Why is WoW $15 a month?

[epigramx]

Then dont pay. Why the fuck would you pay for something you don't think is worth it? What the actual..

Addiction is real I guess.

That being said, people on here seem to think that the sub cost is so significant. It really isn't, Im sure there's lots of players out there that don't bother unsubbing even if they dont actively play. Kinda like paying for Netflix without using it at least once every month.

They are greedy that milk people with addiction problems and sunk-cost fallacies. They already make a mountain of money from microtransactions so the monthly fee is a cherry on top at this point.

I personally find the subs per month to be 1,000 times better than microtransations and I wish it was still only that; now they don't give a shit if the game has new subscribers; they can milk old players with addiction issues.

[Dequanacus]

So since patch 9.1 took seven months, that makes it worth 105 dollars on top of the 50 i paid for the entire rest of the expansion?
- $50 for an expansion is already comparable to a full game. The sub is on top of that. Youre not saving anything.

But the game continues to get patches within that expansion after it comes out so after the first month, you're paying with just the sub fee.

- If you throw away every game you buy after the first month, feel free to send them my way instead.

I'm not sure you how you drew that conclusion from my post. If you weren't playing WoW you would have to play another game, requiring buying a game assuming you don't own it. If you want to take that path instead, simply compare the time you play WoW in a month to the total time you have spent on most of your single player games. If WoW is lower than the time you spend on the majority of your single player games, why are you paying for the sub in the first place?

I've played Noita for months and paid significantly less. Skyrim for almost a decade now. It's definitely not about time spent ingame. I pay more for WoW because it doesnt break my bank. The value is not arguably close, any game with a one-time cost is going to have *way* more value. Theyre charging a premium for the name and it shows. It's dumb.

I'm not sure why you keep bringing up one single player game as if that debunks my reasoning. Did you not read my last post? Just because you have some single player games that you play for an inordinate amount of time does not mean that the average single player game, regardless if you come back to it months later, does not out price the time you spend playing WoW in a month for $15.

[Raetary]

That argument has no merit considering both ff14 and WoW have cash shops that are arguably just as greedy if not worse

Explain?
I give you FF14, its just as riddled with shop items as ESO is.

But wow has like... 40 cosmetic items, and 9 in-game services. (of which 3 are guild related, so one may as well not even count them)
What wow offers via its in-game shop is only a tiny little fraction of what's offered by ESO.

[justandulas]

Explain?
I give you FF14, its just as riddled with shop items as ESO is.

But wow has like... 40 cosmetic items, and 9 in-game services. (of which 3 are guild related, so one may as well not even count them)
What wow offers via its in-game shop is only a tiny little fraction of what's offered by ESO.

WoW has a sub fee, which makes the cash shop significantly worse since ESO is b2p.

Secondly, everything on the ESO store can be bought for in game currency via AH's, and gold is thrown around in such abundance that if you're patient you can get anything you want with just in game currency.

if wow were b2p, i'd agree about the store comparisons but sub games with cash shops are the absolute worst, especially since they've been leaning more into the shop and mounts the last few years and are not going to stop that gravy train now. In a few years, it'll look just like FF14's store.

[epigramx]

Microtransactions are evil incarnate and satanism itself; they bring nothing good to the game; their entire existence is pure bad and you all should wish that only subs per month were still around (but only them).

First of all: they are pure greed that doesn't deserve it; for example a computer script takes 0.0000001msec to transfer a character and they want you to pay $40; that's satanism incarnate at the very least.

But all that is silly compared to the true problem: microtransactions make them not care if the game is good for new players; they can keep them leaving because they milk the addicted ones.

[Dequanacus]

...

If you want it put more simply since you keep making points that you think challenge my reasoning but aren't, think of it like this. Lets say an average game is $60. Let's say you spend 100 hours in a month playing WoW. As a WoW sub is $15, a fourth of the average price of a single player game, multiply that by 4 and get 400 hours. You would need to play a $60 game for four hundred hours to get the same value. Sure you can have some single player games like Skyrim or Noita that do give you that many hours, but that would still mean that 99% of single player games (those that do not have hundred of hours of replay value) are still not worth the price.
Now you can argue that the quality of WoW is far worse and that should be the focus, but if you think WoW is poor quality, you wouldn't be subbed in the first place.
And again, the expansion price is a moot point because the same argument applies there of "if you don't think you'll get your money's worth buying the xpac, why would you buy it" and in the months following the xpac, you're only paying the sub fee, which again returns to "are you getting more time out of your $15 than you would out of a $60 game"

[DarkAmbient]

For me the subscription fee is extremely difficult to justify. They charge full box price for expansions and ask a premium for their character services and virtual items. The notion that the sub is required for them to develop the game is BS. It's only charged because people are prepared to pay it.

