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

[Araxie]

Did you applaud when Apple put in the anti-suicide nets?

A sale =/= People attempting to commit suicide due to being over worked

Damn, this is getting out of hand. Might as well start comparing Blizzard to Hitler.

[Deleted]

How was this not obvious? Like virtually any game, Blizzard has investors to please or risk getting their development scaled down. It's not like the Devs are picking up an extra paycheck from this. It's in no way a pay to win item, so if people feel obligated to get them, that's totally on them and their virtual OCD. And for those people, this is a sweet deal.

Its taking advantage of
-kids
-people with a virtual OCD towards WoW
-Collector freaks and "Asmongolds"

Its really smart actually.

But...its so cheap. I dont get it.

#Not_My_Blizzard

[Mazinger-Z]

Nice cheap shot, sunshine.

Don't get butthurt, it's a quip.

[Arrashi]

Its really sad that their reaction to current state of game is going so hard on microtransactions.

[Deleted]

Cant wait for the HeelVSBabyface video on this.

I dont enjoy him as much today...but i would like to hear him out on this one

[Marrilaife]

You guys behave as if this wasn't a standard practice in marketing...

In GW2 there are constant seasonal promotions, items that come in and out of the shop as "temporarily returning" and it's not even very consistent, sometimes item may be there, sometimes not there, sometimes it's 50% off sometimes only 20% off, you never know.

In League of Legends there are constantly putting skins on and off sale, then they have seasonal sales, and then they also retire regularly older skins for champions that have "too many skins already". Instead of making old skins cheaper, they just retire them and then resell for original price even though most of them are no longer worth the price because they're cheap recolours, while new skins have special spell effects, new voice overs and whatnot.

In SWTOR, when I played it, and they started will all the lootcrate madness, they would also not have all the lootcrates from all the series up at the same time, which made hunting for specific items extremely convoluted and rng. I never liked their system due to rng lootcrate idea which I hate, but just posting it for reference.

Path of Exile afaik also has specific packs you can buy in the shop during specific season and then removes them after.

That's just from a handful of games I experienced, but it seems to be a common practice nowadays, especially with old, not very well selling items.

Tbh if you haven't had a reason to buy any of these for 5+ years they were in, then probably you shouldn't buy them now either. Some of these pets are recolours / copies of existing pets anyway. Same with the bat mount, I think there's a new warfront mount with the same model.

The only interesting part of the sale is that Captain Crackers parrot is already 50% off despite being 3 months old. That I didn't expect.

[Mazinger-Z]

A sale =/= People attempting to commit suicide due to being over worked

Damn, this is getting out of hand. Might as well start comparing Blizzard to Hitler.

And just like that, Godwin'd. lol

And I hear Apple doesn't run on wish and dreams.

That's fine, don't support it if you don't want. No one is forcing you to buy these products.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

A sale =/= People attempting to commit suicide due to being over worked

Damn, this is getting out of hand. Might as well start comparing Blizzard to Hitler.

Isn't EA basically the Gaming equivalent of Godwin's Law? And we passed that in one of today's "Blizzard is dead" threads already.

[SupBrah]

I honestly thought there was no way even the biggest of Activision-Blizzard bootlickers could try and justify this ridiculous cashgrab...

... And then I checked out MMO-Champ and my mind was blown.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

I honestly thought there was no way even the biggest of Activision-Blizzard bootlickers could try and justify this ridiculous cashgrab...

... And then I checked out MMO-Champ and my mind was blown.

Yeah it's weird huh.

Now if you'll excuse me I should go browse the Steam Sale for those sweet sweet 66% off cash grabs.

[Darklurker]

So items arbitrarily made available only through the store are arbitrarily being retired for an arbitrary period of time. In the meanwhile, their arbitrary prices have been set to a lower, arbitrary value.

[Mazinger-Z]

Yeah it's weird huh.

Now if you'll excuse me I should go browse the Steam Sale for those sweet sweet 66% off cash grabs.

lol, a sale isn't "forced scarcity/temporary availability" but good job muddying the issue.

[towelliee]

ORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

ITS A HOLIDAY SALE LIKE THEY DO EVERY YEAR?

JFC people

[Kyphael]

So items arbitrarily made available only through the store are arbitrarily being retired for an arbitrary period of time. In the meanwhile, their arbitrary prices have been set to a lower, arbitrary value.

Well yeah... when you put it like that, it makes it seem REALLY dumb... BUT, calling something stupid nowadays means you have anger issues.

