The Cash Shop is about to get more crowded

[Accendor]

Not sure if anyone really grasped what just happened in the last few months.

First they implement a new RAF system that rewards you with a full xmog set, a set that's extremely unique. Then they just used a full xmog set as an upsell with the new expansion. Another extremely unique set. These are just the beginning of many many more xmog sets. Possibly weapon enchants, skins...

Remember how the mounts and pets worked. Celestial Steed appeared. Then a long while until the next. Now there's a new mount added every few months. It was a long onramp to get the playerbase acclimated over time.

If you look at other MMOs, a loaded cash shop with cosmetics and boosts isn't anything new, however WoW is a subscription MMO, so that has to be taken into consideration.

Will be interesting to see where this all leads in a few years, personally I wouldn't even be surprised if we eventually see races.

I mean I already have unsubbed (whatever this means, sub is paid for with gold for 3 years...) and have not preordered Shadowlands, but more cosmetics in the shop WHILE keeping the monthly fee does not get me to resubscribe again.
But then again, they already made money through me for the next few years, so they will not really about what I have to say.

[evertonbelmontt]

Cool we get to pay them to make stuff that should have gone into the game, and then they sell it back to us!

YAY DADDY BLIZZARD!

This is another way to look at it.

[CrawlFromThePit]

Not sure if anyone really grasped what just happened in the last few months.

First they implement a new RAF system that rewards you with a full xmog set, a set that's extremely unique. Then they just used a full xmog set as an upsell with the new expansion. Another extremely unique set. These are just the beginning of many many more xmog sets. Possibly weapon enchants, skins...

Remember how the mounts and pets worked. Celestial Steed appeared. Then a long while until the next. Now there's a new mount added every few months. It was a long onramp to get the playerbase acclimated over time.

If you look at other MMOs, a loaded cash shop with cosmetics and boosts isn't anything new, however WoW is a subscription MMO, so that has to be taken into consideration.

Will be interesting to see where this all leads in a few years, personally I wouldn't even be surprised if we eventually see races.

They can do whatever they want, even put buyable mythic raid gear or better in there. I'll just move on to another game and let the parasites enjoy this garbage on their own.

[Lolites]

You are aware that you actually can buy mythic raid gear with real money right now? Just buy tokens and spend the gold you got on the AH. It's not different to any "premium currency" in F2P games.

well, sure it is different
1. you buy it for gold so not necessarily for money (if you decide to get gold via tokens its your choice, not blizzards fault) and tbh its not different than buying a boost, which were around since vanilla...
2. you buy it from different players, so its not like the item magically appear, someone have to get it in that mythic raid, and decide to sell it

by your logic, buying potions on AH is too p2w, or even buying crafting materials...

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Thanks for conversation mate it was fun

my pleasure

[Improtaight]

as long as its just cosmetics and it doesnt give you any edge over other players, why not? what wouldnt a company want to make more money?
do you feel you lack content for the sub you pay monthly? there's shit tons of transmog gear you can go after in game, try the naz/mech meta achivs... adding a few mounts to the store isnt that big of a deal imo, u're entitled to yours of course, but i have to disagree.

[Lolites]

This kind of monetization is absolutely unacceptable in a subscription based game. It also disincentivizes them putting effort into the actual content of the game because it's much easier (and cheaper) to shit out a few store mounts and milk the playerbase dry.

and as i said before, i would agree IF we didnt get 20 times more mounts ingame than on shop in BFA, so obviously you are wrong

[Nerovar]

well, sure it is different
1. you buy it for gold so not necessarily for money (if you decide to get gold via tokens its your choice, not blizzards fault) and tbh its not different than buying a boost, which were around since vanilla...
2. you buy it from different players, so its not like the item magically appear, someone have to get it in that mythic raid, and decide to sell it

by your logic, buying potions on AH is too p2w, or even buying crafting materials...

