In the realm of MMOs charging monthly fees, trial accounts have been very useful to gamers wanting to take a peek at the game without popping down a sizable monetary commitment. Effectively demos, these trials usually let players check out the game for 7 – 14 days, depending on the game. A while ago, Warhammer Online introduced their endless trial, and it seems now that World of WarCraft is doing something similar.
Instead of placing a time limit on how long players can check out the game, it instead lets them log in as much as they want, for as long as they want. The only major catch is that they can’t progress beyond level 20, which leaves a significant portion of the game untouchable. However, it would allow players to get a taste of the game, and potentially multiple character classes, before spending a dime.
That said, it is entirely possible that players could have gone beyond level 20 using the original trial system. However, there are still plenty of people out there that would end up with more play time out of a system like this than they would have on a week-long trial period. It also has another benefit: you could log in months later to see how the game has changed, and if you like things better than before. With a time-limited trial, doing so would take a bit more effort on your part, as you’d likely need to sign up with a new account (and that could potentially be a ToS violation, depending on the game).
While the Free-to-Play model is catching on stronger and stronger as time passes, subscription games are still doing pretty well (WoW certainly still has more than a ‘few’ people playing after all), but giving people a chance to try them out for free can snag extra customers easily enough. The question then is, is an endless trial like this superior to the more traditional trials MMOs have offered in the past?
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