pay-to-play & "Game time" is a rip off.

[Violent]

No. I've played since 2007 and probably have about 75 days of playing time logged across my whole account...I know, i'm casual. So that means I would have only payed Blizz $37.50 since 2007...and then WoW would suck and die because they have no revenue.

So just...no. Doesn't make any sense at all. Dream on though.

That is YOU and YOUR timing though.. Also, we pay for them game & expansions right off the bat, before anything of game-time comes into play.

- - - Updated - - -

You said prove it, so I did by comparing with other similar services. Maybe you need a tutor.

You didn't PROVE anything though.. You just said you made a comparison. A comparison does not equal proof.

Sorry, you still need the tutor more than I ever will.

[Varyk]

You are paying for access to your account for the next 30 days after your purchase, which is owned by Blizzard, not you. You are renting it. Don't pay if you don't want to play or don't feel like it's worth it. I play maybe 12 hours a week, and pay 11 dollars a month.

If you rent a house, you don't only pay for when you're actually in your house.

[Regalbeast]

That is YOU and YOUR timing though.. Also, we pay for them game & expansions right off the bat, before anything of game-time comes into play.

Millions of people subscribe...so why would Blizz change their revenue model? You obviously don't understand the subscription revenue model or even just simple math/economics, so arguing further with you is pointless.

[couchboi]

$15 is...nothing. How I personally like to judge my money spent and time played with video games is $1 for every hour. It's why I generally don't buy games new. If that initial $60 price tag won't fetch me at least 60 hours of game time then I won't buy it. 15 hours of WoW, in this case, every month really isn't that big of a deal to obtain. Now, I know a lot of people will judge how their time is spent differently than I, generally thinking that they're more important than they actually are. $15 is really not that big of a deal.

[vindicatorx]

You really want to pay by the minute like the Chinese do? I'll pay my 15$ and keep my mouth shut unlike you I am smart enough to realize they would figure the average time a player plays 21-22 hours a week. So roughly 88 hours a month they will say for 88 hours it is $15. Now take you hardcore people who play 35 hours a week that's 5 hours a day you think they will want to pay the extra money over paying $15? Don't be dumb and don't make an issue when there isn't one.

[Mihalik]

Again, game-time should NOT tick away, if your account is not logged on.

Anyone else agree?

No I don't agree. And I'll explain why.

We aren't only paying for game time. But we are rather paying for access. We are paying for the servers running 24/7, for the tech support provided, for the additional services of an active account (which is still provided when you aren't online) such as Armory profiles, Remote chat (if you are using the APP), the authentication and security tied to your account, and the list goes on and on.

And all this without mentioning the money reinvested into fresh content development (content patches) that we didn't really fully purchase, as when we buy the expansion packs, we are literally only buying the content available on release.

I dislike the Asian model. To provide all of the above services, they would need to make the cost per hour of the game much higher, in order to hit the same income per customer as with a subscription model.

This means you would end up paying tons more money, and you would be in a perpetual rush to do things, as time is literally money. That is why Asians have all the XP pots and shit.

[Lackluster]

Seeing as how they have a different economy over there.. No, it's not.

People work for their money and spend it as they see fit, what's the difference?
For the intents and purposes of this thread there's no real difference at all.
If you expect somene to figure out the average purchasing power of a person in those countries and then match that against the amount they pay for wow by the hour just to prove a point.... fat chance; better start improving your own math skills.
It's simply a different business model, there's monthly subscriptions, pay-by-the-hour, free-to-play with a premium webshop, etc.

You're merely cherrypicking tiny parts of people's post that you then try to refute. You've got several pages of people explaining you why you're wrong already, I think enough has been said.

Anyway I'm just gonna go ahead and agree to disagree and let you do whatever you want as there's no way to convince you that doesn't involve a 2x4.

[sajin0084]

That is YOU and YOUR timing though.. Also, we pay for them game & expansions right off the bat, before anything of game-time comes into play.

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You didn't PROVE anything though.. You just said you made a comparison. A comparison does not equal proof.

Sorry, you still need the tutor more than I ever will.

Ok I'm out. I have a strict no arguing with idiots policy.
"Don’t argue with idiots because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

Mod Edit: Keep it civil please.

[MoanaLisa]

It's not like you were being scammed going in. Everyone that signs up knows what the deal is presumably and agrees to it.

If you feel ripped off, don't pay and don't play. I can't imagine why anyone who feels ripped off by something would continue to buy it month after month. I would suppose that if they do, they don't really feel as if that's true.

[Allarius]

You aren't paying for 30 days of access, you're paying to access for the next 30 days.

That'd be like renting a storage unit and then asking to be charged only when you wanted to put something in/take something out.

Also the 15$ isn't solely for gametime and as such isn't going to correlate with your played time.