[bloodwulf]

This is just Blizzard saying:
-You dont buy this shit? Let me tell you how its done BOYS! BOOM removed from the shop if you dont buy them,

done

If you don't buy the item, it does not affect you. By your logic they are removing the item because it was not selling...so how does it affect you. If you were going to buy it you would of bought it 8 years ago, if you were not going to buy it yesterday, you have no reason to be upset its being removed. They are removing it from the shop because it likely has reached its maximum saturation, and they were not expecting any more significant sales. They could of just removed it and said nothing about it, other games do that. Instead they are like, lets retire a nonselling product, and on the off chance someone might be interested, we give them a quick flash sale.

Basically....this hurts no one, and no one should be outraged, except the people who are outraged over everything. Which now i realize i am talking to shadowpunkz and realize nothing i said will change the outrage he feels....

[Araxie]

You guys behave as if this wasn't a standard practice in marketing...

In GW2 there are constant seasonal promotions, items that come in and out of the shop as "temporarily returning" and it's not even very consistent, sometimes item may be there, sometimes not there, sometimes it's 50% off sometimes only 20% off, you never know.

In League of Legends there are constantly putting skins on and off sale, then they have seasonal sales, and then they also retire regularly older skins for champions that have "too many skins already". Instead of making old skins cheaper, they just retire them and then resell for original price even though most of them are no longer worth the price because they're cheap recolours, while new skins have special spell effects, new voice overs and whatnot.

In SWTOR, when I played it, and they started will all the lootcrate madness, they would also not have all the lootcrates from all the series up at the same time, which made hunting for specific items extremely convoluted and rng. I never liked their system due to rng lootcrate idea which I hate, but just posting it for reference.

Path of Exile afaik also has specific packs you can buy in the shop during specific season and then removes them after.

That's just from a handful of games I experienced, but it seems to be a common practice nowadays, especially with old, not very well selling items.

Tbh if you haven't had a reason to buy any of these for 5+ years they were in, then probably you shouldn't buy them now either. Some of these pets are recolours / copies of existing pets anyway. Same with the bat mount, I think there's a new warfront mount with the same model.

The only interesting part of the sale is that Captain Crackers parrot is already 50% off despite being 3 months old. That I didn't expect.

I love you for trying to bring some logic into this shit-storm of a thread.

[Chloral]

You guys behave as if this wasn't a standard practice in marketing...

In GW2 there are constant seasonal promotions, items that come in and out of the shop as "temporarily returning" and it's not even very consistent, sometimes item may be there, sometimes not there, sometimes it's 50% off sometimes only 20% off, you never know.

In League of Legends there are constantly putting skins on and off sale, then they have seasonal sales, and then they also retire regularly older skins for champions that have "too many skins already". Instead of making old skins cheaper, they just retire them and then resell for original price even though most of them are no longer worth the price because they're cheap recolours, while new skins have special spell effects, new voice overs and whatnot.

In SWTOR, when I played it, and they started will all the lootcrate madness, they would also not have all the lootcrates from all the series up at the same time, which made hunting for specific items extremely convoluted and rng. I never liked their system due to rng lootcrate idea which I hate, but just posting it for reference.

Path of Exile afaik also has specific packs you can buy in the shop during specific season and then removes them after.

That's just from a handful of games I experienced, but it seems to be a common practice nowadays, especially with old, not very well selling items.

Tbh if you haven't had a reason to buy any of these for 5+ years they were in, then probably you shouldn't buy them now either. Some of these pets are recolours / copies of existing pets anyway. Same with the bat mount, I think there's a new warfront mount with the same model.

The only interesting part of the sale is that Captain Crackers parrot is already 50% off despite being 3 months old. That I didn't expect.

All these games are either BUY ONCE TO PLAY or FREE TO PLAY.
Microtransaction have no place in a pay to play model.

[Araxie]

All these games are either BUY ONCE TO PLAY or FREE TO PLAY.
Microtransaction have no place in a pay to play model.

Why's that? Is there some kind of rule that says that?

EDIT: I agree that pay-to-win cash shops have no place in games. These are cosmetic though, and they're optional. They're also available to purchase with real-world currency and in game currency. If you don't want them, don't buy them.

[Chloral]

Why's that? Is there some kind of rule that says that?

It's called morality.

[Azerate]

My goal is to eventually own every mount & pet available in the store, I'm not too wealthy so I usually wait for those Christmas sales and chip at their stock bit by bit.

As for the forced scarciity, or artificial scarcity, I can see how someone might have an issue with that, but in the end, if you don't care about mounts/pets you will ignore the sale. If you do, you were probably waiting for this anyway.