Blizzard's Thoughts on the WoW Token in Wrath Classic, WoW Hotfixes - May 24, 2023

[Rageonit]

"However, what we want to do..."
Is make more money. Why can't they just be honest about THAT much?

Exactly. Every company should come clean and admit they're there to make money. Boycott anyone who doesn't!
Kids these days...

[Khaza-R]

"Higher Up managers" don't tell the designers how to design their game. I guarantee no such order was ever made.

Sure buddy

[trimble]

Exactly. Every company should come clean and admit they're there to make money. Boycott anyone who doesn't!
Kids these days...

Honestly it would kind of be refreshing to just admit greed over some weird bud light social thing.

[bloodykiller86]

I'm opposed to any kind of gold buying whatsoever. I don't really care where the gold comes from or who profits from it. All that matters to me is keeping the game world as intact and as non reliant on real world money as possible. And from that perspective this is obviously a terrible decision, as it will, undoubtedly, lead to more gold buying in general and a far greater element of RMT and pay to win in the game than we've seen thus far.

With that said, I can't say I'm terribly surprised by their decision. At least it's not difficult to see why this would come about now. Dragonflight has performed very poorly as compared to previous expansions, patch 10.1 has not brought a lot of people back and now just a few weeks after that, they introduce the token.

But I guess the silver leaning is that, at least, we've made it this far without the token being introduced, so that's something. While one can only speculate as to what will come after WotLK, for me, and I suppose a lot of people, WotLK really is the end of the classic era of WoW, so even if I'd rather have done without the token, at least it'll only be available the last 15% of that era. Hell, in this day and age, one has to count their blessings.

how has dragonflight performed poorly? you have 0 way of knowing that

[Relapses]

The WoW Token however replaces the subscription of the one that is buying the token on the Auction house.

Person A purchases WoW Token on the store, they then sell the WoW Token on the Auction house and receive Gold.
Person B purchases the WoW Token on the Auction house, so they pay gold instead of purchasing a sub from Blizzard itself.

Person A effectively purchases game time for themselves (as they need an active subscription to play WoW) *and* Person B, who instead gives ingame gold to Person A.
If you buy WoW Tokens on the auction house, paying a subscription fee is pointless as far as keeping your account active / accessible is concerned.

You could also say that when you're not paying for WoW due to the WoW Token, that someone else is paying for you.

You also in theory purchase WoW Tokens and redeem for you own game time (not sure if you can actually redeem WoW Token you bought yourself), it's just that you would lose like 7€ per month.

...that's what it means to be in a competition in a market sense.

Being a competitor means that the other party is used less likely.

Scripe literally admitted that they bought gold off a RMT site instead of WoW Tokens - which is pretty much a text definition of comparing two competitors.

I put 'competing' in quotations for a reason. It's not a direct competition because Blizzard isn't looking to undercut gold sellers. They're simply looking to de-incentivize botting and reduce trade chat spam.

[Unholyground]

Kinda throws your whole fascination with MS getting rid of the token in the bin when Blizzard straight up adds another one, eh?

- - - Updated - - -



Okay, and? Did that have anything to do with the post you quoted?

I mean when the merger eventually goes through wow will appear on Game Pass, it doesn't really stop the token from existing necessarily since there will still be suckers paying real money for in-game money I'm sure they'll keep it for those special people that have more money than brains.

[Rageonit]

Honestly it would kind of be refreshing to just admit greed over some weird bud light social thing.

Okay, go to a Ferrari seller and make them admit they inflate prices for company profit. Wonder how that'll go.
Here's a secret of modern capitalism. Everyone knows everyone else is just trying to make as much profit as possible - but as soon as you admit that, you're the bad guy. Oh well, lets donate some pocket money to stray puppies to make our image look a bit better.

[Relapses]

Okay, go to a Ferrari seller and make them admit they inflate prices for company profit. Wonder how that'll go.
Here's a secret of modern capitalism. Everyone knows everyone else is just trying to make as much profit as possible - but as soon as you admit that, you're the bad guy. Oh well, lets donate some pocket money to stray puppies to make our image look a bit better.

