should an expansion pack come with 1 month play time

[marthsk]

Better: If you have an active subscription, you can try the new expansion for free for 30 days (and you have purchased all required previous expansions).

There would be two potential problems with that:

1- If you went over your last expansion's level, then your character would have to be locked. Otherwise, it would defeat the purpose of the xpac if your toon reaches the new xpac's level cap.

2- If they would lock the exp at one point from DING, like they're currently doing for the smaller trials, then the complaints would be that you can't do enough within your 30 days, as you're gated by the level lock.


How would you take on that sort of catch 22?

[Glaziola]

I wish it came with one free month.

This^. I mean raf gives free months I dont see why expansions shouldnt. Also during the last annual pass whoever bought colectors D3 got 4 months gametime too.

[Amerissis]

I guess it's perspective... I don't look as patches and their related content as a bonus, I'd say they're part of why I'm paying a sub to begin with.

Well, you can see it any way you want, but that's not the definition given by Blizzard. You can consider the car of Ghostcrawler as part of your sub, but it wouldn't make it so

[Deleted]

whilst it should be free, do you really think that they will give you 30 days free when you buy an expansion ? its guaranteed income for them from those that buy the expansion.

[Howard Moon]

There would be two potential problems with that:

1- If you went over your last expansion's level, then your character would have to be locked. Otherwise, it would defeat the purpose of the xpac if your toon reaches the new xpac's level cap.

2- If they would lock the exp at one point from DING, like they're currently doing for the smaller trials, then the complaints would be that you can't do enough within your 30 days, as you're gated by the level lock.


How would you take on that sort of catch 22?

Hmm good point.

Best solution I can come up with is reverting your characters to the pre-expansion state, but that sounds dangerous and prone to complaints.

[someotherguy]

When you buy an expansion you can't even play it unless you have the original game. The whole point is you are buying an expansion for a game you are already subscribed to so why bump the price up and add the 30 days. Because if they add the days, they WILL bump the price to cover it.

Would you be happy buying the expansion if it were $10 more?

Can you play MOP if you only have original and buy MOP expansion (only)? Or do you need to buy tbc/wotlk/cata? serious question, sorry if it's off topic

[Deleted]

Can you play MOP if you only have original and buy MOP expansion (only)? Or do you need to buy tbc/wotlk/cata? serious question, sorry if it's off topic

No, you can't play MoP at all as you don't have the expansions. If you want to play any expansion, you need to have the WoW+any previous expansion released till the one you choose to play.

To the OP: Any single free day given away by Blizz it is considered a profit loss. They could do it (free month) but I doubt they will. When a product starts to sell less or it is in decline the maker will try to squeeze every penny out of it. Quite the opposite if you ask me. I foresee this in the future right before the game will go F2P (if), pulling a last stroke of income out of the returnees and cheers...
And yes, I agree with some posts here, expansions should be free or come with a free month.

[Ilgalar]

I think it would benefit blizz to do this. Having a month free might be enough incentive for more of the old players to come back and check it out.

[Dreyo]

Of course people will say it should. It'd be something that they're used to paying for that then becomes free. Of course people are going to say they want it.

But no, it shouldn't. Expansions are not the same as games. Expansions are for existing customers, not new customers. A new customer still gets a free month. Existing customers don't need the handout. Will they turn it down? No, of course not. But they don't need it.

[MOEEEE]

I think it should. But we can only wish, as we all know Blizzard is known for being quite greedy...

[Vankrys]

But no, it shouldn't. Expansions are not the same as games. Expansions are for existing customers, not new customers. A new customer still gets a free month. Existing customers don't need the handout. Will they turn it down? No, of course not. But they don't need it.

My reasoning is: you should be able to use a product you just buy without additional purchase. maybe not for the lifetime of the extention or even the tier, but at least, get to play the leveling.

It's like, you buy a product and you can't use it until you make another purchase that is about 40% of the price of the initial purchase.

[Felarion]

I don't mind if they do that

[Deleted]

you could imagine the scenario that you have an account but not active.
If a month is included in the expansion purchase could convince more to dive back into the game.
it could boost your xpac sales and promote it further.

