Today I am going to talk about a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), “World of Warcraft”, and some of its marketing strategies. “World of Warcraft” was released on November 23, 2004 and was estimated to have 62% of the MMORPG market now. Its players are not just teenagers, but many people in their fifty are also subscriber of this game. It’s really a game that has players all around the world.
When the game is first realized, it’s free to play. People could the game for free. After some time, when the gamers are really addicted to the game, then subscription fee begin to apply.
Even now, since the game has already earned its reputation, it’s still free to play for the first 2 weeks. Whenever an expansion for the game is released, Blizzard Entertainment, the creator of the game, will still send invitations to players to try out the beta version for free, before they start charging.
The game has created loyalty in every player, when a new expansion is release, Blizzard does not have to do much to advertise, because all its players seems to be waiting and begging for the expansion to be released. All Blizzard needs to do is to post the trailer of the new expansion, and its players will automatically start spreading the news and the trailer.
It is really easy for Blizzard to promote their game when have such a big population of loyal gamers.
