Az's latest epic rant against Blizzard's new store mount

[Super Kami Dende]

Except you DO pay for it by committing to six months of subscription

Except you don't. You pay for 6 months of Sub and get it for free. It's ok to admit being wrong.

[Venziir]

Yes I made the comparison, because it's apt. Both comedians and "toxic" youtubers poke fun at the world for entertainment and profit.

And next time before you go throwing accusations like "enabling toxic manchildren" maybe you should actually read my post history on this thread and realize that I advocate a reasoned, moderate approach.

You assume I care about your post history - interesting.

[Raelbo]

Except you DO pay for it by committing to six months of subscription during a time where the content is just not going to last that long.

As already said, that assumes that the individual in question would have unsubbed at a point where a 6 month subscription would not have made sense. There are a lot of players who would have stayed subscribed during the entire six month period regardless of the offer. They are not paying for the mount. They're paying to play the game, exactly what they would have paid had the mount never existed. Ergo, the mount, for them, is free.

WoW operates on numbers of subscribers large enough that many people are going to be swayed into buying more months of sub, than they actually need or use, by the "Free" mount.

While I have little doubt that some will be swayed by this offer into subbing longer than they would otherwise have, I suspect that the vast majority of people taking up this offer would be getting good value out of their subscription, especially when you consider that:

1) Buying a six month subscription scores you a sizeable discount (basically 1 month for free)
2) The sort of person this promotion is going to appeal to would likely have paid money for the mount anyway

Most people aren't mindless idiots who just throw their money away frivolously without any capacity to figure out for themselves the value proposition. This is really NOT a case of a big bad evil corporation swindling naive and clueless customers out of money with devious tricks. It's a good value proposition for loyal customers that serves the interests of both Blizzard and us, the players.

Honestly, while you might think you're being a noble defender of innocent "victims", it actually just comes across as patronising and condescending - as if we're all too stupid to figure out for ourselves when we're being taken advantage of.

It's not a coincidence that this "deal" is being offered when they know there's going to be a 6-8 month span with no new content.

To be honest, I am not even sure that was even a significant factor. It was timed to coincide with the release of new content and the expected return of a bunch of players who had unsubscribed. Following the Dreadwake and Sylverian Dreamer, it would be a good bet that this is going to be the pattern going forward.

It is quite literally a case of "Hey, we know you're going to come back for a few months, why not make a round 6?"

- - - Updated - - -

Except you don't. You pay for 6 months of Sub and get it for free. It's ok to admit being wrong.

To be fair, he's not entirely wrong in the case of some people. His error is in trying to generalize.

• Some (I suspect a very small minority of) people are effectively paying for the mount
• Some people are getting the mount at an effective discount
• Some (I suspect most) people are getting the mount for free

Personally I won't be taking advantage of this offer since it is incompatible with paying through tokens. Which is annoying since it means I'll have to spend gold on 2 additional tokens to get the mount where I should really only have had to spend gold on 5 to get a 6 month game time voucher. it was the same issue with the Sylverian Dreamer.

To me that's just poor thinking on Blizzard's part. They're already getting a hefty premium out of token buyers who have to buy €100 worth of tokens for a six month game card compared to a regular six month subscription which costs €66. Adding an extra €40 to those going the token route just seems greedy to me. And while they might have got a bit of extra cash out of it, I do question the wisdom of creating a negative player experience - and the associated potential costs to Blizzard down the line. To be clear, of course I am not going to stop playing the game because of this, but they did just add a few proverbial straws to my back - where a free mount would have actually taken away a few of the straws that were already there.

[SirCowdog]

Except you don't. You pay for 6 months of Sub and get it for free. It's ok to admit being wrong.

And just when I thought things were being reasonable, you just repeat your statement without adding anything of value.

God I hate these forums sometimes. :/

- - - Updated - - -

To be fair, he's not entirely wrong in the case of some people. His error is in trying to generalize.

I'm generalizing because out of the 2-6 MILLION WoW players, things must be applied under the law of averages. That's what Blizzard is doing with this offer. I don't know why you guys can't at least acknowledge this.

Some players....probably MANY players are going to be swayed by this offer into buying a 6 month sub when they might not otherwise actually use all 6 months. In fact, that's the entire point of the sales tactic I linked earlier. But some of these responses seem to be assuming that everyone who pays for the 6 months was going to do so anyway, which is a misrepresentation of reality.

- - - Updated - - -

You assume I care about your post history - interesting.

If you want proper context instead of jumping to conclusions that are wrong....then yes, you should. Otherwise you make misguided statements like "enabling toxic manchildren" when I previously said, IN THIS THREAD, that I dislike Az's recent videos, both in specific cases and in a general sense.

