Blizzard Entertainment establishes "Microtransaction Strategy"

[ComputerNerd]

In complete contradiction to many products the subscription cost for World of Warcraft has not increased as per inflation.
So why all the stupid whining about OPTIONAL purchases, which when bought by people who are not you are keeping your subscription down.
People should stop being so damn childish.

I-i-it could just be for Hearthstone a-a-and HotS, o-o-or just cosmetics.

Cept we all know its not and WoW is going to be P2W with a sub fee in less than a year.

And people have been saying that since the start.
Yet it did not happen.

[Kraenen]

Down with the cotton gin! down with the cotton gin!!!!

[kenshinag]

Man. It must be hard to live a life where your expectations are that everything is for free. I look forward to reading all about your adventures of doing things for free. Or I look forward to you bitching more about having to pay people to do work to make something for you that you want. I wonder how much you bitch to the store clerk when they charge you that $1 for that bottle of soda?

[twiddler]

Yeah, how can you have a game like heroes of the storm without micro transactions? LoL has tonnes of them, skinsm boosts, champions etc. Same with Hearthstone, any f2p game has to have micro transactions to make it financially viable. OP is just jumping on the hate wagon.



Don't like it? then don't play it. As long as it is profitable and people keep playing it will keep going on that way.

Your business logic is quite confusing. If one does not like it and leaves as you instruct them to doesn't that result in a loss? And with every loss in subscription, doesn't that result in a decrease in profitability (assuming that they don't adjust operations to stabilize or increase net income)? And why does a game's profitability entice people to play?

[Frozen Death Knight]

The comment section on Gamespot is jumping the bandwagon so hard right now. I bet people there just saw "Blizzard", "making money", and "transactions" and then started to complain because Blizzard are trying to make money. It's like the people there completely missed the part where the article talks about the job position requiring a ton of competence (8 years, etc.) as well as making players more willing to spend money without feeling like it ruins the game experience.

Blizzard are not messing around with this since they obviously want to be more successful as a publisher that customers can be happy with. There is no pleasing these people it seems.

[Bullettime]

As long as they keep to vanity centric items, doesn't matter a bit. Even the XP boost concept isn't a big deal when you can already use RAF to get it, just with more hassle.

Blizzard has done things wrong but they're not THAT dumb to start selling gear or actual player equipment. That's killing your own game and they know it. Sure, you may make a hair more money from the million who stay and pump out the cash, but it tarnishes your brand for future releases.

It's also likely that they're hiring the people to develop a microtransaction model that's most profitable for Heroes of the Storm. League of Legends is F2P with microtransactions but isn't P2W and rakes in TONS of cash off of skin sales that are purely cosmetic. Riot even has people who's titles are "E-Commerce" and "Director of E-Commerce" who's sole jobs are to find ways to make more money on the game but without crossing certain lines.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Because if it's not a f2p game they shouldn't charge you extra for anything.

I bought TF2 before it went f2p. By your logic they shouldn't charge for any of their stuff in that game because of it. Doesn't make that much sense now, does it?

[bloodwulf]

I-i-it could just be for Hearthstone a-a-and HotS, o-o-or just cosmetics.

Cept we all know its not and WoW is going to be P2W with a sub fee in less than a year.

Quoting this to go back in a year and laugh at another WOW hater. These microtransactions are most likely for Heroes/Hearthstone, while we could see more added to WOW, we have not come close to seeing anything intrusive. Hell, Starcraft could get away with them, such as adding portraits or emote actions or alternate skins. Stop crying over hypothetical scenarios, these doomsayers are getting old.

[dusselldorf]

Companies must adapt or go extinct. The subscription model is a dying breed, and Blizzard recognizes this. Does this mean everything has to go that way? Of course not. But they would be foolish not to navigate towards what the market will support. Remember Sears? Blockbuster video? Kmart? That's right, they're still around, but nothing compared to what they were. Why? They didn't adapt and were overtaken by more successful business models.

