Analysis: WoW's Cash Shop. Can growing it improve the game?

[Lady Dragonheart]

Personally, I'd love to see more things on the cash shop as well as see it expanded upon. While I still think that having a subscription base is necessary, I'd love the opportunity to buy more things since I've bought nearly all that I can.

[Deleted]

The store only takes away content from the game as long as this game isn't F2P it shouldn't even exist.

[Deleted]

Pretty sure you cited two posters and were whining for bans while neither were making a personal attack. It's a long post and a 10minute video stating in essence nothing but more good skins and mounts on the store would translate into more content for everyone else despite the somewhat elaborate attempt to embellish the post.

Even though I don't use it my self ( I did get quite a few of the mounts and pets from the gf a while ago) I don't mind that its there.
He is also saying that it could be used for blizzard to branch out to get more income which will in turn be used to make the game better.
I personally don't believe in this bit as we as players can never "see" that these funds are used for that purpose but in the end it doesn't change anything for me as a consumer as I can choose to buy it or not.
In the end it can only be a positive thing for me as I get to eat the cake (get a better experience in game, if they really pump their revenue from extra mounts etc into the game) and eat it as well (I don't have to spend a single euro extra).

As I said, its an interesting discussion (I think so at least) if you don't say "stfu, go away, shit analysis" right away and actually read/listen to what he had to say.

[rda]

OK, woozie, you have a point, I will explain myself.

(Yes, I read the post the first time, my reply stands, but I guess I could have been more verbose. Here goes.)

@SoulSoBreezy:

But what about players? Yay Blizzard is printing money, but you can bet that the outcry from players would be massive, regardless of how Blizzard paints this idea. Critics would argue that instead of a separate art team, just make the current team bigger and produce more non-premium content - that’s an easy and valid argument to make. But from a business standpoint, budgeting for a bigger team without a known return is tricky. On the other hand, budgeting, approving or even scrapping a separate team using clear key performance indicators (KPI) is easier for Blizzard decision makers to understand. Meanwhile resources aren’t taken away from the existing team. You sort of have your cake and eat it too.

This is not having your cake and eating it.

Putting resources into the shop *does* sometimes make the return more known than putting resources into developing content, yes. When you are adding a couple of instances, you don't know whether or not this would add more subs and how many and so if that's justified, you can only look at the big picture and big time intervals and the results of big decisions like "drown them with content and concentrate on content for 30-minute sessions" or "put this thing on hold and spend bare minimum of effort supporting it, basically just fix bugs". But with the shop, say, when you are adding a new pet, you can kind of project how many people will buy it based on how well previous pets did.

However, this additional knowledge about how much money you are likely to make from this or that small feature does not scale and comes with nasty side effects.

It does not scale because if you add more and more things to the shop, the way people start treating them changes. Usually, to the negative, you get less sales, because players - rightfully - think you are milking them, wanting extra money basically just because, exploiting their collectioner's instincts. This can't last.

It has nasty side effects in that there are suddenly big incentives - for you, as a dev - to make the core game play *worse* without those paid things in the shop. If you are selling gold, you have a big incentive to make gold hard to gather in the game (Blizzard hold their hand on this particular thing, I believe, and don't let themselves limit gold too much partly because they don't want to be accused of limiting it due to the existence of tokens, but other companies with the shop don't do that and limit ways of obtaining in-game currency like no tomorrow so that you have to go to the shop for it). If you are selling pets, you have a big incentive to add in-game things which kind of require paid pets or seriously benefit from them (this is already partly with us, there's an achievement for 20 cats which is significantly easier to get if you have paid pets, plus paid pets make it way easier to beat different PVE encounters and rule in PVP). Etc.

Emphasizing the shop transforms the game to the worse. This is bad.

[Faldric]

I will never understand how they managed to have every possible way of monetarization in a single game: Subscription, Shop/Gold Selling(usually for F2P games) and boxes (usually Buy to play) and get away with it. Thats some really impressive milking skills.

[SoulSoBreezy]

OK, woozie, you have a point, I will explain myself.

(Yes, I read the post the first time, my reply stands, but I guess I could have been more verbose. Here goes.)

@SoulSoBreezy:



This is not having your cake and eating it.

Putting resources into the shop *does* sometimes make the return more known than putting resources into developing content, yes. When you are adding a couple of instances, you don't know whether or not this would add more subs and how many and so if that's justified, you can only look at the big picture and big time intervals and the results of big decisions like "drown them with content and concentrate on content for 30-minute sessions" or "put this thing on hold and spend bare minimum of effort supporting it, basically just fix bugs". But with the shop, say, when you are adding a new pet, you can kind of project how many people will buy it based on how well previous pets did.

However, this additional knowledge about how much money you are likely to make from this or that small feature does not scale and comes with nasty side effects.

It does not scale because if you add more and more things to the shop, the way people start treating them changes. Usually, to the negative, you get less sales, because players - rightfully - think you are milking them, wanting extra money basically just because, exploiting their collectioner's instincts. This can't last.

