This game costs too much for what it offers

[Raelbo]

Let me correct you:
Incorrect: "This game costs too much for what it offers"
Correct: "This game costs too much for what it offers to me and other persons whom have decided to unsubscribe"
Also Correct: "This game does not cost too much for what it offers to subscribed persons"

This is exactly what I wanted to say almost verbatim

[demonyaa]

Except it isn't. Someone has to buy the token.

For anyone person that can farm gold the game *is* free. It doesn't matter that someone else if footing the bill.

Its like saying that other free to play mmos aren't really free because other players are supporting the developers with micro transactions and premium services.

[Gorsameth]

I love how everyone makes the token argument except completely forgetting how the model works. Someone has to pay real money for the token for it to be there. It isn't "free" and they pay $20 instead of $15. That market does dry up so don't assume you can just "buy a token" still have to plan to have the $15 incase 0 are available.

Your right the token is not free from Blizzards point of view.
It is however 'free' from a player point of view because the player is not spending real money. This distinction matters for people who are poor.
(and even then its not free because your spending time in game to earn the money to buy a token).

[Cæli]

I don't get those threads. I doubt you completed the game and what it offers. Hence if you say this you don't want to do it, that means that you're not interested in what the game offers. Well? there's hundreds of others games to play

[Gorsameth]

I don't get those threads. I doubt you completed the game and what it offers. Hence if you say this you don't want to do it, that means that you're not interested in what the game offers. Well? there's hundreds of others games to play

Its not enough for them to simply quit playing a game they do not consider worth it. They must convince others to do so aswell to satisfy their frail ego.

[Deleted]

It's all subjective.

I work.
I only play WoW.
I have each class at maximum level so having nothing to do is never an issue.
I actually do the patch content (Mage Tower, Class mounts, Falcosaur quests, etc).

So paying £10 a month is more than worth it, and I only have to work 1.1 hours to pay for it.

If money is an issue you can always pay with gold. Or if you feel you're not getting value for real money then just unsub and come back later,

[FelPlague]

I did some calculations in another thread. Yeah, I know nobody cares, since a $15 is basically a lunch in some parts of the world, but it's still important to consider this:

1. The game costs $360 per expansion per player, which with 3 million players comes down to about a billion dollars per expansion profit from the game for Blizzard. Excluding expansion costs, as the expansion cost should more than cover the development cost.

2. Server and maintenance costs is negligible, compared to 14 years ago. I can get a server with 4TB of RAM and 128 vCPUs for $25 an hour, and it's actually $7 an hour if you rent in advance. It's likely that the entire playerbase of the game runs on servers that cost less than $1000 an hour.

3. Patch content is a joke, it usually comes down to a single raid and a zone with reused models and a 5 hour storyline gated over months (hello Antorus).

4. We are not seeing anything even remotely justifying the money the game costs.

We just don't. I got Witcher 3 for about $15 a while ago. Consider what you get there, and what they did with less than a $100 million development budget. Now check what Blizzard does with a billion dollars per expansion. We don't even have voice acting on most quests, they just copy paste entire quests from previous expansions and change the text slightly. We are basically getting the same expansion each year, with slightly changed animations and models, and we are paying the cost of a discounted AAA title each month for this.

and all your calculations are wrong as you instantly notice "oh wait, you seem to forget they have an actual campus, where they have to pay staff, they have to pay property, they have to pay staff to maintain the building, they have to pay for food for the staff, etc"

[SirBeef]

Let me correct you:
Incorrect: "This game costs too much for what it offers"
Correct: "This game costs too much for what it offers to me and other persons whom have decided to unsubscribe"
Also Correct: "This game does not cost too much for what it offers to subscribed persons"

Furthermore you can play wow for FREE! Full experience without giving a single $ to blizzard, just pay for stuff with gold.

Actually, every token bought with gold is actually giving Blizzard a premium of $20 over the normal $15. Albeit, somoene else is paying it, but that would defeat his agenda of it costing too much.

[Lollis]

"A discounted AAA title"

Yeah, just like $50 is the cost of a discounted smartphone. What a stupid comparison.

From basic numbers that have not been updated for a while, I have spent over 550 days playing this game. In that time I have spent around about £1000 directly on the games and subscription.

That works out to £1.82 a day, or about 8p an hour.

A triple A title tends to cost around £60, and you might be looking at around a maximum of 40 hours on most of them if you are lucky.

That works out to £36 a day, or £1.50 an hour

Even if you manage to buy every triple A at £15 (you know by buying them like 5 years after release) it is still costing you more.

40 hours = £9.12 a day, or 38p an hour
100 hours = £3.60 a day, or 15p an hour


Tell me again that it is better to buy triple a.

[Paulosio]

It costs the same per month (over 100 hours of fun per month) as about 3 hours in a pub... That's all the justification I need.

[quite an expert in wow]

Op forgets a lot of costs like marketing, support, finance, etc all kinds of stuff the company needs in order to be able to actually be able to provide content to end users. Summing up server costs only by showing an Azure pricing list also shows OP does not know anything about IT. Server costs go way beyond just a comparison. What about network infrastructure, personel, maintenance, failover etc.