Most likely the opposite would occur. If you are not currently subbed it is less likely you would continue after your additional free month so what benefit does the author get?

as for making for expansive. It's all about the ratio [entertainement value / price]. That equation is let to the costumer to solve.

If you bundle 30 days sub into the price, increasing the price you pay to buy the expac, you are taking it away from the customer, not leaving it for them to solve.


Basically it would be nice if expacs came with additional game time, but there is no justification to insist that they *should* come with said time.

[Daetur]

I think it's a very fair argument that it may be a way to entice people with inactive subscriptions to renew and purchase the expansion when they otherwise would not.

I don't know that this change would be strictly necessary, though.

[Pull My Finger]

To me, this kind of reads as "I want something for free, even if it's just one month." Does it really matter?

[Vankrys]

To me, this kind of reads as "I want something for free, even if it's just one month." Does it really matter?

nothing wrong with free stuff^^ i have to side with the consumer base here.

anyway, aside from the fact that i think it should include free time, to actually be able to try out the product you just bought (there might be some legal issue in some countries), aside from that, it could be an excellent promotion tools. Blizzard a stated a few times that is far more player that have a frozen wow account than active account.

say you lose 1 month fee x number of copy sold (MoP sold around 3 millions), but if you gain back a few sub, 200k-300k that dive back and actually like the expansion and sign for a few month to a few year. This can be a promoting tools.

and like i say, i wonder how legal reasonning apply to this type of product. Obviously, you can buy a cell phone without a cell phone plan thus, not boing able to use it beside the camera or wifi device. But selling a produnt totally non usable without at least an addition purchase about 40% (on month fee) the original purchase, that's shady business practice to me, could be legal, but still a dick move.

[ttak82]

Hmm good point.

Best solution I can come up with is reverting your characters to the pre-expansion state, but that sounds dangerous and prone to complaints.

30 days is enough to blow through some content like normal mode raids, faction grinding, questing. This would definitely mean that there would be some sort of gating required to offset the free stuff. So they have to apply it to the new player accounts or else make the rest of the player base suffer.

Plus those who are new to WoW, get a free month anyway. Does that mean that buying the new xpac gives them 2 months free time?

10 days free is ok. U can play if you aren't subbed and if you are using cards/codes, you can delay adding a card for a week.

30 days is still welcome, but I don't see how the company will do that considering their potential losses.

Maybe if tons of customers write to blizz feedback to express their opinion, they might swing this way.

[Vaelorian]

While I understand that everyone wants something for free when buying X. And as such threads such as these are pointless.... - You do realise that if they do give you "free" gametime, they will just increase the price of the expansion. And then the riot starts happening especially on forums such as these...

You ofcourse mean that if you buy the expansion for the current price, it should include free game time. Yeah that will happen... they didn't do so before and unless more people quit the game, they won't do it soon.

But yeah I must admit that I even thought this was standard that it would include free game time as Vanilla gave it aswell. Yeah I was a bit miffed after realising I wasn't getting it again with every expansion.

[Vankrys]

And then the riot starts happening especially on forums such as these...

as a side note, it is never pointless to have a civilized discussion. Even it has 0 chance of ever happening, that never stop people to have intelligent and fruitfull discussion. You can discuss a business modele without the feel that the discusssion failed because the modele hasn't change.

i don't believe the discussion is pointless. I just express my point of view. Obviously, in a capitalism world, the right price for anything is how much the buyer is willing to spend, but going beyond savage capitalism, it is my belief that selling a product (expansion) that down the line forces the purchases of another product (1 month sub) tu use is not fair play. I am not criticizing the sub model, it has his merit, i am criticizing the absence of a "test" period for the product (talking about MoP, not wow in general)

maybe 1 month is too much (i don't believe so, the lifetime of an expansion supposed to be 1.5 to 2 years), but mop doesn't even offer a single day to play the product you bought for $40.

[Durandro]

Maybe not a month, but certainly at least a week.

Problem with free trials on expansions is if you don't then buy it and you have characters above the old level cap (i.e. above 85 if you don't have MoP) then what happens? Locked out of that character? Reduced back down to the previous bracket?