It has nasty side effects in that there are suddenly big incentives - for you, as a dev - to make the core game play *worse* without those paid things in the shop. If you are selling gold, you have a big incentive to make gold hard to gather in the game (Blizzard hold their hand on this particular thing, I believe, and don't let themselves limit gold too much partly because they don't want to be accused of limiting it due to the existence of tokens, but other companies with the shop don't do that and limit ways of obtaining in-game currency like no tomorrow so that you have to go to the shop for it). If you are selling pets, you have a big incentive to add in-game things which kind of require paid pets or seriously benefit from them (this is already partly with us, there's an achievement for 20 cats which is significantly easier to get if you have paid pets, plus paid pets make it way easier to beat different PVE encounters and rule in PVP). Etc.

Emphasizing the shop transforms the game to the worse. This is bad.

I did say "sort of." =)
You're right that there's a diminishing return to what a sub dept like this could add, especially due to the age of the game. There's only so much an individual is willing to spend, and if less and less new players are are hopping in...well, math.
If an initiative like this were to launch in 2004, *and* with the same growth/cyclical rate, that'd be a lot of cash going towards other parts of the game, lining pockets and so on. With a steadily declining pop though, a dept like this could only contribute so much, which is why it ought to be a dept that thrives or dies under its own merits.

As for the "gold conspiracy?" Rubbish, IMO. The WoW token doesn't run on the premise that 'anyone who wants to will play WoW for free.' It's more along the lines of 'anyone who's capable of surpassing their region's market price will play WoW for free.'
It's also a bit much to say that Blizzard is selling gold apart from their error correction mechanics (token sells for much lower than the quoted price, seller receives quoted price anyway). I'd think of it more like Blizzard certifying gold-for-token trades at $5 a transaction.

I'm very out of it at the moment, please excuse any super obvious holes in my statements =D.

[The One Percent]

The cash shop is bullshit. All rewards should be obtainable in game, even if the rewards are vanity items. Especially when this expansion featured the same few uninspired models recolored over and over again. The grinning reaver, for example, would have been a perfect rep mount from the Laughing Skull and it's alliance counterpart.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Maybe if the game went free to play?

Or they added character services to the wow token....

A paid shop only detracts it doesn't add. To be frank the backlash they got from it I actually think costs them more then what it earns.

Off topic: How'd this get necro'd, lol.
OT: Wouldn't going F2P be a lot more harmful though, as in it'd take a lot of QoL features and put them behind actual microtransactions?

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I can already see it's a bad post by reading a bit of it. You claim there should be more cash shop items? You think many players will stick around if all the cool rewards end up being cash shop items instead? I have one thing to say, good thing Blizzard doesn't have people like you among their ranks.

I don't know. That wasn't the point of the analysis, it was to explore the possibilities of what Blizzard could do. Backlash is already assumed, as well as adoption by maybe 10% of players.

[huth]

Off topic: How'd this get necro'd, lol.

Eh, it's only a week old, that was resuscication at best.

[McNeil]

Does the cash shop even sell that well? Its pretty rare for me to see someone riding a store mount, then again my realm is pretty dead these days.

[Nurvus]

Growing the cash shop while keeping the monthly sub will only improve things for the diehard fans, and give people who have left wow an even bigger reason to not come back. "So I have to buy the latest expansion...pay a monthly sub...pay to move my character to my friends server...and there's a cash shop? I'll pass"

If they want to increase the player count and grow the cash shop, they need to do something that offsets the sub. Something like...if you spend $15 on the cash shop, it comes with 1 month of game time. Or make items worth game time as well as the items, such as a $25 mount also coming with 30 days of game time.

11 Thumbs Up.

[SoulSoBreezy]

For creating retarded threads ? Count me in. Skimmed all over that wall of crap. Tldr moar shit on the store equals more content for everyone else hurrdurr because that's the way it has to be instead of just less content for everyone else.

Not exactly. That's why I explicitly stated there was no TLDR =(.
As for what's semi-relevant to what you're talking about:

But what about players? Yay Blizzard is printing money, but you can bet that the outcry from players would be massive, regardless of how Blizzard paints this idea. Critics would argue that instead of a separate art team, just make the current team bigger and produce more non-premium content - that’s an easy and valid argument to make. But from a business standpoint, budgeting for a bigger team without a known return is tricky. On the other hand, budgeting, approving or even scrapping a separate team using clear key performance indicators (KPI) is easier for Blizzard decision makers to understand. Meanwhile resources aren’t taken away from the existing team. You sort of have your cake and eat it too.

The idea was to see how to expand the team by monetizing the small part of the WoW pop that is interested in these purchases, instead of stretching resources. It's a market that Blizzard doesn't take advantage of, but it's sweet that you're looking out for them =).

[Varitok]

I remember when my sub and expansion cost meant I could get all the mounts and pets in the game, not have to shell out more money just to get them.

[SoulSoBreezy]

Pretty sure you cited two posters and were whining for bans while neither were making a personal attack. It's a long post and a 10minute video stating in essence nothing but more good skins and mounts on the store would translate into more content for everyone else despite the somewhat elaborate attempt to embellish the post.

