MMO deals to attract and new and lapsed players

About a month ago I received an email from Blizzard to come back to World of Warcraft with a 7 day free pass. My cousin, who stopped playing WoW around the same time I did many months ago, received the same email. So no doubt Blizzard wanted us back, as they did with many other lapsed subscribers. This isn't surprising, as it's been done before and has some predictable rates of success.

But recently I became aware of a new twist in the battle over MMO retention rates. On Dec 14 Funcom announced:

"a unique holiday offer for its [MMO] Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. Anyone who downloads, registers, and starts playing the trial before January 1st 2010 will be able to enjoy all of level one to twenty – the entire Island of Tortage experience – without ever having to upgrade to a full account or pay a subscription fee. This unique Unlimited Free Trial campaign is only available until January 1st as a special holiday offer to anyone who wishes to experience the sexy and savage world of Conan."

Basically they are trying a type of freemium pricing where you can play the lower levels of the game as much as you want for free forever, but if you want to advance beyond a certain point you must subscribe.

Then on Dec 16 EA & Mythic Entertainment announced a "Warhammer Online Reenlistment Campaign" where, similar to the recent Blizzard offer I received about coming back to WoW, lapsed Warhammer Online players could come back to the game for 10 - count'em: 10 - free days of play with in-game rewards and "other" bonuses. But the big catch was that the reactivation had to happen between Dec 16 and Dec 23. As with Blizzard, EA/Mythic is hoping that for those who kicked the habit, a little free taste will be enough to get them back in the game indefinitely.

These "come back to WoW/WAR/AoC etc" campaigns aren't new in concept, it's just that three major games are all making offers around the holidays and putting out press releases about it. As far as I know, Blizzard is the only company running major TV ad campaigns in the US around its MMO game in general. The current WoW ad features a new Mr. T spot about his Night Elf Mohawk grenade. Also, these are different offers than the standard 7, 10 or 14 day free trial for new subscribers that MMO games generally always offer. These are different campaigns aimed at getting people back or hopefully addicted enough to unlimited low level play to go for the ultimate glory of reaching level 50 or 60 or 80 or whatever the level cap of the game in question is...while paying the monthly fee.

But for me, the kicker is that I tried the 7 day "come back to WoW" offer and a few days into I received a 60-day WoW subscription card to keep playing. Oh man, my wife is going to hate this but at least someone else will pay for the next 2 months of access. Maybe then I'll get hooked again and starty paying Blizzard myself? Time will tell...

Meanwhile, a truely double edged type gift is a subscrption card to your addicted friends who kicked the MMO habit. Maybe Blizzard and etc. should run adds like the following:

Got friends you only sort of like? Did they recently give up an MMO game? Why not buy them a time card to that game!!! Then when their loved ones yell at them, they can think of you!