Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[Hey There Guys its Metro]

The definition of winning is not set in stone in World of Warcraft, so no reason to ask this question and expect an answer.
Instead, you must ask yourself what your goals are in the game, and if they are worth accomplishing on your own, or if you would consider devaluating all that just to accomplish them.

For me, the game can not ever be pay to win, because the things I want to accomplish can only be accomplished by me.
If some one else ever did it for me, that would be losing, not winning.

[HansOlo]

Yes, it is.
1) You can use $$$ to buy a token which is equal to WOW gold.
2) WOW gold can buy you: BOE gear and boosts (more gear).
You can basically use $$$ to buy raid achieves (AOTC, KSM) and gear now.
Blizz does nothing to stop the boosting because it drives token sales (goto line 1)

Because nobody would buy gold from sellers before the token got introduced???????

Atleast Blizz earns from thier own product and not some farmer.

Please go to 1 again and start thinking.

[Rageonit]

People were buying boosts for gold in Vanilla, I remember it clearly (I was playing back then on Magtheridon EU, where the infamous guild called Nihilum achieved their world firsts). The only difference is, back then you had to farm for gold, and today you just buy it for money. Still, you could argue that in both cases the boosted player didn't achieve anything - because a mindless grind for gold doesn't sound like an achievement to me. Sometimes, they didn't even have to grind themselves, as they were paying people (with real life money, yes) to play their accounts. Same was true for HW/GM PvP titles.

Why should anyone be bothered that today the same guy just buys a token? Changes absolutely nothing.

[Delever]

Because nobody would buy gold from sellers before the token got introduced???????

Atleast Blizz earns from thier own product and not some farmer.

Please go to 1 again and start thinking.

Yes but that would be considered cheating and blizzard was trying to combat it. Now they basically owned it and profit off of it. Therefore it is p2w.

[HansOlo]

Yes but that would be considered cheating and blizzard was trying to combat it. Now they basically owned it and profit off of it. Therefore it is p2w.

Therefor its not. No company ever won against boosters and goldsellers.

They charge you for thier currency as its thier product and a billion dollar market.

I understand if they would sell toptier gear for money or the curve achivement. But they dont.

[mbit]

I understand if they sold toptier gear for money or the curve achivement. But they dont.

They do. Cant afford max legendary? Just swipe for gold. Its inbuild in the game design. They facilitate it themself.
And anyone not looking for excuses should see why - its become their main income. Financial reports continuously were "players down, profit up" thats only possible by milking the remaining suckers increasingly more.

[Deianeira]

That your criteria is dogshit. As long as paying nets benefits it will continue to matter.

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Thats what proxy companies & family members are for.

How does it matter?

[Delever]

They do. Cant afford max legendary? Just swipe for gold. Its inbuild in the game design. They facilitate it themself.
And anyone not looking for excuses should see why - its become their main income. Financial reports continuously were "players down, profit up" thats only possible by milking the remaining suckers increasingly more.

Logic crits for over 9999.

[Lochton]

He's ignoring facts and definitions to stretch the truth lol. Not worth arguing with, as he'd never take into account any of what we're saying here. It's just "I'm right and you're wrong, even if I know I'm wrong". It's just how contrarians are.

Not really. I'm just looking at variables. Finding that the data of your arguments and my own would basically mean that any game that contains a form of trading could in fact be P2W then.

[Nnyco]

Yes you can.... level boosts??? You can literally pay real life money convert it to gold, and buy BoE's that other characters may not be able to buy because they don't have enough gold. And if everyone is buying tokens to pay for expensive BoE items then that drives up the cost of those items, essentially locking out poorer players from getting access to them unless they.... pay real money for tokens. This is basic economics

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you are splitting hairs here, the net result is the same. The fact is alot of players buy wow tokens and immediately sell them. If the gold flowed one way, i would agree with you. If i had enough gold to buy a token from a vendor and they token was soulbound fine. It's the fact that players can trade the tokens between themselves and the price of 1 wow token is pegged to 20 USD

You can just lvl which takes no time, you can just make your own money and buy those boe's, heck you can just raid and get em yourself.

Nothin of this is only obtainable by buying it in some cash shop.