I mean, I'm against gold tokens and boosts exactly for that reason. They allow you to skip progression by spending money.

and as i said before, i would agree IF we didnt get 20 times more mounts ingame than on shop in BFA, so obviously you are wrong

Most of the unique mounts that came out in the past were store mounts. It's obvious that there's a lot more effort involved in these mounts. But I was more reffering to the actual development of the game. If they can get as much money with a few store mounts as with an expansion launch, why would they still want to put as much effort into expansions?

[Lolites]

I mean, I'm against gold tokens and boosts exactly for that reason. They allow you to skip progression by spending money.


Most of the unique mounts that came out in the past were store mounts. It's obvious that there's a lot more effort involved in these mounts.

then you play wrong game, it was always a thing in wow

[Lolites]

Yes we get reskinned boar models and the shop gets unique mounts.

mechagon alone gave us 3 unique models of mounts...

[Kolvarg]

Then please, educate us. So far all you said is that it "shouldn't happen", because we are already paying for expansions and subscription. You failed to say WHY it shouldn't happen, since expansions and subscriptions aren't exactly arguments. Please. Provide some, to us poor, uneducated fools.

Because people want to pay for a game, not for the opportunity to spend more money on digital items you'll never own and which you can't resell.

Yes, an ongoing MMORPG such as WoW requires more support from the players than just a box-price / expansion-price. But that's what the subscription is for. If you want to support the game further, you don't need an in-game shop. You can buy additional copies of the game for instance, or buy merchandise.

Cosmetics ARE part of the gameplay of a MMORPG. Customizing your character and how it looks, including "accessories" such as mounts and pets ARE an essential part of WoW. Not for everyone, sure, but surely still a part of it. Especially nowadays that WoW is more of a collectathon than ever, it is complete bullshit that there's so many items which are not obtainable in-game.

I used to play WoW every day, be immersed in it and invested in my character and the game. Now I only subscribe for a few months every expansion, because I just can't care about the game, much less feel immersed in it. And honestly the increasing presence of the store is part of that.

As far as ethics go, even if you are to accept that it is ethical to include an in-game shop in a subscription-based game: That's not how WoW started. We aren't talking about a game who included this business model from the get go. It was added over time, when at start you were able to obtain everything in-game.


But of course, you are entitled to your opinion. It's up to you whether you want to defend a future where every game is riddled with shop items, or a future where you just play the damned game you payed for. Personally, I'd like the second.

But since you are keen to ask, are you able to give a good argument as to why in-game store should be part of WoW?

[Nerovar]

then you play wrong game, it was always a thing in wow

What was always a thing in WoW? Gold tokens have been introduced in WoD same as character boosts. If you're referring to gold selling in general: yes, it was always part of the game but it was also against the ToS and therefor a bannable offense. So what's your point?

[Lolites]

What was always a thing in WoW? Gold tokens have been introduced in WoD same as character boosts. If you're referring to gold selling in general: yes, it was always part of the game but it was also against the ToS and therefor a bannable offense. So what's your point?

gold selling and boosts or selling items
sure, it was bannable, boosting or selling items for real money still is afaik, yet its still hapening, so thats kinda mute point

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I really should be saying daddy activision because Blizz never did this before Activision bought them.

collectors edition goodies for tbc/wotlk and rewards from blizzcon doesnt count? those are ingame items bought for real money...

[Axerax]

This whole WoW community mentality that all of the development teams are the same nonchalantly escalates the whole situation.

Art Team =/= Raid Development Team =/= Environment Team =/= Itemization Team, etc.

Saying the game is unfinished because an Art Team dedicated to making high quality mounts, toys, or whatever comes forward in the cash shop is not accurate. People also seem to let the fact that Blizzard is a company in the business of making money go over their head. They make their money off the basis that people buy their product which just so happens to be a video game. They can do what they want with their platform. If they want to sell things in a cash shop to make a little extra money to improve the quality of the next expansion or game in development it is well within their wheelhouse to do so.

