Why Does Blizzard Practice Urgency In World of Warcraft?

[mario710]

What exactly does that accomplish creating urgency within your loyal subscribers? They already pay fifteen a month, but now you are going to tell me that this feature/item will only be accessible for a LIMITED period of time?

Why is data that can be replicated an infinite amount of times limited?


Infinite = Limited?

[Lionhearte0]

What is marketing for $800, Alex.

[Nnyco]

the limited is clearly focused on the time it is accessable, not the amount of items that are available, is that so hard to fathom?

[Coconut]

They are trying to artificially motivate some people to subscribe at certain times in order to get the limited content. This isn't very customer friendly, and can be a bit frustrating if you know you would have subscribed anyway, but a certain part of the playerbase supports it because they believe it makes them "special" in the long run for having unobtainable items. Until more people grow up and realize how idiotic this is, Blizzard has us by the balls with this. Can't say us collectors help much either, since we e also eat this content right up, thus contributing to Blizzard's participation statistics whether we agree to the system or not.

[Deleted]

Hopefully they do that! They're making more money with urgency and it's good for the health of the game. More money = bright future = loyals players happy

[Kuuri]

I think, depending on what it is specifically you're referring to, this replies to this thread are all missing the mark.

Stuff like the mage tower appearances or the aotc mount are going away to preserve the exclusivity and 'difficulty' of obtaining those items.
The exclusivity of those items is an important psychological tool, but while they might be useful to increase moment to moment subscription numbers and stuff like that, that's not really why it exists.

This is an MMO, and being able to obtain things that others can't or haven't is an important part of creating difference in characters.

For the mage tower, they could arguably constantly retune the scenarios to maintain it's difficulty so that it doesn't become trivial with levels/gear (if it hasn't already), but that would cost developer resources and attention, and having something for 'people who were there' is always an attractive feature in this kind of game.

[Perkunas]

Are you man-whining about Mage Tower?

[Heladys]

What exactly does that accomplish creating urgency within your loyal subscribers? They already pay fifteen a month, but now you are going to tell me that this feature/item will only be accessible for a LIMITED period of time?

Why is data that can be replicated an infinite amount of times limited?


Infinite = Limited?

"now" they're gonna tell you, except they told you a year ago.

[Eggroll]

Hopefully they do that! They're making more money with urgency and it's good for the health of the game. More money = bright future = loyals players happy

But, but.... what about replayability?!?! I mean, how many peeps really do legacy content, just for that purpose? It all goes away if you remove the content just for short term profit. Just saying...

But apparently being online doing legacy content doesn't count towards their participation statistics and you are ofc not subscribed while doing that?!?!

Not to mention that "desirable" legacy content can help bridge content droughts. And we never had one of those, did we? /s

Edit: Also, with the scaling technology they can always make it scale to your current level, just like Brawlers Guild or the Class Trials. Apart from the removal of the appearances, there's also the removal of the gameplay challenge, which is just straight silly in my book. I had cloaks on four or five toons in MoP. Still I found it idiotic to remove the quest chain because I actually ENJOYED doing it. I guess for Blizz it's all about bare attendance numbers now. Not necessary for the players to ENJOY the game at all, hu?

[WurstKaeseSzenario]

Months and months of time to do stuff that was announced to be removed, but choosing not to do it.
Complain about it two days before it gets removed.

[Dylamoo]

First off.. Paying 15 a month? I doubt many do that, at least in the regions you probably think. Most are paying with gold these days, lets be real.

Secondly, Why do people feel like just because they pay a subscription fee they feel entitled to having everything? It's fundamentally absurd given the nature of what you're paying for. A video game, many games, toys, entertainment products also have limited quantities. Just because it's data doesn't mean it should always be there. Creating exclusivity and prestige is a very healthy thing for video games like mmorpg's like world of warcraft. It's goals, conversation topics, aspirations, achievements, the very basic and integral parts of a journey. MMORPG's aren't just video games anymore, they're also social journeys. If you devalue a journey you devalue the game, and when you do that your community starts to wither, and when your community starts to go then you're left with a dead game.

So clearly you're talking about the mage tower. It's not urgency given the large amount of time you had to get the items.Urgency would imply the mage tower appearances would only be available for 2 weeks and that was all life time of the game. That's urgency, a model businesses use often associated with sales and holiday blow-outs. What you're complaining about is why does blizzard practice prestige. The simple answer to that is because it's integral to the journey of world of warcraft. MMORPG's as a genre need this. I get that it might suck to be on the spectrum that couldn't complete the challenges, but that's a reflection on you as a player or your ability to manage time. The challenges were not hard, I'm honestly baffled by how people had such a hard time with them. I'm 36/36 but I did not put in huge efforts to complete them glanced at a few guides to learn how to play some classes and figured out the rest because all classes shared the same bosses depending on your spec one form or another.

[Deleted]

They are trying to artificially motivate some people to subscribe at certain times in order to get the limited content. This isn't very customer friendly, and can be a bit frustrating if you know you would have subscribed anyway, but a certain part of the playerbase supports it because they believe it makes them "special" in the long run for having unobtainable items. Until more people grow up and realize how idiotic this is, Blizzard has us by the balls with this. Can't say us collectors help much either, since we e also eat this content right up, thus contributing to Blizzard's participation statistics whether we agree to the system or not.

This is the hardcore pessimists approach. The kind of person who woul date a super model and look for flaws in her.

The other and not as conspirazy centered posts would say that it creates accomplishments. Just like ahead of the curve and that sort. Beating content while its still, to some degree, challenging and rewarding players for it.

