Alternative subscription options

[Myradin]

Doing hourly/daily rates would only make people even more upset whenever anything takes time in the game. It would also make them more toxic in groups since a bad run is literally costing them extra money.

A fixed monthly rate is healthier for everyone.

[Bladesyphon]

Doing hourly/daily rates would only make people even more upset whenever anything takes time in the game. It would also make them more toxic in groups since a bad run is literally costing them extra money.

A fixed monthly rate is healthier for everyone.

This is a fair point as well. You already run into plenty of people that throw hissy fits about a wipe or two "Wasting their time", and that would only get far, far worst if you had people that were paying by the hour, or paying by the day.

It's $15 for one month, that's more than fair of a price.

[Dancaris]

Well, hour/day is a bit too much for that.
But 2weeks playtime would be golden to me. I hardly play whole month, more like 2-3weeks and drop to subscribe for another month after 1-3months of break.

[Lathspell]

I don't get how people even bother canceling and reactivating their sub constantly. I just pay 6 months at a time unless I totally quit like I did start of mop until bfa. I don't even notice the amount because just going to the store is like 80-100€ each time anyway.

[Antilurker77]

You guys know that some Asian regions already do this, right?

[Djuntas]

Crazy people are defending a multi billion dollar companies earnings. I guess people are pro-capitalism always.

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I don't get how people even bother canceling and reactivating their sub constantly. I just pay 6 months at a time unless I totally quit like I did start of mop until bfa. I don't even notice the amount because just going to the store is like 80-100€ each time anyway.

So because you are bad with handling money, or just to rich to care, does not mean others dont check your bank status to see what is going on. Also...grocceries cost 100 euro...What. Are you kidding me. Its not hyper inflation...yet.

[Icemix]

I think that offering a "weekend" play option could potentially bring more players back, make the servers busier on weekends and potentially increase revenue that would otherwise be lost due to stoppage of subscribing until new patch or until new expansion etc.
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I'm by no means any expert, but if it would bring back a ton of customers who pay 2-3$, would that justify the increased maintenance costs? Because the server load will be much much higher in the weekends,you have to actually increase the player count your servers support, meaning buying more hardware, more space etc and maybe the low income from weekend players wouldn't justify the costs.

It's the sole reason I believe launches are always so problematic. Because the influx of players is so huge at an expansion launch, but the cost of expanding the servers for a few days and then not needing them, doesn't justify financially.

[Jan135]

For people who have very limited time to play, say only a few hours on the weekends, should blizzard offer a /day or /hour subscription model, something like 30 cents/hour or 1$/day, or the sorts?

Maintaining a server in terms of costs has gone down dramatically over the years with the advent of VMs and insane ramp up of physical power, an AMD Epyc CPU with 96 cores / 192 threads could probably power all of the original WoW servers and still have room to spare.

So it's not like Blizzard can even justify needing 15$ from a player for the monthly upkeep alone, and it's not a debatable question that the amount of content they deliver per patch, on average, doesn't justify the monthly fee, especially with the amount of money they make on the game box and MTXes, which cost nothing to run and are insanely priced (20$ to change a name in a database, 30$ for a race change, 60$ for a char boost and so on).

So for someone like me who would only play a few hours on the weekend, paying 15$/month (the price of a quality game on sale, or 3A game for 2 months) + expansion costs just to do some PVP and quests makes no sense, even if it is cheap.

For the love of god, read the above before vomiting out the tired old "it's the price of a movie" trope. This has nothing to do with that.

How about we take it higher then? How about instead of subnscription, you would pay for time you spend playing the game? You add funds to your Blizzard wallet, and for every minute you play the game, your funds getting spent automatically. This is such a terrible idea.

[Aradur]

It's the price of a movie.

If you can't afford that once a month you have other problem then the subscription few for an online game...

[Lathspell]

Crazy people are defending a multi billion dollar companies earnings. I guess people are pro-capitalism always.

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So because you are bad with handling money, or just to rich to care, does not mean others dont check your bank status to see what is going on. Also...grocceries cost 100 euro...What. Are you kidding me. Its not hyper inflation...yet.

Try shopping for a family of 4 in Finland and you will see that 100€ is really not a lot.

[Hitei]

To afford doesn't mean to help sustain something worthless. The fact that we discuss if 13 euro per month is worth it for wow says a lot about the state of the game.

Do you think people haven't been having this discussions since day one?

[TheAngryGazebo]

They do offer an hourly rate - $15/hr, and after the first hour, you get the rest of the month for free.

[T-34]

They probably did but not in the premise "why pay for something that sucks".

