Blizzard cash shop suggestion: mmo marketing revolution

[Deleted]

Hello inhabitants of Azeroth!

I have had a strange idea that might work, so any review is well appreciated!

You know that Blizzard has recently added an in-game shop, from which you can easily purchase awesome mounts.
As a fan of World of Warcraft, I also love Blizzard and liked the idea that they added an harmless shop selling cosmetic things.

My idea is based on a permanent contest where Blizzard allows artists from all over the world to design mounts, pets, vanity items and other possible "unlimited" things that, if accepted by a rigid judgement will be stored into the shop. So an approval staff it is obviously required to examine external models sent to Blizzard and should logically be part of the art team. Please don't comment now and discover how this will work and will take benefits for the game.

Why should a modeler spend his time to make a model for Blizzard?
Models into the cash shop have a price, usually around € 10 - 20. The modeler would (for example) earn 10% of the price of his work, so basically 2€ for every purchase. Imagine his mount, that have been approved and put on the store is bought for € 20 and after a year has 1k purchases from all over the WoW servers. He would have earned 2.000 gold, errr... euros, in a year.

How will an artist send a model to Blizzard?
Having a great accessibility for it is important, but to prevent trash spam sent I think that the system should be part of the WoW website, like a page where you can upload the model and send it to Blizzy. Here an example about a mount going to be uploaded:

Select the kind of model you want to upload: Mount [X] | Vanity Gear [ ]| Pet [ ]
Mount type: Ground [X] | Flying [ ] | Acquatic [ ]
Mount seats: 1 [X] | 2 [ ] | specify [ ]

Mount name	Frostfire Wolf
Model file:	Frostfire_Wolf.mdx
Potrait file:	Frostfire_Wolf_Potrait.mdx
Icon file:	Frostfire_Wolf.blp
Lore reasons:	I have been inspired by the map of Frostfire Ridge
Screenshot:	Your imagination
Texture resolution:	512x512
Polygons:	5678

Captcha code: G2GDINNER
Upload model!: [Confirm] [Cancel]

Which benefits can this "contest" bring to the game?
I'll make a list:
1) lot of new models at null cost for Blizzard in terms of money and time.
2) game promoted into academies, universities and schools as this is a mainly a great opportunity for students.
3) A lot more into the cash shop, it offers a lot of cosmetic stuff with news frequently.
4) This project might grant lot of visibility for Blizzard, good reviews and interest from people all over the world.
5) More purchases and the variety allows players to love the idea of being unique/rare on their servers.
6) Unique project: it will attract eyes in the mmo market.

Risks about this project?
If in bad hands, there will be added senseless models that may ruin the lore/ambient. World of Warcraft is a delicate game, that's why I would like this project, but refereed by a very severe jury-team.

I'm now curious for your feelings about this idea
Thanks for having read till here! Have a nice day

[HeedmySpeed]

the cash shop should have never existed.

[Deleted]

6) Unique project: it will attract eyes in the mmo market.

Steam Workshop says hello.

But yeah, it's a great model, you can already see it on Steam. Doing lots of profit with a minimum of work. But the nice fact is that the producer of those items gets a nice income if the community likes it. So it's pretty much equal.

[Viradiance]

the cash shop should have never existed.

I don't wanna say 'this', but 'this'.

[Deleted]

The modeler only gets 10%? Really ?

the cash shop should have never existed.

Agreed.

[Deleted]

All other issues aside, there is just no way that Blizzard would ever even consider sharing profits with common rabble.

[Pebrocks The Warlock]

the cash shop should have never existed.

This. Don't give Blizzard more ideas of expanding the cash shop.

[Deleted]

I don't understand what's wrong with the cash shop lol... are those mounts so op?

[Hipnos14]

First of all...yeah, I know...this:

the cash shop should have never existed.

Then...10% for the artist? are you kidding me?

[Deleted]

I don't understand what's wrong with the cash shop lol...

The cash shop is bad and you should feel bad.

[ReleaseDay]

the cash shop should have never existed.

This and /thread.

[Deleted]

with only a 10% cut people are better off doing stuff on Steam Workshop now aren't they.

[Boogums]

Yea, the OP said 10% as an example, because he probably doesn't know what the standard is. Let's not hyperfocus on that point to try and derail the thread.

