Why are people losing their minds over a collector's edition mount?

[unbound]

Collector's edition in-game items have been a thing since WoW began. Every expac has launched with special CE stuff. Why do people have a problem with it all of a sudden? Half the Wowhead comments are screaming bloody murder over it.

It's a vanity mount that doesn't affect gameplay at all. Why the salt?

It does affect the RPG element to it. In BC, the high cost was the riding skill, but to get a unique mount took effort and/or luck (e.g. the Amani War Bear mount). Now, a unique mount is for sale for real world money and absolutely no in-game cost (which was a consideration back then). That's not what many people are looking for in a classic experience.

Sure CE stuff was available back then (I have them all), but they were pets that most people don't even notice (I still pull out my panda cub and *very* few people comment on it). It's a big disingenuous to compare a pet with a mount in the classic expansions.

Is it a huge deal? Not really. Is it nothing at all? Also no. Don't straw man the issue.

[Kralljin]

They would choose weapon because it does more.

In the same vein, a mount holds more prestige.
Mounts > Pets, that's pretty basic, pets were never really an item of prestige.

Heard any stories about a player *finally* getting their first pet?
Nope.
Any stories about a player finally having enough gold to purchase a certain pet?
Nope.
Do bosses drop a special pet when defeated on the highest difficulty?
Generally, nope.

Mounts holds a higher prestige than pets, this is why Mounts are a much bigger deal for players than pets, trying to focus on this whole power vs. cosmetic thing gets you nowhere, the value here is the prestige those items hold.

I don't know why you think I was making the claim that TBC had far bigger costs.

That is the logical implication of putting up a choice between an increased sub price or MTX when you assume that their internal costs *somehow* increased.

After all, that's my point: Classic did not have any MTX attached to its release, was larger in scope and did just fine.
This isn't about MTX in Retail.

Reducing costs internally does not always translate to lower costs for consumers. They're internal investments to improve profit margins.

I didn't claim that it lowers the cost for the consumer, it is however the way to increase your profit marigin without affecting the consumer in any shape or form.

Your posts are littered with assumptions.

Again, i'm going for the simplest explanation, which is that Blizzard wants more money, your theory that their production costs have somehow gone up is pretty farfetched by comparison.

made educated assumptions as well.

Okay, what educated assumptions?
Can you at least give some of reference that implies your assumption is correct or is it really just "Well, that could be it as well!", sure it could, but without any indicators that it's might actually be true, it's just a baseless theory.

At least provide some hints at this being true, outside of the lack of evidence that it's not true.

[Tertullian72]

I've never understood the issue with the cosmetic mounts and pets. If you don't want them, don't buy them. Others obviously do want them, which Blizzard learned many years ago with the initial paid cosmetics. They are responding to an existing market.

[Alexeht]

Or you are just a crybaby.

nice argument bro, remember that when WotLK classic will be out and it will be changed a lot compared to what it was ...

[Lolites]

Here is a twist to your logic: Mounts that wouldnt be in the store but in-game wouldnt have been made because they wouldnt worth the extra work for the employer.

thats not even twist, thats basic logic and economics...

- - - Updated - - -

to get a unique mount took effort and/or luck (e.g. the Amani War Bear mount)

and those mounts will still be there and will be FAAR more prestigious than shop mount...

[Exkrementor]

50 is not the max level in retail

You could buy max level boosts in the past and it will happen again in Shadowlands.
At this point you are just acting like fool on purpose

[rhorle]

Mounts holds a higher prestige than pets, this is why Mounts are a much bigger deal for players than pets, trying to focus on this whole power vs. cosmetic thing gets you nowhere, the value here is the prestige those items hold.

Pets held prestige back in the time of TBC though. Because some were rarer then others and things like the spectral tiger cub from the TCG went for a fair bit of money. You heard stories of people getting the pet they wanted all the time. Maybe not the first one but getting your first mount wasn't that memorable either other then the travel perks.

Pets have just lost their appeal due to how many there are and how big collections have grown over the years. Mounts get more use and are easier to show off so they still hold prestige but that is also because the ones that are harder to get tend to be different.

