Game Time Changes

[Electric Lighter]

I mean alright? It is slightly consumer unfriendly but its blizzard its not terribly surprising they want an even larger cut of the toxic market they are supporting in game.

I miss the days when gold buyers just got banned and not made into the defacto currency. Even with me profiting from it.

[Schizoide]

Even if buying 6 months of game time gave a discount (I have no idea as I've never done it) I don't see why that's a problem. Players who know about that trick came out a little bit ahead of others, but Blizzard still took in $20 cash for each token converted to $15 in Battle.net balance, so I don't really see why they would care.

If they were concerned about that extra $12 in Battle.net balance, they could have simply disabled the discount on 6 month gametime purchases, which half this thread thinks didn't exist anyway.

[zhorteye]

Even if buying 6 months of game time gave a discount (I have no idea as I've never done it) I don't see why that's a problem. Players who know about that trick came out a little bit ahead of others, but Blizzard still took in $20 cash for each token converted to $15 in Battle.net balance, so I don't really see why they would care.

And they still do, meaning that theres still being paid 40 Euro for 2 months, which if bought with cash, would only be 26 euro.. Meaning blizz has a "profit" of 14 euro.

[FelPlague]

Even if buying 6 months of game time gave a discount (I have no idea as I've never done it) I don't see why that's a problem. Players who know about that trick came out a little bit ahead of others, but Blizzard still took in $20 cash for each token converted to $15 in Battle.net balance, so I don't really see why they would care.

Because players who did not know about this trick were being actively punished, and those who did were cheesing the wow token.
it was supposed to be mainly a system for buying wow time, but instead was becoming this metagame where you buy tokens convert them to bnet then buy wow time, a pitfall as some would call it.

[Donovan4893]

Edit: I typed this out before I saw you changed your mind

this discount is specifically for the subscriptions and WAS NOT a part of the specific gametime purchase that they have changed.

I mean your just straight up wrong at least in the US, I did this all the time so I am kinda bummed about this change.

Here is the last time I did it last summer



As you can see I bought 180 days with Bnet balance and it was 77.94 which is the discounted price in the US.

[Schizoide]

Because players who did not know about this trick were being actively punished, and those who did were cheesing the wow token.
it was supposed to be mainly a system for buying wow time, but instead was becoming this metagame where you buy tokens convert them to bnet then buy wow time, a pitfall as some would call it.

I totally understand what you're saying how some players came out a bit ahead doing the conversion first, I just don't think that's why they made the change. They could have simply removed the discount on purchasing 6 months of gametime.

My guess is it's some sort of internal accounting matter and they wanted to reduce 3 SKUs to 1.

[zhorteye]

Edit: I typed this out before I saw you changed your mind




I mean your just straight up wrong at least in the US, I did this all the time so I am kinda bummed about this change.

Here is the last time I did it last summer



As you can see I bought 180 days with Bnet balance and it was 77.94 which is the discounted price in the US.

Saw your edit.. Yeah, i already said i was wrong..

[SoulSoBreezy]

I totally understand what you're saying how some players came out a bit ahead doing the conversion first, I just don't think that's why they made the change. They could have simply removed the discount on purchasing 6 months of gametime.

My guess is it's some sort of internal accounting matter and they wanted to reduce 3 SKUs to 1.

I've got no expertise on this, but while there might be something there in your statement, the 1 sku being a 2 month sub is pretty sketch.

[FelPlague]

I totally understand what you're saying how some players came out a bit ahead doing the conversion first, I just don't think that's why they made the change. They could have simply removed the discount on purchasing 6 months of gametime.

My guess is it's some sort of internal accounting matter and they wanted to reduce 3 SKUs to 1.

Simply removing the discounts would be odd, cause then what would be the purpose of these things? at that point what would the 3/6 month be used for?

- - - Updated - - -

They are also changing the Brazilian local prices now (im sure this is due to their currency being worth more or less though?) but what seems strange to me now, is that according to their post, the change will actually make the shop services (transfers, faction change etc) cost less than the sub itself, which we dont see here in EU and US.

Sub prices change in separate countries because of the changing value of money.

That is all, why they are reducing the price of the shop stuff idk the explanation for that.

[FelPlague]

So what you're saying is, Blizzard took the roundabout way to solve a problem (which wasn't really a problem, it's literally the same way sub purchases work) which confused the hell out of everyone who DIDN'T know about said problem, rather than just straight up saying "Hey, we're aware of this, this is what we're doing to fix it."

