If Blizzard starts selling gear for real money

[Tonkaden]

The amount of backlash and uproar that would occur even if they started selling low level greens would negate any profits they would make from actually selling those items. Selling items with stats on them is pay-to-win, and p2w indicates poor game performance, and shareholders would jump ship. Blizz would never let that happen.

Also we didn't really need another pay to win thread, there are plenty of them out there already.

Selling level 10-80 epics would be more than fine lol. That wouldn't be Pay2Win. P2W would be selling top current tier gear.

[rda]

If they sold ilevel 463 items, I can't honestly see anyone having a problem with that (apart from the slippery slope crowd who actually don't have a problem with the 463 items so much as the fear about what might come next). The person decked out in shop-bought blues would still need to spend some time grinding before they caught up the 'normal' player. Sure they saving some time, but it's a small token compared to the significant amount of time the 'normal' player has already gained benefit from.

Just out of interest, why not sell LFR gear too, then? A guy who wants to raid normals would surely appreciate that, no? And that would be merely skipping time, because you can quite literally AFK in LFR, I saw many guys do just that - and noone can votekick them because of Blizzard's protections. So, why not LFR gear? It's "just" time (and nothing but time, if you do your solo rotation, you are already a hero). Simply trying to understand the logic.

[Deleted]

They wont sell gear, they will just do another timeless island token with an occasional burden idea when the time is right.
This worked pretty well, still some effort and nice way to catch up.

But as kisho said, just to entertain the OP.

If they sell gear @ normal ilvls. Than there wont much pug raids to be found thus the game will die and the our world comes to an end as North Korea launches nukes.

[Thetruth1400]

That's something that pay to win games does, so potentially. I don't think Blizzard is to that point yet, but no one really knows just how low the subs have gotten. Considering that they're wasting time and resources on Blizzard Store mounts though, I'd say they're not doing too well. Even if the total amount of players is still 7.6 million, that doesn't mean that those players aren't from the Asian market where they pay an entirely different way then the rest of the world does their $15 a month. For all we know, only 1 million of those people actually pay $15 a month, and the remaining 6.6 million, they might be making $2 a month off of.

That's a pretty big difference in the end. It's the difference between 7.6 million paying $15 a month, or $114 million and 1 million at $15, or $15 million and 6.6 at $2, or $13.2 million, for a total of $28.2 million. That's a $86.8 million a month difference, that they might be looking at other methods to obtain from their customers, which could easily translate into even more paid item shops in the future.

Sure, it's just speculation at this point, but who knows what's in store for WoW in the near future.

[Zorachus]

I am fine if Blizz wants to sell mog gear for real money, but it should have zero stats, purely cosmetic. But no way should Blizz ever sell Tier gear with good stats, that will kill this game quick, and I will unsub immediately, that is the lame pay to win crap.

But I would love to buy like Tier 10 heroic Warrior plate gear, for my Paladin, that he can't get at all. I'd pay real money for that as a mog set, but it should be have zero stats on it, just for looks only.

[Varabently]

I would be OK with them selling gear provided two things:

1. It's no more powerful than anything you could get in game through playing
2. It's only available if you've killed the boss that would drop it anyway. Like instead of farming for 10 weeks for one specific item, I could buy it after I've killed the boss once.

Otherwise, I think it will be pretty terrible for the game. I wouldn't want to pay for gear, so if it got to the point where I got behind because I didn't want to pay (in PvP for example), that would probably make me quit.

Edit: the poster above me mentioned transmog gear. I'd be good with that as well. Any gear that's sub-max level would be fine. Why would I care if you bought a full T6 set? Your wasted money and has no affect on me.

[hutchzilla]

If some scrub can login with Daddys credit card and get some Normal/Heroic/Mythic gear then I think its unsub time. If they want to sell cosmetic/Timeless tokens then Im cool with that.

[rda]

I would be OK with them selling gear provided two things:

1. It's no more powerful than anything you could get in game through playing
2. It's only available if you've killed the boss that would drop it anyway. Like instead of farming for 10 weeks for one specific item, I could buy it after I've killed the boss once.

Just a minor thing - if they went through with it today, option 2 wouldn't work very well. Kill Ordos once, get the entire loot table.

[Varabently]

That's something that pay to win games does, so potentially. I don't think Blizzard is to that point yet, but no one really knows just how low the subs have gotten. Considering that they're wasting time and resources on Blizzard Store mounts though, I'd say they're not doing too well.

Consider this: I heard someone speculate that it probably takes a art designer something like 3 weeks to make a model and finish it. Let's round that to a month. If the dev makes say 75k per year, the mount cost blizzard something like $6250 to make. Now that's just the dev's salary not overhead, fringe, payroll taxes, etc. so just for simplicity sake let's triple it to about $20k. That's probably a gross overestimate, but it's a round number. They sell it for $25 each. That means they only need to sell 800 of these mounts to break EVEN. There's something like 250 servers, so less than 4 per server to break even. I'd say that's a great cost/benefit.

A month of one art dev's time probably doesn't have any measurable impact on their timelines for development and in fact is probably already budgeted in. They probably roll out a new mount a few times a year and it's already planned and budgeted for.

- - - Updated - - -

Just a minor thing - if they went through with it today, option 2 wouldn't work very well. Kill Ordos once, get the entire loot table.

