Higher WoW Token prices don't indicate that players are leaving

[Cosmic Janitor]

What do you even need gold for anymore though?

Hardly any use in selling them anymore since everyone sits on 100k-1 mil gold these days.

Precisely, there is also no middle ground here. Either I need money or I don't but the token is so laughable cheap compared to the actual gold prises atm. For normal items I simply don't need it and if I wanted to buy something expensive I'd be spending 100s of dollar to get it. So unless you like farming or enabling people to buy gametime that way there is little point to it.

[Kolvarg]

It happened in WoD because it was crap, had big problems.

Assumption, and personal opinion.

It happens in Legion because it seems to have big problems as well.

Assumption.

It didn't happen in WotLK or in MoP or even in Cata.

Fact. But linked with the idea that it didn't happen in these expansions because they were good and/or had no big problems. Which is again an assumption (the "because"), personal opinion (that they were good/better) and a lie (that they had no big problems).

Two of these three expansions had only a very light decline and the remaining one (either Cata or MoP, don't remember) had the decline that's at most half of the slope of the one in WoD / Legion, it was way, way, way milder.

Again, fact. But your explanation, while not impossible, is imho unreasonable and unlikely.

Vanilla had big problems, very likely the biggest WoW ever had (not even having enough quests to reach max level, lag, bugs, crashes, barren zones with little to no quests or use, missing features, unplayable specializations, extremely unbalanced, on and on), and it's still the most successful growth WoW ever had.

"Quality" is just one of the many factors that influences the subscription number, but it's not the defining one. You find correlation because you see the ones you like most with less decline, and the ones you like less with more decline, but correlation doesn't mean causation.

Many other more important factors weight in, from the age of the game (the more players try the game, the less players there are to try it), to competition (many more quality MMORPGs out there, digital PC games market getting better, more competitive and cheaper year by year) to simply a decline in interest in MMORPGs in general:


I challenge you to go to Google Trends and find me any game at all with more than 4~5 years that doesn't have a similar trend or that doesn't follow the expected product life cycle in general:


In fact the majority don't even get to have such good luck, most seem to have an initial big spike followed by a big decline and then stability / slow decline at a much, much lower ammount. The only that seems to even come close to being as good as WoW is LoL, and just like it was with WoW, it's already into late maturity/early decline.

Now, what do you think is more likely? All games get worse over time? Or it's just natural that people lose interest over time after doing the same thing repeatedly?

[TS26]

What do you even need gold for anymore though?

Hardly any use in selling them anymore since everyone sits on 100k-1 mil gold these days.

everyone does not sit on 100k. pretty sure most players are blow 50k, possibly even below 25k.

[Deleted]

Can you define what the jackpot is exactly?
In my mind the ultimate jackpot is you defeated everything on offer, you min/maxed every avenue in character progression and much more. And I can't see how that would be accomplished in a few passing months of the expansion opening when as a norm for 10 years of expansions the launch spikes the subs and then tapers off to a stable playerbase...

Not sure how long you've played really, but if you mean legendaries my dear... you can farm 6 already from old expansions and 3 of them are RNG drops from bosses which is 5 less then current expansion.

This was the best comment I have ever seen here. Why would you ever complain about this game, where nowadays it offers you the possibility to play hardcore or casual? I've read comments where people stated that the only way to progress in this game is to delete character and start over, because they have already received four legendary items but "they are not Best in Slot"... I mean... the biggest trolls I have ever heard of! Just enjoy the game!

[Deleted]

People will believe whatever they want to believe, no matter if it isn't true or logical. ''WoW is going down, just look at the token prices!''

[Maudib]

When people flock to game and buy tokens... supply is up, price goes down.

As people leave this pile of crap, they stop buying tokens to sell for gold. Supply is down, price goes up.

If it was "gold inflation" the gold price of tokens would have skyrocketed at the end of WoD because of so many multi millionaires from the Garrison gold fiasco.

Instead I bought 10 at something like 28k each after Legion had launched and before I left game.


When Legion comes to a close... and IF they even release another expansion, gold price for tokens will once again drop significantly.

[Trapped]

People will believe whatever they want to believe, no matter if it isn't true or logical.

For a second there, I thought I found myself in a topic about religion.

[WhatIsLegion]

This really isn't that hard to understand, the token prices almost doubled when using Tokens to add to your battle.net balance hit the PTR. Now gold has more meaning than to just spend in WoW. It can be used for character services, buying other games, etc etc.

Of course they're going to go up even more, gold is easy to come by, hell I'd say so far in Legion gold is even easier to get than in WoD. I routinely make 200K+ a day.

[rda]

Well, except raiding there ain't much to do. Even the casualest of casuals will be through come mid january.
7.1.5 doesn't bring new content as such, so ... yeah. Lots of people are going to freeze until 7.2 at least.

And that's exactly the words people were using for WoD - not much to do. Except raiding. Again.

My personal opinion is that Legion is better in that respect, but it is not all that much better and a huuuuuuuuge deal of that is based on promises of more content faster in 7.1.5, in 7.2, in 7.whatever... which did not yet materialize, they are late again.

With each passing week Legion looks more and more similar to WoD. If 7.1.5 fails to go out in January or if it will be very small (and it can be small) and its balance changes / PVP changes won't fix things, well Legion will be up there with WoD as another disaster.

