Is milking money from server transfers bad business by blizzard?

[Syfy]

Yes ofcos, Blizzard are greedy as hell for their money, yet we still do it, but then again they never do something to benefit the customer it's all about their cash cow and that's just how it'll always be.

[Luko]

I don't mind the costs too much (I've only done it a few times so its never been too much of a burden)

I do think they should make better package deals for it.
Cheaper to move 2 or 3 toons in the same transaction or if you are switching sides at the same time.

I've always thought this. If someone is server changing AND faction changing, knock off 10-15 bucks from the total cost. That's good business.

On the topic of the "big evil corporation" in general... since when is making money off of convenience evil?

[Tekkommo]

It's great business lol Think how much they have made from transfers alone.

[Banzhe]

One day, people will look back at their super Blizzard defending comments and think, "Wow, I was such a tool".

Clearly, today though I'll settle for looking at you and think that exact phrase

[Hovsa]

I've paid twice to transfer my toons off of servers that have gone from roughly balanced to 99% horde (another side effect of the fac change policy- they charge us to kill our servers then charges us to gtfo the broken server). I'm over my current server and want to move, but fuck paying to move 23 toons + guild banks. It just isn't going to happen, I'm just gonna end up giving up and stopping playing tbh. Can't possibly reroll and recreate everything I have on another server without 7 years of free time.

I used to not have a problem with it, but by now it seems like they're double dipping, the fac/server changes kill servers, and then they profit off of that more rather than fixing the issue. At the very least there should be some sort of 'move all' type deal/system, or some sort of imbalance trigger point that lets everyone trapped on a shitty server go elsewhere.

Amen to that....

I played on Ravencrest-EU for 7-8 years and because of paid server transfers i was looking af 4-5k login queues when MoP launched. So i had to move off the server that I chose on WoW's launch day to be able to play.

Actually the moment they introduced server transfers in late-TBC, Ravencrest-EU began having massive migration issues. The once nice server community turned to shit pretty much overnight with retards and ninjas coming onto the server. And from the time WotLK launched up to several months after, it was so bad that you could not run around Northrend without lagging out every 30-60 minutes.

Server transfer should either be free so servers could stabilize or server transfer should not exist at all

It's already done massive damage to existing server communities and I would dare hypothesise that main reason for the deterioration of the various server communities can be partially attributed to paid server transfers. (LFG anonymity paid a role too ofc. but thats another discussion)

[Deleted]

This kind of thread again?....
Blizzard has the prices so high, cause they dont want to see people jump from server to server....

[Deleted]

I think they should give deals for people who want to move all their chars to a different realm. I hate it when my chars aren't all on the same realm (then I can't make use of all the profs I levelled), but I'm not gonna pay 200€ (10 chars) to transfer them all.

They should do something like this :
- 1 char : 25€
- 2 chars : 25€ + 20€ = 45€
- 3 or more chars : 25€ + 20€ + 15€ = 60€

I'm convinced a lot of people who don't transfer now because they have lots of alts, would be more inclined to do so with a pricing like this, resulting in higher net profits total. I certainly would.

[Hovsa]

Definitely not.

Yes Blizzard is being greedy, but if they know anything it is good business, and they obviously can get away with being a bit greedy here and there.

If you played any Blizzard games prior to WoW. Hell, even if you played vanilla-WoW you should know Blizzard used to be all about making great games. All these paid services and the paid pet/mounts began when Blizzard & Activision merged.

Mind you, it's not Activision calling the shots as many would have you believe. Blizzard certainly would love for you to blame Activision, because it puts them in a better light. But the truth is that Activision can only advise, and ever since, Mike Morhaime has had his mind a little bit too much on making the most money instead of making the best games...

[Deleted]

This kind of thread again?....
Blizzard has the prices so high, cause they dont want to see people jump from server to server....

They could put a cooldown on transfers, like one every 3 months.