I suggest you edit your post at least 10 more times until you get a more detailed overview of what it actually costs to run a game. And then you're still probably wrong. And even if they make a margin that's what running a company is all about.

Lastly your point might be valid if there is a lack of content but there is so much to do. You may not choose to do all kinds of content but that's a choice and doesn't nessecarily make the game not worth to play. Sure, you may not like it, but that doesn't mean there is a fact the game is too expensive. It just means you think the game is not worth your money.

That's a shame for Blizzard but they will probably survive one single ubsub.

[Mask]

$15 a month for an MMO is still the best gaming value for entertainment to be had. I've been paying roughly that much since the mid 1990's. First for a MUD I played, then for Everquest, and now for WoW. Never regretted it. Love me the MMO's. I far prefer the subscription business model to a microtransactions one.

[ukxenon]

I did a calculation of everything I spent on wow since 15th of Feb 2005

Base game & xpacks: € 569,92
Character Transfer/Race & Faction Change/Boosts € 1642,50
Mount/Pets from store: € 452,94
Subscription over the years: € 1730,55
Blizzcon Virtual Ticket: €179,94

Total in monies: € 4575,85 .... or £ 4072,51 / $ 5307,97
Duration subbed is 265 months
So this equals to the following per month: € 4575,85 / 265 = € 17,26736 .... or £ 15,37 / $ 20,03

Which makes WoW, including all the additional services one of my cheapest hobbies ever....

Now if the game wouldn't be worth the € 17,27 to me, I'd quit, but seeing some people I know tend to spend > € 50 per week on alcohol, I'm sticking with my drug

This is a amazing break down if you ask me and i will add a little twist to it..

This computer i am on cost me £1100.00 or $1429.42
monitor 32" 144Hz 1080p £300.00 or $400,00
Oculus rift £399.00
VR games £10 or $10 and up

so thats £1799.00 just to play a vr game for me this is a small hobby and like any hobby there is a cost and just like anything if the cost gets too high then do not do it.
I play wow off and on but since they offered the service where you can buy game time for gold i have not spent real money in a long long time wow pays for itself.

I have payed AAA prices on games what last less then a day game time but i do not complain and to be honest $15.00 a month is nothing.

[Siglius]

Again, a complete lack of understanding of how things work.

Netflix is on AWS. They have at least 30-40 times more subscribers than WoW, and each one of them generates more data and CPU calculations than a 1000 WoW players.

Those aren't even remotely the same thing. What a shit comparisment.

[shaunika123]

Except it isn't. Someone has to buy the token.

but that someone aint me

[OreoLover]

and we are paying the cost of a discounted AAA title each month for this.

Sorry, I've only bought 2 of those over the past 12 years.

[Deleted]

I did some calculations in another thread. Yeah, I know nobody cares, since a $15 is basically a lunch in some parts of the world, but it's still important to consider this:

1. The game costs $360 per expansion per player, which with 3 million players comes down to about a billion dollars per expansion profit from the game for Blizzard. Excluding expansion costs, as the expansion cost should more than cover the development cost.

2. Server and maintenance costs is negligible, compared to 14 years ago. I can get a server with 4TB of RAM and 128 vCPUs for $25 an hour, and it's actually $7 an hour if you rent in advance. It's likely that the entire playerbase of the game runs on servers that cost less than $1000 an hour.

3. Patch content is a joke, it usually comes down to a single raid and a zone with reused models and a 5 hour storyline gated over months (hello Antorus).

4. We are not seeing anything even remotely justifying the money the game costs.

We just don't. I got Witcher 3 for about $15 a while ago. Consider what you get there, and what they did with less than a $100 million development budget. Now check what Blizzard does with a billion dollars per expansion. We don't even have voice acting on most quests, they just copy paste entire quests from previous expansions and change the text slightly. We are basically getting the same expansion each year, with slightly changed animations and models, and we are paying the cost of a discounted AAA title each month for this.

Got witcher 3 on release, got all expansions on release, had a quality blast for 120£ for 200hrs. WoW i did pay... what 340£ troughout expansion and had a blast for easy over 1.5k hours. See the difference? Content is there in wow, you can rush trough witcher in like 30hrs easy, skip everything on the way. If you only quest on wow that is your issue. Also Witcher is masterpiece of a game.
You bought it late for 15 bucks. Equivalent would be buying legion at the last 3 months of expansion.
Also you assume so much it is not even worth taking you serious

[Deleted]

We just don't. I got Witcher 3 for about $15 a while ago. Consider what you get there, and what they did with less than a $100 million development budget. [/B]

Do you often compare 2 vastly different products to make a decision? Like would you Look at Scooters before deciding what car to buy? I mean, they are both similar, they have engines and wheels, but the end product is totally different.

[Zequill]

It would cost me about two new long games a month to get the same amount of play time as wow, that around 120-160$. I will take the 15$...

[Super Kami Dende]

I spend more in 1 day on food than I do for 1 Month of WoW. If $15 a month is too much for you I suggest you spend less time on Forums and more time on Job search Websites.