If people keep paying for something that they think "sucks" then they are idiots.
WoW and Blizzard should be treated just like any other provider of services of goods: If you don't like it you stop buying shit.
People that keep paying for WoW, but complain about it, deserve both to lose 13 euros per month and be ridiculed.

It is just like any other good or service:
- Can't afford it? Tough shit. Either earn more money or don't buy it. You won't die of starvation if you can't play WoW
- Think it is to expensive? Find an alternative or stop buying.
- It just doesn't ring your bell any more? Find an alternative or stop buying.

[cparle87]

If people keep paying for something that they think "sucks" then they are idiots.
WoW and Blizzard should be treated just like any other provider of services of goods: If you don't like it you stop buying shit.
People that keep paying for WoW, but complain about it, deserve both to lose 13 euros per month and be ridiculed.

It is just like any other good or service:
- Can't afford it? Tough shit. Either earn more money or don't buy it. You won't die of starvation if you can't play WoW
- Think it is to expensive? Find an alternative or stop buying.
- It just doesn't ring your bell any more? Find an alternative or stop buying.

The problem is that some people have become so co-dependent on WoW that they can't give it up without someone else giving them approval that it's ok to give it up because it (the game) or the company are bad now. "I'm not enjoying the content so I'm not going to renew my sub" is not a valid response to these people. It has to be "it's too expensive and not worth it" or "insert scandal here" or "China owns them" or some other thing.

That's why we have all the whine threads and the I quit threads and all the other stuff. People can't give up WoW on their own. They need other people's validation that giving up WoW is ok.

[Chilela]

Doing hourly/daily rates would only make people even more upset whenever anything takes time in the game. It would also make them more toxic in groups since a bad run is literally costing them extra money.

A fixed monthly rate is healthier for everyone.

This is definitely a valid concern, though it does run under the presumption that everyone would use a time-based sub model to run group content. If someone wanted to, say, farm out old raid mounts, then the only real limit would be the instance cap.

I do think that a time-based sub method could bring in some extra income in theory, though, as you mentioned, there would definitely be downsides, intentional or otherwise.

Side note: $15/month is actually a pretty decent chunk for people who are actually in rough financial straits. Though the responsible person would pick up cheaper hobbies, but that's not here nor there.

[Aradur]

They probably did but not in the premise "why pay for something that sucks".

Well i think it's worth it and i make good use of that money. If you think it sucks stop playing the game. But crying about having to pay 13 $ because you can only play " a couple hours a month"? It's fucking 13$, not 130$. If you pay 30$ a month for the gym are you also complaining that you "'don't have enough time and get your worth out of it so they should change the subscription-style"? As i said: If you stuggle for that amount get other shit in your life together, it seems to be really bad.

[Relapses]

This is definitely a valid concern, though it does run under the presumption that everyone would use a time-based sub model to run group content. If someone wanted to, say, farm out old raid mounts, then the only real limit would be the instance cap.

I do think that a time-based sub method could bring in some extra income in theory, though, as you mentioned, there would definitely be downsides, intentional or otherwise.

Side note: $15/month is actually a pretty decent chunk for people who are actually in rough financial straits. Though the responsible person would pick up cheaper hobbies, but that's not here nor there.

Man, if you can't afford a $15/mo hobby then you have fucked up royally somewhere in life. Either that or you're 11.

[Chilela]

Man, if you can't afford a $15/mo hobby then you have fucked up royally somewhere in life. Either that or you're 11.

Trimming fat, no matter how trivial, does add up over time. And with things the way they currently are, more people seem to be learning that lesson.

But I'm getting a tad off-topic here, WoW, as well any any other subscription-based media, is a luxury good and should be viewed as such, and as mentioned earlier ITT, if it actually becomes financially nonviable, or simply financially unwise to continue, then unsubbing is the obvious answer, though the time-based sub option could still be of some use to people looking to potentially shave a few bucks off what they'd normally spend.

[arkanon]

Man, if you can't afford a $15/mo hobby then you have fucked up royally somewhere in life. Either that or you're 11.

I understand what you are saying, however these $15 hobbies add up pretty quick when you have so many sub services now, and the cost of living is increases far greater than peoples income. Adults sometimes have to make tough decisions like dropping the WoW which only they use to have disney+ which their whole family use.

[Unholyground]

WoW is one of their worst performing modern IP as far as total revenue, it is Dwarved by CoD and a few others.

Having a lower sub option for retail or classic only could go a long way, $21CAD per month is insane soon as more than one person in the house plays the game, to me it is unacceptable that they have no other sub options.

That being said based on certain things that have been happening I can tell you something big is going to happen once MS is officially in control.