Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[beanman12345]

So now it is pay to win eventually? So what fraction of pay to win is one token then?

I'm happy with all your replies since they prove my assertations correct. thanks. But fact is it's p2w.

[derekmmorgan94]

so wow wasnt p2w before token, when people bought gold from shady website and use it to buy bis item or boost from someone? or when they straight up used RL money to buy boost on internet...
i might see someones logic behin WoW being p2w bcs you can buy gear/ boosts (although i disagree), but then it ALWAYS, since the very begining was p2w, and it have nothing to do with token... you could buy gold, items or boost since vanila ffs, years before token was even idea...

You are somewhat correct. But the problem is blizzard being okay with it being p2w. If blizzards wanted they could ban accounts for RMT. But they use it as a problem to not only save money by not hiring mods to ban RMT, but make money with WoW tokens. And they are technically still rumors so I won't get too into it but it would seem as if blizzard allowed sites to RMT to get extra money/ create a problem to "fix" with WoW tokens.. So in a sense yah as long as gearing/boosts is available for money it is p2w even before WoW token. If blizzard was like many other games*many who are way smaller companies with smaller funds* and banned people for breaking terms of service with RMT the p2w is gone. But instead Blizzard is greedy and wants to make more money at the expense of the game.

[Helander]

Yes, it is.
1) You can use $$$ to buy a token which is equal to WOW gold.
2) WOW gold can buy you: BOE gear and boosts (more gear).
You can basically use $$$ to buy raid achieves (AOTC, KSM) and gear now.
Blizz does nothing to stop the boosting because it drives token sales (goto line 1)

I also have a conspiracy theory with absolutely no evidence to support it, that most of the RMT boosting services are managed by blizzard employees.

[rhorle]

I'm happy with all your replies since they prove my assertations correct. thanks. But fact is it's p2w.

But only pay to win eventually. It is possible you could pay and not win. Why won't you define the fraction that each token is? Shouldn't that be clear if it is pay to win? Wouldn't that mean the token is gambling rather then pay to win?

[Lochton]

I also have a conspiracy theory with absolutely no evidence to support it, that most of the RMT boosting services are managed by blizzard employees.

Don't.. Just don't.. Some people will believe it. It is unhealthy, and conspiracy theories are not permitted on MMO-champion.

[Lolites]

You are somewhat correct. But the problem is blizzard being okay with it being p2w. If blizzards wanted they could ban accounts for RMT. But they use it as a problem to not only save money by not hiring mods to ban RMT, but make money with WoW tokens. And they are technically still rumors so I won't get too into it but it would seem as if blizzard allowed sites to RMT to get extra money/ create a problem to "fix" with WoW tokens.. So in a sense yah as long as gearing/boosts is available for money it is p2w even before WoW token. If blizzard was like many other games*many who are way smaller companies with smaller funds* and banned people for breaking terms of service with RMT the p2w is gone. But instead Blizzard is greedy and wants to make more money at the expense of the game.

how many people got bans for missusing bugs? literaly tens of thousands every now and then, and yet when new "lucrative" bug is what people do? missuse the shit out of it... so no, baning people for selling shit wouldnt stop it, only if they gave permabans, and that would cost them WAY TOO MUCH players, so ofc they couldnt do that...

so yes, even though it was against TOS blizz didnt care much about people selling money/items/boosts (hell my old guild we were selling for over decade), problem blizz wanted to solve with token was shady websites and people using phishing and other shit and compromising security of players, they cant have that, so they came up with token to solve this, and ofc, make some money (what a surprise, business that want to make money...)

[rhorle]

That doesnt even make sense...

Gambling is when you pay for a chance to win or lose. If buying a token and using it for a boost does not guarantee you a "win" then it would be gambling. Because you are paying for the chance to lose as well as the chance to win. Pay to Win requires there to be no chance to lose right? Otherwise it would just be gambling. Right?

[Lochton]

Blizzard is just about money pal. Is a big business. How did you think Activision/Blizzard paid Bobby Kotick his $200M bonus. With Overwatch?. Diablo 3?. Starcraft 2?....LOL, of course not. Is WoW the money factory.

Well, update, he wasn't paid 200 million, he was paid less, the stocks made it 200 million, following on another update, (most likely a media stunt) he rejected his payment offered which had been in negotiation since 2018 and agreed on a salary cut.

Further on, don't derail an already volatile topic with bullshit like that. Conspiracy theories do not belong on MMO-champion, so take your tinfoil hat and go to some Discord with that.

As for the income of Blizzard, yes, D3+exp, SC2+exp, Overwatch, HotS, WoW, Classic Project, Hearthstone, Warcraft. That is how a business makes money, selling a product. That is how you earn gold in WoW, selling a product. Everyone sells a product, whether you agree to it or not. A service or an item, sales, and trades.