[Kralljin]

Pets held prestige back in the time of TBC though. Because some were rarer then others and things like the spectral tiger cub from the TCG went for a fair bit of money. You heard stories of people getting the pet they wanted all the time. Maybe not the first one but getting your first mount wasn't that memorable either other then the travel perks.

Not sure if TCG really supports your case, considering the spectral Tiger cub gets most certainly overshadowed by the Spectral Tiger mount.

[Not A Cat]

You could buy max level boosts in the past and it will happen again in Shadowlands.
At this point you are just acting like fool on purpose

To be fair, the boosts to max level only come towards the end of an expansion during the inevitable content drought.

And well, that's fine imo. I don't see a problem with boosts.

[Prag]

That is the logical implication of putting up a choice between an increased sub price or MTX when you assume that their internal costs *somehow* increased.

After all, that's my point: Classic did not have any MTX attached to its release, was larger in scope and did just fine.
This isn't about MTX in Retail.

I didn't claim that it lowers the cost for the consumer, it is however the way to increase your profit marigin without affecting the consumer in any shape or form.

Again, i'm going for the simplest explanation, which is that Blizzard wants more money, your theory that their production costs have somehow gone up is pretty farfetched by comparison.

Okay, what educated assumptions?
Can you at least give some of reference that implies your assumption is correct or is it really just "Well, that could be it as well!", sure it could, but without any indicators that it's might actually be true, it's just a baseless theory.

At least provide some hints at this being true, outside of the lack of evidence that it's not true.

Of course Blizzard wants more money. Why would that ever be in doubt? Do you not want more money? This anti-corporate virtue signaling is ridiculous.

But yeah, costs increase for distributed software solutions. You either have annual price increases, annualized hardware costs, or scaling pricing as data needs increase (eg there's likely a different set of databases for each version of the game, and that's still way oversimplifying the likely scenario).

To say that they are incurring the exact same costs today as they were 14+ years ago to provide WoW is just... wrong. Most tech companies have moved to cloud infrastructure because having the physical hardware to support, say, 10 million concurrent users on launch when you know you'll only have 6 million for the other 10 months of the year is just a massive waste. That also means that your costs increase dramatically at peak times (launch).

[Lolites]

Of course Blizzard wants more money. Why would that ever be in doubt? Do you not want more money? This anti-corporate virtue signaling is ridiculous.

But yeah, costs increase for distributed software solutions. You either have annual price increases, annualized hardware costs, or scaling pricing as data needs increase (eg there's likely a different set of databases for each version of the game, and that's still way oversimplifying the likely scenario).

To say that they are incurring the exact same costs today as they were 14+ years ago to provide WoW is just... wrong. Most tech companies have moved to cloud infrastructure because having the physical hardware to support, say, 10 million concurrent users on launch when you know you'll only have 6 million for the other 10 months of the year is just a massive waste. That also means that your costs increase dramatically at peak times (launch).

your effort to enlighten someone who is not aware software have production costs is admirable, but im afraid futile...
hell from his response you can see he is unable to see past his ego, as what he says is fact and what everyone else says is baseless theory (even though its the opposite)...

[roboscorcher]

Of course Blizzard wants more money. Why would that ever be in doubt? Do you not want more money? This anti-corporate virtue signaling is ridiculous.

But yeah, costs increase for distributed software solutions. You either have annual price increases, annualized hardware costs, or scaling pricing as data needs increase (eg there's likely a different set of databases for each version of the game, and that's still way oversimplifying the likely scenario).

To say that they are incurring the exact same costs today as they were 14+ years ago to provide WoW is just... wrong. Most tech companies have moved to cloud infrastructure because having the physical hardware to support, say, 10 million concurrent users on launch when you know you'll only have 6 million for the other 10 months of the year is just a massive waste. That also means that your costs increase dramatically at peak times (launch).

Blizzard has had years to streamline their costs. None of that justifies adding MTX to a game that charges for subs AND expansion packs. Most of us are A-OK with MTX in games that actually need it to survive. I've paid for plenty of HotS skins and Overwatch loot boxes in the past. If they had had a battlepass system instead, I probably would have gotten that. I totally want to support games that I like. If Hello Games could produce a major update that wasn't super buggy, I'd love to give them more money to keep going. Same with the Valheim devs, I've played that game for 2 months already.