And the notion that it's good value for money compared to other online entertainment is laughable to me. People love to say "I spend X hours per month playing this for only 15 bucks, what great value". I can spend years playing Guild Wars 2 for the same price as a single WoW expansion. I can spend all day every day playing EVE Online for free, and even if I subscribe it's still cheaper than WoW because they don't charge for expansions. I can sub to Amazon Prime Video and Netflix and spend all day watching those and it's still cheaper than playing WoW.

[Amnaught]

If you want it put more simply since you keep making points that you think challenge my reasoning but aren't, think of it like this. Lets say an average game is $60. Let's say you spend 100 hours in a month playing WoW. As a WoW sub is $15, a fourth of the average price of a single player game, multiply that by 4 and get 400 hours. You would need to play a $60 game for four hundred hours to get the same value. Sure you can have some single player games like Skyrim or Noita that do give you that many hours, but that would still mean that 99% of single player games (those that do not have hundred of hours of replay value) are still not worth the price.
Now you can argue that the quality of WoW is far worse and that should be the focus, but if you think WoW is poor quality, you wouldn't be subbed in the first place.
And again, the expansion price is a moot point because the same argument applies there of "if you don't think you'll get your money's worth buying the xpac, why would you buy it" and in the months following the xpac, you're only paying the sub fee, which again returns to "are you getting more time out of your $15 than you would out of a $60 game"

I disagree that the expansion price is moot. The current game is what I'm talking about. Nobody plays 400 hours of World of Warcraft without the latest expansion. Even vanilla was 40 bucks baseline, and if youve played consistently since then, you've paid full-game price for every subsequent expansion as well.

World of Warcraft is the price of full games *plus* a subscription. $40-80 depending on which version, plus subscription for as long as the expansion lasts, about two years. Any hours you spend on it beyond those two years should count for the next "game"(expansion) you purchased. I can play Skyrim a decade later and not need any new purchases.

[epigramx]

For me the subscription fee is extremely difficult to justify. They charge full box price for expansions and ask a premium for their character services and virtual items. The notion that the sub is required for them to develop the game is BS. It's only charged because people are prepared to pay it.

And the notion that it's good value for money compared to other online entertainment is laughable to me. People love to say "I spend X hours per month playing this for only 15 bucks, what great value". I can spend years playing Guild Wars 2 for the same price as a single WoW expansion. I can spend all day every day playing EVE Online for free, and even if I subscribe it's still cheaper than WoW because they don't charge for expansions. I can sub to Amazon Prime Video and Netflix and spend all day watching those and it's still cheaper than playing WoW.

The reverse should happen though. Keep the sub and get rid of the microtransactional services. Right now they don't care if the game is good that keeps new players subs so the game can suck as long as it rips off old addicted players.

[Amnaught]

Then dont pay. Why the fuck would you pay for something you don't think is worth it? What the actual..

Addiction is real I guess.

That being said, people on here seem to think that the sub cost is so significant. It really isn't, Im sure there's lots of players out there that don't bother unsubbing even if they dont actively play. Kinda like paying for Netflix without using it at least once every month.

You misunderstand. It's worth it to me, that's why I pay for it. I'm not going to pretend I don't get more bang for my buck from any non-subscription game. It's like paying extra money for Beats headphones. Or diamonds. It's not valuable. People do it anyway. It's just shittier because of your last statement, it's deceptively expensive. Nobody would pay $400 for a two-year expansion if they had to pay it right off the bat and then know that you'd have to pay it again for the next expansion. It's a sneaky, shitty business practice.

I'm the kind of guy that paid the $300 for the Lifetime Subscription for The Secret World. **Definitely** got my money's worth out of that one.

