Free Game Like WoW

[Hawkizzle]

Are there any free games for a mac that are like World of Warcraft? I know there is turf battles for a pc but I was wondering if there are any free mac versions. I really do not feel like paying for wow and the monthly fee because i know i will only want to play for a month or so.

[Randman]

No.

[jsgrabo]

there was one i played a while back that was quite similar and actually pretty fun. i just spent 20 min googlin around for it but i havent found it yet. i'll let you know.

[jsgrabo]

found it! (http://globalmuonline.gamersfirst.com/index.php)

[Echinda]

"like WoW" is the problem with your question. I estimate that Activision Blizzard is spending something like $300 million* a year just on development costs for WoW. There is nothing out there that is free which is having anywhere near that kind of effort spent on it.

So if you're asking "Are there free mmorpgs?" then the answer is yes: type "Free MMORPG" into Google and fill your boots.

But if you're asking "Is there a free game like WoW?" the answer is no.


* Just so you don't think I'm pulling these numbers out of the air, a little background: in June, Vivendi Games merged with Activision. While you can't tell how much Vivendi was spending on WoW annually from the pro forma financials they filed with the SEC, you can make an educated guess. The filing shows that 78% of Vivendi Games' revenues were coming from subscription and licensing and 0% of Activision's were in that category. The big difference between their two businesses is WoW, so it is not that much of a stretch to assume that those subscription revenues are coming from WoW and that it represents something like 3/4 of Vivendi Games' revenues pre-merger. In the quarter ended 3/31/08, Vivendi Games spent $102,716,000 on product development. If 75% of that is WoW, then they are spending about $75.3 million a quarter on WoW development, or $301 million a year. If WoW is wildly profitable and their other businesses only break even, subtracting all of the revenue from their other business straight from expenses (i.e. they make no profit there) leaves 73.3% of their total expenses, so 75% is not a bad guess.

And that is just development expenses. If you look at all expenses (including cost of sales, marketing, general, administrative and amortization/depreciation) and you use the same assumptions, they spend around $780 million a year to bring us WoW (they spent $259,769,000 on all expenses in that quarter, which annualizes to $1.04 billion).

Unless they have some other major piece of subscription income that I'm unaware of, the amount of money they are spending on WoW is massive. It is inconceivable that an ad supported game could come anywhere close to delivering the same product.

[tbabb]

There are free private wow servers out there. If you really want the wow experience without the monthly cost, that's the way to go.

[kkat69]

found it! (http://globalmuonline.gamersfirst.com/index.php)

OP said FOR THE MAC.

This is a windows game.

To the OP. There are some free mmorpg's for the mac but I wouldn't waste the time downloading them. The graphics and interface are a bit clunky and not very refined.

Minions of Mirth (*spelling) and there's another one I can't think of atm but I tried 2 and they both were a waste of download time IMO.

If your looking for WoW like experience, I'd suggest vmware/bootcamp and get a free MMORPG like perfect worlds international or something like the MTU suggested. On the Mac your sorta stuck atm, unless you wanted to search for a hack WoW server and try that route (I'd advise against it officially ;) )

[Huntn]

found it! (http://globalmuonline.gamersfirst.com/index.php)

Is this an oriental MMO grindfest? :)

A private WoW server might be tempting, but I'd fear that you'd sink a lot of work into it just to have Blizzard shut it down and poof, there goes your characters. ;)

I looked at Minions of Mirth a couple of years ago and at the time, it did not compare to WoW in any way although it has no monthly fee to play.

[ElZeus]

"like WoW" is the problem with your question. I estimate that Activision Blizzard is spending something like $300 million* a year just on development costs for WoW. There is nothing out there that is free which is having anywhere near that kind of effort spent on it.

So if you're asking "Are there free mmorpgs?" then the answer is yes: type "Free MMORPG" into Google and fill your boots.

But if you're asking "Is there a free game like WoW?" the answer is no.


* Just so you don't think I'm pulling these numbers out of the air, a little background: in June, Vivendi Games merged with Activision. While you can't tell how much Vivendi was spending on WoW annually from the pro forma financials they filed with the SEC, you can make an educated guess. The filing shows that 78% of Vivendi Games' revenues were coming from subscription and licensing and 0% of Activision's were in that category. The big difference between their two businesses is WoW, so it is not that much of a stretch to assume that those subscription revenues are coming from WoW and that it represents something like 3/4 of Vivendi Games' revenues pre-merger. In the quarter ended 3/31/08, Vivendi Games spent $102,716,000 on product development. If 75% of that is WoW, then they are spending about $75.3 million a quarter on WoW development, or $301 million a year. If WoW is wildly profitable and their other businesses only break even, subtracting all of the revenue from their other business straight from expenses (i.e. they make no profit there) leaves 73.3% of their total expenses, so 75% is not a bad guess.

And that is just development expenses. If you look at all expenses (including cost of sales, marketing, general, administrative and amortization/depreciation) and you use the same assumptions, they spend around $780 million a year to bring us WoW (they spent $259,769,000 on all expenses in that quarter, which annualizes to $1.04 billion).

Unless they have some other major piece of subscription income that I'm unaware of, the amount of money they are spending on WoW is massive. It is inconceivable that an ad supported game could come anywhere close to delivering the same product.

http://kotaku.com/5050300/how-much-has-wow-cost-blizzard-since-2004

Does not include original development costs

[wcoasterf]

I know this is a grave dig but that's what happens when your boards aren't pruned. I found this community on google looking for free games like wow. Anyway the best game I came across was Runes of Magic (http://runesofmagic.com) it's pretty much a WoW clone. I found this one from http://gameslikewow.com and a few others but nothing else really compared to Runes.

[roadbloc]

Um... that teen classroom craze, runescape?

I guess not...:p

[Plutonius]

Are there any free games for a mac that are like World of Warcraft? I know there is turf battles for a pc but I was wondering if there are any free mac versions. I really do not feel like paying for wow and the monthly fee because i know i will only want to play for a month or so.

Just play WoW for a month then.

[CylonGlitch]

http://kotaku.com/5050300/how-much-has-wow-cost-blizzard-since-2004

Does not include original development costs

Approximately $30 to $40 million on the original development. I think it might have been worth it. :D

[Huntn]

Check out this list of Mac MMOs at MMORPG.com (http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/show/mac) some of them are listed as free and some have standard vendor charges (item malls) most so called "free" MMOs have these days. Looking at your original post, you won't get that much accomplished in a month. Probably not worth messing with.

[waffleman]

guys doesnt run on mac

[waffleman]

sry typo i mean guys runes of magic isnt on mac