Why in-game store mounts are so expensive?

[deadman1]

The in-game store mounts are expensive because they would rather people pay for these unique mounts instead of offering them content that could lead up to them.

Its a win-win for them, they make more money and add in less content into the game.

Typical ex-wow player that for some reason still wanks over the game and gets mad about everything.

Why follow it if you don't play it seriously? I don't play LoL, you won't see me on their forums bitching.

[Normie]

That said, I'd much prefer £10 or something, but think if you have a business, no need to lower the price of something that sells like hotcakes.

This is all that needs to be said.

[CristoVon]

Its not that expensive if you have a decent job. 1 in-game store mount is 2 hours of work in RL.

[cFortyfive]

Its not that expensive if you have a decent job. 1 in-game store mount is 2 hours of work in RL.

What job pays so bad ?

[zenyatta]

It is all relative and personal. I personally find the $20 to be expensive. But I guess I do not earn as much as many people here.

I make ~$200/wk. I also own all the store mounts and pets. I budget them in, they are expensive for me, but I can still afford them and be ok. If that's what I wanna do with my money, well...

Edit; @Above - I make 7.25/hr. $25 for me is between 3 and 4 hours of work, and I generally work ~5 hours a day, sometimes six. So it's almost a full day's pay. That's expensive. Doable, but still expensive.

[Themanintobuildafire]

Is $25 expensive? For some people that work and spend that on coffee every couple days or a meal on a Friday night, is it really expensive? I work and don't do much for entertainment that costs me except WoW. I realized today though that the 7 mounts from the store come to $175 and that isn't a small amount, but is it a lot? I recently paid $180 for my family and I to spend about 3hrs in a business class lounge at the airport and use their full buffet - worth it for the good food plus the comfort before a long flight, but I have nothing but memories for that money spent. At least while I am playing the game, I can use the mounts that I spent money on...

Put it another way I know a lot of younger people play this game and spend more on weed or alcohol in a week...it is all about priorities.

[Stormcall]

What job pays so bad ?

Umm, a lot of jobs? Minimum wage is $7.25 an hour you know...

[frogger237]

Its likely because somewhere someone did some research and came up with 25$ per mount having the highest profit margin even when factoring in the thousands of more players who would purchase a 5$ mount.

[Omians]

lets see, 7 Mounts in store, dont give you the ability to over power other players.. they don't make you go faster then what your ingame gold bought fly skill is,

so far there is roughly 417 Mounts in game, as shown in http://www.warcraftmounts.com/gallery.php

35 retired but still see them in the world

7 from store, 2 from scroll of Resurrection, 1 from annual pass, 1 from collectors edition, 4 from recruit a friend, 17 from the TCG, 1 blizzcon mount

so 32 mounts blocked by an amount of money

that leaves 350 Mounts you can obtain in game by doing what ever there is to do in game, a bunch are tied to alliance side only and others are horde side only, but still plenty of mounts to get you to the 100/200 mount achievements

Don't even get me started on the amount of Collectible pets , only issue i have with them is you can use them in pet battles, but they have gone back and rescaled the money bought pet powers to make them more equal to ingame gotten pets, the battle pets were the only scource of pay to win they had going till they fixed their damage, they can still use some tweeking but the bought pets are still very beatable

[Kriaze]

The prices are high that we could enjoy from the good customer support and anti-cheat.

The customer support which they're now relegating to email only and trying to pass off like that's a good thing? Blizzard make me laugh, they rehash old content, remodel old character models and reskin old mount models, then, they charge you for it, either as an expac or as an added extra from the Blizzard store. Blizzard is nothing but a greed machine, but other players have realised that and moved on and many more are following and finally this game is coming to it's rightful end. It should never have lasted more than a five year plan.

- - - Updated - - -

Typical ex-wow player that for some reason still wanks over the game and gets mad about everything.

Why follow it if you don't play it seriously? I don't play LoL, you won't see me on their forums bitching.

Typical immature foul mouthed fanboy defending something that they'll never own and only pay to be a miniscule part of. Bitter much? The guy doesn't say whether they play the game or not so don't jump to conclusions because someone said something that hurt your feelings about your favourite game which means so much to you.

