Blizzard Entertainment establishes "Microtransaction Strategy"

[Peso]

It's fucked up when the only new content the game will get for a year is a mount you have to pay for, yet they still charge you $15 per month.

Straight up disgusting, no wonder subs are collapsing.

Also the 'inflation' excuse is bullshit because server costs have gone down tremendously over the years, and even blizz said they make more per sub than ever.

It all started with those pets in Wrath, mounts, cosmetic gear, then potions (which affects game-play to some degree), all under a subscription, wonder what's next.

Now the store is integrated into the game like a F2P game.

[Mormolyce]

It all started with those pets in Wrath, mounts, cosmetic gear, then potions (which affects game-play to some degree), all under a subscription, wonder what's next.

Now the store is integrated into the game like a F2P game.

Yeah, having to log into the BNet website and buy a pet then log back into the game to use it rather than just buying it ingame is some massive watershed. Oes noes whatever next? Blizzard will come to my house and sell my children into slavery, all because of the pet store!

[Thelxi]

You do know that such a job would in fact benefit us customers more? You want competent people to be able to put a price on Blizzard's products so that people become more willing to pay for it. It's a win-win if you ask me.

That actually made me chuckle.

[Sweetimpact]

"Do you want to help Blizzard Entertainment design monetization models that actually enhance the gameplay experience?" LOL

[Giscoicus]

Yeah, having to log into the BNet website and buy a pet then log back into the game to use it rather than just buying it ingame is some massive watershed. Oes noes whatever next? Blizzard will come to my house and sell my children into slavery, all because of the pet store!

The UI team could be working on a transmog UI so we dont need to keep our crap around rather than making a new ingame UI.

[turboether]

That actually made me chuckle.

Worked for Valve.

[Seezer]

Then don't you dare complain when every heroic dungeon achievement / raid achievement mount is a reskinned protodrake or reskinned regular drake, and all the new models are blizz store exclusives. (See: right now)

Don't complain when they continue to sell transmog gear in the blizz store and the art for tier and armor sets goes right down the tubes because, just like the mounts, if they're nice looking and popular they may detract from microtransacts.

Don't throw a fit when you spend 3 days on leveling a new alt to 90 and then a 14 year old uses his mom's credit card to poof to the same level in 30 times the gear of your alt. Instantly.

Don't complain when the %exp potion comes back to the blizz store and so-and-so on your server gets server first lvl 100 x class / y race cause he spent extra money to level faster than you.

And reaaaaally don't get upset when more potions enter the blizz store, such ones as gold % drop increases, reroll charms, and as they tried to do in cataclysm, crossrealm grouping features (in case you forgot, grouping with people crossrealm was going to be a paid service).

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Not to mention their unstable servers are a decade old. :'D

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Servers don't use that much electricity. Not sure why the $ninety six million dollars they make per-month from subs alone can't cover ancient server electricity costs.

They use a shit ton of electricity. And they also have to keep the place pretty cold. That's expensive expecially in hotter parts of the country. Im not saying they can't cover it. The person I quoted talked about computing power being cheaper. I just said that electricity does not. It keeps going up.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Not to mention their unstable servers are a decade old. :'D

I am pretty sure that they have done several updates to their servers since 2004. I recall back in 2008 when "no additional instances can be launched" was running rampant during WotLK that they fixed the issue by updating the servers. Don't think it's the first or the last time they made changes to their servers.

[runedhill]

Welcome to 10 months ago when they announced it OP.

[Deleted]

I just find it horrible that the pets and mounts in the store costs more than the box cost and subscription fee does together.

[Volage]

EXACTLY THIS! Blizzard knows they have a huge herd of sheep who'll buy anything AND defend their product against criticism for them! "HURR DURR DONT LIKE DONT BUY"...We criticize because we LIKE the game and want to continue paying blizzard for their service. But instead they're arrogant enough to continue milking their cow which forces us to unsubscribe. Once again, I WANT to play the game but can't because of these blatant cash grabs.

So you are against the free market?

[BenBos]

Heroes of the Storm will most likely utilize micro transactions. Same with hearthstone. What's the big deal?

No big deal.

Despite it has a boring game play, Hearthstone is set to bring in more money than WOW in 2014.

With all these smart phones and iPads/tablets it will be played massively.

Imagine a 1.1 billion installed hardware market. A market penetration of 5 % would mean 50 million dudes paying for card packs...

Card packs will be sold massively on every Android/iPhone and downloadable for "free".

A pity it doesn't have a lasting game play for me.

But those are microtransactions outside of WOW and of course card packs will be MUCH more sold than the latest Dragon mount in WOW.


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So this has very little to do with WOW and has everything to do with their new to launch Free to Play games. These gamettes NEED microtransactions as they are free to download and play as such.

[crakerjack]

Why does the WoW community use pay to win? There's nothing you can buy in PvP w/ real money that would give you a boost over others... If there was something like that for PvE, why would you complain? 99% of you guys don't even raid hardcore, so any advantage you guys can get should be something to celebrate about. Now I could understand if you were doing heroic and wanted it to be legit, but if someone was doing insane dps because they bought some item, would you really complain that they helped you kill the boss quickly allowing you to get loot quicker?

P2W only applies in PvP situations... since there will never be something you can buy w/ real currency that will give you an edge over other players, there's no reason to worry. Microtransactions will only be available through the in game store and that's only for stupid pets/cosmetics.

[Gheld]

So you are against the free market?

Did you ju...

No...

Nobody would be crazy enough to try and imply that being an unhappy or concerned customer makes somebody a communist.

[McNeil]

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/wor.../1100-6417150/

All those responses...... kinda shows what people think of WoW outside this fanforum