How will net-neutrality affect WoW and subscription fees?

[De Lupe]

Just don't have a shitter of an ISP that wanted net neutrality repealed :P ours has always supported it.

You say that like it's a choice. 70% of the country only has access to one ISP in their area. If they want Internet, they have to go with that company.

[Cracked]

Let's be honest here, net neutrality is a devil on the wall, good scarecrow, but it's unlikely that any company will ultimately choose to act upon it seriously, mainly because for majority of services (anything but playing latency-sensitive games really), any bandwidth limiting can be bypassed by a plethora of solutions, tor, jumping vpns, etc and competetivness, though I do realize that in many parts of the US, there is only 1 internet provider.

It would be a battle that service providers simply cannot win due to technology, and the cashgrab would really not be worth the problems and customer dissatisfaction.

[ls-]

Given how twc spectrum used to throttle LoL traffic, I can see ISPs doing the same shit again, but on a broader scale.

They'll either make Blizz pay to remove throttling, or they'll make users pay for packages, or both

[Azerate]

WoW is big, but it's nowhere near as big as stuff like Facebook, YouTube, Netflix, etc. there will most probably not be any effect on WoW unless things really go too far. Btw, I am definitely in favor of net neutrality, but I'm also living a country without any kind of net neutrality bill and I have to admit that there are no cases of providers charging more for transfer used on specific sites / services.

[ls-]

Let's be honest here, net neutrality is a devil on the wall, good scarecrow, but it's unlikely that any company will ultimately choose to act upon it seriously, mainly because for majority of services (anything but playing latency-sensitive games really), any bandwidth limiting can be bypassed by a plethora of solutions, tor, jumping vpns, etc and competetivness, though I do realize that in many parts of the US, there is only 1 internet provider.

It would be a battle that service providers simply cannot win due to technology, and the cashgrab would really not be worth the problems and customer dissatisfaction.

But ISPs used to do it, that's the reason why you got NN in USA.

[Softbottom]

I'm always happy that I don't live in the states

me too lol.

[Zelion]

Certainly won't decrease... Cost will increase one way or another over the years if this stays. Be vigilant to read the fine-print before being tempted by future ads from ISP's.

ya just like your cell phone service has increased.

Net neutrality is not good for competition. Have you seen more ISPs pop up since 2015 or mergers?

I guess a lot of people just want government controlling everything in their life?

[artemishunter1]

ya just like your cell phone service has increased.

Net neutrality is not good for competition. Have you seen more ISPs pop up since 2015 or mergers?

I guess a lot of people just want government controlling everything in their life?

how does net neutrality prevents competition? Go into specific detail

[Lucetia]

Prior to Obama passing Net Neutrality, were your ISP's charging you for an 'Entertainment/Gamer' package, to be able to play online games?

Just because they weren't before doesn't mean they won't now. One of many reasons it came about was so they couldn't throttle things like Netflix and stuff. If ISP's find out they can throttle whatever they want and charge what they want you better believe they'll be doing it.

[Cracked]

But ISPs used to do it, that's the reason why you got NN in USA.

I'm aware, and they got relatively ugly customer lashback because of it if I remember correctly. Imo shit like that is stuff that sound so good on paper to the executives, because they can milk a company in order to provider customers the ability to use the service, but in reality it's a surefire way to lose the market. Again, this is harder to apply into areas where you have no choice of ISP, but that's a problem on it's own, the ISPs are free to do whatever they like anyway.

[iamthedevil]

They'll charge Blizzard more, then they'll charge us more, then Blizzard will change us more because they charged blizzard more.

Could you imagine small time mmo-s or ones already struggling? This will kill them.

[Steelcryo]

how does net neutrality prevents competition? Go into specific detail

I'll be shocked if you get an answer to this at all. Although I imagine if you do it'll be parroted nonsense like all the rest.

I don't get how people say net neutrality kills innovation. Surely forcing ISP's to create the best infrastructure and offer the lowest prices is the best way to get them to one up each other to benefit the consumer which is how it should be. Removing it just gives them free reign to hold things hostage and actually work together to increase their profits.

I honestly don't understand how people who support repealing Net Neutrality think businesses work. Do they really think they put consumers ahead of their own profits? God no. Sure some might lose customers but if you can make 4 times the profit with only half as many customers, as a business owner are you going to care?

[Sosuke Aizen]

You say that like it's a choice. 70% of the country only has access to one ISP in their area. If they want Internet, they have to go with that company.

