There wasn't a reason for blizzard to up their price in products.

[Zarc]

Blizzard charges what they think people will pay. If OP or anyone else thinks the price is too high... just don't buy it.

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It's capitalism and it is working as intended.



OP could not be more wrong if they set out to be wrong in the first place. The problem isn't Blizzard supporters. The problem comes from the people who bitch and moan about Blizzard but continue to pay. If there was some sort of real groundswell of dissatisfaction and those people stopped paying, then it might send Blizzard a message.

This.

The end.


If Blizzard's economists estimates that at $2 for their product they would sell it to 50 customers, while at $3 they would sell it to 40 customers, Blizzard executives will decide to sell it for $3 because their estimates tells them they will make $120 at that price, compared to only $100 dollars at $2.

It's not about content versus price. It's about how much are people willing to pay, period. Given how they sold over 10 million copies of Warlords of Draenor right now they are thinking that yes... people will pay that price.

Blizzard is a business owned by shareholders who expects them to make the best profit possible. Working as intended. Vote with your wallet.

[guardian_titan]

Expansion prices have tended to jump by $5 every release. WotLK to Cata or Cata to MoP was the oddball situation where there wasn't an increase although I forgot what Cata's original price was.

Prices in USD.
No idea on vanilla since I didn't play then.
TBC was $29.99
WotLK was $34.99
Cata was $34.99 or $39.99
MoP was $39.99
WoD was $49.99

If Blizzard had followed their normal $5 increase, then MoP should have been $44.99 and WoD would have made sense at $49.99. People see the $10 jump and small expansion. WoD should have been priced at $39.99 at the HIGHEST, not $49.99. The level 90 boost also should have been truly free, not seen as the reason for the price hike.

While Blizzard thinks they can get away with charging $50 for an expansion, eventually, people will get tired of it and walk away. Why should Blizzard be allowed to charge so much for an expansion when other MMOs charge half that for theirs? Even expansions for many single player games are rarely the same price as the base game. More often than not, they're $20-30, too. So why are we spending $50 for an expansion when we'd spend that on a full game?

Blizzard's out to milk the player base. That's obvious.

If people actually learn to not pounce on Legion as soon as preorders come up and wait for it to go on a half off sale, then maybe Blizzard will see players don't want to pay $50 for an expansion anymore so will reduce the price to a more fair price point. But people are sheep. Blizzard can tell them to jump off a cliff and they'll do it. There's a thread with a poll in it asking how people will handle Legion (preorder, wait, etc). The overwhelming majority look like they'll preorder. That's rather sad that people will continue to go on blind faith with Blizzard despite recent events.

I suppose after being told that WoW now has the largest development team in the history of the game is to make us believe that the higher price point is to pay for all of the new employees, but the quality of WoD doesn't suggest the team is any larger. If anything, it suggests it's smaller than ever. I'd be more inclined to believe the extra money Blizzard got from the price hike went into the pocket of Bobby Kotick as a "gift". It sure hasn't gone into the game. Maybe Legion will prove otherwise, but so far, I can't say I'm impressed by Legion. Demon Hunters do not an expansion make.

[Niwes]

its simple plain greed. all that token shit, shop, services (why do you think blizz dont connect realms naturally?), expac costs, "put less effort in to get the most money out of it", all that stuff is just there to maximize profit and milk the last cent out of it. and if you look at i.e. hearthstone and how much money they make with that cash cow systems, they are right to do so, from a managers point of view.

its all about quarter numbers and they do what they can to optimize them. the era of high quality video gaming is over. the era of catering to loyal customers through stable subs is over. the era of "some enthusiastic guys made a great game from gamers for gamers because they have fun to do so" is over. we are now in the "catering to fast changing short time customers and quarter numbers > all" era. welcome to the activi$$ion bli$$greed world.

in short: gief us all your money > all. and we morons pay. so what to expect from legion ? they surely want stop to grab all that money...

[Stormspark]

the reason for the price hike was because of the ~ lmao free character boost. i still feel given the the standard $60 price of that service, the $10 increase to epansions was because of that. since they are going to give us another character boost with Legion, unless the price is lowered, i will still stand by it being the boost thats causing the price hike.

Actually, the reason for the price hike was because they didn't think their Scrooge Mcduck money bin was quite full enough. So they decided to milk people for even more money, despite them already making massive profits. With WOD, they found that by raising prices and adding more microtransactions, along with reduced costs by not creating additional content during the expansion, they can make more money with fewer subscribers, and less costs. So that's the direction WOW will be going from now on. Bare minimum amounts of content, and microtransactions out the wazoo. And every time subs drop, prices will rise.

[Kolvarg]

Those expansions contained content for 2 years.

You also pay sub for 2 years with those xpacs, instead of just one.

Before: 40€(?) + 24 * 13€ = 352€ total, or 14,6€/month.

Now: 45€ + 12 * 13€ = 201€ total, or 16,7€/month.

The difference is minimmal. If anything you're paying less per expansion, but a bit more yearly. It might be a bit more meaningful to people who only buy the xpac and sub for 1 or 2 months to check new things, but even then not *that* much, and imo still reasonably priced.



Either way, just don't forget: WoW prices barely changed (before WoD) since 2004.
In 2004 you could find most big retail games at what? 40~50€? Now most are 60~70€.

5€ more in the box price isn't that huge of a deal when you look at it that way.

[Zia]

Already said by smo else, but true story, there is this thing called inflation. They have to pay salaries, rent, data centers, utilities, etc.

[Hexian]

Already said by smo else, but true story, there is this thing called inflation. They have to pay salaries, rent, data centers, utilities, etc.

Which is a complete horseshit excuse, especially over a period of only 10 years. I remember paying 60 bucks for games on my parents old PCII so by that logic games should cost hundreds of dollars now. The only reason they are upping the price is to offset the sub loses and they know the real addicts will pay it no matter what price they throw out. Blizz has always overpriced shit; from ridiculously high server transfer fees and name changes (which they PR spin to say it's to prevent us from abusing them...yaaa, sure *wink* *wink*) to charging 25 bucks for one single mount that is most likely a reskin.