[loki504]

If you played any Blizzard games prior to WoW. Hell, even if you played vanilla-WoW you should know Blizzard used to be all about making great games. All these paid services and the paid pet/mounts began when Blizzard & Activision merged.

Mind you, it's not Activision calling the shots as many would have you believe. Blizzard certainly would love for you to blame Activision, because it puts them in a better light. But the truth is that Activision can only advise, and ever since, Mike Morhaime has had his mind a little bit too much on making the most money instead of making the best games...

its not when they begin the merg with activision. it happens when every company started to ask extra payments for there services. there tons of pay per view stuff on tv compair to a few years ago. blaming one company for a change while other platforms change to is just stupid.

[leelad]

The prices they charge are way too high for what's going on behind the scenes. Fully automated with intervention only happening if something goes wrong (never heard of that happening).

Do I blame them? Not at all. People are willing to pay those prices. Why change it.

I'd like to see transfers to quieter servers offered at a discount though, since free x-fers are not done as often these days.

[Deleted]

As someone sitting on a low pop server I definately feel like they are being greedy as the prices per character are too high.

If I want to pay for a server transfer I think I should be entitled to select multiple characters in the same move, or even shift everything.

When you have multiple level 90 chars that are used for professions moving one char is not really as viable these days.

[Arbs]

We have had server transfers sine Classic/TBC and now people are complaining about them ?

[Deleted]

Why did you let the poll be closed after less then a day OP?

That said, yes. The game industry has advanced, plus, asking for same fee per character when you're on a dead server or have 10 characters and want to move all is greedy tactic.

[Blackmist]

Let me answer your question with a question. Are people prepared to pay them?

Yes: Good business.
No, and they're leaving WoW: Bad business.

For the most part, it's a Yes. It's greedy, but business by it's definition is greedy. It's purpose is to make bucket loads of money. If they give something away, it's only because their number crunchers sat down and worked out that it generated (on average) more revenue in repeat business than the give-away cost them.

[Deleted]

Yes, Blizzard is being greedy
No, blizzard is justified in doing so

Yes, Blizzard is being greedy and blizzard is justified in doing so...

That's my answer.

These big corporations who only can exist in a open market economy and democracy do everythng they can do get a monopoly so tha they can maximum their profits. Just like Microsoft have done.

In the end, Blizzards owner don't care about the customers or have any honor or pride in what they do. It's all number.

So YES Blizzard are greedy and YES they are justified to do so.


Personally I hate Blizzard but Love World of Warcraft. In America greed is something positive. They love greedy rich assholes in that country. They rather lower the taxes for the rich than to give healthcare to the poor and say stuff like "we can't help everyone" while they drive their huge gas-guzzling SUV's and complain how expensive the gas is that they wages wars and ruin the enviroment to get...


But hey, it's the world we live in. You can chose to pay and play, or not play. Simple as that in the end.

[Deleted]

Having only used server transfer twice, and both in the last month (For different toons though, to get them in 1 place) I don't think Blizzard are "milking" it.

It's not needed, if you want to play elsewhere you could just reroll. But the service is there if you want it. And if you want it, you pay for it. it's not hard really

[nnelson54]

Oh look, another Blizzard flame baiting thread by Aurust, who admittedly doesn't even play WoW. How new and exciting.

[Kralljin]

This fee should prevent people from hopping from server to server, when ninja looting was an issue many people would have ninja looted, transfered to a different server and so forth.

With a rather high price Blizzard prevents this.

Altough they should give a discount if you are transferring multiple chars, like "transfer 2 characters, the 3rd is for free", it's simply laughable that people have to pay the same price as they paid for the game itself to transfer 4-5 characters.

[Sackman]

I think they should keep the price. People are willing to pay it so, it would be bad business to stop. Now if they were to offer blizzard points to people that have kept subs for x amount, that would be cool

Best idea ever. I don't even play WoW but in all my time playing (6 years) never heard of a better idea. Played for long enough - be rewarded with being able to get reduced price or free character transfers and race/faction changes.