[Lolites]

Is just a way for Blizzard to make money. I don't proof of this, but i started to believe they manipulate the prices of WoW Tokens since day one. Why?. The price rise and fall actually fits them correctly, like for example, when they are going to give their Annual meetings with their investors. Something smell fishy on those tokens, they have 0 regulation from the Government or any other institution that would keep people protected from bad practices.

if you had some economics knowledge you would see the token price actualy moves pretty predictable and as it should with such market...

[Lochton]

Yes, I would agree with this conclusion. But, I think it's true of any multiplayer game with an economy. So long as players can use in-game currency to purchase either gear or boosts in content then a method of acquiring that currency via real life money will occur, whether with the approval of the company or not. With the introduction of the token Blizzard simply gave that approval for what had long been going on anyway.

The distinction between what was historically considered P2W and what could now reasonably be considered P2W exists, but definitions are not static. So long as a current player can use cash to accomplish their goals in the game, they are winning via that cash, at least from their perspective. From someone else's perspective they may be winning nothing because the goals differ between those players.

Well, with the token Blizzard permitted all to enjoy this service, before that, it was exclusively bound to gambling with TCG. So, if the token is P2W, then TCG is too, and it was worse.

That of course means we are not including all the ToS breaking indirect P2W, since people love spouting about direct and indirect P2W. If we went with indirect only, then WoW has been P2W since its launch.

[Lolites]

Blizzard is just about money pal.

jeez, a company that wants to make money, how unusual... im sure you go to work just for good feeling and you work pro bono, but alas, other people are not so altruistic and they expect to get paid for their work or get profit from their investment...

[Lochton]

Is just a way for Blizzard to make money. I don't proof of this, but i started to believe they manipulate the prices of WoW Tokens since day one. Why?. The price rise and fall actually fits them correctly, like for example, when they are going to give their Annual meetings with their investors. Something smell fishy on those tokens, they have 0 regulation from the Government or any other institution that would keep people protected from bad practices.

Blizzard has already explained that the token market is operated on supply and demand, and they do not fiddle with it, now if you have proof of otherwise, then do share, else it is conspiracies. You are of course in your freedom to not believe it.

[Thunderball]

Yeah, it is. There is one area in the game which makes it tolerable for me though - highend raiding. If mythic paid boosts were more available I wouldnt be playing.

[Bats]

Current state of season 1 PvP is pure P2W. Thousands of boosters in 2s, 3s and RBGs.

People sell tokens > trade the gold for boosts that they can't get themselves > P2W

The fact that you can buy gold with real money and boosting is absolutely fine makes the game P2W and the argument "it's not because you can do it without paying" falls flat since those people CANNOT do it without paying.

[rhorle]

I could sell some tokens, pay a guy with my gold from my USD to get me into a raid and get the Powerful Mythic items + guarantee drops that no one is going to keep + PvP Ranks or just go to the AH and buy epics there. Is P2W, these guys says its not, but it is....

The Auction House requires someone else to win and to share their loot with you. That isn't paying to win. The token is a micro transaction for gold but not paying to win. What you do with that gold is up to you. You can give it away. You can spend it on a mount (which isn't pay to win). You can buy gear. You can buy a boost. The transaction itself isn't paying to win because you are not winning anything.

You are merely gaining opportunities that wealth brings.

[Lochton]

I could sell some tokens, pay a guy with my gold from my USD to get me into a raid and get the Powerful Mythic items + guarantee drops that no one is going to keep + PvP Ranks or just go to the AH and buy epics there. Is P2W, these guys says its not, but it is....

Same thing happens in Elder Scrolls Online. You sell your Crowns for cosmetics from the store, get all that gold and buy a powerful item from the Trade Guild and you are now deadly.

Naw, my point is more, if the token is P2W, then WoW has been P2W since October 2006, and indirectly, since launch and the topic of the thread was over before it even started.

[rhorle]

Sorry, I may not have been clear, but this is exactly what I would assert. And I believe it to be true of any multiplayer game that contains an economy. WoW, FFXIV, ESO, etc ... have all been some form of P2W from their launch because a player could use real money to acquire in-game gear or glory. That the companies running those games did not allow gold-selling is irrelevant, we all know it happened.

That is a bit silly. It matters if something is against the rules or allowed. That is also making the argument that any game that charges any amount of money is pay to win. Because someone somewhere had to pay money for the box, subscription, or whatever other price not covered. It dilutes the meaning of pay to win and defeats the purpose of having a categorical descriptor.

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These things are not winning ... to you. To the person purchasing them they are the very definition of winning.

You are confusing important with "winning". Not everything is a win just because it exists and is important to some one. That dilutes the meaning of pay to win because that is literally anything in the game. Simply subscribing to the game could be seen as a win for someone thus making subscriptions pay to win. If everything is pay to win then nothing is pay to win. It just is.

