v20.9 - Simple Math

Good morning folks,

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Well the weekend has finally come to a close.  The final day is here and Monday looms over us like a tropical storm waiting to unleash it's fury.  Where did my weekend go?!?  To be fair, I still have the rest of the day; I need a vacation.

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So I've been playing around with some ideas on making money on the side.  Things are hard right now and any bit of extra cash I can get to come in would be a huge help right now.  As most of you know, I'm an avid World of Warcraft player.  Today I was playing WoW (am playing as I type this sadly) and one of my addons barked at me letting me know it's time to update.  I went to the site to update the addon and it looks like the free version of the addon I used to use is no longer supported and he has switch over completely to a subscription based service.  I really hope this isn't the case, but I love the addon so much I may just pay the $15/yr to have access to it.

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Then the wheels started to turn in my head.  What if I could create a really awesome addon and offer it for $15/yr to the public?  Consider the possibility with me for one minute.  There are approximately 11 Million active subscribers playing World of Warcraft.  Let's assume for sake of argument that 25% of them are secondary accounts for things like bank characters and such.  That leaves approximately 8.25 Million accounts active that are played by real individuals.  Now, let's assume of that 8.25 Million that 50% of them use addons.  Since I know a lot of people use addons, I can only assume there are some that don't.  I want to error on the side of caution here so I'll assume a high number which leaves me with approximately 4 Million active subscriptions played by people who use addons.

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Now, lets get back to the subscription model.  Let's say I create this amazing addon that nobody else has ever done before and it really blows people away.  I wrap a little support around it via a message forum and package it up.  For 1 month it will cost you $2.99, for 6 months it will cost you $9.99 and for 12 months it will cost you $14.99.  Let's assume the majority of the people out there are going to want to only give it a try first before paying a subscription so we'll provide them with a slimmed down version of the addon for free.  Of those who try the free addon, let's assume half of them want to support me and pay a subscription fee to use the full blown addon.

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Some quick numbers:

Assuming not all of the 4 Million active subscribers are going to want to try this addon, I'll cut this number in half and say 2 Million.  Let's assume half of them like it enough to actually pay for a subscription to the service and the average person will pay for the full year since it's cheaper.

1 Million X $14.99 = $14,990,000

Hmmm

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So I beg the question, why should Blizzard be the only one able to cash in on this game?  They obviously make so much money with World of Warcraft, I mean they have over 60% of the MMO market share today and only seem to grow.  For some people, addons are a huge part of the game and a lot of people use them; why not make a little bit of money off that?

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Anyway folks, just some Sunday morning simple math for you to consider.  I'm seriously going to look into this because if I could even cash in on HALF that, I could quit my job and become a professional WoW player and developer.  :)

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Cheers,
Al