Sounds like Blizzard alright. And this is STILL the worst option they could have taken to solving it.

Except it is not how sub purchases work.
You do not buy sub purchases with wow tokens, that is the problem.
and nah not really, the worst option would have been right out removing game time from the store, so the only ways to get it would be sub and tokens.

[Schizoide]

Simply removing the discounts would be odd, cause then what would be the purpose of these things? at that point what would the 3/6 month be used for?

You're totally right! That explains it quite well, they wanted to get rid of the discounts but then, why have the 3 and 6 month options at all? So now they don't.

[FelPlague]

How much does a sub purchase cost? Is it the same as 6 months of WoW gametime with battle net balance?

If so, then what's the difference? If you can buy 6 tokens and get 7 months of gametime because a token costs MORE than the sub fee, I see no issue with this. If you can buy more gametime because you have leftover balance after the discount is applied, I STILL see no issue with this.

It's no different than buying a 3 month sub time, then saying "Shoot, I plan to play for 6 months and could have benefitted from the discount there." It's not a "loophole." It's literally why the discount exists, to encourage people to buy more game time all at once.

Please read my post next time, but i will repeat it again.

The wow token is supposed to be directly converted into wow time if you want wow time.
you buy wow tokens equal to how many months you want
you want 6 months you buy 6 tokens
but instead of converted those tokens into time like we have been trained to do, you are supposed to turn them into bnet balance, then buy wow time, something that is not really normal, nor advertised.

[FelPlague]

I did, but I'll respond more thoroughly since you're not getting it.



Uh huh... All following so far.



So? What's the problem?

It punished people who used the token as intended, and didnt look up some secret on the internet on how to get more money out of their wow tokens.

[FelPlague]

Is the one month sub fee a "punishment" because you didn't choose to buy 6 months of game time? It cost you more money, because the six month fee has a discount applied.

It "punishes" people who don't buy more time in order to get more money out of their wow sub.

except someone could buy 6 months of wow time but not get the discoutn cause "they didnt do it right"

[Schizoide]

I don't think they care about players "not doing it right". They don't want players getting the 6 month discount from tokens, because their internal accounting counts each token as $20 in cash or $15 in credit, and discounts mess with that conversion. My best guess, anyway.

Like most stuff on the internet, there's a lot of upset people over a very small matter.

[WowIsDead64]

...

As always. Even if it's true. There are better ways to fix this problem without hurting players, who actually do nothing wrong. Like me, who just don't see any reason to subscribe or buy two months at once, if I'm not sure, if I will want to play for another month, so I'd unsub immediately anyway. But Blizzard have chosen the dumbest way possible. Well, it's not surprise, because they use the same dumb methods in game development too. Like it's better to cut flying completely, than trying to integrate it into game.

[FelPlague]

As always. Even if it's true. There are better ways to fix this problem without hurting players, who actually do nothing wrong. Like me, who just don't see any reason to subscribe, if I'm not sure, if I will want to play for another month, so I'd unsub immediately anyway. But Blizzard has chosen the dumbest way possible. Well, it's not surprise, because they use the same dumb methods in game development too. Like it's better to cut flying completely, than trying to integrate it into game.

1. they didnt cut it entirely
2. how would you intergrate flying into the game? How do you make flying a key game point instead of just "a way to get around faster"

[Darknessvamp]

I'm not sure about this actually being the issue considering Blizzard makes £7 profit on the £10 battlenet balance redemption with the tokens selling for £17 a piece and buying 6 tokens to then covert them into balance before game time still requires a 7th token to get that 7th month even with the left over balance and they've already made almost double the amount of a six month sub for just over half the game time. Not to mention the player population making use of that system is probably exceptionally small to almost being negligible overall especially with the token purchase limit delaying it from being a massive issue.

[Utrrabbit]

I have never read such blanent stupidity.

The entire point of buying the token was to make gold not for gametime, as a sub is literally cheaper no matter how you look at it.

The reason for the wow token was so player A who has excess RL money but no time can have gold and than player B who has no excess RL money but a lot od gold can buy game time.

Ever thing you said was just stupidity.

[FelPlague]

I have never read such blanent stupidity.

The entire point of buying the token was to make gold not for gametime, as a sub is literally cheaper no matter how you look at it.

The reason for the wow token was so player A who has excess RL money but no time can have gold and than player B who has no excess RL money but a lot od gold can buy game time.

Ever thing you said was just stupidity.

The wow token was literally made so people could pay for their subscription using gold. and buy gold using money
but that purpose was broken when they added bnet balance.