- - - Updated - - -

For me the subscription fee is extremely difficult to justify. They charge full box price for expansions and ask a premium for their character services and virtual items. The notion that the sub is required for them to develop the game is BS. It's only charged because people are prepared to pay it.

And the notion that it's good value for money compared to other online entertainment is laughable to me. People love to say "I spend X hours per month playing this for only 15 bucks, what great value". I can spend years playing Guild Wars 2 for the same price as a single WoW expansion. I can spend all day every day playing EVE Online for free, and even if I subscribe it's still cheaper than WoW because they don't charge for expansions. I can sub to Amazon Prime Video and Netflix and spend all day watching those and it's still cheaper than playing WoW.

This is the only argument that matters, right here. They only charge it because we'll pay it. Adding to that, we only pay ot because they drip-feed the cost and it doesn't seem as insane as it would if they tried to ask for it all up front.

The tragic thing is that if everyone stopped paying it, I have no doubt they'd just release a different game under the Warcraft name than try to actually set up a decent business model for WoW.

[Dequanacus]

I disagree that the expansion price is moot. The current game is what I'm talking about. Nobody plays 400 hours of World of Warcraft without the latest expansion. Even vanilla was 40 bucks baseline, and if youve played consistently since then, you've paid full-game price for every subsequent expansion as well.

World of Warcraft is the price of full games *plus* a subscription. $40-80 depending on which version, plus subscription for as long as the expansion lasts, about two years. Any hours you spend on it beyond those two years should count for the next "game"(expansion) you purchased. I can play Skyrim a decade later and not need any new purchases.

You keep returning to this same point despite not arguing the reasoning I provided to counter it four times over. Take the cost of the expansion and take the time you spent playing WoW the month of the purchase. Did the time you spend playing WoW that month meet or exceed the time you would spend playing a single player game? You keep ignoring the majority of my post to take small parts and spin them into arguments no longer resembling or responding to the points I'm making.
Same with you repeatedly bringing up Skyrim. I explicitly pointed out that while some single player games have far greater replayability than others, that does not challenge the point that, on average, you are likely spending more time playing WoW than you would most other games and if not, you should not be subbing in the first place.
Really, you still have not responded to the majority of my reasoning. I almost believe at this point that you're not even trying to consider and rebut my reasoning but instead just feel some compulsion to respond to my posts with anything. I have several reasons to believe that you're just arguing for the sake of arguing and arguing in bad faith, otherwise, actually respond to my point about how much time is spent playing the average single player game relative to a month of WoW rather than ignoring it.

[Azerate]

I'm playing wow from 3 up to like 6-7 hours a day every day. Paying 11 euros a month for this much entertainment is a no brainer. Other games cost multiple times that for much less gameplay, if I even enjoy them, and I enjoy less and less games these days.

Even if the sub was doubled or tripled I would probably continue paying it, because it still easily gives me much more entertainment than anything else for that price.

[Dequanacus]

I'm playing wow from 3 up to like 6-7 hours a day every day. Paying 11 euros a month for this much entertainment is a no brainer. Other games cost multiple times that for much less gameplay, if I even enjoy them, and I enjoy less and less games these days.

Even if the sub was doubled or tripled I would probably continue paying it, because it still easily gives me much more entertainment than anything else for that price.

It's really the same case in all of these threads. People will say it's inherently evil, backwards, that they are 'getting away with it' and nobody will ever attempt to argue that the majority of single player games they buy for $60 they play less than a month of WoW

I haven't even played retail WoW in years because it's boring to me and I clearly wouldn't play it long enough to warrant the purchase, it just seems logically unreasonable to claim that a sub model is inherently bad. Common sense clearly suggests otherwise.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

The same reason Tommy Hilfiger charges $100+ for a pair of jeans or Nike sells shoes for $100+, that aren't necessarily any better than $20 Wranglers, because they can and they have a customer base willing to pay that price. It isn't some complicated concept to figure out.

