Not offering alternative monthly fee options is probably keeping people away

[Michael Jackson]

Before you even think of giving me that fucking "20$ is the cost of a meal" shit, please take 1 second out of your ADD life and realize this thread is not asking for monthly fees to be removed.

It's just personally, now that I'm not 15 anymore (and I imagine this applies to many other old WoW players), 1 month of game time is enough for me to complete the main quest and gtfo to do adult shit that needs to be done.

The only way I would pay a fee to do some BGs or dungeons on a friday night afterwards is if I had the option to pay like 2$ for a day of gametime, because everything else is just a waste of money I could spend to buy some other good games on a sale on Steam.

20$ CAD x 12 + expansions costs = pretty much 300$ CAD (THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS) for a single game, where I would play for a month and then log in a day or 2 a week. Even bought with 6 months increments, this would still go way above cost/amount played to justify.

For that amount of money, I can buy anywhere from 10-20 games on sale that would offer more interesting gameplay or story or multiplayer experiences than WoW does, and which most importantly, I could play ANY TIME I WANTED.

The only thing I would be missing is pissing off millenials in world PVP, knocking people off Lumber mill in AB and doing some mind numbing dailies to fill up a bar enough time until I get another horse.

And I would pay money to do that shit, for nostalgia if nothing else....just not 20$/month worth of money.

[Tyris Flare]

Just from a pure business perspective, the way you describe yourself doesn't make you a particularly compelling customer anyway. Why seek out people who only want to play for two weeks instead of people who will dump tons of money on the cash shop or at the very least draw other people into the game? Warm bodies by themselves aren't worth much.

[jellmoo]

Then don't sub? I'm not sure what the idea is here. If you don't find that WoW offers enough value for you to maintain a sub, then, well... don't. The game isn't a offering a menu. It's an all you can eat buffet. They want you to want to try everything, not pick and choose and pay only for the small bits you like.

[aceperson]

do you realize many businesses don't do transactions below a certain threshold because THEY would lose money? you ever notice how many local gas stations don't take debit cards unless you buy at least $5 worth of stuff? i could definitely see a 2 week subscription but anything less than that would probably be a loss of money.

[LordVargK]

Play in asia, I think they have that system there.

But honestly, an MMO might not be the right game for you anymore, since you are obviously more interested in the single player aspect than the MMO aspect.
If you can get 10-20 games on sale, why don't you do that instead of attacking Blizzard's business model? It's obviously meant to milk people like you, if you don't find it worth your money, then vote with your wallet.

[Dread Pirate Phayde]

Do posters claim a day of the week to make a dozen threads in one day or something?

If you aren't getting value out of your $20/month, as you say, go buy Steam games instead. Its like 67 cents a day, so even logging in a few times a week seems a decent value for the cost. The current options seem to have worked fine for the last 15 or so years, no reason to change it.

[MoanaLisa]

I've been expecting for some time that they might introduce metered game cards here but it's never happened obviously. It's a successful model elsewhere but I don't know if it's ever really been successful in the U.S. or Europe. Ten bucks for ten or twenty hours of gaming seems like a reasonable starting place.

World of Warcraft is framed monetarily as a subscription service which is why the price over time seems so high. You get something for that and I don't see it going away soon. As a matter of fact it seems to me that the $X.XX per month model is spreading nearly everywhere now into all sorts of areas that have nothing to do with gaming.

[Lochton]

Then I suggest you either earn a relative flow of gold or don't play the game. 20 dollars is already quite cheap.

[oblakoff]

The monthy fee is the last thing that keeps WoW from becoming p2w shitfest. And while we are at it, remove the token from the game.

[Krimzin]

Before you even think of giving me that fucking "20$ is the cost of a meal" shit, please take 1 second out of your ADD life and realize this thread is not asking for monthly fees to be removed.

It's just personally, now that I'm not 15 anymore (and I imagine this applies to many other old WoW players), 1 month of game time is enough for me to complete the main quest and gtfo to do adult shit that needs to be done.

The only way I would pay a fee to do some BGs or dungeons on a friday night afterwards is if I had the option to pay like 2$ for a day of gametime, because everything else is just a waste of money I could spend to buy some other good games on a sale on Steam.

20$ CAD x 12 + expansions costs = pretty much 300$ CAD (THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS) for a single game, where I would play for a month and then log in a day or 2 a week. Even bought with 6 months increments, this would still go way above cost/amount played to justify.

For that amount of money, I can buy anywhere from 10-20 games on sale that would offer more interesting gameplay or story or multiplayer experiences than WoW does, and which most importantly, I could play ANY TIME I WANTED.

