Would you pay $21 dollars a month to change the biz model?

[Relapses]

So I would be paying more money to not engage in market practices I don't already engage in? What's in it for me?

The warped idea that somehow paying more for a subscription would instantly end the demand for value added services. Because capitalism is bad, yo.

[Polarthief]

Sorry, what does my extra $6/month get me? Seriously, in what way would this change a thing?

It doesn't matter how much more they would charge you, every company would eventually try to get more money from its consumers because that's how these things work, except now everyone is forced to pay an extra $6/month.

TL;DR: No and why?

[Relapses]

Pretty much. People might piss and moan about the store, and I get it - but for me who only pays a monthly subscription - WoW is one of the cheapest forms of entertainment I have

The irony being that the profitability of value added services is precisely the reason WoW's sub price hasn't changed in 15 years.

[Relapses]

I used to love Blizzard and rave about how great they were in their values, how great their support was, but that is like, way, way gone now.

Pray tell, in your infinite wisdom, exactly what should Blizzard do with the demand for value added services? Do you actually think everything should be free because the cost of a subscription, in your mind, covers all the profitability bases for Blizzard?

[Donald Hellscream]

I wouldn't, I don't care enough about their business model to be willing to pay that much for a subscription.

[Relapses]

ALL in game items should be covered under your monthly subscription fee. Period.

In what way does somebody buying a sparkle pony impact you negatively? You call it greed. But is it greed? Is a car manufacturer greedy because they sell more expensive versions of the same car under luxury brand names? Is Williams Sonoma greedy because they sell "up scale" versions of the same shit you find at Wal-mart? There's a market for these services and Blizzard is hardly predatory when it comes to offering them so I have a hard time attributing the existence of the cash shop with greed.

[clevin]

I guess "cheap" is then whatever you decide it to be.

x-pac: 50 $. Lasts two years. At 15 $ a month if you are the person who never quits and stay the whole 24 months, that is 360 $. So: 50+360 = 410. Divide that by 24 and your monthly fee is 17 dollars. Basically 55 cents a day.

I guess at 7,99$ per month Netflix / Disney+ or so is cheaper, as they come out at 30 cents a day.... ...so whatever.

If you need to worry about paying 50 cents..or a dollar..or even 2 for your daily unlimited access to any kind of entertainment you have more serious issues in your life that you should address...in short - you should not be playing a video game and post on forums how it is too expensive.

it's not cheap *in comparison to other games*. It's not expensive in real terms, you're right there. But I can buy three full price AAA games per year for what WoW costs... or a lot o smaller, indy games. So the question becomes whether WoW is a better use of that $180/year than other ways to spend your game dollars and that's obviously a personal call.

[Wondercrab]

The problem is that business models in the AAA industry aren't driven by what's fair or what's needed to keep the game operating/updating, they're driven by how much the companies can get away with. A hike in the sub fee wouldn't occur so that they could stop pushing microtransactions, it would occur on top of pushing microtransactions if they thought people would be willing to pay it. That's why so many different aspects of WoW are unnecessarily monetised. It has box prices, the sub fee, paid account services, tokens, purchaseable in-game items, level boosts, and promotional items, when the sub fee alone would still be more than enough to make it a cash cow.

It's important to keep in mind that while video game production costs have increased in recent years (although that's largely a problem of the industry's own making as well), profits have skyrocketed even faster. It's a myth that aggressive monetisation models have become necessary in order to support development. What they've become neccesary for is to prop up the unsustainable increase in profit growth that shareholders have become accustomed to. It's no longer enough for video games to turn a profit each year. They have to turn an even bigger profit than last year. The effect that has on the consumer is not really a consideration unless it affects the bottom line.

[Thelin]

The store is O-P-T-I-O-N-A-L. It's mounts and transmogs and obviously blizzard services. None of it gives someone a competitive advantage for purchasing it. Just let it go already.

[Relapses]

The problem is that business models in the AAA industry aren't driven by what's fair or what's needed to keep the game operating/updating, they're driven by how much the companies can get away with. A hike in the sub fee wouldn't occur so that they could stop pushing microtransactions, it would occur on top of pushing microtransactions if they thought people would be willing to pay it. That's why so many different aspects of WoW are unnecessarily monetised. It has box prices, the sub fee, paid account services, tokens, purchaseable in-game items, level boosts, and promotional items, when the sub fee alone would still be more than enough to make it a cash cow.

It's important to keep in mind that while video game production costs have increased in recent years (although that's largely a problem of the industry's own making as well), profits have skyrocketed even faster. It's a myth that aggressive monetisation models have become necessary in order to support development. What they've become neccesary for is to prop up the unsustainable increase in profit growth that shareholders have become accustomed to. It's no longer enough for video games to turn a profit each year. They have to turn an even bigger profit than last year. The effect that has on the consumer is not really a consideration unless it affects the bottom line.

Is that a problem, though? I mean, what you wrote is pretty much the text book example of a successful business doing what a successful business does.

[Odintdk]

No, fuck off.

[Kuntantee]

Where is the "fuck no" answer? They are already asking a premium price for a mediocre game.

[Relapses]

Forget what I asked you in my post directly, you just answered it right here. Keep defending greedy corporate interests, no idea why you would, since their greed has no limits and they have no interest in your interests, but if you want to screw consumers and think its fine as long as shareholders make as much as possible at our expense, then be my guest, but dont expect everyone here to understand and agree with you.

