Aren't the WoW services priced a bit excessive?

[hulkgor]

Prices are absolutely excessive.

And i abhor the fact that they double dip on the pricing. Monthly sub + Cash shop (vanity+services). You normally have one or the other, not both.

[Eurhetemec]

Prices are absolutely excessive.

And i abhor the fact that they double dip on the pricing. Monthly sub + Cash shop (vanity+services). You normally have one or the other, not both.

By "normally" do you mean "10 years ago"?

Because I am not aware of any sub-based MMORPGs which do not charge for services and most of them have vanity shops too. I mean, FFXIV is the only other major sub-based MMORPG I can think of that has paid services and vanity. I guess there's EVE too, which again, has both.

So really what "normally" is this?

[unbound]

Are they excessive considering the costs? Absolutely.

Are they excessive in general? No. If they were excessive, few people would use them, and they would lower the price to maximize their profits.

And, like the vast majority of industries in the world today, the supply side of the equation is meaningless anymore. It is about what people are willing to pay.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Prices are absolutely excessive.

And i abhor the fact that they double dip on the pricing. Monthly sub + Cash shop (vanity+services). You normally have one or the other, not both.

What other sub MMORPG has no cash shop...? The ones I've tried, all had them. In fact, the "free to play" MMORPGs had cash shops way more invasive than WoW's shop.

[RobertoCarlos]

You can buy full games on steam for less than character services. Of course they are over priced. Dont listen to any of the sypophants that have wasted hundreds on it and want to jusify it with awful excuses like "if people are willing to pay it, its fine! "

[Deleted]

Try asking heroin addicts if heroin is priced a bit excessive

[Valrysha]

Yes, the server, faction, appearence and race are all overpriced.

If I want to join a Horde guild, that'll be on another server because Silvermoon EU is Alliance only pretty much
£46 per character
PER CHARACTER.
It's a complete outrage.

[Coffeh]

They're priced for maximum profit. If people didn't pay that amount, it would be lowered. Things are worth whatever people are willing to pay.

[Deleted]

I mean, I think so, which is why I don't use them.

[Deleted]

to answer your question, theyre a fucking rip off.

[Grevmak]

100% What warrants the prices is that stupid people pay them.

Correct. /thread

[Teri]

Some certainly are, like if you want to change skin color only on any race but Tauren/Panda/Worgen it'll cost you €15.

I read somewhere you cannot change your human-form worgen at all either unless you paid for services as well. (not playing a worgen right now so haven't tested this)

Just replace Appearance change , with Gender change.

Sub races could add another paid customization option if blizz doesn't make it free. (green to brown orc, dwarf/wildhammer/dark iron etc)

Server changes are overpriced too, considering the only reason to be on the same server as someone now is Trading/Guilds/Mythic raids and auction houses.

I moved 9 characters using gold during the sale period around 7.2 (cost me around 1.4 million gold), now the EU prices got raised, and bnet tokens cost a ton more gold, probably would cost me around 4.7 million gold now. (or 225 euros)

[Yamuri]

I think the cosmetic things like race change and appearance change are overpriced for sure. The other stuff? Nah not really.

[Raziella]

Or just don't transfer from one mediocre server to another? I mean, the transfers are pricey, but if anything that's MORE of a reason to make sure the server your going to has a healthy population and raid population than if it was cheap.

It wasn't terribly easy to find a guild progressing at my level that was recruiting DPS players. I often found myself having to choose between joining a mediocre guild, or moving to a server where one in the server first race needed my specs/class. Joining a 25 man that was sub par but taking people. 10 man raiding was tough to get into.

[stablon]

Comparatively even more expensive if you are living in a country where your money's value is shit compared to USD.

[Bathory]

To me, I think they are. Even though I'm pushing 7million gold, I still won't buy one. I really don't think it's worth that much, but then again, I enjoy the server I'm on.

[Tradu]

It might be that the intention is to provide them whilst dissuading most people from using them. That is a legitimate positioning of such services. You avoid the perception that you don't provide them, and are fucking people over, yet you avoid the potentially deleterious effects of them getting over-used. Games which have made server-transfers cheap/easy have definitely seen problems because of that.

I just wonder though, if they aren't in fact simply high and no-one wants to be the guy who says they need to lower them. What they could try, and I don't know if they ever have, is a sale, and see what happens. Of course that has potential downsides - like people expecting another sale in future - but they are at least in control in that case.

There was a sale before the most recent increase to the prices of services, at least on EU.

[Temp name]

Welcome to 5-8 years ago, or whenever they were added. I'd like to see the prices decreased, but they won't be. Deal with it.

[rda]

They are pretty much a rip off like others said.

Blizzard are just greedy, that's all. That's not news. I mean, for real, look around, they are very expensive and have always been very expensive and have always been charging extra for every breath.

A simple example: character transfer costs an arm and a leg in WoW and is free in, say, GW2 - those guys only put a restriction onto how often you can do it so that you don't start doing it every time you go to a bathroom.

[rda]

The only sensible way to price a luxury service is so as to maximize profit. Blizzard probably expects that at the current prices, profit is maximized.

You design a game. There are multiple realms because one realm cannot hold everyone. Sometimes people want to switch realms to be with their friends or whatever.

Normal guy: OK, we see why you would want to do this, so you can transfer, this is part of the service, we just add a timeout to avoid potential abuse like people harassing someone on one server in the day and transferring to another server for the night, etc.

Blizzard: aha, aha, aha, that's EXTRA, it's NOT PART of the service, it's LUXURY, you have to PAY MORE for it, aha, aha.

That's all this is about.