Price changes on EU

[Koxk]

People talking about inflation.

Look at other MMO's, they are f2p so their cash comes from people doing race changes and whatnot.. And they have the option cheaper, why? Because its all 100% automated, takes no manpower.

Lower price, people buy it more often because "hmm, its only 10euro, I can change my race" is more likely to happen more times in a year than "Hmm, it is 25euro after all, Meh Ill buy game X instead"

And I will quote Zan15 from the front page comment section

lol, maybe you don't know but there has been next to no change in exchange rates over the last year, Especially since the rate has fluctuated up and down to both a detriment and a benefit of Blizzard.


1.116 1 year ago
1.078 Today

3.5% change


1.096 2 years ago
1.078 Today

1.6% change


As of dec 2016 their year over year inflation rate was 1.1%, last two months it was 1.8%.



Well i might not be a wharton business school graduate but i did stay at a holiday inn, that's some high level bullshit you are trying to push off there Alfador.

This is a money grab, nothing more

You are talking about automated work at this point with very little cost, and who's development and support have been repaid several times over.

So this is a money grab, nothing more.

[TS26]

regardless of euro to us rates, prices for AUTOMATED servers should not be this high.

There is literally no reason for it other than greed.

Dont want people abusing transfers? Put a 1 month account wide cooldown on it.

[Deleted]

They haven't been doing it every year like many providers of other services, such as utilities.
Just another "reason" for people who want to bash blizzard to do just that.
Grow up people.

Dude you can't be serious...

[Flurryfang]

I don't really have a problem with them raising prices, things go up and down, but the price on these services were already way to high.

Having to pay between 10-30€ for an automated feature is just insane and i am very surprised that anybody actually pays for the services at the current price or future price. You can buy entire new AAA games for the cost of some of these features... Its just insane.

[Onikaroshi]

I don't really have a problem with them raising prices, things go up and down, but the price on these services were already way to high.

Having to pay between 10-30€ for an automated feature is just insane and i am very surprised that anybody actually pays for the services at the current price or future price. You can buy entire new AAA games for the cost of some of these features... Its just insane.

The prices themselves are too high, granted they're optional and I haven't actually used one in ages. The increase is just to bring them in line with US prices though, its been years since they changed and EU people have been paying less than US people since at least 2015 if not sooner, so they could have raised them years ago, no point getting mad over that.

Though its all profit so are the prices too high across the world? Yup, not going to argue that.

[Relapses]

Dude you can't be serious...

Yeah, fuck the one guy who tries to speak reasonably about this. It's time to REVOLT AGAINST OUR CRUEL AND UNUSUAL BLIZZARD OVERLORDS!!!

IT'S TIME TO BURN THE WHOLE PLACE TO THE GROUND!!!

WE NEED TO OPEN OUR WINDOWS AND LET THEM KNOW WE'RE AS MAD AS HELL AND WE'RE NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!

Grab your pitchforks, boys!!!

[Aeula]

All the more reason to move to their competition.

[chronia]

People talking about inflation.

Look at other MMO's, they are f2p so their cash comes from people doing race changes and whatnot.. And they have the option cheaper, why? Because its all 100% automated, takes no manpower.

Lower price, people buy it more often because "hmm, its only 10euro, I can change my race" is more likely to happen more times in a year than "Hmm, it is 25euro after all, Meh Ill buy game X instead"

And I will quote Zan15 from the front page comment section

Zan15's post does not really make sense to me tbh, its nice to look at 2 years, but unless i'm mistaken this is the first time since implementing these services that the prices are adjusted. So you should not look at 2 years ago, or 1 year ago, but compare today's EUR > Dollar or Pound > Dollar exchange rates with the exchange rates when they were introduced and then check compouning inflation rates for the last 10ish years (can't remember exactly when they implemented character services like realm transfer and race change) instead of the last 2.

Also when ppl compare EU to US prices they need to realise that EU prices are including +-20% Sales tax as in the EU consumer prices need to be advertised by law with Sales Tax, while US prices are always advertised without Sales Tax.

All in all we didnt have it to bad here in Europe with the prices since WoW release, and i'm actually pretty surprised they only take action now (most companies do this on atleast a yearly basis).

The prices themselves are too high, granted they're optional and I haven't actually used one in ages. The increase is just to bring them in line with US prices though, its been years since they changed and EU people have been paying less than US people since at least 2015 if not sooner, so they could have raised them years ago, no point getting mad over that.

Though its all profit so are the prices too high across the world? Yup, not going to argue that.

