The individual subcription based games will start to fade in the coming years.
Blizzard will open BattleNet accounts that give you free access to SC2, D3, WOW and the new MMO for one general subcription fee. And even newer games will get added.
A total package 15 or 20 dollars to play all on line games and their added services (like e-sport, added scenario's and mods) will replace the single subscription based games. Even if there are individual subscriptions, they will tend to be not very good deals compared to the total bundles.
At that time everyone will need to follow and the regrouping of paid games will be a fact.
One could say SOE and others already use this technique, but they are not the industry's leader, Activision Blizzard is.
Seival: added the numbered list to the original post.
The numbered list
I don't think Microsoft is able or even want to do so.
Agree.
Agree. I think Activision-Blizzard is about to do so.
Yes, and I'm sure Activision-Blizzard will be the only company who use such model. So battle.net will be finally called "paid social network".
I do not think so. Consoles rule the game development world, not PCs. So I'm sure B2P games will move other type of games aside.
Activision-Blizzard never was and never will be the industry's leader. They are just a well known company, nothing more. They have a lot of things to do if they really want to become leaders.
Comments
I don't think Microsoft is able or even want to do so.
Agree.
Agree. I think Activision-Blizzard is about to do so.
Yes, and I'm sure Activision-Blizzard will be the only company who use such model. So battle.net will be finally called "paid social network".
I do not think so. Consoles rule the game development world, not PCs. So I'm sure B2P games will move other type of games aside.
Activision-Blizzard never was and never will be the industry's leader. They are just a well known company, nothing more. They have a lot of things to do if they really want to become leaders.