The only thing I would be missing is pissing off millenials in world PVP, knocking people off Lumber mill in AB and doing some mind numbing dailies to fill up a bar enough time until I get another horse.

And I would pay money to do that shit, for nostalgia if nothing else....just not 20$/month worth of money.

I can't speak for everyone but for me WoW is like a hobby. A hobby, I probably play way to much but still a hobby when I look at expenditures. Looking at Game cost, Subs(plural because i have 2 accounts), expansions and misc Blizzard store services, I have a decent amount of money rolled up in my WoW hobby. When I was younger, going to the bars and doing other stupid shit, cost me way more than I spend on WoW. It boils down to return on your investment and honestly, I think thats where you have an issue. You make mundane references to knocking people off the lumber mill and doing bgs/dungeons, you don't sound like you like them very much. If thats the case, why even play? Then you don't have to worry about the sub. As for me, I have a great group of people I play with in game and online in other games, so its worth it. We go out with friends every weekend and just dinner/drinks for 2 people is almost $100 US, so spending $14 on a sub isnt shit.
Good luck with whatever you decide.

[razorpax]

Make gold during that month

[Sithalos]

Before you even think of giving me that fucking "20$ is the cost of a meal" shit, please take 1 second out of your ADD life and realize this thread is not asking for monthly fees to be removed.

It's just personally, now that I'm not 15 anymore (and I imagine this applies to many other old WoW players), 1 month of game time is enough for me to complete the main quest and gtfo to do adult shit that needs to be done.

The only way I would pay a fee to do some BGs or dungeons on a friday night afterwards is if I had the option to pay like 2$ for a day of gametime, because everything else is just a waste of money I could spend to buy some other good games on a sale on Steam.

20$ CAD x 12 + expansions costs = pretty much 300$ CAD (THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS) for a single game, where I would play for a month and then log in a day or 2 a week. Even bought with 6 months increments, this would still go way above cost/amount played to justify.

For that amount of money, I can buy anywhere from 10-20 games on sale that would offer more interesting gameplay or story or multiplayer experiences than WoW does, and which most importantly, I could play ANY TIME I WANTED.

The only thing I would be missing is pissing off millenials in world PVP, knocking people off Lumber mill in AB and doing some mind numbing dailies to fill up a bar enough time until I get another horse.

And I would pay money to do that shit, for nostalgia if nothing else....just not 20$/month worth of money.

The tone and content of your post slaughtered more of my brain cells than I would have liked.

Please realize you're not as intelligent as you believe yourself to be. If you were, you wouldn't have made a thread bitching about the cost of a video game.

If the sub isn't worth it to you, don't sub. Don't sit on your high horse and complain to us about it.

[razorpax]

The monthy fee is the last thing that keeps WoW from becoming p2w shitfest. And while we are at it, remove the token from the game.

Keep the token my subs free for me because of it

[Kimekaro]

You can farm some gold during a month of game time and buy WoWCoins to fund your sub when you have a random need to play. It is not Impossible to get several months worth of Coin for one months game time. Repeat as necessary.

$2 for a day is called an addiction habit. You would end up putting $2 in far beyond the sub fee.

You are welcome for teaching you to save money. As a 15 year old that is ...Apparently? At most 30 years old, I have now given you a valuable life lesson.

[TigTone]

Keep the token my subs free for me because of it

Yea the token is fine, when I don’t feel like farming gold and i put up a Token for people like razporpax to buy.

[dojichan]

A few things:
Isn't a wow subscription 15$ ? I only buy them in gold atm so I don't watch but I feel like 20$ is higher then it is,

Honestly this would be to their advantage; It is true that buying one day at a time(2$) would be expensive because of credit card fees... There is another approach. Allow players to buy 8 days of playing(so they can log on 8 times over one month) for 10 dollars(or so)...

You save money if you are rarely playing...They make money off someone who wouldn't normally pay. Win win and not hard to program.

[razorpax]

Yea the token is fine, when I don’t feel like farming gold and i put up a Token for people like razporpax to buy.

see symbiotic relationship

[Azerate]

There is an alternative to the monthly fee, it's called the wow token. No need for anymore alternatives.

[Shadowsgrace]

Before you even think of giving me that fucking "20$ is the cost of a meal" shit, please take 1 second out of your ADD life and realize this thread is not asking for monthly fees to be removed.

It's just personally, now that I'm not 15 anymore (and I imagine this applies to many other old WoW players), 1 month of game time is enough for me to complete the main quest and gtfo to do adult shit that needs to be done.

