Content drought and monthly subscription

[Divinexve]

Content droughts are purely personal
If I was in a mythic raiding guild, a drought wouldn't even exist (I raided every week from start to finish in HFC, loved every minute of it)

[micwini]

Not going to happen. That's like McDonalds advertising that fast food is bad for your health.

[Onikaroshi]

Haha, there is nothing about being MMO that means you have to have more employees or more "overhead", LoL has 2500 people working on it, whole of Blizzard has 4700, how many are on WoW, 1500? Also saying those games require fewer servers, well, 1st of all, we already established that servers cost pennies, but for the sake of the argument, no, WoW doesn't magically require a million servers to run. LoL has incredibly frequent updates for example, but you don't pay $15 for the privilege of investing into the development but getting none of the profit back.

I understand that the pleb perception is that MMOs have a large overhead, but what is an MMO and what isn't really has blurred lines - massively multiplayer can fit all kinds of definitions, heck, by wikipedia definition, pubg is an MMO game, fortnite is an MMO, and so on. But honestly, people expect the same amount of support on any AAA game these days.

Ok, let me restate that, full world MMORPGS have more overhead then some shitty moba game that you could run on a dell from 2005. Hell, PUBG doesn't even HAVE their own servers.

Last time it was discussed it cost $136,986 a day just for the servers, or about 50mil a year, not even including employee wages. Now obviously some costs have gone down (generally server parts may be cheaper, but others have become more expensive or not gone anywhere over the years), but employee wages only go up overall. Sure you could sustain WoW WITHOUT a sub, but they'd have to push micro transaction even harder. (Funny that you bring up LoL and Dota that lock characters behind grind or money).

I'd rather pay a sub then have even more microtransactions.

[Ragedaug]

Good post.

Overheads don't disappear whilst the game is live.
New content or not.

Sure, folks paying the sub are paying for access to the servers, but they are also paying for content. If you don't think so, see what happens if Blizzard never makes any more content, but keeps the servers online. People will stop subbing. thus, those people were paying for content.

To be clear, I'm not saying or challenging what Blizzard says they are charging for. I'm just saying what people are paying for. I would never pay for only access to servers. I would only pay if what those servers gave me access to was compelling.

[Onikaroshi]

Sure, folks paying the sub are paying for access to the servers, but they are also paying for content. If you don't think so, see what happens if Blizzard never makes any more content, but keeps the servers online. People will stop subbing. thus, those people were paying for content.

To be clear, I'm not saying or challenging what Blizzard says they are changing for. I'm just saying what people are paying for. I would never pay for only access to servers. I would only pay if what those servers gave me access to was compelling.

There's a difference between what you actually paying for and what you are paying for in your head though. Sure, you can say you're paying for content with the sub, and it seems right in your head, but that's not what the payment is for, its for access, pure and simple.

It behooves Blizzard to put out content though to keep people subbed.

[Socialhealer]

how is this a thread?

if you feel there's a content drought and it's not worth paying, don't pay simple.

there's really no counter argument to my point it's simple logic, no-one forces you to pay, if you want to play during this "drought" then it's clearly good enough to keep your attention and it's worth paying.

[Ragedaug]

There's a difference between what you actually paying for and what you are paying for in your head though. Sure, you can say you're paying for content with the sub, and it seems right in your head, but that's not what the payment is for, its for access, pure and simple.

It behooves Blizzard to put out content though to keep people subbed.

I completely agree that Blizzard says they are only charging for server access. That way their customers can't hold them hostage for content or sue them for not delivering. So I get it that technically that's what your receipt says.

I'm just saying not one customer is paying solely for the purpose of logging in. They are paying to play the game. The players understand that and Blizzard understands that. So while the customers aren't technically paying for content, they won't pay for access if there is no content. So making the argument "you aren't paying for content" rings very hollow and disingenuous to me.

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how is this a thread?

if you feel there's a content drought and it's not worth paying, don't pay simple.

there's really no counter argument to my point it's simple logic, no-one forces you to pay, if you want to play during this "drought" then it's clearly good enough to keep your attention and it's worth paying.

I think there's a lot of players who don't pay during droughts who would still log in from time to time if we could play sub-free during those times (me included). So that's the counter argument. I think it's a valid proposal. Though, it's also completely in Blizzard's hands how they want to handle it, and they don't owe me anything, just like I don't owe them a sub.

[Socialhealer]

I think there's a lot of players who don't pay during droughts who would still log in from time to time if we could play sub-free during those times (me included). So that's the counter argument. I think it's a valid proposal. Though, it's also completely in Blizzard's hands how they want to handle it, and they don't owe me anything, just like I don't owe them a sub.

you feel the drought isn't worth your money game isn't good enough, play something better? plenty of great games out there, i've basically stopped mythic raiding (wiping 7.5 hours a week for 1.5 hours of kills) so i can play games like BoTW, mario odyssey, assassin's creed etc, i like mythic raiding but it's the same old shit for a few ilvl's can't compete against other AAA games.

[Ragedaug]

you feel the drought isn't worth your money game isn't good enough, play something better? plenty of great games out there, i've basically stopped mythic raiding (wiping 7.5 hours a week for 1.5 hours of kills) so i can play games like BoTW, mario odyssey, assassin's creed etc, i like mythic raiding but it's the same old shit for a few ilvl's can't compete against other AAA games.

umm...I am playing something better...but thanks?

- I guess I wasn't clear earlier. I dropped my sub a while back. While there was content, to be honest. I'm just saying, if Blizz opened up the servers during content drought, I would log on from time to time to mess around. Obviously, they don't have to, and I personally wouldn't ask them to, but I would still concede that it's a valid question/proposal.

I think the counter argument from Blizz would be that there are still enough players paying through drought that it's not financially beneficial for them to open it up for free while we are waiting on content. We would need a lot more players dropping subs during drought for them to do it, then have a noticeable lack of return by players gone too long that have moved on. Perhaps if we reached that point, Blizz would do it, though I don't see it happening in the foreseeable future.

[Socialhealer]

umm...I am playing something better...but thanks?

- I guess I wasn't clear earlier. I dropped my sub a while back. While there was content, to be honest. I'm just saying, if Blizz opened up the servers during content drought, I would log on from time to time to mess around. Obviously, they don't have to, and I personally wouldn't ask them to, but I would still concede that it's a valid question/proposal.

I think the counter argument from Blizz would be that there are still enough players paying through drought that it's not financially beneficial for them to open it up for free while we are waiting on content. We would need a lot more players dropping subs during drought for them to do it, then have a noticeable lack of return by players gone too long that have moved on. Perhaps if we reached that point, Blizz would do it, though I don't see it happening in the foreseeable future.

people would just never resub and wait for these "droughts" to all play for free, meaning the game buries itself in being forced to go free to play, now we gotta pay like EA and gear is all in loot boxes FFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!