One of the main reasons that I bought Guild Wars 2 in the first place was that it has no subscription fee. Trust me, if WoW was subscription-free, I would be there right now and not playing GW2. Sure, maybe I’m cheap, but consider: how many people are like me, unable to afford a $15 monthly subscription fee? All of these people saw “Pay once, play forever!” and went, “Ooh!”. I, for one, would not be able to continue to play if a subscription fee was added, and I’m 100% sure that there would be a massive decrease in the GW2 playerbase as well. ArenaNet probably makes more right now from Gem store purchases than it would if it lost 50% of players and added a sub fee.