[Delever]

Not really. I'm just looking at variables. Finding that the data of your arguments and my own would basically mean that any game that contains a form of trading could in fact be P2W then.

That would indeed be very true if said games were to sell you their in game currencies directly from their shop.

[panda040]

Because nobody would buy gold from sellers before the token got introduced???????

Atleast Blizz earns from thier own product and not some farmer.

Please go to 1 again and start thinking.

I don't understand this logic. There is a big difference between gold buying being against ToS VS being ok through the blizzard store. Gold buying was much less prevalent before you could buy it on the blizzard store with 0 risk of account action being taken. People still take that risk and buy gold now undercutting the wow token cost, does that make it ok? no

Remove the wow token or make it soulbound for players to earn their months game time. Crack down on real gold farmers and sellers.

Simple as

[Delever]

You can just lvl which takes no time, you can just make your own money and buy those boe's, heck you can just raid and get em yourself.

Nothin of this is only obtainable by buying it in some cash shop.

You do of course understand how much gold prices have been fucked for the average player by the absurd amounts of gold that have become available to players through the token right?

[doodle90]

No, pay to win means using real world money to buy ingame items that give you advantage to those that do not. You CAN buy boosts, but you can also not buy boosts and just play to get the same ilvl. Meaning their real world money is not giving them an advantage, If they could buy say an ilvl350 and mythic raid only dropped 345. Then it would be pay to win.

[bigbleach]

The amount of money it takes to get a 5 star character in genshin impact to constellation 6 and also their signature weapon to refinement 5 is astronomical. And yet many people do it. So never doubt the power of a whales wallet. People were whaling in runes of magic and allods when these games were dying. And its the sole reason they still exist as they are now solely funded by these whales. But according to people here the runes in allods are not p2w because you can also farm them to lvl 10 in game. It just might take you 6years compared to a whale spending 5 mins and 5 tesla cars worth of money. But it aint p2w I guess for the avg MMO-C poster

Your talking about another game, where the pay to win stuff is directly sold via the shop. Runes, power progression, etc. Wow allows tokens for gold, from other players. Blizzard doesn't add anything into the game. Blizz makes 5 bucks. The token is equivalent to 15 dollars or 1 month sub, which is 15 dollars. Gold is used on a massive amount of things. Literally everything. You can use it to help gear, but that is a player service. Not a blizzard service. It's more of a community thing, than a blizzard. Not. Pay. To. Win.

If tokens didn't exist. What would stop a player like me, who in BFA, had an income of around 5 million a month profit, from paying to win? There are a lot of us. We are called goblins. The types of boosts and carries have always existed in the game. In more cases than not, I've seen people buy tokens because they run out of gold, and they do so every month or so because they don't know how to make more gold than they passively spend. There are tons, tons of players like me who have fortunes they could spend gearing a toon to the teeth... for a single raid tier. If only players like me did it, would it still be pay to win? Blizzard wanted to stop us from selling off our gold and making money from it, and losing customers who they ban because of it. Win win for them. And it does not make wow pay to win. If gear was in the shop that was the best and you could straight buy it, sure. My perspective may be skewed because gold has never been an issue for me. I've almost always had over the cap. I know I'll never pay to play wow again, if I decide to ever play again. Or buy anything blizzard sells. All of it will be free to me due to currency I collected because it was what I had fun doing in the game. Some of us make youtube channels because of it. Not all. Look through UMJ at the players who sell the most stuff/value on your server, and you will see how many big players there are they are legit, and just making massive amounts of gold. I'd spend less time stressing my brain over the maybe 1 person who has done what you suppose, on your server. Who, in all honesty, would get the best use of the gear by just standing in town. They wouldn't know how to use the character efficiently, and would likely struggle in mid M+ anyways, where it would clearly show they spent gold to get where they are. How does this devalue your gameplay lol? I love when I would wreck people in DPS who have +10 ilvls on me. Made me feel good inside. It's not like phone games where you buy the best stuff, and your stats just make things go byebye. It would trivialize world content, but honestly mythic 0 gear does that already soo.. They would get into groups easily... but would likely struggle with the mechanics and be kicked anyways. The game isn't just muh gear is the best. Mechanics outweigh gear lol. He will outgear and shine in low content. But doing anything content related to their gear level, I very highly doubt they would be very capable. You can tell when people have more gear than they should by how they play. I'm unsure why it's an issue for you. If blizz removed the tokens. Nothing would change. Players like me, will sell their gold via websites. I released a gold making guide in BFA, posted it in a facebook group... and had more than 10 people PM me asking to buy gold directly from me. I didn't, but tokens exist and people are STILL willing to go through a black market. This type of pay to win, will exist in any game.