[Naramag]

Please, can someone explain to me why These youtubers matter? I don't see them having any basis or qualification for what they do. They are not journalists, as far as I know. They are not held accountable by anyone if they spread misinformation due to a lack of research or, worse, intentionally.

Maybe I am to old, but I turn to YouTube to see instruction videos, to see and learn how someone does something useful. I learned a good deal there to improve my hobbies. And I use it for Entertainment, music or something like that. But these videos that pop up around here in various threads, I don't get it. I mean, people don't trust real media, question newspapers and real journalists. But some random dude making a Video on YouTube is suddenly taken serious and deemed trustworthy? Why?

[Venziir]

And just when I thought things were being reasonable, you just repeat your statement without adding anything of value.

God I hate these forums sometimes. :/

- - - Updated - - -



I'm generalizing because out of the 2-6 MILLION WoW players, things must be applied under the law of averages. That's what Blizzard is doing with this offer. I don't know why you guys can't at least acknowledge this.

Some players....probably MANY players are going to be swayed by this offer into buying a 6 month sub when they might not otherwise actually use all 6 months. In fact, that's the entire point of the sales tactic I linked earlier. But some of these responses seem to be assuming that everyone who pays for the 6 months was going to do so anyway, which is a misrepresentation of reality.

- - - Updated - - -



If you want proper context instead of jumping to conclusions that are wrong....then yes, you should. Otherwise you make misguided statements like "enabling toxic manchildren" when I previously said, IN THIS THREAD, that I dislike Az's recent videos, both in specific cases and in a general sense.

You replied to me, why should I look up your history? Again, don't care the slightest about you so off to ignore you go, ta ta!

[Krelivane]

Moochamp's favorite youtuber strikes again

Imagine going through life with nothing but hate to give. I pity the dude.

[kamuimac]

Except you don't. You pay for 6 months of Sub and get it for free. It's ok to admit being wrong.

exapt he is not wrong.

you bought certain product - that product is "6 months sub + mount" for price of X
"
no matter how much word play you want to do you cannot change it because its 1 product - componenst of which dont go separately

[Grimalkin of Old]

I'm sure there are better sources of critical thinking than that guy who quit wow to become a professional incel.

[Naramag]

exapt he is not wrong.

you bought certain product - that product is "6 months sub + mount" for price of X
"
no matter how much word play you want to do you cannot change it because its 1 product - componenst of which dont go separately

Yes, if you subscribe for 6 month because of the mount you get, you can argue you have purely done it for the mount. I am having a 6 month sub since vanilla. I just got the mount for free, I didn't subscribe for the mount.

Intent matters. If you don't intent to cancel your subscription anytime soon and change your subscription from 1 to 6, what's the intent? The mount? The discount?

Of course it is Blizzards intent to get more people to the 6 month sub. But it is only an offer. No force. It is up to each himself to accept or decline the offer.

I mean, do you feel forced if I would offer you drugs? Or something else? You're on a diet? I could offer you cake. Are you forced to eat it? I would throw it in the trash if you don't want it. Or give it to someone else.

Or are you able to think and decide yourself?

[Super Kami Dende]

And just when I thought things were being reasonable, you just repeat your statement without adding anything of value.

What more is there to add? Quite literally the fact it is Free requires nothing other than the knowledge that it comes as gifted part of an already proposed transaction at no extra cost.

- - - Updated - - -

exapt he is not wrong.

you bought certain product - that product is "6 months sub + mount" for price of X"

But you don't buy "6 months of Sub + Mount", you buy 6 Months of Sub and you recieve the Mount as a gift. Which is exactly why People already on the recurring 6 month Subscription also get the Mount as a Gift without having bought it as a package.

So yes, he is wrong, as are you.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm generalizing because out of the 2-6 MILLION WoW players, things must be applied under the law of averages.

The average player won't buy 6 months for a mount in a game he/she isn't intending on playing. Your law of averages even work against you.

[Axxil]

Heel is a piece of shit regardless. Who fucking cares about a mount with the 6 month sub that dropped right after the last 6 month sub time frame ended.

[SirCowdog]

You replied to me, why should I look up your history? Again, don't care the slightest about you so off to ignore you go, ta ta!

You rolled into a thread, made some snarky comments, and when someone replied to you, you lashed out with an inaccurate statement. And when it's suggested that you check your facts before replying next time, you go straight to ignore.

Right...thanks for the ignore. You're doing me a favor.

[FelPlague]

exapt he is not wrong.

you bought certain product - that product is "6 months sub + mount" for price of X
"
no matter how much word play you want to do you cannot change it because its 1 product - componenst of which dont go separately

except i paid for 6 months, and then 4 months later got a free mount.
so again no it is 100% free, because that mount i ddi not know existed, did not play into me purchaing my 6 months.

again.

buy 1 get 1 free your right is not actually free.
but if you buy something then AFTER they give you something for free, then yes, its free, as that free object did not factor into your purchase.