[Dequanacus]

I'll open up the question to everybody since I've always wanted to see someone dispute it but nobody ever does. The month an expansion comes out (at least when I played WoW) I would absolutely play more than enough in that month to warrant the expansion cost+sub fee for that month. In the months following, it just becomes a simple question I ask myself of "am I going to play this enough to warrant $15?"
At that point, how is a sub less financially efficient than a full priced game? Certainly you spent $60 on single player games that you've spent less than a hundred hours on, and a sub is $15 dollars anyway so it'd be more accurate to say four hundred hours as you're paying four time the price.
I simply don't see how $15 isn't worth a hundred or more hours of my time. If the counter argument is "but I don't play that much" wouldn't you simply unsub as I have now that retail no longer interests me?

[Lolites]

And the notion that it's good value for money compared to other online entertainment is laughable to me. People love to say "I spend X hours per month playing this for only 15 bucks, what great value". I can spend years playing Guild Wars 2 for the same price as a single WoW expansion. I can spend all day every day playing EVE Online for free, and even if I subscribe it's still cheaper than WoW because they don't charge for expansions. I can sub to Amazon Prime Video and Netflix and spend all day watching those and it's still cheaper than playing WoW.

and neither of those are even close to the amount of fun i have in wow, thats why im subbed... is it not worth it to you, you can spend years playing GW2, then fine, dont sub to wow, go play GW2... i played GW2 and was bored to hell after few hours, so to me GW2 is not worth a dime...

value is SUBJECTIVE, if the wow sub was twice the amount i would still consider it a steal, netflix is (at least in my country, not sure about other) half the price of wow and yet i cancelled it as it realy wasnt worth jack shit to me (selection of content in my country is quite small)

[Dequanacus]

Come on the thread was so active before with people acting like it was obvious that subs are evil and are clearly a waste of money and taking advantage of the consumer.

If I buy a game one time, once I finish it, I have to buy another game. If I buy a sub, once I finish it, I stop paying for it. If I assume that I could finish all of the content in an average single player game in a month, I would rather pay $15 for a sub than $60.

I can only assume that everyone claiming subs are bad are arguing in bad faith if they cannot contest this. Why have such a belief if you cannot defend it and what value does your opinion hold if you flee every time someone posts something that doesn't conform with its reasoning?

[Belloc]

How can anyone not understand that the subscription fee is what pays for developer salaries, as well as server maintenance, advertising, and everything else a business needs to run? What, you thought that your one-time fee of $50 is enough to support the world's biggest MMO and the people making it?

- - - Updated - - -

Come on the thread was so active before with people acting like it was obvious that subs are evil and are clearly a waste of money and taking advantage of the consumer.

If I buy a game one time, once I finish it, I have to buy another game. If I buy a sub, once I finish it, I stop paying for it. If I assume that I could finish all of the content in an average single player game in a month, I would rather pay $15 for a sub than $60.

I can only assume that everyone claiming subs are bad are arguing in bad faith if they cannot contest this. Why have such a belief if you cannot defend it and what value does your opinion hold if you flee every time someone posts something that doesn't conform with its reasoning?

They absolutely are arguing in bad faith. WoW could not exist without the sub fee, regardless of how other games manage to operate.

[Lochton]

Does anyone have an official sales pitch or rationale from Blizzard? Or another credible source?

It seems like everyone has their own assumptions and rationale, but no official or clear answer.

Because that is their chosen business plan, and price for their services? That is all you get from the 15 dollars. Access to the game and support for the game, and account.

From Blizzard's side, the 15 dollars a month pr. player = salary, development, management, rent, insurance, legal fees, marketing, production, support, hardware, software, Human Resources, plumbing, heating, electricity, cleaning, etc.

You will not get further clear answers from a non-Blizzard person. I am sure if you dig deep enough, you'll find a budget plan from Blizzard on what money is used on.

[Dequanacus]

They absolutely are arguing in bad faith. WoW could not exist without the sub fee, regardless of how other games manage to operate.

I don't even care about whether or not Blizzard could support the game without the sub fee. It's a simple math equation of how much time you spend playing WoW that month versus the $15 sub fee.
If I could 'sub' to single player games for $15 a month instead of paying $60, I would absolutely opt for that in regard to several games. Sure open world games and games built with replayability in mind like BoI or Hades I'd rather purchase once, but many games are linear and charge the same amount. I'd absolutely have saved money just subbing for them when I play them to 100% completion within a month.