Clearly, Blizzard has been taking marketing lessons from bad drug dealer cliches from the 1980s. The company behind World of Warcraft has changed the structure of its free trial offer to ensure that becoming addicted to the online role-playing game becomes so much easier.
Blizzard explained the changes in an official statement like this:
“We’ve removed the previous 10- and 14-day trial time restrictions, and players who are interested in trying out World of Warcraft can now play the base game for free up to a maximum character level of 20, including draenei and blood elf characters—all they need is a Battle.net account and an Internet connection.”
And once players have hit their free limit, Blizzard has also made it cheaper than before to get hooked on the paid version, offering both the original WoW and first expansion The Burning Crusade for just $19.99 as part of a new “digital Battle Chest.”
(MORE: Blizzard Accelerating New ‘World of Warcraft’ Expansions to Reenergize Base)
Players who already own the original game will also find that they can access all content from Crusade for free as a result of the new bundle.
Of course, the first hit may now be free – and potentially more fulfilling than before – and the second cheaper than it used to be, but it’ll be interesting to see how many new players stick around for the third, when full pricing comes back into play.
MORE: Blizzard Responds to the ‘World of Starcraft’ MMO Issue