Blizzard Employ "Forced Scarcity/Temp Availability" Tactics on Digital Goods Now...

[MoanaLisa]

It's faux outrage over stuff that is old and not likely selling well. Those expressing the most outrage were never going to buy in any case thus the 'faux'.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Scarcity based marketing models are created to instill urgency in your customers in order to make them act now - by not letting them make their own decisions.
It's a valid (and often used) marketing tactic, but it also has the drawback that it has the potential to alienate your most loyal customers. It's especially silly with digital shop products that don't really suffer from scarcity in the way physical products do.

I'm no whining nor am I outraged by it. Blizzard has been very conservative with the shop and pushing the products, they tend to do their yearly charity drive and xmas sale, but they've certainly have every right to try to boos their sales. And I don't blame people for buying them - it's "working as intended" - the marketing method works.

This is new tactic and it'll be interesting to see if there will be more frequent and aggressive campaigns coming up in the future.

Ehhhh I could see the notion that this is an attempt to boost their returns if they were doing this on newer items, or items that weren't just fairly lazy reskins.

This feels like Blizz was watching sales on these items drop ever closer to 0 and decided better to just take them off the shop, maybe get a few more sales than they would have just leaving it up, and if fans riot later on they have an out in the press release to add them back to the shop.

[Deleted]

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOY that's a logic jump at the end there.


As for GSL, would not surprise me that much honestly. SC2 kinda wrapped on production a few years back now. I get it's huge in Korea but IDK if it's been pulling Overwatch League numbers, which is apparently now the standard for if something is esports or not.

I know its a JUMP but ,m honestly ? Its just teh start, look other company's, and in what shit show they are. And "Blizzard" is just beginning, 2018 beginning of the end

[Sorshen]

Vote these scummy tactics with your wallet.

[Bigbazz]

They are trying to deceive people, they are positioning this mount deal as if the mounts are being removed from the store (buy while stocks last!!!!) but they are being vague about the fact that they are actually intending to re-introduce them again later.



Blizzard are just being greedy and this is a shady cash grab attempt, it hurts their reputation with gamers further but I guess the bottom line at the end of Q4 is more important than public opinion.

[Dhrizzle]

Because it's incredibly important.

If you buy these things you encourage the business to continue its practices. It affects ALL OF US. You don't get to just simplify this as if you're in a bubble. Purchasing power generates ripples, and businesses guide themselves with statistics, if one of these cash grabs is successful, more will follow.

So if people want to buy these items at a reduced price Blizz might reduce the price on others? That's a bad thing how?

[Doctor Funkenstein]

What's the problem? Don't want to buy it -50% off - then don't.
It's surely a scumbag move to give people 50% discount right? Especially when it's almost certain scarced items will return in few months.

Eat your discount, hypocritical fucks. That's exactly what you are.

It's people like you that are making the world worse and worse every day. Congratulations.

"Derp, they're actually doing you a FAVOR by using psychology to try and trigger you into buying something you wouldn't normally buy! You should be down on your knees sucking their proverbial cock for being so nice to you! It's not a sleazy fucking move at all! No sir! How dare you besmirch their good name?!"

Disgusting.

[Unholyground]

This is what a free to play game does.

Ya, it will be free to play by the end of next year unless you want to access all versions of the game.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

They are trying to deceive people, they are positioning this mount deal as if the mounts are being removed from the store (buy while stocks last!!!!) but they are being vague about the fact that they are actually intending to re-introduce them again later.

https://i.gyazo.com/8bc667ae987217746366c19739b545ac.png[/IMG]

Blizzard are just being greedy and this is a shady cash grab attempt, it hurts their reputation with gamers further but I guess the bottom line at the end of Q4 is more important than public opinion.

They're covering their ass in case the community throws a hissy fit over them taking the mounts away.

*looks at this thread*

Which they are.

This way Blizz can cave to fan pressure to bring them back without having the people who bought the bundle claiming they deserve refunds since the items came back.

[Iskariott]

costs 560k gold to get it. start farming

costs more than double in EU.

besides that i expected a discount on the shop of 50%. so just what happened and was going to gold buy those things anyway.

[Zandalariprelate]

The empire strikes back again

[RundinO]

If anyone buys this, it puts them on an even lower plane of existence compared to ActiBlizz. It's one thing to be an evil corporate entity born out of pure greed, and another to be so utterly dumb to let the evil mass of greed take advantage of you.

What about those that wanted the items beforehand and now see a big discount worth taking advantage of?

[Dhrizzle]

Despite the mis-representations of uses like Eleccybubb, it's just another example of the game's slow descent towards milking money from the users instead of providing a quality product, as much as their defenders would like to think otherwise.

Ever since they put in a monthly sub, gear check bosses, RNG loot and raid lockouts WoW has been all about milking players for cash, amirite?

[tankbug]

Who cares? You can only get them by paying for them, so if you want to spend that money for them, just do it today? If not, then forget about them.

[xuros]

Because it's incredibly important.

No. Not even a tiny bit.

[Galathir]

Blizzard adds a new mount to the shop, people rage. Blizzard removes some old items from the shop while giving a 50% discount to everything, people rage.
They can't really do anything without people complaining, can they?

I'm really not a white knight and quite unsatisfied with the current game but this is ridiculous.

[Araxie]

Just don't buy it then lmao

What's the big deal?

Haha, this. So much this.

It seems like a lot of people are taking personal offense to this for some ungodly reason. It's a sale. Want the items at a discount? Great, buy them while they're cheap. Don't want to? Don't buy them and move on with your life. Don't have the money right now? Cool, wait for them to come back and maybe you'll have the money then.

[SirKickBan]

Because it's incredibly important.

If you buy these things you encourage the business to continue its practices. It affects ALL OF US. You don't get to just simplify this as if you're in a bubble. Purchasing power generates ripples, and businesses guide themselves with statistics, if one of these cash grabs is successful, more will follow.



And yet people in this topic INSISTING on being pillaged and staying in the dark, despite all this.

(After quoting the above)

And in what universe are any of these mounts/pets "power"?

Purchasing power

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchasing_power

It might help if you understood what you're talking about, before you get involved. (Eleccybubb)

[RundinO]

Who cares? You can only get them by paying for them, so if you want to spend that money for them, just do it today? If not, then forget about them.

You don't need to spend any real money (other than time itself) to get these. I'm still dumbfounded on how people still see cash as the only way to get things from the store.

...just in case you don't know: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rysSSV_bxCU

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I'd guess the pets are actually selling quite decently.

Lifetime sure. But I'd imagine as the playerbase shrinks the number of people who want to buy the Moonkin Hatchling but haven't is approaching 0.