Are these things mutually exclusive?

I can see Blizzard incorporating microtransactions while keeping the subscription model.

"Don't have time to raid this cave and kill this dragon? Give us a couple bucks and get the loot instantly!"

Or something to that effect.

Considering WoW is still very popular there is no need for Blizzard to move away a subscription base. Maybe when the numbers start to drop they could possible go to a more microtransaction model. Also the cost of running WoW is probably a large sum of money and tbh I cant see a microtransaction bringing in the money.

In my honest opinion, the new Mountain Dews are proof that anything is a good business model for Blizzard when it invovles WoW. They can't fuck it up now, it's too big and sustained.

Edit: And you know that Blizzard is learning a whole lot about the WoW franchise after releasing these drinks.

I would definitely play this game if it were free.  15 bucks is just too much expecially when you consider that it is really a lot less of a cost to run the game.  Maybe a dollar a month would be more appropriate when you take into account the cost to maintain the servers.  If it moved to a DLC model it would be better and serparate those who are hardcore into and those who are not.  Even though the servers are needed, it is ridiculous to think that I have to pay 15 bucks a month on top of the game being 60 for everything thats out now.

I wonder if the planning of Warcraft IV, the new MMO, and the Battle.net service has anything to do with these talks. It seems like if and when Blizzard decides to find a nice and stable home for WoW, that's when you will see some big changes in the internal workings of Blizzard. Just a theory.

i would yes if it was free, MAYBE. i use to play for like three years straight. i use to play the game a lot when i use to play. i stopped every once in  a while. one day i stopped then a couple of months later i tried playing but couldn't. i had a level 70 orc rogue, it had season 1 and 2 arena gear and some kara gear.

i've also noticed that the game is going causual because of some of the changed they made. i remember they increased the XP for the regular wow not burning crusade. i would also might go back if they lowered the price of it.

Blizzard are making way too much money from subscriptions. Using a microtransaction service would mean more players, more bandwidth, more servers, more maintainance, higher costs, when only a fraction of the players actually pay for things. It aint gonna happen.

I said to attach this to the WoW forums...could use a shift!

In the ever-evolving age of MMO games, and the constant struggle to play catch up with one another, even Blizzard's mammoth franchise may consider re-thinking its business strategy. There are talks about World of Warcraft shifting from subscription based services to microtransactions in the future. Impossible? Some say they are happy where they are, and no doubt are yielding in major profits. Others say success from other games may be pushing them to make adjustments. The more casual free 2 play MMOs, Free Realms (Sony Online Entertainment), gained ~3 million people in under 2 months.