Is Wow now a game for the wealthy?

[-Superman-]

You could easily do it in an SUV if you lived where I do. $60 is ~20gal of gas here, and the town is a whopping 10 miles x 10 miles in size.

But then you'd have to be in a tiny town in the middle of a desert...

Oh absolutely. If I lived 2 miles from work and went no where on the weekends. But, let's find a polling sample of how many people live within 6 minutes of work My neighbor got smart and bought a motorcycle. Now it costs him $80 a month instead of a week for his F150.

[Marquize]

Ive been thinking this for a while

Well you obviously didn't think enough

[-Superman-]

Good. You can start sending them money right now, I think. No need to wait until they actually do some features, just send it in.

If there is a service I like, I will gladly pay for it. Once this service is available, I will likely drop a 90 on each of my cross realms on my other two accounts and use them to feed each other resources. This is a hobby for me. Since I don't smoke, drink, or partake in narcotics, this is where my extra pocket money goes. I've been known to just change factions on a whim to see what is new and then change back a few days later. The benefits of having a good job and no children to support.

[Sierra85]

Unless you can buy better gear than what's available in game for money, everyone's still on the same playing field in end game.

technically arent there a few pieces of gear on the BMAH that are pretty good?

[-Superman-]

technically arent there a few pieces of gear on the BMAH that are pretty good?

and doesn't everyone have access to the BMAH?

[Gothicshark]

technically arent there a few pieces of gear on the BMAH that are pretty good?

bidding starts on a i550 piece of gear around 15k, and can go up to 100k+ on a busy serve, plus the BMAH is open to anyone who can get there.

Also buying and selling Gold for real money will get your account closed, which mean that is gold that has to be earned by playing the game.

[hrugner]

I think boating is a game for the wealthy. MMOs just don't have the same exclusive appeal of heavily wealth restricted activities.

[A Dark Knight]

such bad choice of words in the tittle

OT: no

[-Superman-]

I think boating is a game for the wealthy. MMOs just don't have the same exclusive appeal of heavily wealth restricted activities.

I would agree. I think if you are "wealthy" by any standard definition, you are more likely to be golfing, or attending some charity event where they kiss your ass and ask for money. In our case here, it just happens to be nerds who are willing to pay for a completely optional service.

[DeadmanWalking]

If you stand around the front of a golf resort in a nice polo tshirt during a golfing event rich people will walk up and hand you money thinking they are tipping the golfing staff. Never had anyone pass me a 20 because I was standing around in front of my computer.

[axolotls]

typical daily commute in LA is 30-40 miles each way, it usually takes an Hour to get there. ie I live in Marina Del Rey, and I commute to Northridge, a distance of 27 miles, 54 miles round trip. See map: Google map . I drive a Lincoln Towncar, it gets about 16mpg, in LA SUVs and large cars are fairly typical.

Do the math, if I make that trip 5 times a week that is 270 miles a week, or 16.875 gallons of gas. My Lincoln has a 18 gallon tank, which costs about $63.75 a week in gas. Which is fairly typical for someone in Los Angeles. Now My hourly wage if I was paid hourly, fortunately I get a set amount every month but if it was hourly it would equal to $21 an hour. Which means $63 is 3 hours of my money.

How does this relate to the main topic. Well I posted it before (see link). Essentially leveling one Character costs me $630 of my time. So the new service saves me 90% of my value. I would still need to spend time gearing, doing dailies, and raiding to be equivalent to any of my characters already at ninety.

As to the baseless concept of p2w, not at all. Since the focus of WOW has been the End Game for the last 8 years. If the game was still the leveling game I would agree, but leveling has become a grind and is no longer an important part of the WOW experience. Now a few people on RP servers might disagree, but how many of you complainers actually Role Play on a Role Play server?

WOW is just about what you can do after you hit max level. Nothing else in the game has any value.

