Would you return for cheaper payment plans?

[LilSaihah]

WoW is a poor man's way to kill time.

It doesn't provide any real entertainment.
You waste some time, then get a virtual weapon/armor.
This new weapon/armor provides nothing but stats change.

Even then, there are other games which do this for cheaper.

OT; doubtful that I would. I might play it again if it were a B2P deal, but I wouldn't be interested in playing a sub. It's not the actual price but the attached psychology(have to play it to get your money's worth regardless of how much money you're actually spending) that I don't like.

[macdisciple]

5$/month for PVP content only...5$/month for questing + dungeons content only...5$/month for raiding content only...

...stuff like that?

I would return for PVP content only for 5$/month only because I REALLY like Paladins and Rogues in BGs, otherwise there's just too many alternatives out there to justify coughing up 15$ every month in return for a few hours of PVP a week.

$15/month isn't cheap?

[Vankrys]

$15 a month feels little but let's look a it from a different angle, from a year gaming budget.

So, a year of wow would be around $180 (less if you sign up for long period) + half an expansion ($20)= $200
what can you get for $200

obviously, buying AAA game on day one, you'd get 5-6 games (yes games do not cost $50-$60 if you purchase online, bar a few exception, you can get them day one for $30-$40).

But wow is an old game, continuously adding content but old, so to be fair, you should compare it to older game.
Say you buy $200 worth of steam sales games at $10 in average (2012 or 2011 games) using daily, weekend or holiday/summer sales, you'd get around 20 games.

now the biggest advantage of wow is the community, the online play, the vitual world feeling. Jumping from one game to another, single or multiplayer, would feel discontinuous.

the flip side of that is you can experience different type of game and enrich your gaming experience.

[Peng]

I would pay additional fees for more character slots or a realtime web api.

Different payment plans for PvE and PvP content would harm the game. WoW without PvP wouldn´t feel like "Warcraft" and it wouldn´t feel like "World" without PvE. Just a bunch of mini games.

[zipzy]

Eh I'd probably still pay the $15 a month because, even though I mainly focus on PVE - raiding/questing, I like the option of doing PVP now and then so a bit of everythings a good option to have. Plus compared to everything else, the subscription cost of WoW isn't very much

[Amerissis]

So you'd rather pay 15$/month for your cellphone plan to get 500MB worth of data plan/month instead of paying 5$/month for unlimited talk/text, even though you never use data?

Really? Tell me you would really do that.

Actually, I have a 50 euro/month phone plan with unlimited internet and I use about 5mb per month (on email...), so yes, I would do that.

About your idea, I don't know... Sounds complicated. What if you have the raid plan and decided to level an alt? Wouldn't be possible. Or how would you gear your raid alt if you can't do dungeons? What if you have the PvP plan, but the best trinket drops from a raid? I can't really see a good, sensible divide in content (as you do have with phones... data, texting, calling). To me it wouldn't matter, I get the full package anyway, even though I never raid or PvP

[LocNess]

Wow is extremely cheap, $15 a month is good enough. Honestly I save money that way.

[Chrno]

I left because i didn't agree with the general development of the game. ToT is more how i'd like to see the game if i have to believe others opinions of it...

I must say the 13euro's a month is whats keeping me logged off atm. The thought that GW2 is just free with loads of content ... bothers me tbh. I'd love to play both but not at these costs. So yes i might come back if they started charging less then the rediculous 13euo's a month. (150euro+ per year that is!)

[ttak82]

Or those who happen to live in less wealthy countries. There are people playing WoW living in countries where average sallary is around 500$ per month. Even for them 15$ might not be a lot but several of those 15$ do add up and if they dont play WoW a lot, they may decide it is not worth paying 15$ to just log and play 2-3 times per week. Asking such people if they would return if sub would be lowered to 5$ is valid.

This person gets it. In fact there's another issue in these same countries: Mode of Payment, which is almost entirely via Credit card; Direct debit is there as well but with some restrictions. Its a hassle at times.

As for me, a lesser sub overall (5$/month) sounds great but only for all content. However, I would probably not return anytime soon, though, seeing how the game has some issues with certain Nvidia cards (having to buy a new computer just for wow is not worth it - especially with the risk of the came crashing on the new computer as well)

[HardCoder]

Do you think Blizzard even wants people from non third world countries who won't pay $15/mo to play?

With TV now typically being a $100+/mo household expense I'm not clear why anyone thinks $15/mo for something you can spend all your waking hours on is excessive. Why would it be more enticing if it was $10/mo?

The real question is why isn't Blizzard charging $25/mo or $50/mo for the game? (Probably because you can only get that amount of money if you are showing movies, or porn.)

