Murphy's Law: An Open World of Warcraft?

Posted 02/12/2010 at 2:00pm | by David Murphy

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Don't burn your credit cards or start sending recruit-a-friend notices to everyone in your address book: World of Warcraft is not going open-source. You will still have to pay a monthly fee of $14.99 for the privilege of stomping your virtual friends and NPCs into corpse dust, and you will not be permitted to split WoW off into a side project that grants anyone with your name a free pass to level 80 (and/or a fixed "I win!" button). Blizzard isn't stupid.

WoW might not be going open-source, but the company behind it is using the 1-2-3 trick of the open-source world to encourage increased adoption and interest in its core piece of software. In what I believe is a first for the genre, you'll soon be able to access in-game mechanics from a separate Web or mobile app. You might not be able to run your daily quests off of your iPhone, but for WoW enthusiasts looking to make a tidy profit throughout their adventures in Azeroth, Blizzard's mobile access should give you up-to-the-minute information for your business profiteering.

So how does this exactly work?

Blizzard's using the tried-and-true method of hooking interested parties into a service offering, but it's hard to discern exactly where the chain begins. That statement's a little nebulous, so allow me to clarify: A large number of World of Warcraft's features and offerings are themed around the same kinds of techniques for adoption that you see in the open-source world.

Borrowing a Page

Take World of Warcraft as a whole. It's a game. You pay money for it every month, analogous to a service that you would purchase based on an open-source platform running in an office. The game's completely free to download, much as an open-source program is yours to grab from wherever it happens to be hosted. The two realities diverge a bit when it comes to the feasibility of using the program: You can always use open-source apps without their pricy service or support offerings, though you can't do a thing with World of Warcraft unless you pony up the monthly service fee (or hack the game into an illegal private server).

Still, the principle is there. World of Warcraft allows its users to build and incorporate add-ons to further customize their overall experience. While users can't (or are extremely discouraged to) hack the actual mechanics of the game, they can nevertheless come pretty close to expanding the game's features to a near-cheating classification. You can tweak your Warcraft experience much like an open-source developer can build new functionality into a program at a moment's notice (Firefox add-ons, anyone?).

The Open Auction House

The auction houses scattered throughout the land serve as vital components of the game's economy. Consider them a service that's been built overtop the core hack-and-slash functionality of the game--much like a support mechanism that one would normally pay for on top of an open-source piece of software. Instead of paying cash, you're paying in-game currency to use this service. If you want to expand your business beyond your faction's linked auction houses, you have to pay a larger cut of your profits for the added service.

The new mobile and Web app that links to the auction house takes us right back to the beginning of the cycle. In this case, you're getting a program for free--the in-game Auction House (I'm not counting in-game currency as a fee for use, as it's not... real). The service spinning off of that is the mobile or Web-based access to the in-game auction program. Although the basic elements of the mobile and Web-based service will be free, an addition premium feature is expected to cost something extra for access.

In doing this, Blizzard maintains complete control over the addiction factor. The auction house is a critical element of your game--the open-source software, if you will. The add-ons are the moneymaker, which you'll be compelled to explore due to the aforementioned addiction, be it through the in-game service or the free mobile or Web-based app.  (If you're still confused... see the appendix at the bottom of this article!)

How it Really Works

Free begets paid. Even open-source software developers have to make money, and this is how they do so: offer a compelling product and supplement with additives once you're hooked, or deliver a basic functionality that you can purchase extra tweaks for. Easy. Simple. Effective.

World of Warcraft might not be open-source, but both parties certainly share a common path when it comes to keeping users engaged... and paying.

David Murphy (@ Acererak) is a technology journalist and former Maximum PC editor. He writes weekly columns about the wide world of open-source as well as weekly roundups of awesome, freebie software. If you're on the Black Dragonflight server... let him know!

Appendix

World of Warcraft

• Downloadable for free, need to pay for "service" or "support" to correctly access program mechanics
• Able to configure and code around set parameters to customize or tweak the program (addons) 
• Can supplement core mechanics with additional "fee-based" services (auction house) or real fee-based servics (character customizations / transfers / etc.)

Auction House

• A free program that allows you to run business in a virtual setting
• Fee-based service expansions give you a larger market to choose from for selling and buying goods
• Can customize experience with coded tweaks and add-ons to ensure stronger capabilities
• Spin-off mobile and Web services increase your ability to interact with (and your dependence on) the initial program
• Fee-based service expansions offer increased access via new gateways