In the future it could make sense to make World of Warcraft a free-to-play MMO, Blizzard has told our mates at PC Gamer.

Speaking to PCG at its studios in Irvine, California, WoW's lead designer, Tom Chilton made clear that the rise of the free-to-play western MMO hasn't gone unnoticed at Blizzard, explaining that "at some point, it may not make sense for us to have a subscription fee."

In the last year, Western MMOs such as Lord of the Rings Online, Company of Heroes and Dungeons and Dragons Online have all embraced a free-to-play model, where microtransactions substitute a traditional subscription fee.

The Blizzard man doesn't rule out WoW taking the same route somewhere down the line: "If another game comes along and blows us away it may not make sense for us to have a subscription fee," he said. "Or even further down the line, when we have another MMO out."

Continuing his PCG chat, Chilton said he doesn't think other MMOs have gone free just to compete with World of Warcraft: "I feel like they're doing that to compete with other games that are on a similar subscriber level to what they were at," he offered.

"I imagine that when one of them went free to play it cannibalized some of the other subscribers. I can definitely imagine that being the case with World of Warcraft."

Don't cancel your subscription just yet though: WoW isn't going free-to-play in the near term. "We're not spending a lot of time thinking about it. It's not something that's a reality for us in the near future."

PC Gamer has much, much more on World of Warcraft: Cataclysm in its new issue, on-sale tomorrow. Buy it online and have it delivered to your door, why don't you?

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