[Windfury]

I can't even leave the house for less than $15 in transport costs. It's such a tiny amount I really couldn't care less about paying it, for me it's economical compared to anything else I could be doing after an hour of play, everything else is bonus.

[Treno]

I find the pricing for availability of the game works well for me. When you play enough to beat a 20-50 hour game in a week or two, at 50-60 dollars a piece for a lot of titles, 15 dollars for as much of a game as I want in a month (for a game that is dynamic in nature no less), is a really great deal financially.

[Violent]

Ok I'm out. I have a strict no arguing with idiots policy.
"Don’t argue with idiots because they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

Then I guess you don't argue with yourself often, huh?

I'm sorry if in your world a comparison equals proof, but in the real world, it doesn't.. Idiot.

Mod Edit: No need for the personal insult.

[Merite]

$15/mo is a fake number, it hasn't changed since the game came out, and their development costs are not the same as when the game came out. They're not making a set margin.

They could change $15/mo to $100/mo or to $1/minute or $.001/minute, and it wouldn't matter. The psychology of pricing is very odd. Pricing is a very fictitious amount, it's much more reliant on us proving its value.

If for example you are selling a program for $50 and it includes 100 features, people will ask to pay $10 for the 20 of those features they need. If instead you offer the same program for $50 with only 20 features, they will buy it. Price doesn't matter that much in someone's decision of buying something, it's all about perceived value. Pricing is a lie, if you don't feel the pricing method is valuable, simply understand that you're not the majority and Blizzard's decisions are based on the majority.


It's much easier for someone to quantify the monthly fee and compare it to other things (as other people did in this post); if you can immediately justify it to something else you enjoy, you're more prone to buying it. Try comparing an hourly fee to anything else you currently use for entertainment, your mind would have to do math to justify the price. If most consumers spent 20 seconds justifying the price of something with math, they wouldn't buy it. It's quite simple.

[ShadowOfThePast]

I think your game-time for WoW should NOT tick down, unless you are logged in.

If you pay for a month of time, you really only get half, maybe two-thirds of actual play time.

Seeing as how NO ONE can be playing literally 24/7. You may sleep a lil less, eat a little faster, speed home from work or school, what have you. But you still NEVER get the FULL 30 days of play-time. We pay for time, and that time ticks down even when not logged on. Which I think is just a pure bullshit scam.

We have to eat/sleep/work/school sometime. Usually a person sleeps what? 6, maybe 7 hours a night? 7 maybe 6 times a week, with 4 weeks in a month.. You do the math, cause I'm bad at it.. But even then you don't have to be a mathematician to know that's a lot of time you're not able to play.
which is just being wasted, yet you're still paying for it.

I don't think this practice is very fair to us. Fair to them, of course, it's more money they get.

Again, game-time should NOT tick away, if your account is not logged on.

Anyone else agree?

If and/or when you live on your own and pay rent for the apartment are you gonna use the same "principles" of yours with the landlord --> "I will NOT pay rent for the time that I do not use the apartment! It's a scam!..and a rip off too! ...bla bla bla" :] Suddenly doesn't sound so good anymore now does it?

Edit: I pay for 12 or so euros/month on a 3month subscription and I think it's ridiculously cheap hobby compared to almost anything else. I pay for twice as much every month for my mobile phone bill alone

[Violent]

It's not like you were being scammed going in. Everyone that signs up knows what the deal is presumably and agrees to it.

If you feel ripped off, don't pay and don't play. I can't imagine why anyone who feels ripped off by something would continue to buy it month after month. I would suppose that if they do, they don't really feel as if that's true.

Like car insurance? LoL Yeah.... People do shit. Just because you can't fathom it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

[Allarius]

Like car insurance? LoL Yeah.... People do shit. Just because you can't fathom it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Something required by law is a little different than a subscription to a video game.

As moana said, no one would continue to pay for something, unless they really were getting some benefit from it.

[Belloc]

Is this seriously a topic? Have you never rented a game before? A movie? Paid for television or internet?

You don't pay by the minute. You pay by the service period. If you don't like it, feel free to not play the game.

[Violent]

If and/or when you live on your own and pay rent for the apartment are you gonna use the same "principles" of yours with the landlord --> "I will NOT pay rent for the time that I do not use the apartment! It's a scam!..and a rip off too! ...bla bla bla" :] Suddenly doesn't sound so good anymore now does it?

I'm not living IN WoW. So that doesn't fit. You rent a place to live, for a place to live and everything living entails. Your comparison doesn't even make sense.

[hanketsu]

Oh look, another entitlement/whining thread about how dare a game company charge and how everything should be F2P.....

Seriously, go find another game if you're unhappy with Warcraft. Go back to CoD.

Me? I'm getting my dang money's worth. 15k achieves, 60 FoS, several legendaries, and 415 days logged.