I play the game, it doesn't mean that I'll defend it to the death and troll anyone that does. Grow up ffs

[Raiju]

What job pays so bad ?

On top of other comments, in other places both wage and living costs are lower, as a result the mount costs "more" in terms of how much work you do.

[MW4Life]

They're expensive because people will buy them, plain and simple. I can't blame them, that's some easy ass money. I would do the same thing. Hell, they should make a two-seater and charge $35 for it just because people would pay. Personally, I have never purchased anything from the store. No matter how mundane it may be, I don't believe in paying for content in a game where you buy the serials + play a sub. I would just feel like too much of a sucker getting triple dipped. In addition to that, I would feel cheesy riding around on something that I didn't obtain by defeating a boss, farming, gaining rep, doing achievements, or through whatever more traditional means, instead opting to plop down a credit down a credit card to get a cool item. Truth be told, I like the Fey Dragon, if it was something I could strive for in game, I would do it.... but making it something one can just pay for takes away the specialness of the mount, imo.


Someone made what I believe to be a rather a rather silly comment earlier saying, " ...[store mounts] are not expensive if you are working." I have enough money at my fingertips to buy every poster in this thread every single pet and mount the store offers, and I could do it many times over. Still, $25 for a virtual mount? Nah... kinda like those $8 slices of crap pizza at sporting events. Sure $25 is chump change, but it's a hell of a lot for what you're getting when buying a store mount.

In the end, I support the store. I love WoW and want the game to remain healthy, just not how I wanna spend my money.

[Raiju]

Hell, they should make a two-seater and charge $35 for it just because people would pay. Personally, I have never purchased anything from the store.

We do need more 2 seaters. My drake is getting tiresome.

[Deleted]

People saying 'I earn 100k+ a year, its nothing to me' dont really add to the conversation - they arent anywhere national averages.

But the simple fact is, its business, they will have plenty of business and money people sat working all day figuring out the most efficient way to milk everyone - thats good business right? So, if at their current price, they are very happy with the ratio of man hours versus purchase rates, why would they change it.

[Herecius]

They will likely drop in price when the store is inevitably populated by shitloads more stuff and Blizzard begins to lean on it more as a source of revenue. Right now it's purely pennies, drops in the bucket compared to sub costs, so the prices are kept at 'luxury item' prices.

People arguing that they are cheap are idiotic, however. $25 is ASTRONOMICAL compared to mounts bought in other MMO in-game stores. It's an enormous price, absolutely in the 'luxury item' price range, and you're in denial if you think otherwise.

But of course, that's why the current in-game store is a very different beast from other games. It's not Blizzard's sole source of revenue like many other MMOs, so they can afford to keep the prices on both mounts and pets (yes, the pet prices are astronomical as well compared to other MMO in-game stores) because they don't have to be concerned with convincing lots of people to buy them.

Eventually however, Blizzard is going to have to shift to a microtransaction system as their source of revenue. This means sub costs are going to go away, but the costs will be replaced with in-game items bought from the store. It's going to be a slow as hell transition, but it'll happen. When it does, those mounts will probably cost a lot less. Don't be surprised to see other things - such as, say 310% mount speed - also become store bought items with such a transition.

[The Flavour Cat]

The only thing I wish Blizzard would correct is the conversion rate. At the moment, $25 USD is £15.17. Round that to £15 for the Iron Skyreaver and the other mounts and it seems fair. Oh, and the $25 is 18 EUR, and rounding that up to €20 is unfair. Yes, I know these are prices for vanity items that have no effect on gameplay, but get the rates right.

[Lahis]

The only thing I wish Blizzard would correct is the conversion rate. At the moment, $25 USD is £15.17. Round that to £15 for the Iron Skyreaver and the other mounts and it seems fair. Oh, and the $25 is 18 EUR, and rounding that up to €20 is unfair. Yes, I know these are prices for vanity items that have no effect on gameplay, but get the rates right.

Just look at Steam or any other online retailer. Converting prices with simple X$ = X€ = X£ is the commont practice, done only for moneygrabbing.
Buy in dollars if you can.

[Deleted]

Because people are stupid enough to pay /thread.