The best part is that this auction benefits a great charity doing tremendous work in helping children from the U.S. and around the world.”

Blizzard holds regular charities in World of Warcraft with benefits toward the Red Cross, Children’s Hospital, Make-a-Wish Foundation, and more.

(Source: Games Industry)

Raptr Rewards: Claim Mists of Pandaria Beta Keys


*Note: Since I’ve received numerous comments in regard to this and the other Raptr articles, I would like to point out that this is not a sponsored article. MMO Fallout does not accept offers for sponsored articles.*

We here at MMO Fallout love Raptr. If you haven’t heard of it, Raptr is a service similar to Xfire which tracks your games, achievements, time played, and more. As you play games and earn achievements, you rank up in comparison to your fellow gamers, and this is where Raptr leads the pack: Every so often, Raptr offers some great rewards for the simple act of ranking up. These range from in-game items to full games, and coupons to buy games. On the downside, the promotions are quantity and time limited, so you’ll need to be fast to earn them.

The latest deal to hit Raptr soon is a promotion for World of Warcraft. Starting later this week, players who are ranked “Experienced” (top 60%) or above in World of Warcraft will be able to claim a Mists of Pandaria beta key. There are only five thousand keys to be claimed, and they are guaranteed to be gone within just a few hours of the promotion starting.

On another fine note, this giveaway is available in all regions except for China and Korea. Sorry! Beta keys are redeemed through Battle.net.

MMO Fallout will be showcasing more Raptr rewards as they appear.

(Source: Raptr.com)

Activison Blizzard Up For Sale? For $13.2 Billion


Can someone loan me $13 billion? According to Bloomberg, executives from Vivendi SA will meet later this month to determine if the company will sell off its majority 61% share in Activision Blizzard. The report came from anonymous sources, noting that the meeting is secret and the details of what is discussed may or may not be shared with the public.

With Activision’s sales of $4.6 billion, and the launches of Diablo III and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria this year, I can see why Vivendi may not be interested in the company anymore. After all, there are only so many places to store the massive amounts of dough that Blizzard alone brings in on a yearly basis, let alone including Activision with the Call of Duty franchise.

Of course, I jest. Bloomberg notes that this would be another move to distance Vivendi from the spend-happy disaster that was CEO Jean-Marie Messier, who was booted out of the company in 2002 after a $77 billion spending spree that left the company nearly bankrupt. As for what Vivendi would do with the $13 billion that their share of Activision is worth, well I believe this picture provides one alternative:

(Source: Bloomberg)

World of Warcraft Subscriber Bleeding Stemmed: 10.2 Million


It seems like only yesterday that we were talking about the possible, perhaps, maybe imminent death of World of Warcraft at some point in the near or far foreseeable horizon of an unpredictable future just out of our gaze but right under our noses. Over the past few months, Blizzard has really revved up the promotion machine, offering free upgrades to Cataclysm and level 80 characters for returning, offering a free copy of Diablo III for promising Blizzard you would delay the divorce for another twelve months.

Well the promotions must be working, because World of Warcraft’s subscriber loss seems to have shorted out: From 10.3 million reported in November to 10.2 million reported in Blizzard’s latest report. You can check out the report at the link below for more information on Diablo III, Call of Duty, etc.

(Source: Blizzard Finances)

The Old Republic Responsible For WoW Subscriber Losses


Talking to Eurogamer, Producer John Lagrave admitted that the launch of The Old Republic has had an effect on World of Warcraft’s subscription numbers. Lagrave goes on to talk about possibly extending the current World of Warcraft unlimited trial (up to level 20) to level 40, or even level 60, but with a firm reminder that Blizzard has no plans to take the MMO to a free to play model, as Blizzard still feels that the game runs best as a subscription.

“Of course people are trying Star Wars – our development team are trying Star Wars! I’m one of the few people who’s still playing it actually, but yeah we’ve seen a dip in subs. It certainly has to at least be attributable to The Old Republic, but it’s also attributable to people who want to wait and get Mists of Pandaria, so it’s not surprising.”

Blizzard is one of several developers to be very open about their loss of subscribers, and one of the few companies to actually post a base figure of how many are still playing. Up until recently, a major portion of Blizzard’s dropped subscribers have been attributed to losses over in China where the rate of income per user is lower than in the West, in territories including China where users pay for World of Warcraft like a prepaid phone (adding hours). Blizzard also attributes some of the loss to players to a need to release more content at a faster pace, as players complete it. Meanwhile, the expansion of the cash shop has more than made up for the loss of subscribers, leading to higher revenue each quarter.

In the face of 1.7 million subscribers for The Old Republic, Blizzard is looking to entice its previous customers to return and current customers to remain so. Back in October, Blizzard launched the expanded Annual Pass offering a free copy of Diablo 3, a spectral mount, and guaranteed access to the Mists of Pandaria beta (The Diablo 3 promotion ends May 1st, if you were thinking about signing up). Just recently, Blizzard launched the Scroll of Resurrection campaign, offering an upgrade to Cataclysm, a free level 80 character, and free faction/server changes for the recipient.

All of this on the heels of Blizzcon 2012 being cancelled so Blizzard can focus on its development, and laying off 600 non-developmental workers.

You can read the rest of the discussion at the link below.

(Source: Eurogamer)

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