[Shurkuris]

This has already been doing this, Blizzard will do this once everyone else becomes successful so to "keep up with the times" so to speak, but they are just so damn slow as always.

Most likely in the Dev heads, if for any reason it doesn't work. They can quietly get rid of it and throw their hands up in the air and say "We tried it and it didn't work."




The split rate should be 70/30, biggest to the original creator. (App Store is 70/30)

It costs in the long run a nickel&dime to run a virtual store. Their is no physical copy that they have to worry about. Everything is virtual and a single item can be sold for the next 10 years without losing it's value.
So practically a single item made by a person who puts it on the Blizzard store can easily get revenue for a long time, and how much work did Blizzard do? Practically nothing.

[Trassk]

We live in a time of recession and some people finding it harder to pay bills and buy food in this current generation.

And yet blizzard, who are only making the cash shop to bleed money from the remaining subs to make up for the loss of half its playbase since wrath, thinks people can magically make money appear.

If it was like that, maybe blizzard would wish on there magic fairy circle and make money appear too.

[Snaser]

We live in a time of recession and some people finding it harder to pay bills and buy food in this current generation.

And yet blizzard, who are only making the cash shop to bleed money from the remaining subs to make up for the loss of half its playbase since wrath, thinks people can magically make money appear.

If it was like that, maybe blizzard would wish on there magic fairy circle and make money appear too.

I'm guessing Blizzard actually expect people to prioritize food and bills over vanity items in a game, and if people can't handle their money then they should get someone to do it for them.

As for the cash shop existing, I agree that it's shameful. It's not cool that they are double-dipping with a sucscription cost and then additional exclusive content in the shop, they could at least make shop-items obtainable in-game in some way, but then there would be people going mental over the fact that someone can buy an item instead of earing it, hence making them feel less like a special snowflake.

Personally I don't really care, I have never bought anything in the shop and don't really care that there is content there that I can't get in-game, but that doesn't mean that I don't understand that a lot of people do care.

[Giscoicus]

I prefer this over the current set up. Moving resources away from other content to store items is aggrevating. Timeless isle didnt have 1 new model and none of the mounts from Siege were unique, but they managed to get out the bloodwing and rainbowdrake. Aside from my current gripe with the fact that in a P2P game there is anything to buy, at least this way they dont move resources away from the game we all pay for.

My issues are, and I only skimmed the OP because it was hard to read when I'm this tired, how do we select what gets put in the store. I really dont want to see Tyrael or Illidan wings added, Mutalisk mounts, or superarmoredinfiniteprotodrake flying around. There are certain things that dont belong in the game period, and it would be inefficient to have mods constantly removing the giant flying penises that would be added. I would like to see a voting system, not just up but also down, and those reaching a certain threshold would be checked by a mod to make sure it isnt something lore breaking or just out of place.

Second, I personally dont think that the mounts should count towards the collecting achivements. This would open up an opportunity for many great mounts to be added. However, with reaching 200 mounts being a hefty challenge right now, and maybe 250 next expansion, it should not be made significantly easier by purchasing these mounts.

Same goes for pets, and the creator also should have 0 choice for what their abilities are. Personally I would prefer them to just not be usable in battles since it would require extra work on Blizzards part.

I think that a designer should get a free 4-6 months of WoW if their thing is chosen, and more time if they sell a certain number. Designers should also receive a free copy of their item.

[melzas]

Any idea of expanding blizzards vanity items shop is a bad one.

[ComputerNerd]

The shop has existed since the first pet or mount was for sale during WotLK.
Anyone getting upset about it only now is a hypocrite.
People are making fuss about the "in-game store" when it was always that, only now having an in-game interface.
An in-game interface does not make the store something it was not before.
It was always selling in-game cosmetics for real money.

RaF, and SoR have been around for a long time, offering better rewards than the Elixir, which is not even aimed at our market.
So again, hypocrites if people are only getting upset about that now.

And if those people doing the whining were so upset about it previously, they should have left the game long ago.

[ReleaseDay]

[QUOTE=Snaser;24676947]I'm guessing Blizzard actually expect people to prioritize food and bills over vanity items in a game, and if people can't handle their money then they should get someone to do it for them./QUOTE]

Sure, why don't they just hire someone *facepalm*