I believe you vastly misunderstood the intent of my post, especially if the "you complainers" bit was aimed at me.
I wholeheartedly agree that it's a cheap service for those who choose to use it upon availability.
That being said, I do not agree with your stance that your time spent leveling is costing you any amount of money, unless you'd be at work otherwise. Your time is worth $21/hr at work, and at work only. Relative to location, according to glassdoor.com, I make the same amount of money as you. That doesn't mean I "spent" $63 watching Harry Potter last night. Time is only money when that time can actually be spent making money.

[Deleted]

It's £8.99 a month, hardly going to bankrupt you.

Store items are o p t i o n a l.

[TX-Imhotep]

Blizzard is not a charity. They didnt make this game because they love you and want you to be happy. No this game isnt for the wealthy. Thats a ridiculous statement.

Optional is optional.

[Ronduwil]

I enjoy the satisfaction that comes from working hard and long at something and accomplishing it. Blizzard is removing the 'work hard' part from that....

It's not work. It's play. Blizzard gets nothing out of the "work" you're putting into their game. Rather, they collect subscription fees depending on how long you play.

Which is why there aren't many things left in this game that can give me this feeling of accomplishment anymore.

It's just a game. The one accomplishment of any value that you get from a game is to relax for a while and enjoy the ride. Games are for fun, not for meaningful accomplishments. I don't understand why people are under the impression that Blizzard's responsibility is to make you feel accomplished. It's not. Blizzard's responsibility is to provide you with fun, and all their decisions are aimed at that.

For example, I can hit 90 today and be in full epics, and have garrosh down that same day in LFR, and in less than a week I've killed the last boss of the game. /Unsub
I'll be back for the next boss.

They still will have collected four months worth of sub fees from you. That's the bottom line. If you don't want to spend a month levelling then Blizzard is happy to charge you four months' worth of subs to skip over that part.

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Essentially leveling one Character costs me $630 of my time.

That's assuming that all the time you spend playing would have been spent working. Since you're paid monthly anyway we both know that's not the case. Levelling costs $0 of your time because you're not being paid for the time you're spending outside of work. This claim would only be valid if you were actually making a choice between working your job and playing WoW. Clearly that's not happening. You get paid the same regardless of whether you level a character or don't.

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Let the scrubs buy their characters, who cares right? If I want to power level a character to 90 I can achieve that in a couple days easily.

I don't know why you have to call those players scrubs. I am also of the opinion that paying to skip over the part of the game that I personally enjoy the most would be absolutely silly, but just because another player disagrees with me and wants to skip it doesn't make them a scrub. I agree with the live and let live sentiment but I don't think the condescension is warranted.

- - - Updated - - -

No, you are a hypnotized sheep, there is a difference between paying fairly for content (Blizz gotta eat too) and being milked and spat on after years of loyalty. Just because it's a game and you can choose to ignore it doesn't mean it's morally right to let them do it and to support it is even worse than what they are doing. So instead of coming back with the same stupid explanation about capitalism spare yourself some trouble and don't, ok?

OK... I was with you until the "milked and spat on" part. How is Blizzard milking and spitting on you? If you've been playing a long time and have all the 90s you want there is no need for you to take advantage of this service. Otherwise, how is someone else shelling out four months' worth of subscription fees to skip over a month's worth of content going to milk you?

[-Superman-]

Do you even try to make your point or do you write like a rabid 12 year old?

Your argument might hold more merit were it not opened with insults.

[Ronduwil]

Lol, are you out of your fucking mind? Blizzard have absolutely incredible profits, most large companies do.. They don't need to charge for extras to keep going they're already covered more than enough by the subscriptions. If you really believe blizzard would struggle without things like this you really need to brush up on your economics.

However, because they are a publicly traded company they are obligated to seek profits for their investors. Giving away a service that players are willing to pay for is contrary to that obligation. By your logic they don't need to charge for their game any more because they've raked in billions. Why even limit that to Blizzard? Car manufacturers can start giving away vehicles and services once they've met their annual targets. Your local grocery store can start handing out food once they've shown a profit for the month. Where does it end? Your view of the world bears no resemblance to reality whatsoever. Just because they can continue to make money by giving away services doesn't make it good business.