[Raelbo]

I'm generalizing because out of the 2-6 MILLION WoW players, things must be applied under the law of averages. That's what Blizzard is doing with this offer. I don't know why you guys can't at least acknowledge this.

Maybe because I don't agree with it?

As I have said repeatedly now, context matters. The fact that one player might end up spending €66 to buy this offer and then quit after 2 months doesn't change the fact that another player who bought a 6 month sub 6 weeks ago just got a free mount.

If you're going to apply "the law of averages" then you have to firstly understand what that average is, and what it means. If you want to argue that on average we're all paying roughly €2.31 for this mount, that is not the same thing as saying we're all paying €2.31 for it. What it does mean is that for some people the mount is not free, but for others it is.

Some players....probably MANY players are going to be swayed by this offer into buying a 6 month sub when they might not otherwise actually use all 6 months. In fact, that's the entire point of the sales tactic I linked earlier.

Yes. But so what? Your stance seems to be that it is inherently wrong for Blizzard to offer people this choice on the basis that, on average, people are too foolish to see through Blizzard's malicious trickery and thus are vulnerable to being duped into falling for this. As I've said, I think that's very patronising and condescending of you.

The value proposition of this deal is not difficult for the average person paying for this to understand. I would argue that by "the law of averages" players are getting something for free here because on average, people aren't complete idiots, and the people likely to take such a deal have probably figured out for themselves that they're likely to get good value out of their six month sub.

But some of these responses seem to be assuming that everyone who pays for the 6 months was going to do so anyway, which is a misrepresentation of reality.

I don't think that many of the responses are saying that - at least no more so than your argument seems to be that everyone who pays for the 6 months wouldn't have done so anyway.

Certainly I have gone to the effort of pointing out that the personal benefit to an individual is context dependent and that I believe that most players buying this deal fall into either the category of:

a) would have bought the game time anyway or
b) are going to be getting a sufficient value proposition out of this deal that it still saves them something over what they would otherwise have spent (eg they would have subbed for 4 months and bought the €25 mount anyway)

And honestly, if some fool out there was only planning on subbing for 1 month, but just had to have this mount and couldn't figure that he'd be better off straight up paying the €25, that's on him. It really doesn't require this level of righteous indignation applied to fighting for his rights to not be tricked.

- - - Updated - - -

17 pages in and I still don't know what DSP means.

Digital Signal Processing.

What Heel thinks it means, well that's anyone's guess...

[Gasparde]

Az is very fat

That's the quality content I'm here for.

Regarding the topic:

Az is a drama queen. Literally nothing else. If someone sneezes and Blizzard doesn't say bless you he'll make a fucking 15 minute video rant about it.
I get the point he's trying to make, he's just rather ignorant/oblivious of certain circumstances and overall just super duper hyper extreme over the top in basically everything he does - seems to work well though since his channel seems to be growing constantly.

The mount is a shameless cash grab and, much like all the other store mounts, should be something that's achievable ingame. I've paid 50 bucks for the game and an additional 12 per month on top of that, yet they still want more money from me. Yet, at this point it's neither new nor a surprise, this seems to be their go-to business model nowadays, so really no point in making a 15 minute rant video... other than to get 50k views I suppose.

[SirCowdog]

What more is there to add? Quite literally the fact it is Free requires nothing other than the knowledge that it comes as gifted part of an already proposed transaction at no extra cost.

At this point I can't tell if you're trolling or just refusing to acknowledge the reality of the sales tactic. Yes, it's technically free. But it's also only free when the consumer meets certain conditions. In this case, 6 months of sub during a period where it's known that there will be a content drought. A period of time where it's largely beneficial for the consumer to have the freedom to cancel their sub at any point during the following 6-8 months before Shadowlands. A period of time in which Blizzard can make any changes to the game(even negative ones) with complete impunity because they already have your money.

There's also a commitment to buying bulk. And while that bulk purchase results an a lowering of the individual price of a sub, as well as a "free" mount, the end result is that the consumer has made a larger purchase. Again, I reference you back to the sales tactics link I provided.

So there's an implied cost in freedom and choice, if not specifically money. Give Blizzard money up front, and hope they uphold the quality of experience that you expected.

And I already conceded that if a consumer was going to stay subbed, or buy 6 months anyway, then it's a good deal. But for someone who's being more skeptical about the following months, or Blizzard's behavior in that time, then it's not a good deal.

The problem is in being so god damned literal and over-simplistic about everything instead of recognizing the situation is very nuanced.

