Rumor: Blizzard Working On Free-To-Play MMO

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When it comes to MMO subscription models, there’s really only one company these days that can make a paid subscription model work. Obviously, we’re talking about Blizzard. Sure, there are a few other MMOs that have seen success with a paid subscription model, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic, but World of Warcraft is the only game that has really seen sky-high profits through utilizing the model.

So it’s a bit surprising to read a new Develop report that claims Blizzard may be looking to get into the free-to-play business. According to Develop’s unnamed source, the studio is currently experimenting with different MMO models and plans to apply the freemium model to an as-of-yet-unannounced game.

Seeing as how Blizzard has yet to announce the game in question, what it could be is anyone’s guess. Most people, however, seem to think that Develop could be talking about Titan, which we’ve known about for over a year now. Titan is just the working name for the project currently in development over at Blizzard headquarters, and we know next to nothing about it – besides the fact that it will be an MMO.

Very suspicious indeed. Blizzard has stood buy the paid subscription model at every turn, but lately we’ve seen it embracing it slowly. World of Warcraft, for example, is now free-to-play until you reach level 20, a change that was undoubtedly put in place to help counter lagging subscriptions. To be frank about things, it’s somewhat surprising that World of Warcraft’s subscription numbers haven’t dipped even further, given the number of high quality free-to-play MMOs available now.

Unsurprisingly, Blizzard has declined to comment on this rumor, so we’ll just have to wait until later on to see if there’s any truth to it. Can you imagine how success a free-to-play Blizzard MMO would be though? It seems like it would skyrocket in popularity right out of the gate, and that’s something Blizzard has definitely thought about. What do you think? Could Blizzard possibly be considering a free-to-play MMO? Head down to the comments section to let us know!