The most important keynote: No changes to the subscription rates. While this does initially feel like a blow considering the age of the game, note that he also means that the price will not go up either, despite the rising cost of staying in business these days. Fair enough considering the value one gets with the numerous expansions and patches.

Moreover, we can expect the added value to grow further over time with Blizzard's intent to keep churning out expansions on a yearly basis. In Morhaime's own words, "We will continue making expansions as long as we have players that want to play World of Warcraft."There are similarly priced, far prettier-looking games out there today that are failing because WoW is just so much better despite its age. US$ 15 is a bargain, if you want my opinion.

The fact that Blizzard appears to be largely immune to world-wide financial crisis should be testament enough to the viability of their pricing. "So far we haven’t really noticed a hit from the economy," said Morhaime. "We’re optimistic that we’ll continue going strong."