[shoc]

Quoting for posterity, so a year from now you can eat your words.

People have been spouting "WOW IS DYING F2P IN LESS THAN A YEAR" since Burning Crusade. Blizz is going to pull a TF2 with WoW, one day when WoW is long forgotten then BLAM drop the F2P-Microtransaction and watch dem players roll back.



Just replace Team Fortress 2 with WoW and the dates with 2018-2020.

[Bullettime]

Companies must adapt or go extinct. The subscription model is a dying breed, and Blizzard recognizes this. Does this mean everything has to go that way? Of course not. But they would be foolish not to navigate towards what the market will support. Remember Sears? Blockbuster video? Kmart? That's right, they're still around, but nothing compared to what they were. Why? They didn't adapt and were overtaken by more successful business models.

Yeah. Can't fault Blizzard for wanting to take advantage of some people's extra income. As long as it doesn't cross into gear selling in WoW, there's nothing really wrng.

The hired people could be looking at
-How to price and make Hearthstone more profitable
-How to make the most money on Heroes of the Storm, which is F2P, without going with a P2W model.
-What types of cosmetic content are people most interested in for WoW and analyze pricing to maximize sales

[Hurwyn]

Yep. Screw em. Exactly why I cancelled my sub and that's what I told them. Everytime you try to sell me BS on top of my sub fee, I get sick of the game and the shitty company.

Waiting for ESO to come out. I bet you it'll blow WoW out of the water in terms of being an actual... you know.... RPG.

[Jester Joe]

I-i-it could just be for Hearthstone a-a-and HotS, o-o-or just cosmetics.

Cept we all know its not and WoW is going to be P2W with a sub fee in less than a year.

Because you can see the future?

It definitely IS for Hearthstone, and since there's already the skins for HotS, safe to assume it will be for that too.
I see no reason to blow up over this.

Waiting for ESO to come out. I bet you it'll blow WoW out of the water in terms of being an actual... you know.... RPG.

How about the MMO part, since that's the real gamebreaking part of it being a sub based game. What's the point of paying monthly for a game you could play alone without one?

[Vutar]

What's hilarious is that I guarantee that a lot of people in this thread have complained about cash shops in other games. It is hitting home now though, time to rationalize.

[Mormolyce]

Because if it's not a f2p game they shouldn't charge you extra for anything.

I disagree, they can make more cool vanity stuff than they would normally have budget for because they plan to sell it on the store.

[Duito]

This thread is stupid

Contribute constructively. If you feel a thread is stupid, don't post in it.

[Bullettime]

Yep. Screw em. Exactly why I cancelled my sub and that's what I told them. Everytime you try to sell me BS on top of my sub fee, I get sick of the game and the shitty company.

Waiting for ESO to come out. I bet you it'll blow WoW out of the water in terms of being an actual... you know.... RPG.

Because that glowing red helmet sold in the store totally has impact on your gaming experience. You simply cannot participate in content without having a red helmet.

[TheWindWalker]

Waiting for ESO to come out. I bet you it'll blow WoW out of the water in terms of being an actual... you know.... RPG.

Look, discussing "MMO versus MMO" isn't really smiled upon on this subforum. That said, you may want to take a step back and really look at how ESO plays.

[twiddler]

People have been spouting "WOW IS DYING F2P IN LESS THAN A YEAR" since Burning Crusade. Blizz is going to pull a TF2 with WoW, one day when WoW is long forgotten then BLAM drop the F2P-Microtransaction and watch dem players roll back.



Just replace Team Fortress 2 with WoW and the dates with 2018-2020.

You want to know a big difference between HL2 multiplayer derivatives and WoW? Servers.

[cFortyfive]

How about the MMO part, since that's the real gamebreaking part of it being a sub based game. What's the point of paying monthly for a game you could play alone without one?

According to every statistic I'd presume it is actually the way it's meant to be played.