How about however many times you've killed it, you can buy that many drops from the boss? Or limit it to raid bosses, not world bosses. And no legendaries. That kinda thing.

Good point though, I like where your head is at.

[melodramocracy]

If they did, people would flip out, though it'd be rather hypocritical of them to do so. A paid 90 lets you skip content, and gear for cash allows players to do the same thing. If anything, it's far more fair than cash shop mounts, as you at least have the option to acquire said gear in game (which mounts currently do not allow a player to do)

The money option puts a huge spotlight on the question of whether or not the game, or only the reward from playing it, is the fun factor to you as an individual, which is why I suspect it makes folks a bit hostile.

[MoanaLisa]

At some point it's likely that they'll do current or previous tier LFR gear in the store. I don't view that as exactly a big deal myself. Others may disagree.

Or perhaps they'll just have you start another level XX (depending on which expansion we're on going forward) with some minimal gear. If a new level 90 has any gear at all and comes from a store, you're buying gear in that sense. Just not very good gear.

[Madruga]

If and when this happens, the game will probably already been F2P for a while, so it wouldn't be too harmfull. Different age, different model.

Not until then, however. While the game has a sub, they will not sell gear for IRL money. It is just too harmfull to the subscription model.

[Warlord Booty]

If you're able to buy old gear/weapon/etc.. that was once obtainable in game? Sure why not. As for current content? I hope not. That'll just destroy WoW as a whole.

Probably. The amount of monkeys that would buy full suits would be insane.

[Alvito]

Gear in WoW and gear in D3 isn't the same at all. There is no endgame in D3 and no real ranking system out side of hardcore ladders. All they did in D3 was remove the gear selling that happened in D2 via Ebay and sites like that, which also went hand and hand with dupping issues. Blizzard makes millions of dollars doing plenty of other things that wouldn't be nearly as stupid as this.

[Gangplank]

Assuming they did sell it, it wouldn't be "current tier". I imagine it would be ugly and would probably be blue quality to prevent people from buying it for any reason other than to help them advance through pre-raid content. Something like gear to push players through heroic 5 mans.

[rda]

How about however many times you've killed it, you can buy that many drops from the boss? Or limit it to raid bosses, not world bosses. And no legendaries. That kinda thing.

I don't know, I'd prefer just making highest tier of raids similar to what they are doing with Trials of the Gladiator in WoD - the value there is in competitive gameplay and in ratings, so you don't grind for gear at all, you get all the latest gear automatically at the the entrance, and that gear is only useful while you are in the arena. Everyone has the same gear, it's just skill and teamwork, and who's best. PVE has no ratings like in arenas, but, first, they can add them, and second, it could easily be simply about being able to defeat a particular boss. Plus there always could be achievements, titles, prestige mounts, etc.

I think this would work much better than selling / buying the ability to avoid some grinds.

Want to grind for gear? Do lfr / flex / normals. Enjoy the ride, get a couple of upgrades every week for weeks. No high skill required, everyone can do it, given enough time. Want to challenge yourself and only interested in gear as a means to an end? Do heroic raids in the most powerful gear there is in the game, but put that gear back onto the shelf when the raid ends. Could work?

[ringpriest]

They'd probably make some good money from the twink scene.

There are still twinks? I thought that died when they ended up in a separate bracket...

[Sansnom]

If blizzard starts selling gear for real money
will they start making drop rates so low that people who want to progress would be forced to buy gear with real money??


Like in diablo 3 when they made the drop rates so low for gear, that everybody that wanted to progress in the game was forced to buy gear with real money.

Blizzard did not sell gear in the AH for real money I think. They provide the AH to allow players to sell gear. This is a big difference. Given that WoW is about getting gear, Blizzard selling gear will kill the game. A portion of the player base will buy the gear, raid and complete the instance once and un-sub.

[edmorte]

Obviously you did not watch Blizzcon opening.

Mike said it all. Same principle applies, they not going to kill their own game doing something that stupid.

Another bait for P2W thread, you guys need to go outside.

[dryankem]

Even if they started selling gear for real money we would still see people defending it as totally okay here on these forums. I remember when they started selling pets some asked: "Whats next mounts?". Oh no blizzard would never do that!

Then they started to sell mounts.... "whats next, are they going to sell cosmetic gear and stuff?". Oh no Blizzard would never do stuff like that!

Then they started selling cosmetic gear... "what next, are they going to sell boosts and levels?". Blizzard is way too smart to never do that, it will never happen!

This is not even talking about a slippery slope anymore. We are already in the middle of the slide.


They were never going to sell levels either.

Blizzard is trying to keep the most amount of people playing for the longest time possible. Many people quit before ever reaching relevant content, so they had to do this and because people will buy multiple copies of WoD for multiple 90s, they might as well sell the service.

This is not a level 100 toon, this is not a raid ready or raid geared toon. Blizzard isn't dumb, $50 up front is far less then the roughly $180/year they get from a year subscription and if someone can just buy the gear and toon then there is nothing to work towards and hence they quit.

Blizzard is very clear in it's design that WOW is a big hamster wheel trying to keep you always reaching for that carrot (legendary questline, VP cap, rep grinds, raid lockouts, etc, etc...).

This is exactly the same as getting a level 85 handed to you right now. Would you even bother leveling it? How many 90s do you have now anyways?