A lot of the concerns here with the fear of missing out come across as people feeling entitled to everything, a bad symptom in today’s society. You have to earn everything you want in life, handouts are few and far between. People have also stated you can grind gold out to buy all of the content in the cash shop, but most of all you grind real life work for money to spend on that content if you want it. So if you can’t accept that you don’t want to spend money on content that has absolutely zero impact on character progression because you feel entitled to having that content for no other effort other than play a video game, then you need to re-evaluate life. Just because you can only afford used 5k car in life doesn’t mean you can’t get that sweet 25k car, you just have to save up for it and if it isn’t worth saving it isn’t worth your time getting upset over. You don’t need everything in life and again if it is worth it to you to get then you’ll find a way to get it, but it doesn’t make it wrong for Blizzard or any other company to have a cash shop just because “you” dislike or don’t understand the concept/reasoning behind its implementation purposes.

[CasualVader]

I personally like the cash shop since it gives option for people to either farm gold and buy tokens to get it or people can use real money directly so it is not so bad for the overall game.

I mean 25 euro mount is on EU servers kinda 500.000g which is not too bad.

[Canderous1]

totally ok with cosmetics on the cash shop.

[Lolites]

Nope. Those come with an actual product, compared to buying a digital mount in the middle of an expansion.

eh, collector edition have artbook and digital goodies for the higher price, so very blurred line... i guess biggest difference is you cant blame that on activision, so its completely different
im not activision fan, but if you want someone to blame its blizzards fault

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Valkyria Chronicles 4 gave me a skin for my switch joycons, that doesn't mean it was an ingame purchase.

didnt know valkyria chronicles was made by blizzard...
otherwise i cant see how is that point in argument in this discussion

[Nerovar]

gold selling and boosts or selling items
sure, it was bannable, boosting or selling items for real money still is afaik, yet its still hapening, so thats kinda mute point

That's the point though. It was bannable because they didn't want it to be part of the game. Saying that it should be part of the game because people did it despite being a bannable offense is like saying, theft should be legal because people do it anyways.

This whole WoW community mentality that all of the development teams are the same nonchalantly escalates the whole situation.

Art Team =/= Raid Development Team =/= Environment Team =/= Itemization Team, etc.

If a company sees that they can make tons of money with little to no cost (compared to developing actual content) by making low effort cash shop content they create an environment in which there's an incentive for designing the game in a way that makes shop purchases more attractive to players (take a look at mount rewards from emissary caches lol). Stuff like this absolutely touches other parts of the game because it's not just about "art assets". Ultimately, these kinds of monetization schemes will likely provide us with more manipulative stuff like the things described in this article if we allow it to happen by supporting this kind of bullshit.
https://www.pcgamer.com/activision-w...-to-buy-stuff/

because you feel entitled to having that content for no other effort other than play a video game, then you need to re-evaluate life.

People feel entitled to not having to pay hundreds of addtional dollars for the "full version" of a game they already bought. Woe is me!

[Lommax]

It always amazes me the outrage over a company trying to make more money. I can't think of one company out there that is not trying to maximize it's profits. It's pretty simple, if you don't want to participate in the cash shop, don't. If you want to stick it to Activision, don't buy their products. They put a few things available to purchase for real money on their site. If nobody had bought them it would have stopped there but it turned out to be pretty popular. As a result they are adding more and more which continues to be popular. It a good business model to provide your customers with something that has been popular and they seem to want.

[Lolites]

That's the point though. It was bannable because they didn't want it to be part of the game. Saying that it should be part of the game because people did it despite being a bannable offense is like saying, theft should be legal because people do it anyways.

you do realise the difference between reality and game right?
game SHOULD adapt to playerbase, they could hardly ban half of the player base so they came with solution - token

still, not the point, you blame blizz for buyable mythic gear, but its players who are selling it, and always have, same with the gear boosting...
at worst, blizz takes a "cut" by selling tokens (which i think are still more expensive than buying gold from some shady websites)
and btw, since you can pay gametime with tokens, even goddamn expansions, you dont have to pay a dime to blizzard...

[alessi]

What is he talking about?