Is milking money from server transfers bad business by blizzard?

[Aurust]

Blizzard charges ridiculous fees for server transfers.

Players face a huge price if they have to transfer their main and alts if their server is dead for example, horrible population imbalance etc.

Question is....especially that games like GW2 have free server transfers..... is the fact that blizzard still charges money for this just a greedy tactic on their part to suck every last bit of money they can before WOW dies?

I vote yes because other games have free transfers making blizzard look greedy. Discuss.

[bledgor]

Apples and oranges...

Blizzard has end game PvE, why should I ever play GW 2, they are greedy, expect me to only want PvP content at max level.

See my point?

[Greevir]

I voted no. As long as people pay for the service, it's an excellent business move by Blizzard.

[Coil]

there is nothing stopping you from just making a toon on that server, so i wouldn't call it milking.

and as far as i know, GW2 server transfers wont be free forever.

[juzalol]

Well it's a Blizzard game where Blizzard holds the monopoly status. It's a service with
high demand. High demand + monopoly status = High prices.

It's basically good business. Taking as much money for as low costs as possible.

[Nekrosislol]

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

[08nolanni]

So if a Server population has imbalance issues you would make it worst by leaving (Assuming you're on the lower ratio side) ?

Also, The cost is their to act a deterrent.

Remember on Gw2 when that guy server hopped like 40 times in 1 week to farm a rare mineral ? People would do they same,

Transfer to low server: Farm -> Transfer to Large Pop for larger AH and Raids etc etc.

Even if you limit it to a weekly or monthly thing, people will still do the above practice.

[Aurust]

I voted no. As long as people pay for the service, it's an excellent business move by Blizzard.

Yes, an excellent business move...... but is it a moral one?

Seems more like an evil corporation thing to me.

[inboundpaper]

Free server transfers really messed up WvWvW in GW2 last time I played. If you really want a server transfer, you can find a way to pay for it.

[Rodeanen]

Nah. Its a deterrent. They don't want people to change servers. But if you really want to, you can pay for the privilege. Fine by me.

[Spl4sh3r]

The only reason GW2 has free transfers is because their Guesting feature hasn't been fully developed yet, so they are using free transfer as a means to have players be able to play with everyone. Once the guesting feature is enable there is no need for free transfers since you can play with your friends anyway. Guesting would work like transfers but won't effect WvW at all. At that point server transfers will costs gems to transfer and depending on destination realm the price vary, higher population servers costs more.

[Amsden]

You could always level a new toon. Some MMOs don't even have server xfers.

[Illiterate]

It's greed. They could limit it in other way like only allowing a transfer every few months or something. Same with faction, race, name, appearance, etc changes.

[MoanaLisa]

No. Server transfers are entirely voluntary. You can reroll if you don't want to pay the freight.

[Feral Camel]

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.

[Asphyxiate9]

It gates people from mass transferring to particular servers, if it was free everyone would be moving around like wild fire.

[Alixie]

So if a Server population has imbalance issues you would make it worst by leaving (Assuming you're on the lower ratio side) ?

Also, The cost is their to act a deterrent.

Remember on Gw2 when that guy server hopped like 40 times in 1 week to farm a rare mineral ? People would do they same,

Transfer to low server: Farm -> Transfer to Large Pop for larger AH and Raids etc etc.

Even if you limit it to a weekly or monthly thing, people will still do the above practice.

Rift offers free transfers with a once a week limit. I havnt heard of anyone abusing it to farm drops or anything. Im sure a few people would abuse transfers if they were limitless and often as you want. Free transfers are still a good thing. Letting people migrate and fill out other servers while closing down low pop ones for instance. Blizz charges way too much for transfers and cosmetic things, but they know plenty of people will gladly pay, so it will stay at a high price. Speaking of cosmetic changes, Rift also only charges in game gold for character alterations, the whole shabang minus sex/race.

---------- Post added 2012-11-11 at 09:29 PM ----------

It gates people from mass transferring to particular servers, if it was free everyone would be moving around like wild fire.

I dont get why people think a huge shitstorm will happen if Blizz offered free transfers, or horde/alliance being able to talk to each other. Other games offer these perks and there's no mass chaos there.

[Hunterpower]

I always see this poster hating on wow and praising other mmos.... but whatever..
it's a detterence so people dont buy stuff off a high pop server, take it to a low pop server and make butt loads of cash, ruin that servers economy, then go back to their own server (also, hence the 50k gold limit)

[Mongoose19]

I voted no. As long as people pay for the service, it's an excellent business move by Blizzard.

People would pay for air if the almighty wanted it.

[Gandrake]

Yes, the prices are ridiculous.

I wish that they would do something about it the way GW2 did, it's one of the only amazing features that the game has.