[SirCowdog]

Google terms "exclusivity in marketing" and "scarcity marketing" for further information. Both extremely common concepts in marketing and used fairly universally everywhere, where products are sold and marketed.

This is pretty basic 101 marketing stuff you're complaining about.

It's funny, because every time I tell people Blizzard does stuff like this for the purpose of profit, I get called a conspiracy theorist despite how basic the concept is.

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This is the hardcore pessimists approach. The kind of person who woul date a super model and look for flaws in her.

The other and not as conspirazy centered posts would say that it creates accomplishments. Just like ahead of the curve and that sort. Beating content while its still, to some degree, challenging and rewarding players for it.

Yes, but to some degree(as you put it) collecting all the things, or going back for replay value, is also rewarding.

When it comes down to it, who benefits most by making things like the MT limited? You say it's pessimistic to say Blizzard does, even though there's documented and established marketing results from these kinds of practices.

So is it really pessimism, or is it just recognizing that Blizz is leveraging those practices instead of potentially making something more player-friendly?

[Perkunas]

wtf is man-whining exactly?

It's when a guy pisses and moans like a petulant 5-year-old.

[Perkunas]

What does the "man" change then? That's what all whining is

Man is saying he's an adult. I did assume OP is an adult male...

[Deleted]

It's funny, because every time I tell people Blizzard does stuff like this for the purpose of profit, I get called a conspiracy theorist despite how basic the concept is.

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Yes, but to some degree(as you put it) collecting all the things, or going back for replay value, is also rewarding.

When it comes down to it, who benefits most by making things like the MT limited? You say it's pessimistic to say Blizzard does, even though there's documented and established marketing results from these kinds of practices.

So is it really pessimism, or is it just recognizing that Blizz is leveraging those practices instead of potentially making something more player-friendly?

I dont think Blizzard would do it like that. There isnt much replay value when you vastly overgear and overlevel the mage towers.

Its a pessimistic view on it because there are several different ways of looking at it, and instantly jumping on the money grabbing train like thats the definite answer is pessimistic.

Personally i dont actually believe most of the people doing this think its true. THey just want to be prooved wrong because they are touchy feely and need constant confirmation that Blizzard actually does care about their product, and by extenction their customers.

Basicly like a very clingy girlfriend

[Lochton]

What exactly does that accomplish creating urgency within your loyal subscribers? They already pay fifteen a month, but now you are going to tell me that this feature/item will only be accessible for a LIMITED period of time?

Why is data that can be replicated an infinite amount of times limited?


Infinite = Limited?

It is part of the marketing business. I sets the bar for what people have of time to earn something that will be gone later, some pride on this a lot. It is a healthy thing to roll some things of the chart now and then. After all, the limitation isn't the amount but the time you have to gain it.

[Perkunas]

what diff does it make if OP is a man or woman though? whining is whining I don't get the psuedo-femnazi term. Like a 'mansplain' sort of thing.

Jesus fuck all are people triggered because it sounds like a feminist comment... I simply assumed OP is a dude as most people who play this game are men. I also assumed OP was an adult who was pissing and moaning over mage tower.

[Coconut]

This is the hardcore pessimists approach. The kind of person who woul date a super model and look for flaws in her.

The other and not as conspirazy centered posts would say that it creates accomplishments. Just like ahead of the curve and that sort. Beating content while its still, to some degree, challenging and rewarding players for it.

It's not pessimistic, it's just an objective analysis. Much like store items, it's advantageous to Blizzard to do this, and they can get away with it because a percentage of the playerbase eagerly supports it, even though in truth it's not really in their advantage.

This idea that it creates accomplishments is all well and good, but it's not as relevant now as it was in the early days. WoW doesn't have the same player churn it had up until Wrath, which means we're pretty much the same players doing the challenging content every expansion. We're not "proving ourselves" anymore, we're just going through the motions for the rewards, like we did time and time again. And it's largely the same people who play casually and ignore them too. Most of them are already at peace with not getting this stuff, so they don't give a fuck.

At this point exclusivity is unhealthy, because it drives new players away, few as they are already (sooo many things they can't get, they might as well invest in a new game where they can be the special ones), while being more or less frustrating for collectors (it triggers the "I have to do this" attitude, especially when you know you can) and having diminishing returns for veterans (realistically, how many exclusive items can you show off at any one time?).

I'm not saying rewarding good players is bad, quite the contrary, skilled players should always have something to show off! The key is that this should keep changing with new content. The difference between the top 0.5% player and the casual is that the former gets the most recent end game reward right now and gets to show it off while it's new and exciting, while the latter has to wait anywhere between 6 months and 4 years to get it, based on the nature of the content.

Forced exclusivity actually makes some things more common, because it pushes people who would normally be too lazy or too bad to do it to actually step up or pay up and buy a boost. If the items were always available though, with a scaling tech in place to keep difficulty within the same reasonable boundaries, many complacent players would keep postponing it indefinitely, leading to a much higher level of exclusivity for those who actually put in the work. Think of Vicious Saddles or things like the Ashhide Mushan; they're not that hard to get, but people hate PvP so much that they never actually get down to it; I myself am a fervent mount collector and I only got 3 saddles so far, I keep postponing PvP even as the mounts add up.

The reality of your prestige is that you have some items ~10-15% of the player base has (which is not rare enough to make you special, but it's high enough that casuals who didn't get them see them pretty much all the time and get frustrated), and there's a 50-50 chance that you paid for a boost to get them. Hardly something to write home about.

[tankbug]

All I know is that if it wasn't for the limited availability of the mage towers, they would always remain on my todo-list when I could be bothered in the future, instead of getting them done now. They are, by far, the most intense gameplay experiences I've had in legion, so I'm glad.