War thunder= kanye west
Aceshigh = deftones
Hah, brilliant, that's advertising perfection right there IMO.
WT exists IMO as a marketing opportunity for this product here at HTC. I truly feel this way. It's popular enough and has enough thrust behind it in terms of word of mouth, advertising, and many favorable game reviews (quantity more than quality in this regard IMO), that it has introduced huge numbers of players to the WW2 online air combat genre. Now it's just a matter of creating a product that is close enough in terms of the visuals, and completely blows it out of the water in terms of game play experience. Even getting a single digit of a % of WT customers would be a company and game changing event for HTC IMO. Luring these customers here from WT could most easily be accomplished by showing them things they are already familiar with (f2p), with the promise of something much more than that available as an option (monthly subscription part of the game).
I still believe that the key to increased subscribers is to blend the f2p model with what HTC has now, without engaging in the "battle of the pocketbook" cash for technology that goes in in current F2P games like WoT and such. Allow players to engage in a f2p segment of the AH experience which allows them to see what is going on in the entire game, limit them from the really fun stuff, as an enticement to subscribe. As I and others have said before, perhaps allow some vehicles and the Storch be free, perhaps PT boats, or better yet a new infantry controllable squad and the jeep, and allow perhaps 300 or whatever the servers could handle into the MA on top of the paying subscribers. It'll give subscribers more targets and stuff to engage, stuff to do, as well as likely attract 10 percent of those f2p guys into the reg sub game.
With such a model, since F2P players will be fairly familiar with the entire MA game, reduce the current 2 week free trail to a much shorter period, so that the F2P customers get a brief and overwhelming dose of what having the entire inventory of vehicles and aircraft opened up is like, which IMO would increase subscription rates from this pack of new players. Also create a streamlined, consolidated, and regularly updated game manual, and funnel this into the already excellent training corps.