[Deleted]

No, the price was never a factor in any of the breaks I took; and when I am actively playing WoW, I want access to all content - and I think the price charged is fine for the content available. However, I can see how it would be advantageous to other people and I wouldn't be against the policy, I'd still choose to pay for all the content though.

[Velthy]

Only PvP only player could make thread like that.
My answer is no. You pay for the full game, full package, if u dont want to do some of things in game, your loss.

[Ihnasir]

Does soloing count as raids? Not current content, mind you.

[ttak82]

Do you think Blizzard even wants people from non third world countries who won't pay $15/mo to play?

With TV now typically being a $100+/mo household expense I'm not clear why anyone thinks $15/mo for something you can spend all your waking hours on is excessive. Why would it be more enticing if it was $10/mo?

The real question is why isn't Blizzard charging $25/mo or $50/mo for the game? (Probably because you can only get that amount of money if you are showing movies, or porn.)

Perceived value, I suppose. Wow requires an internet connection as well, so that is part of the overall cost.
Reducing the value to , say, $10 would make it look like a slightly better deal.

[HardCoder]

Perceived value, I suppose. Wow requires an internet connection as well, so that is part of the overall cost.
Reducing the value to , say, $10 would make it look like a slightly better deal.

Blizzard could probably do fine at $10/mo. But they're doing better at $15/mo. Reducing the price of something that's already inexpensive doesn't necessarily increase the demand.

Most people that want to play WoW are financially able to play WoW. If you can't afford to spend $15/mo on a game that you will have to spend dozens of hours per month playing, then you probably shouldn't be spending money on that game. When you DO spend dozens of hours per month on it, the cost per hour is ridiculously low.

The price that people pay to play WoW is determined by a variety of factors. The actual expense of running the game hardware is probably not one of them these days. But the more people spend on the game, the more content gets created for the coming year. The frogs in Vivendi don't really get a big cut.

[icausewipes]

I recall the same type of convo going on the SWTOR boards before the f2p (boarding on P2W) change.

"A door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction."

you ask for b2p system on certain content and BLIZZ will oblige how they see fit.

[Deleted]

Not sure. In the end, I stopped playing due to lore going worse and the social aspect diminishing. That said, for that price I might come back a bit every patch at least to check it out.

Also, OP, I like that you took care of your thread, at start at least, and didn't just pose the question then left the people to fight Well done.

[Deleted]

Blizzard could probably do fine at $10/mo.

Well seeing as how currently the profit they get from subs is about 90%.. yeah, they probably would do fine with 10$ month.

As for people who compare "its cheaper than singleplayer game!"
If you could unlock and do all dailies in single day, do LFR day 1 of patch, dungeon queues were instant.. you would probably have as much and long content as singleplayer game. Only difference is that you willingly repeat that content, unlike doing gears of war campaign for 6 months in row. Theres not really "content for 6 months! Unlike those 20h single-player games!" in some patches. If you would treat 50 dollar game like wow (repeat the content 6 months in row willingly) the game would cost 8,3$ month, such bargain!


Edit:
OT:
I would think more people would reduce the price rather than "come back".
I mean sure, there would be slightly bigger audience but that would cause lot lot of problems. MORE entitled people you would ever see. They pay specifically for raid content, therefore they must see everything.. "not just lfr". You cant just tell em to "level alt" or "go pvp" because that would cost more!
More customers, but more wrong people in communities PoV. Besides, it wasnt really money issue.. Sometimes people leave just cos "any amount of money is not worth the current content" (those that quit for good)

[Toffie]

Doesn't matter, the game looks crap compared to all other new games. We were promised epic raids, we just got a room with a boss in it with no heart put into it. I stopped playing because they didn't put their heart in it. I'm never returning to WoW honestly. Bring me Titan or whatever it may be.

[Risale]

The thing that people are forgetting is that in the eyes of Blizzard the current model works just fine.
As i have no clue on how many subs WoW has atm lets pick a low number of 5 million subs this means Blizzard earns $15 x 5.000.000 each month x 12 months for a year, so Blizzard earns $900 million each year on subscriptions.
In the eyes of Blizzard their current way works and has worked for 8 straight years why would the change there is no need for them to do so at all.

The low number of 5 million subs is still double then that of any other MMO currently on the market, I have checked some websites and based on their numbers all based around 2012 blizz is actually around 8-10 million subscriptions so why on earth would Blizzard shoot their $1.5 billion dollar a year golden goose?

Also if you read MMO-C people are actually enjoying MoP with the exception of the daily grind which even Blizz has said they screwed up on, they are pumping out faster content and imho ToT is the best raid since Ulduar.
Blizzard fucked up big time with Cata (for me that is) but made 1 hell of a comeback with MoP (again thats for me).

And all of that for only $15 a month, and yes $15 might be a lot to some but for the last 8 years there have been millions of us that have paid it willingly and will continue to do so.