[Biggles Worth]

Collector's edition in-game items have been a thing since WoW began. Every expac has launched with special CE stuff. Why do people have a problem with it all of a sudden? Half the Wowhead comments are screaming bloody murder over it.

It's a vanity mount that doesn't affect gameplay at all. Why the salt?

$191.25 A year to play.
$42.5 To purchase the expansion.

[Kralljin]

Of course Blizzard wants more money. Why would that ever be in doubt? Do you not want more money? This anti-corporate virtue signaling is ridiculous.

No, the point is that "it makes more money" can justify virtually any addition to the cash shop.
It's not what Blizzard can do to make more money, but what they should (not) do.

I'm fairly certain that lootboxes would also make them quite a profit - to combat the prominence of boosting via 3rd parties of course.

But yeah, costs increase for distributed software solutions. You either have annual price increases, annualized hardware costs, or scaling pricing as data needs increase (eg there's likely a different set of databases for each version of the game, and that's still way oversimplifying the likely scenario).

Ah yes, and that has occurred within less than two years and is so huge that it completely offsets the smaller scope of TBC.
Disregarding that TBC will most likely have a much bigger Profit estimation than Classic ever had, considering how hard Blizzard lowballed Classic initially.

Putting aside that a lot of major tech companies have contracts with their suppliers for a fixed price over a given period, so one of those contracts must have also run out during that period.

Or, perhaps none of ocurred at all / is barely a relevant factor and instead, they simply saw an opportunity to make more money
which is the far simpler explanation.

To say that they are incurring the exact same costs today as they were 14+ years ago to provide WoW is just... wrong.

I didn't claim that, there are however also a plethora of other factors that significantly cut down on costs, such as the automized customer support and the maintenance of their server infrastructure has likely gone down over the years simply due to optimization on Blizzards end.

This arguement goes both ways.

And here we don't even acknowledge that unlike Retail, TBC pays for itself after launch due to sub, they don't need to develop actually new content for TBC yet have a sizeable audience that pays a sub that is equivalent to that of an MMO still receives newly developed content updates.

[ImpalerEU]

Yeah, it's literally vanity items that don't affect gameplay at all. I don't like store mounts because I think they're dumb and too common, but it's not "REEE TBC IS DEAD" level of bad. It's more "oh that's dumb, whatever" and move on.

Exactly. If I like something from the store, I'll buy it. If I don't like it then I simply move on. I don't see any issue here. It's just that Twitch and YouTube heroes seem to easily control the simple minded into barking whatever they inject into them.

[rhorle]

Not sure if TCG really supports your case, considering the spectral Tiger cub gets most certainly overshadowed by the Spectral Tiger mount.

Overshadowed by still doesn't mean there wasn't prestige or people celebrating for getting pets. Collections as a whole used to be a lot harder/smaller because of each thing taking up bank space. Pets were only for collection back then as well so it is silly to say no one wanted them or no one celebrated when they got one. The entire reason why battle pets got introduced was because of how many people liked collecting pets and wanted a use for their collections.

[Couchpotato2013]

I want my Vanilla/BC/Etc. Collector's Edition upgrades

No. They were limited print items. And limited print items lose value for everyone when they somehow have an infinite supply.

Addiction to +1 to a number count should not be a reason to put vanilla-cata CE’s on the store.

[rhorle]

No. They were limited print items. And limited print items lose value for everyone when they somehow have an infinite supply.

Digital items are not limited print and have no value outside of the game anyways. You can't trade them and the people that sold the CE keys to make a profit shouldn't be taken into account. While they don't need to be added to the store there is no reason why they can't be as well.

[Frolk]

even retail dont have boost to current level cap so thats unlikely

With so many people defending Blizzard, Blizzard will see this as "These people will defend anything we do, lets hit em with another boost and see if they still defend it"

[Couchpotato2013]

Digital items are not limited print and have no value outside of the game anyways. You can't trade them and the people that sold the CE keys to make a profit shouldn't be taken into account. While they don't need to be added to the store there is no reason why they can't be as well.

Uh like I said. CEs were limited print. Store items are not. And if you put limited print items on the store you ruin the value they had. And that is not something blizzard should not strive toward just to satiate the happiness treadmill of addicts wanting to +1 on their account.