The only way I would pay a fee to do some BGs or dungeons on a friday night afterwards is if I had the option to pay like 2$ for a day of gametime, because everything else is just a waste of money I could spend to buy some other good games on a sale on Steam.

20$ CAD x 12 + expansions costs = pretty much 300$ CAD (THREE HUNDRED DOLLARS) for a single game, where I would play for a month and then log in a day or 2 a week. Even bought with 6 months increments, this would still go way above cost/amount played to justify.

For that amount of money, I can buy anywhere from 10-20 games on sale that would offer more interesting gameplay or story or multiplayer experiences than WoW does, and which most importantly, I could play ANY TIME I WANTED.

The only thing I would be missing is pissing off millenials in world PVP, knocking people off Lumber mill in AB and doing some mind numbing dailies to fill up a bar enough time until I get another horse.

And I would pay money to do that shit, for nostalgia if nothing else....just not 20$/month worth of money.

Pay for 3 or 6 month bundles, it's cheaper that way. I've been on a 6 month pay cycle since TBC. Instead of $90 @$15/month, it's like $77 /6 Months, in USD.

[Gurg]

Not sure where are you going with this.. Just venting or..?
Im not trolling, i think that it is pointless to talk about alternative payment options like 5, 7, 10, 15 days of sub since in your post you say that the game is not worth paying for. Or even "timed subs," that is you buy WoW time to spend it when you want to, timing your sessions.

Look, im 38 and I've been playing WoW since 2005. Most of the time subbed, with occasional breaks from LK going forward.
I live in a 3rd world country which went trough two different economic crashes and is in a bad state even now, a country where 15e/20CAD can get you trough 3-4 days worth of ok living. I met my wife in WoW, we were sworn enemies, she was tree hugger i was greenskin. We PvPed, but also had long talk about our fractions, ideals and what we see in them. Oh man, let me tell you, i cant describe how angry was she when i tatted horde crest on the middle of my neck, nicely hidden in bigger tattoo. xD
I have a family now and old mother which im helping with money since in my country pension checks are usually lower than monthly bills.

When i was younger i used to do construction work as helper, which was extremely underpaid that it can be easily said that it was legal exploitation, to earn my money for WoW, but also for my self.
Early on, during Vanilla and TBC, i was so much nolifing WoW that i haven't noticed that Ive lost 2 girlfriends and bunch of friends.
It was just work, sleep 2-3hours, game WoW, eat trash food because actual food took time to prepare, time from WoW.

I was that guy.

Why was i typing all this?

Since WotLK i was less present in the game and figured that i need to get my life back on the tracks. It took some time, not to say years, to relearn to communicate with people but also to stop thinking about WoW and how time that i don't spend in game makes me miss things.

Well im older now, arguably smarter, and that experience helped me to learn that WoW is not necessity but commodity.
I don't smoke and i stopped drinking few ages ago when police arrested me for penis flashing them dead drunk celebrating birth of my kiddo.
We haven't made any messes, we weren't loud, destructive or picked fights. I was just annoyed because they were interrupting us in the middle of arguing about are jetpacks real or not.
Yea. I know.

After LK I've learned that there is no point in forcing my self to play or even do something that i don't feel like.
You CHOOSE to pay for it in order to have access to it, you don't need it per se to sustain your self.
I understand where are you going with, or at least i do since you haven't provided more details or ideas about it, but i don't see it as a big deal as you do. Its matter of choice and commodity, nothing more.
Alternative payment plans would just made a mess imo.
A game that was released just recently had model of "timed subs" and "pay per game session".. It was hit by such big backlash that they shut down servers just few days after going live and started restructuring their payments. I guess that blizzard would pass trough the same thing.
And while "timed sub" would be nice QoL change for all of us its down the line net loss for Blizzard, is it not?

I for instance, unsubbed soon after we downed HC Nzoth, really didn't like all corruption system, cloak grind and Assaults, it was too much repetitive and forced content so i quit. Im playing other games, do other stuff with family and when i really want to/or have extra time, i watch a movie, read up on changes, discuss with my guild or class discord about the game.

My waify still games, yells at monitor from time to time and cries when her tree burns. Shes even re-watching that cinematic whenever shes down, nice signal to me to pinch in, hug er and ask what's up.
She doesnt care about balance, optimization, performance.
Shes going with Ardenweald since, i quote: "Its right, natural thing for every Druid to do."
I will be back in SL, both of us as much as out time allow us, family and life first, game second.
Even so between two of us that's a week of living in money and tbh 1/8 of average paycheck here, we are simply got used to that bill.
As long as our family is covered, monthly bills paid and food put on the table we really dont see issue in it even so, as i said, both of us are aware that its commodity, not necessity.