[DeadmanWalking]

A lot of this mamby pamby crying about the online store is based on a rediculous ideal that corporations are all evil and that they should not be allowed to generate even more money than they do. If Pepsi sells Tshirts thats fine, if Coke sells belt buckles thats fine. If wow sells a mount that you don’t need then watch the hell out! Burn the bridges! Throw yourself on the nuclear bomb! Holy shit the world is evil!

Are they pouring oil in the ocean? Are they purposely addicting children to a product that they know will kill them with cancer? Are they sticking bullets in peoples mail boxes to shut them up? Are the paying assassins to kill their competition? Are they supporting a genocidal regime so they can sell orange flavored sodas? No? Then they are more than welcome to find as many revenue streams as they want.

It is called supply and demand, if no one wants a product then they won’t sell it. The problem with that is these ‘pay to win’ loosers can’t grasp that they don’t represent everyone, and the majority of people actually want to buy stuff from an online store.
I’m not going to buy a virtual hat that costs more than a real hat does in a real store but if you want to throw your excess cash at it I really don’t care. Thats your problem, not mine. I’m not going to pay $60 for a boost to 90 either but I don’t care if you do. It’s none of my business how you spend your money.

Using a computer created by corporations on the internet which is provided by corporations while sipping a $7 coffee sold by a corporation in clothing sold by corporations in a warm cozy house built by corporations and paying the bills for all that with the money from a corporation while complaining about a corporation selling optional services is the height of hypocrisy.

[Ronduwil]

EDIT: What next? Google struggling and need us to give them money for the pretty logo? Lol.

If they thought that people would actually pay for the logo they would charge for it. Why would anyone charge people money to look at their branding? When you buy a box of cookies at the store are you buying the picture of the Keebler elf or the cookies in the package? Your comparison makes no sense.

[-Superman-]

A lot of this mamby pamby crying about the online store is based on a rediculous ideal that corporations are all evil and that they should not be allowed to generate even more money than they do. If Pepsi sells Tshirts thats fine, if Coke sells belt buckles thats fine. If wow sells a mount that you don’t need then watch the hell out! Burn the bridges! Throw yourself on the nuclear bomb! Holy shit the world is evil!

Are they pouring oil in the ocean? Are they purposely addicting children to a product that they know will kill them with cancer? Are they sticking bullets in peoples mail boxes to shut them up? Are the paying assassins to kill their competition? Are they supporting a genocidal regime so they can sell orange flavored sodas? No? Then they are more than welcome to find as many revenue streams as they want.

It is called supply and demand, if no one wants a product then they won’t sell it. The problem with that is these ‘pay to win’ loosers can’t grasp that they don’t represent everyone, and the majority of people actually want to buy stuff from an online store.
I’m not going to buy a virtual hat that costs more than a real hat does in a real store but if you want to throw your excess cash at it I really don’t care. Thats your problem, not mine. I’m not going to pay $60 for a boost to 90 either but I don’t care if you do. It’s none of my business how you spend your money.

Using a computer created by corporations on the internet which is provided by corporations while sipping a $7 coffee sold by a corporation in clothing sold by corporations in a warm cozy house built by corporations and paying the bills for all that with the money from a corporation while complaining about a corporation selling optional services is the height of hypocrisy.

If I could high five the fuck outta you right now... I would.

[beanman12345]

I don't really think it's a game for the wealthy. It is still pretty cheap entertainment when comparing certain things. Though when comparing other things like f2p games or ipad games(some at least, others could eat up alot more of your money then wow ever could.) But when comparing alot of other AAA games now, you need a relatively newish computer which could cost a ton, or a brand new console which does cost a ton. This one doesn't require a newer computer, cost of entry is relative since there are like 50%+ off sales all the time, and a completely optional cash shop, I would say no it's not a game for the wealthy.