Forgive me, I've never been a fan of grass roots anti-capitalist rhetoric... especially when it's about a fucking video game where you slay internet dragons for imaginary loot. I'd just much rather let capitalism do it's thing as long as the company I'm supporting continues to create a product I personally deem is worth the price of admission. Blizzard has yet to overstep any boundaries with their cash shop in my opinion.

[TwoMana]

One thing that does not get brought up much in talking about WoW's business model is that the sub fee has not changed since launch. It has always been $15 dollars. (with some scaling due to buy more save more pricing)

It's actually been adjusted - just not in US.
The sub price was adjusted in UK during WoD, due to currency exchange and market values. This is fairly normal. Inflation + exchange values. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Wondercrab]

Is that a problem, though? I mean, what you wrote is pretty much the text book example of a successful business doing what a successful business does.

It's a success for the business. It's a problem for the consumer. You have to decide as an individual whether that bothers you or not. I don't like it myself because it results in a gradual degredation of the experience due to the influence it has on design decisions. Many AAA games today, particularly those that rely on live service models, provide particularly egregious examples of this. Even things that might on the surface appear completely optional still take up dev time that would otherwise have been spent elsewhere, or cast the game in an unfavourable light compared to others that offer similar services for free. As a consumer I'm not inclined to go to bat for companies whose goal is to make more money by providing me with a worse experience than their competitors do.

[Aggrophobic]

One thing that does not get brought up much in talking about WoW's business model is that the sub fee has not changed since launch. It has always been $15 dollars. (with some scaling due to buy more save more pricing)

A question I have is would you, and by extension enough people, be willing to pay $21 dollars today to steer the business model back towards the path it was in the years of launch, less cash shop items and less token sale driving efforts in game...hypothetically allowing those efforts to go back into outright game development. Hard to say the direct impact that it would have on actual gameplay, but presumably it would change the in-game economics and some of the motivators and world design/development due to no longer having the cash shop and freeing up a small team of devs to go back to actual game rewards/quests/things.

$21 dollars is, rounding up, the value of 2004 $15 today.


One thing I do not think many who complain about cash shop items consider is that they are taking in the same sub money, but the production costs have skyrocketed during the years due to many factors, not to mention the overall sub level has dropped considerably - with momentary spikes up again. The cash shop is part of what has kept that fee at $15.

Thoughts.

Why? What would be the point?
But to answer your question: NO

[Relapses]

As a consumer I'm not inclined to go to bat for companies whose goal is to make more money by providing me with a worse experience than their competitors do.

I agree when it becomes blatant enough to actively have a negative impact on the gaming experience. (Dead Space 3's monetized weapon upgrade system comes to mind.) But I personally don't see how a fucking 600x400 30 second looping video in the launcher enticing people to buy a new fancy prismatic mount is negatively impacting WoW or laying the groundwork for further predatory tactics (as is often the slippery slope argument against the cash shop).

[Cosmic Janitor]

That would be like paying for a car over a 12 month period, then when you turn up on the 12th month to pick up your brand new shiny car, you find that they took the engine out and said oh well thats seperate now. But you can go over there and pay an extra 5000 dollars for that.

I think a more apt comparison would be something like the hood or the other body parts which are "just cosmetic, bro", according to the blizzapostel.

Even though I still wonder why gamers are such idiots that spend thousands of dollars to get the latest games on the highest graphic settings, but then pretend that someone charging them extra for the actual files for those graphics is okay because "it's just cosmetic and not important". /smh

[Zeek Daniels]

So you want us to pay more and get less.... Umm no.

[Relapses]

Oh so now you start to actually talk reasonably after I completely destroyed your argument.

My argument hasn't changed, I'm on my phone and I don't particularly care to individually address the hundreds of ad hominems you've used against me. Sorry to disappoint.

Since when was I anti capitalist, Even back in the Cata/WoTLK days, pre shop, when they were charging like 12 million people 9.99 a month and making insane profits I just accepted it because the game was good, it wasnt until Cata when the capitalist anti consumer moves came, cutting the WoW team size down to the bone and producing a garbage product, huge wait times etc, and then pushing it further by further subdividing their product up and selling parts seperately was the capitalist roots a bit too fucking strong for my taste.

It stands to reason WoW's team was shrunk at the same time Blizzard began to expand its gaming portfolio. Remember, Overwatch rose from the ashes that was Titan, originally intended to be the MMO that finally killed WoW. The end result is that, unlike everything up until Cata, now Blizzard has multiple streams of revenue instead of just WoW.

Further, I don't think it's uncoincidental that you attribute "capitalistic tendencies" with content you deem is "garbage." To me, it seems like you're justifying your disengagement with the product with your own personal set of ethics. That's fine and all, but not everybody feels as strongly as you do about the direction Blizzard has taken the game post-Cata. I hardly agree with every move Blizzard has made but I understand some of the design choices were made for self-preservation and the fact that we're here having heated debates about a 15-year-old video game is evidence of its developers ultimately making the right moves.

What you fail to see Ota is that Capitalism is a great thing, when its fair for both parties, Capitalism dosent have to equal fucking utter greed. If you think they havent overstepped their mark then maybe you should take off your rose tinted glasses. There have been patch defining raids where the final boss of the instance dosent have a mount drop, meanwhile they release a mount in the store to align with the release of that patch. So what, when we complete the hardest boss of a patch, on the hardest difficulty, you havent had your artists develop content to reward the players with for that, but you have used company funds to pay those same developers to develop content to be sold separately at the same time. What a joke. Get real.

This scenario you have invented is entirely in your head. Where is it written that all end bosses should drop mounts? And how do you correlate the existence of a cash shop mount with the absence of a raid mount? Sorry dude, I don't buy it.