I like this one more https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeSVfxIA6fc

[Onikaroshi]

Zan15's post does not really make sense to me tbh, its nice to look at 2 years, but unless i'm mistaken this is the first time since implementing these services that the prices are adjusted. So you should not look at 2 years ago, or 1 year ago, but compare today's EUR > Dollar or Pound > Dollar exchange rates with the exchange rates when they were introduced and then check compouning inflation rates for the last 10ish years (can't remember exactly when they implemented character services like realm transfer and race change) instead of the last 2.

Also when ppl compare EU to US prices they need to realise that EU prices are including +-20% Sales tax as in the EU consumer prices need to be advertised by law with Sales Tax, while US prices are always advertised without Sales Tax.

All in all we didnt have it to bad here in Europe with the prices since WoW release, and i'm actually pretty surprised they only take action now (most companies do this on atleast a yearly basis).

Eh on taxes, the US doesn't really pay sales tax on digital goods (minus a few states). Hell, in many states we still don't pay sales tax on physical goods ordered from a store without a physical location (like amazon or newegg) either, but that is slowly changing.

[chronia]

Eh on taxes, the US doesn't really pay sales tax on digital goods (minus a few states). Hell, in many states we still don't pay sales tax on physical goods ordered from a store without a physical location (like amazon or newegg) either, but that is slowly changing.

I know, but if you compare prices incl. Tax with prices Excl. Tax your comparing Apples to Oranges, even if in the US not every one pays taxes on digital goods as its pretty simple, Blizzard wants to get as close as the same amount of profit in USD possible as they want to get in EUR for the same service so normally EU is always going to pay +-20% more when compared to US since that 20% is going to the governments of the countries where the services are sold. These price are actually not even enough to make that happen exactly as even with the price bump EU only pays the equivalent of USD 22,49 for lets say a server transfer when not accounting for the EU Sales Tax, while exchange rates are accounted for.

(The only 2 ppl i actually know in the US that play WoW do play taxes though for Blizzard products, so i guess they live in a bad state when it comes to taxes).

[Teri]

So yeah , blizz got feedback, and now put Services on SALE!

Use it while you can , huge difference between €15 Sale (€20 normal) or soon €25 per transfer.

Faction change : €18,75 Sale (€25 normal) or soon €30

Combined €33,75 Sale (€45 normal) or soon €55

[Jaylock]

Hey guys front page, all the services are on sale right now!

Blizzard is really good about putting their services on sale which LOWERS the cost pretty substantially. Just buy the services when they go on sale.

[Tharkkun]

meanwhile their competition are doing fine with lower prices

Do you honestly think Blizzard isn't doing fine? I'm dying here. Give me an O2 mask please!

[Deja Thoris]

INB4 in the idiots arrive

Too late, seems you arrived.

Infracted

[TS26]

The only way that this would not be a scumbag move, would be if they actually addressed the issue of dead/dying realms. But everyone knows they won't do that.

Why would they? one of the reasons people transfer is cuz their realm is dead.

it's surprising they even merged realms in mop

[truckboattruck]

"herp derp economics, herp derp taxes"

a stupid defense for an aging product on the decline
if blizzard wanted to show their good business ethic they would have eaten any tax difference and kept prices the same, they could even virtue signal that they had done so.
instead they make their customers take the hit and they will suffer monetarily for it.

dont reward bad business practices with your wallet

[hulkgor]

They should be fucking free at this point, or at least merge more of the low pop\dead realms, or at least open free migrations out.

Shameful to have such prices when so many realms have population issues. Fucking shameful. "hey, your server sucks? Relocate for 25€!"

[Deleted]

It is kinda bad if you were relying or planning with these services and have now to re-evaluate if it's still worth it. But to blizzard's defense: Their public version to at least transfer-services etc. was "we don't want people to overuse it so we set the price high". So they throw the ball at their customers to decide if they "really need it".

...which kinda makes many people think how broken their use of these services must be, looking at their blizzard bills. Questioning if there aren't more sinister intentions than just providing some "emergency-tools".

[Deleted]

Ok, let's be more specific.

FFXIV Stormblood costs 30€, Legion did cost 45€
FFXIV Stormblood digital CE costs 45€, Legion digital CE costs 60€.

Toyota Land Cruiser $84,775, Mercedes GLS $124,100

[rda]

Yeah, fuck the one guy who tries to speak reasonably about this. It's time to REVOLT AGAINST OUR CRUEL AND UNUSUAL BLIZZARD OVERLORDS!!!

This is not reasonable.

Using "inflation" as an argument for raising prices for video games is complete BS. Tools become smarter, processing power becomes more available, etc.

Most likely, they are increasing prices because the profits have been dwindling. The increase has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with "inflation".