Thankfully I am in a part of the country that has at least 4 well known providers and a bunch of smaller ones (:P). Seriously though, I'm honestly not sure what to think - I'm surprised when some guildies talk about data caps on their monthly sub with their ISP. I thought they were kidding . Now those people will probably suffer in the long run when they have to choose subscriptions like that Portugal image posted a page or two ago.

[Airwaves]

My country has never had NN. But it doesn't effect me because they force competition. If anyone tried what OP said I would just go to another of the 40ish ISPs I can pick from.

[Flutterguy]

While I don't think it will have any affect on WoW, if you truly believe that the repeal of Net Neutrality won't negatively affect the consumer then you are a fool.

"The consumer" isn't a hive mind. I hardly stream at all so if that's what gets impacted, I don't really care.

[Pandragon]

With net neutrality repealed and it going to court and congress if it passes through them it will undoubtedly affect all forms of entertainment including WoW. Say the entertainment package is 14.99 a month. That's the same price of most subscriptions online specifically WoW. With peoples' bills going up there will be less subscriptions being paid, less money in Blizz's pocket and less money to build patches and expansions upon. This does not forebold well. I see subscriptions dropping to about 4.95 per 2weeks or 9.99 a month. You see it's not the price going down that you should be worried about it's the amount of people paying to play the game. Less money = less content = more of an unenjoyable experience [Most saw this in WoD just imagine it not being due to time constraints and working on #6 but due to significantly less people paying to play]. The only way I see this being fixed without harming the game severely is by adding a cosmetic cash shop and removing subscription fees entirely. Be honest if you're in the lower class you won't be paying more than 300 dollars a month to access everything that was free today. If you're in the middle class you may but there still may be complications and the higher classes have nothing to worry about.

What do you think?

This is the bright side out come. What will most likely happen is the ISPs will want to suck as much money as possible out of both sides. So we will have to pay to be able to connect to WoW/have a connection speed of less than 1000ms, but Blizzard will also have to pay them for their games to not be blocked. Then Blizzard will increase sub fees to make up for that.

[Lahis]

The Net Neutrality debate really isn't adjacent to WoW - unlike content providers like Netflix or Hulu, MMO's and other online games don't represent a competing product to the media companies who control bandwidth accessibility and usage. Outside of service rate-hikes and the like I doubt the price of a WoW subscription will be effected overmuch by the recent changes.

They could just throttle your pings to all hell unless you get the Premium Deluxe Gaming Package. Pings above 500 ms are pretty inconsenquential for web and streams, but will murder gaming.

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I'm aware, and they got relatively ugly customer lashback because of it if I remember correctly. Imo shit like that is stuff that sound so good on paper to the executives, because they can milk a company in order to provider customers the ability to use the service, but in reality it's a surefire way to lose the market. Again, this is harder to apply into areas where you have no choice of ISP, but that's a problem on it's own, the ISPs are free to do whatever they like anyway.

And why would they care about customer lashback? Most ISPs in USA operate on practical monopolies and once everyone's service is shit you have no better option.

[Soon-TM]

Let's be honest here, net neutrality is a devil on the wall, good scarecrow, but it's unlikely that any company will ultimately choose to act upon it seriously, mainly because for majority of services (anything but playing latency-sensitive games really), any bandwidth limiting can be bypassed by a plethora of solutions, tor, jumping vpns, etc and competetivness, though I do realize that in many parts of the US, there is only 1 internet provider.

It would be a battle that service providers simply cannot win due to technology, and the cashgrab would really not be worth the problems and customer dissatisfaction.

Comcast would like to have a word with you Anyway, I am glad to live away, far away from the States.

[Ihazpaws]

Free to play games = full off goldsellers, chinese farmers, hackers, annoying people who just want to troll and so on..
Go check pretty much any free to play game, almost in everyone of em the chat is unreadable because of goldsellers spamming. Now think about what happens when most played mmo goes free to play... We already have cheating problem in EU because of russians. If you are against russians in BG / RBG / Arena you most likely will be fighting against 1-4 autokickers. What would you lose when being banned after flying around in the sky 10000000% speed collecting every ore in split second and then selling em in AH. And there would be tons of multiboxers ruining the gameplay for others.

I like wow because its sub based game. It has bearable amount of fucktards and blizz does effective bandwaves once a while.

[deadman1]

So much to think about with this FCC. I am happy for once that I don't live in the states.

I'm always happy that I don't live in the states

Can we keep the casual nation bashing to a minimum?

But you two realize if it actually did fuck with the sub fees that would also affect you because Blizzard is an american company.

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Just don't have a shitter of an ISP that wanted net neutrality repealed :P ours has always supported it.

Yeah let me just switch, lets see what ISPs are in my area, okay I have comcast or ... comcast.