I like to think of them as "even-handed," so it's easy to clarify my points.
Mind you these are just analyses that I do on my own for fun, but these days am interested in sharing with others. My tone might be off (I get "smug" a lot ><), but I'm just trying to make points clear, not be persuasive.

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Eh, it's only a week old, that was resuscication at best.

True, it's not the WoW forums (I've long given up trying to post my articles there), but gen discussion moves pretty fast here, too.

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Does the cash shop even sell that well? Its pretty rare for me to see someone riding a store mount, then again my realm is pretty dead these days.

http://www.worldofwargraphs.com
That was the source of my information. It appears to accurately pull armory data so you can at least see how many active players have a certain store mount, pet, etc. The site itself doesn't seem to have been updated in a while though, so take it with a grain of salt.

[melodramocracy]

Cash shops are just a bad idea in general for MMO's, even more so in a game where a subscription is required. The primary reasons are two fold:

a) Financially, subscriptions result in a steadier stream of income for the company. Lets say you have a theoretical playerbase of 500k, each paying $10 per month to access the service. The game decides to go F2P with a cash shop, and now the company needs to ensure that, to pay for all it's prior business expenditures / profits, every one of those 500k players now spends $10 / month on the cash shop to make up the difference on average. Every month. How likely do you actually think this scenario is? Very unlikely, unless you make those cash shop items lucrative. Which leads us to:

b) Cash shops partially negate the in-game reward system under even the best circumstances, and under the worst circumstances can be seen as P2W. In WoW's case, one can argue that the P2W element exists by Blizzard basically implementing its own form of gold selling, which can then be used for any number of expedient purposes in game, from gear to raid runs, but that's a bit of a grey area argument. Other F2P or B2P titles are a bit less subtle with the advantages that cash shop spending can bring (BDO for example)

More directly, every mount, pet, etc that is posted in a cash shop is unquestionably something that could have been a reward for in-game participation. In no way is that healthy for the game.

[cFortyfive]

get a better experience in game, if they really pump their revenue from extra mounts etc into the game

Well personally I think the discussion is about as interesting as an in depth analysis of the latest movie starring The Rock. It's hardly the first time around and I don't see any new aspects to discover.

Not exactly. That's why I explicitly stated there was no TLDR =(.

If you say so

[Mizix]

@ the OP: Your whole idea is based upon the assumption that Blizzard failed to keep up with a yearly expansion cycle because WOW somehow does not generate enough profit. I think you got it backwards: WOW generated so much profit that Blizzard got slightly greedy and thought it could milk the cash-cow even better, selling us half arsed expansions on a yearly base. They then realised it was a shitty idea, that hurt the game more than it helped, and moved away from it. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt of changing their minds because they ultimately care about their products and didn't want to sink WOW so low it disgusted them to develop it.

Anyway, IMHO, content droughts have nothing to do with a lack of resources - be it money or developers; it has all to do with a bad plan that took them some years to realise just how bad it was. Hopefully, they have reversed to the previous model from Legion on. So, to answer to your question: no, the Cash Sop can't improve the game. If anything, it would further alienate the player-base since we still pay a meaty subscription fee.

[SoulSoBreezy]

@ the OP: Your whole idea is based upon the assumption that Blizzard failed to keep up with a yearly expansion cycle because WOW somehow does not generate enough profit. I think you got it backwards: WOW generated so much profit that Blizzard got slightly greedy and thought it could milk the cash-cow even better, selling us half arsed expansions on a yearly base. They then realised it was a shitty idea, that hurt the game more than it helped, and moved away from it. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt of changing their minds because they ultimately care about their products and didn't want to sink WOW so low it disgusted them to develop it.

Anyway, IMHO, content droughts have nothing to do with a lack of resources - be it money or developers; it has all to do with a bad plan that took them some years to realise just how bad it was. Hopefully, they have reversed to the previous model from Legion on. So, to answer to your question: no, the Cash Sop can't improve the game. If anything, it would further alienate the player-base since we still pay a meaty subscription fee.

I think I lost you on the premise.

The widely believed theory from fans and critics is that when Blizzard launches an expansion box, much money is to be made. Release expansions faster and that much more money is to be made.
I don’t believe in this theory at all. I also don’t know what Blizzard’s actual, point-a-gun-to-their-head reasoning is but I feel strongly that the goal is not necessarily to generate more money.

Basically, I don't know.
Also, it's pretty clear that the structure of WoW's cash shop (all cosmetics) already has a very low adoption rate based on the stats I pulled (something like 10%). Your last statement reads as if players will *have* to purchase stuff on top of the "meaty" subscription price. Let's try to not insist that we know how players will react. How would the shop alienate you?

[Soluna]

Off topic: How'd this get necro'd, lol.
OT: Wouldn't going F2P be a lot more harmful though, as in it'd take a lot of QoL features and put them behind actual microtransactions?

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I don't know. That wasn't the point of the analysis, it was to explore the possibilities of what Blizzard could do. Backlash is already assumed, as well as adoption by maybe 10% of players.

That's true, but I think it's a really high risk considering there is some chance it won't be profitable.

[Deleted]

The more idiots spend in the shop the closer the game goes to F2P. The tipping point is moving ever closer.