[Deleted]

everyone does not sit on 100k. pretty sure most players are blow 50k, possibly even below 25k.

I guess if you are completely new to WoW you might be stuck there. Anyone playing over a year should be filthy rich unless they do something wrong

[rda]

Assumption, and personal opinion. ...

Right, half of the subs left WoD not because WoD was crap, but because of other, external reasons.

I guess WoD was too good, and they left thinking they don't deserve this much good. What? Can you prove it wasn't like that? Can you? Can you?

That's the level of your argument.

Not going to respond to your idiocy, your points are all non-starters which were discussed to death before and the graphs you link are irrelevant, and it was discussed to death as to why as well (very shortly: WoW isn't a single product, many real-world products reset the curve you so proudly link each expansion, WoW doesn't reset precisely because WoW's expansions are too crap to do that).

[Deleted]

Thank god someone finally brings up actual facts.

I have studied and worked in economics and can more than just confirm this. (Almost) every life-style quality improvement invention ever goes through such a cycle. There are few exceptions to such life cycles, such as bread. Actually, they aren't that much of an exception, it's just that it's a life requirement with an almost never ending demand.

However, the LifeCycle we are looking at goes through multiple layers.

Layer 1: Human Activities in general (Gaming).
Layer 2: Genre specific games (mmorpg).
Layer 3: The game (WoW).
Layer 4: Bigger game-extensions (Expansions/Sequels).
Layer 5: Additional extensions (DLCs/Patches/Updates).

You could break up those layers even further, but in the end the result will remain the same. Each of those layers have their own product-life-cycle and each of them try to achieve a burst of popularity in their respective market share.

Example: If MMORPGs Held a market share of approx. 20% back in 2008 and let's say the gamer community consisted of 100 Million Gamers (round number), then WoW could cater to 20 Million mmorpg interested Gamers. 12 Million subscribers were their "announced" Peak, so that would mean WoW Held 60% of the mmorpg market share and 12% market share of the entire gaming community. So if now in 2016 the interest of the mmorpg genre market share dropped to 5%, that would mean that WoW can only cater to 5 Million mmorpg interested Gamers, so with 3 Million subscribers, they would still hold 60% of the mmorpg market share. They are sustaining their market share, but the overall mmorpg market share has dropped.

As said, that's an example and none of the numbers may be correct.

Maybe if they ever develop WoW 2 and reinvent MMORPGs, they could revive the product-life-cycle of mmorpgs anew and boost it back up to x% of the gaming community.

[TS26]

I guess if you are completely new to WoW you might be stuck there. Anyone playing over a year should be filthy rich unless they do something wrong

not really. Most players are casual and the time they spend in wow, they want to spend it playing the game and not farming/selling stuff.

The majority of players don't have much gold.

[rda]

I challenge you to go to Google Trends and find me any game at all with more than 4~5 years that doesn't have a similar trend or that doesn't follow the expected product life cycle in general: ...

Civilization - nearly completely constant.

Final Fantasy - had a big initial spike due to titles on consoles which fell, but it holds about constant since 2011 or so.

I can continue, but it is obvious that you will find excuses for everything, so I won't.

[Deleted]

not really. Most players are casual and the time they spend in wow, they want to spend it playing the game and not farming/selling stuff.

The majority of players don't have much gold.

I play it very casually these days.
Reserved one hour a week to collect herbs and made a killing.

But maybe it's more about new/casual players not knowing what sells?

[Deleted]

Supply and demand. I also expect people to buy it to resell at a later point- so speculations as well.
I still earn 200k each month (after repairs etc) so I could play for free if I wanted.

[Gorgodeus]

Supply and demand. I also expect people to buy it to resell at a later point- so speculations as well.
I still earn 200k each month (after repairs etc) so I could play for free if I wanted.

You can't resell tokens.

[rda]

I have studied and worked in economics and can more than just confirm this. (Almost) every life-style quality improvement invention ever goes through such a cycle. There are few exceptions to such life cycles, such as bread. Actually, they aren't that much of an exception, it's just that it's a life requirement with an almost never ending demand.

Yeah, yeah. Everything goes through such a cycle with only a few exceptions. Nah, even bread isn't an exception, it also goes through such a cycle. The only problem is: the cycle length can be a century (like with cars) or maybe several thousand years (like with bread) or who knows how long really (like with energy, starting in 21st century, who knows when it is going to end).

And the cycles aren't externally imposed - when producers improve the product, the cycle somehow automatically prolongs, and when they fail to improve it, it somehow automatically ends. I guess they forgot to tell you that in your classes.

Moreover, the cycle actually nearly doesn't exist - you only claim something was obviously a cycle when it ends. Your big thought about cycles is nothing more than "everything ends". Gee, what a wisdom.

Now, what they tried to teach you in classes is that there are some external factors which - if you ONLY ever release one version of a product - will shape its life, and so you can plan and account for them. But the producer is always in charge.

[shonist]

If you can't progress in legion then you probably are bad and should quit anyways.

pretty much

[Deleted]

You realize the rpice started skyrocketing the day they pushed an update onto the PTR that included Strings that indicated that the token can be used for other things except gametime in the future?

I bought some tokens just because i figured they would climb in price and still have them, because I will wait to see what theycan be used for. if they can#t be used for enything interesting in the future, i still have game time. There are a lot of people who have way too much gold, and I think a lot of them bought those tokens based on those PTR additions. The timeframe matches quite well.