Lets look at diablo2! Is it pay to win? I would say absolutely. Why is it? Community.
How about rushing difficulties for a hellforge? Pay to win?
Ubers run?

Lets look at classic! Booster spamming is OBNOXIOUS. Isn't it pay to win? It's using gold that isn't generated by blizzard and that players are trading themselves for power gains. Is that not pay to win?

Tokens help the distribution of wealth and doesn't allow it to pool into rich players pockets, because we have something more we can do with it, it also helps counters inflation, especially with the gold sinks they have added into the game over the years, that people will use those tokens on. It really isn't as bad as you try to make it sound.

[Rageonit]

You guys only argue semantics.
WoW is a cooperative multiplayer game. Any game like that will allow for some passengers in the group. Any game like that will give you an option to "cheat" you way to victory. What's the difference how you actually do it? So someone pays for a boost to get a boss killed; if someone else asks kindly enough to get an invite to an organized group to do the same for free - is it any different? Boosted by strangers for gold or money, boosted by guildies or friends and family... Honestly, what's the difference? Are you so butthurt they get some items or achievements that you would rather see them grind for that gold, as a form of punishment? In the end, would it change anything?

So you call it Pay2Win. I could call it GetAGoodGroup2Win. Same thing, really. That's the nature of the game. Want to pay for that? Well be my guest! Not least surprised Blizzard decided to capitalize on that - as they should.

[Deianeira]

Yes. It is 100% pay to win. Buy max level, buy gold, buy PvE/PvP boost. Win.

Did they change anything? Last i checked they only offered last expansions maxlvl as boost

[Lochton]

That would indeed be very true if said games were to sell you their in game currencies directly from their shop.

But this is where data is skewed. For Blizzard is indirectly selling it, by letting you buy a game-time token that you can sell to another player, who then gives you gold.

So, with that example, it is P2W because you have the ability to sell an item to a player that the game/developer has supplied to give you an indirect gain of currency, no? For then we're back at ground zero, where the argument of it being P2W isn't much of an argument, for it has been P2W every since Blizzard permitted you to gift game-time from the store, and permitted the contracted to print TCG item cards, legal or not, as they were indirectly giving you the currency.

If that is so, then, of course, I rest my own case, as WoW's existence has always been P2W.

[Hellobolis]

No, pay to win means using real world money to buy ingame items that give you advantage to those that do not. You CAN buy boosts, but you can also not buy boosts and just play to get the same ilvl. Meaning their real world money is not giving them an advantage, If they could buy say an ilvl350 and mythic raid only dropped 345. Then it would be pay to win.

so what do you call those phone games that slow down gameplay to slower than a crawl if you don't spend real money?

they are more extreme than wow sure, but you can technically complete those without spending money too if you live to be 1000 years old.

[Deianeira]

You guys only argue semantics.
WoW is a cooperative multiplayer game. Any game like that will allow for some passengers in the group. Any game like that will give you an option to "cheat" you way to victory. What's the difference how you actually do it? So someone pays for a boost to get a boss killed; if someone else asks kindly enough to get an invite to an organized group to do the same for free - is it any different? Boosted by strangers for gold or money, boosted by guildies or friends and family... Honestly, what's the difference? Are you so butthurt they get some items or achievements that you would rather see them grind for that gold, as a form of punishment? In the end, would it change anything?

So you call it Pay2Win. I could call it GetAGoodGroup2Win. Same thing, really. That's the nature of the game. Want to pay for that? Well be my guest! Not least surprised Blizzard decided to capitalize on that - as they should.

Yes i agree with you wholeheartedly. I have asked those that call it P2W when they say that it MATTERS, i asked why does it matter? What would change if BLIZZ reoved the token? and noone ever have any solutions, jsut seems they are butt hurt for whatever reason.
Because if Blizz removed the tokens and started to loose revenue from it that would definately be an impact on the game.