I understand the market is only being released in Asia, but I wonder what type of lasting effects might be felt in the North American market if items from in game ever started selling for cash.
I understand the market is only being released in Asia, but I wonder what type of lasting effects might be felt in the North American market if items from in game ever started selling for cash.
Still not enough info to make a judgement so it's a lot of what ifs right now. Personally if they allow items that can skip I game farming (less charms, bonus honor,bonus valor, bonus material while farming or crafting) then the response could very well be negative because cash shops and subs tend not to work well together in this respect unless blizzard introduces a system like flex in eve.
Cash Shop without the game going F2P would drive away subs either because players think Blizz is desperate for money, or Blizz goes too far and turns the shop into a Pay to Win system.
If the game goes F2P it'll be a positive effect no matter what.
FFXIV - Maduin (Dynamis DC)
you forgot to include the correct answer, which is no effect.
F2P with cash shop would probably be positive depending on how its implemented, i.e. if you can still get items by putting in the time and effort but you can shortcut through a cash shop then that would be worth the price of F2P. From what I hear about other F2P games there's a good chance they would have roughly as high of revenue per player with that model as they do now, and if not probably more players to compensate.
I think the current model, where everyone pays $15 a month but some items like the highest quality mounts in the game you have to pay $25 for anyway, is a complete insult. Sorry. I'm very weary about the idea of microtransactions coming to NA while the monthly fee continues. It would strike me as a slap in the face from a greedy company that doesn't know when enough is enough when it comes to milking their customers' cash. I give Blizz the benefit of the doubt as much as I can, but if it comes to this idk how much more I could defend them or their brand.
P.S., when I say F2P, I really mean B2P, that is, you buy the game and the expansion, but no subscription. Same model as Guild Wars.
Last edited by hablix; 2013-07-11 at 10:53 PM.
No way to know. It depends entirely on what's in it and what the surrounding game conditions are, none of which you specified.
If it's just the stuff that's currently in the Blizzard store then hardly any effect at all. If they are dumb enough to start charging players paying $15/month for things they can get for free now--haircuts as an example--then it will kill the subscription part of the game entirely. I don't think Blizzard is that dumb.
A lot of the outrage you see now is pretty meaningless at this point since no one has a clue as to how it will work, what will be in it, whether or not it will come with the expansion of the 1-20 free trial to more levels or anything else such as that.
And yes, we can speculate that this is a slippery slope and what not but if the thread becomes all about that then it's closed. Because we already have enough threads like that.
Last edited by MoanaLisa; 2013-07-11 at 11:44 PM.
"...money's most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don't have it."
F2play - positive
Not f2play - awful.
Unless you get the option to sub and get bonus tokens. Kind of like swtor or aoc. Then its a maybe
Dem Murricans forgot that Europe exists too?
Scarcely any if its just those XP boosting items... some players level faster. No effect on end game content.
People who say this will have a negative impact are delusional. There is no way Blizzard is stupid enough to put anything in the shop that would ruin the game. The impact of the cash shop will be nothing but positive.
If the cash shop comes into the game and it gives people advantages in game (£10 for +50% exp on a character) i'm unsubbing on the spot and I know half of my guild would as well
If they did roll this into NA and Europe I think it would only be a link for ppl to buy from the current pet/mount shop they have while still in game. It would be an amazingly short sighted and poor choice to add anything into the game, bought from a website or in game, that could head towards buy to win.
"Privilege is invisible to those who have it."
It's relative. We pay by the minute, so farming coins, doing dailies, smelting ore, taking a flight path, those all have a direct cost for us. For subscription players, it is all rolled into the monthly sub.Remember, we pay dirt poor prices.