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Been in WoW for 5 years and they are a client. I even have a copy of their financials on my desk (Activision/Blizzard) and see where their income comes from.
Console games where hit and miss showing a loss in their Wii and PS2 divisions while making a bit on their PS3 and XBox divisions. About 15 million in all for their console games.
Their MMO division (WoW) netted over 300 Million last year from memberships and about 30 Million from In Game Items (mounts and pets mostly done as promotional pieces or fund raisers).
There is a large business in China which is illegal in the US from Gold Farming. Today's gold farmers in China include prisoners. It completely changes the dynamics of the game and was made illegal by the players themselves in a class action suit a few years back. The owners of the larges farmers (IGE) left the country to escape going to jail.
As far as off the shelf games, the software copy of WoW is the 15th largest selling game of all time, not including revenues from monthly memberships.
In all, I don't see this as any indicator that the most successful game of all time is jumping the shark to get members, they do a great job at that already however, I do see this as being more fair as many join but don't take advantage of their free game time and then leave.
This will no doubt will let those trial memberships have the time to play and in the end, it will produce revenues.
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