Hey! Don't forget to change your company's logo for exactly 30 days. :^)

[roboscorcher]

SO they basically justify it by saying

"it reduces rmt!" so, the negatives still outweigh the reduction in illcit rmt
"people who play alot wont use/need it!" outright lie, of course demand for gold will go up now that it is officially sanctioned by blizzard

I find it telling that not once to do they bring of GDKP runs, one of the main gold sinks and drives up the demand for gold greatly.

Simply put GDKPs are the fastest way to get powerful gear with the least mount of investment. It used to be you had to take a risk of account action through rmt to get the gold to do this, if you didn't farm/carry. Now anyone can start swiping with 0 risk to their account to fund GDKP runs.

The higher demand for gold is going to drive up the cost of everything in wrath, leaving players with the integrity to not buy gold in the dust. RIP

As someone who doesn't do GDKP's but is in a guild that does:

If Blizzard were to crack down on GDKP's at this point, they risk alienating most of the classic hardcore raiders. 90% of them do it and would either quit or revert to tuesday raidlogging if GDKPs vanished.

[Kralljin]

I put 'competing' in quotations for a reason. It's not a direct competition because Blizzard isn't looking to undercut gold sellers. They're simply looking to de-incentivize botting and reduce trade chat spam.

But they are still de facto in a competition as the point is to provide alternatives.

And honestly, i've barely seen any tradechat spam for goldsites in Classic, whether that's down to Blizzard cutting it down or those sites promoting their services through other means is another debate.
This whole thing about advertising for RMT ingame seems really like a thing that just isn't worth doing in more modern times anymore.

[Relapses]

But they are still de facto in a competition as the point is to provide alternatives.

When you buy gold from Blizzard you're at least exchanging it for a tangible service.

And honestly, i've barely seen any tradechat spam for goldsites in Classic, whether that's down to Blizzard cutting it down or those sites promoting their services through other means is another debate.

Perhaps it's a bit different in EU but I was bombarded the last time I entered /2 on Classic. /shrug

I still think it's a net positive in that it greatly de-incentivizes botting which is perhaps the biggest W for Blizzard. I don't agree with the timing but I can't argue with the results.

[Shinchi Migi]

Token or not. It will not effect my play time in the game. Karens gone bitch no matter if the token in the game or not. That is what Karens do.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Any one with any forsight should Have seen this coming as the longer classic gos on the bigger gold sellers were always going to get just like when the expans were being released originally up to Wod.

[Shadowferal]

When you buy gold from Blizzard you're at least exchanging it for a tangible service.

Tangible? Um. How so?

[Relapses]

Tangible? Um. How so?

A subscription is a lot more tangible then... literally nothing?

[panda040]

As someone who doesn't do GDKP's but is in a guild that does:

If Blizzard were to crack down on GDKP's at this point, they risk alienating most of the classic hardcore raiders. 90% of them do it and would either quit or revert to tuesday raidlogging if GDKPs vanished.

I never said GDKPs should be removed. I just think further bot crackdowns are the solution

[SinR]

Blizzard doesn't have the manpower to monitor every server anymore.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Blizzard doesn't have the manpower to monitor every server anymore.

They never did.

The token is the only thing that realistically hampered gold sellers as bans were meaningless when there was millions of dollars up for grabs.

[OrangeJuice]

holy hell blizz needs stfu already with these endless excuses and lies
a) token was added because of $$$. nothing else. end of story.
b) they arent banning bots, they're banning regular ppl that just say dumb shit in chat or afk bgs.

i chieck up on this company once a month and every time its always some wall of lies and excuses about some fucked up greedy decision they made.

[LolFrank]

MMO-C forums: BIG GAME COMPANY BAD >
Blizzard: We're trying to disincentivize and devalue botting
MMO-C forums: MONEY HUNGRY
Blizzard: Botting and gold farming has been an issue not for only us but for the online gaming industry for years(this is a proven fact)
MMO-C forums: CORPORATE GREED!!

Like no matter what they say, you apes will always be mad, and when they don't say anything... forum posts like "No Dragonflight numbers from Blizzard means" are created. How do people live their life being this pessimistic. It has to be exhausting.