The average player won't buy 6 months for a mount in a game he/she isn't intending on playing. Your law of averages even work against you.

And I think you're misunderstanding my point. The use of law of averages I was referring to is that there WILL be players on the line who WILL sub for that mount. Maybe they were being skeptical about the whole "No 8.3.5 patch plans" thing, but this swayed them back. Given the large scale of how many players there are, Blizzard can absolutely predict and even expect to see returns on this. It's basically guaranteed that some portion of the playerbase will either stay subbed, or re-sub for this deal.

- - - Updated - - -

except i paid for 6 months, and then 4 months later got a free mount.
so again no it is 100% free, because that mount i ddi not know existed, did not play into me purchaing my 6 months.

again.

buy 1 get 1 free your right is not actually free.
but if you buy something then AFTER they give you something for free, then yes, its free, as that free object did not factor into your purchase.

And given that you know that Blizzard is likely to give out more "free" things in the future, how much more likely are you to stay subbed rather than taking a more cautious and granular approach to your purchases? It's part of the psychological manipulation and habit-forming tactics that we see across the industry lately.

Again, let me reinforce that this is a relatively minor point. It's JUST a mount. But people do need to be aware that it's not something that's only being done for purely altruistic reasons. There's quite a bit of depth to the situation that isn't readily apparent to someone who isn't willing or able to look deeper.

[justandulas]

It’s a sad state of the game for sure, thank goodness for classic at least

Between the gcd, the once a week visions, the essences being extremely unfriendly to get, the bad Saturday morning cartoon story, the weak n’zoth, Mount store gone wild, etc...

It’s pretty clear to see the tragic direction downward WoW is taking.

Wow today has more in common with diablo 3 than it does wow classic or Everquest.

[Raelbo]

it's also only free when the consumer meets certain conditions. In this case, 6 months of sub during a period where it's known that there will be a content drought. A period of time where it's largely beneficial for the consumer to have the freedom to cancel their sub at any point during the following 6-8 months before Shadowlands. A period of time in which Blizzard can make any changes to the game(even negative ones) with complete impunity because they already have your money.

Except that just how beneficial/valuable it is to have that "freedom" is probably a significant determinant of whether someone is going to go for this deal in the first place.

I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of a Risk Assessment Matrix (it's easy enough to Google if you aren't). But the basic principle is that you plot the risk probability against the risk impact.

Now, because most of us have been playing this game for more than a decade, we have a pretty good idea of whether or not we're likely to want to unsub in the next six months. Which means the probability of wasting our money is low. And while that probability might increase when looking 3-6 months into the future, the impact gets less. The nett result is that the risk we're taking is pretty low. Which in turn means that the value in having the freedom to cancel your sub at any time is pretty low as well.

So there's an implied cost in freedom and choice, if not specifically money. Give Blizzard money up front, and hope they uphold the quality of experience that you expected.

No, it's not a cost of "freedom of choice". The cost is a risk of wasteful expenditure. At no point do you lose the choice to stop playing. You're just not getting your money back is all.

The use of law of averages I was referring to is that there WILL be players on the line who WILL sub for that mount. Maybe they were being skeptical about the whole "No 8.3.5 patch plans" thing, but this swayed them back. Given the large scale of how many players there are, Blizzard can absolutely predict and even expect to see returns on this. It's basically guaranteed that some portion of the playerbase will either stay subbed, or re-sub for this deal.

Agreed. Where I disagree is that there should be anything untowards about this. This isn't some scam designed to trick unsuspecting players into signing up for some terrible deal that is totally there just to screw us over. It's a simple, straightforward value proposition that anyone who has access to a credit card should be able to able understand and assess for themselves whether it makes sense.

Pretty much the only way a player is really going to screw themselves over with this is if they don't care for the mount, and decide to quit playing after 2 months. Anyone making a decision that bad really cannot blame Blizzard.

Sorry, but there simply isn't anything here worth getting up in arms about.

[Kralljin]

Another complaint that boils down to "just hand it to me". Seems to have become the theme of BfA criticism.

Put that thing on some elusive rare mob in the Vale and i camp it for days.
The point is, i want to play the game for Ingame rewards, not make additional deals with Blizzard beyond my regular sub.

AS long as things ar optional, there is nothing wrong with it.

In a game that has gained a lot ,what i would call, "Collector's content", i think the line between optional and mandatory are blurred.

This is not Classic anymore where most content awards gear, which is your sole way to "progress" in the game.
A lot of content has been designed with collectors in mind, offers like these targets those individuals by default, because collectors are out to get everything.

This very argument of yours can also be applied to a Mythic Lootbox sold by Blizzard at the expense of your Mythic ID.
Is it optional? It sure is because there are tons of players that can play the game without Mythic loot.