[Lochton]

Sorry, I may not have been clear, but this is exactly what I would assert. And I believe it to be true of any multiplayer game that contains an economy. WoW, FFXIV, ESO, etc ... have all been some form of P2W from their launch because a player could use real money to acquire in-game gear or glory. That the companies running those games did not allow gold-selling is irrelevant, we all know it happened. The only difference the Token makes to this is that it is Blizzard tacitly allowing the exchange of cash for whatever a player may determine for themselves is a "win" in the game.

This is why I find the argument of whether any particular multiplayer game is P2W to be a pointless discussion. The only real discussion to be had on the subject is whether a person is OK with the developers allowing the transactions fully (such as with the Token) or prefer for the developers to make the P2W aspects of their game an underground affair (such as it was before the Token).

There's just really no argument to be had. Multiplayer economies inevitably lead to cash purchases for gear/glory and for the person buying those services it counts as a win whether I, personally, felt they won anything of value.

Now we're getting on a point I mentioned far back in the thread, that any game is P2W if they have the ability to trade currency with other players, some examples of course, breaks ToS, but then someone started talking about direct and indirect P2W, and suddenly it got more fleshed out, as that would mean illegal sales of game-time would be indirect P2W.

Then again, someone shared some definitions that P2W involves purchasing power/gear/buffs from the developer, which is a correct statement, which would categorize the boost as P2W, while the token is more in the grey - if we talk direct P2W

But if we talk indirect P2W, then we have things such as...
... ToS breaking game-time sales (Purchase game-time from Blizzard to sell) for gold.
... ToS breaking merchandise sales (Purchase game merch from Blizzard to sell) for gold.
... Sale of TCG (Loot cards)
... Sale of Token (Game-time)

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These things are not winning ... to you. To the person purchasing them they are the very definition of winning.

Well, we know by fact, someone claims winning is getting all achievements. But then we circle back to winning being subjective.

[Cuppy]

Lol.

The win criteria for a pvp player is different from the win criteria of a raider.

For me winning in WoW is getting CE and I can get that with real money. So for me WoW is pay to win.

ALLLLLLLLLRIGHTY THEN! Let's get to it then:


First, if we talk about winning, it's absolutely pointless as it has been pointed out a million times, everyone has their own idea of their "winning". I won the game by collecting 5 ruined pelts from lvl 1 mobs, and that's a fact no one can change. It's my win.

Then, let's once again talk about paying to win. So, I assume you aswell say the gold-buying -> buying a boost is a pay to win, yes?
Before I will make you(and for everyone else aswell) an example, I want to state once again, that wow is not pay to win at all.
(Obviously at this point we have to agree atleast on some degree what the heck that "winning" means because of what I said previously about my own terms of winning, so let's say winning is getting that high-end gear, a title, achievement, a place in a raid or a gladiator title, it can be all of these, or just one)
I hope we have an agreement here(?) So then, to the example:

Ok, so you and many claim wow is pay to win, which I disagree strongly. You claim by buying gold, you gain power, which indirectly means wow is pay for win.
Allright, so you and I are on the same realm, playing like normal people do, suddenly you decide to "buy that win" with money, so you purchase gold, and you are now packed with 5 million gold, whereas I sit on 3.5 gold.
You start the process of getting yourself these "wins" you claim you can buy, BUT! Now pay close attention what is about to happen.
I cockblock your all attempts of getting a boost, gladiator title, raidspot, and gear. I did it by paying money to all the boosters you contacted.
Now, where is your "win"?? You paid a thousand pounds to get 5 million gold, yet still you are sitting at 158 ilvl, no title, no raidspot, no glad.
I went through a huge effort, and paid a thousand pounds to not get you anything, so where is the pay to win aspect here? Is wow suddenly pay-to-let-others-lose?
You gain nothing, blizzard will not give you your money back, they wont boost you or give you glads, so what did you win?
How was this pay to win?

You all have to understand that boosts are done by us, the players and the community of wow. We are the ones who enable it, and buy it, no one else.
Boosting has been here pretty much always, and I'm willing to bet my left nut that someone has bought a boost in vanilla, 17 years ago.
Also, if you consider "winning" these titles, glad, high-end gear or whatever, every game is pay to win, because in every game where there are achievements, a rank or whatever competetive shit, you can buy yourself these things. Every. Time. Even on the dredged "PONG" who someone mentioned earlier being the only game "non pay to win" has it's elements whereas one could say it's "pay to win"(Remember, "winning" is a personal thing here).

Pay to win, means you can buy power. For example go to blizzard store, select a trinket with stats -> 8€ -> cash out and check mailbox and said trinket is there.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is paying to win. It is not pay to win when you give basedweller Larry a handjob and he grinds 2200 rating for you.

[Dead Moose Fandango]

Do I get to buy the top rank in any/all arenas? Epic BGs? World-first raids?

Your answer should be no. As is the answer to this thread's question.