Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[rhorle]

I sell a token to you for gold, i give the gold from the token to you for a boost, repeat.

If you are selling a token that means you paid real money for it. Those offering to carry others are not the same ones selling tokens. They would be the ones buying the tokens with their gold. It isn't circular, at least not in a 1:1 manner. Gold is still gained through some effort or service in the game and not created by tokens. If no one is willing to buy/sell tokens then there will be no transaction.

The participation is the limit, not the sky.

[shoc]

If you are selling a token that means you paid real money for it. Those offering to carry others are not the same ones selling tokens. They would be the ones buying the tokens with their gold. It isn't circular, at least not in a 1:1 manner. Gold is still gained through some effort or service in the game and not created by tokens. If no one is willing to buy/sell tokens then there will be no transaction.

The participation is the limit, not the sky.

All this just ensures is that there isn't massive gold inflation caused by WoW Token RMT gold buying. It still makes the game P2W.

[rhorle]

All this just ensures is that there isn't massive gold inflation caused by WoW Token RMT gold buying. It still makes the game P2W.

Buying gold is not a win though. It is a micro transaction. You can do anything you want with gold that the game normally lets you do with gold. There is no direct power gain tied to the token.

[shoc]

Buying gold is not a win though. It is a micro transaction. You can do anything you want with gold that the game normally lets you do with gold. There is no direct power gain tied to the token.

Echo spent 478 million gold on their world first race, lol 'no power gain tied to the token' my ass.

[Relapses]

Echo spent 478 million gold on their world first race, lol 'no power gain tied to the token' my ass.

Wait, do you actually think that Echo spent $50,000 on WoW tokens?

[shoc]

Wait, do you actually think that Echo spent $50,000 on WoW tokens?

Doesn't matter where they bought the gold, just proof that WoW's a pay-to-win game. Who you pay off, whether its Blizz or some Venezuelan gold farmers, doesn't change WoW being pay-to-win. It's intrinsic to the game design.

[Relapses]

Doesn't matter where they bought the gold, just proof that WoW's a pay-to-win game. Who you pay off, whether its Blizz or some Venezuelan gold farmers, doesn't change WoW being pay-to-win. It's intrinsic to the game design.

So now Blizzard designed the entire game to be a capitalist's wet dream from the beginning? D'aww, look at your cute little conspiracy theory go!

[shoc]

So now Blizzard designed the entire game to be a capitalist's wet dream from the beginning? D'aww, look at your cute little conspiracy theory go!

Lol, we got a currency-based in game economy, and where high end play depends on having an unattainable amount of in-game capital, capitalist wet dream is putting it lightly. It's more like this:

[Relapses]

Lol, we got a currency-based in game economy, and where high end play depends on having an unattainable amount of in-game capital, capitalist wet dream is putting it lightly. It's more like this:

Man, you're one step away from posting Joker memes. Calm down. I get it, we live in a society.

But really, I don't think you understand what the argument against calling WoW P2W (at least by your definition) is. It's that if you want to say that WoW is P2W (and always has been) then really pretty much anything in the world is P2W. And if that's the case, your argument has nothing to do with WoW being P2W... it's a hollow rebuke of capitalism.

Catchy video, though. I'll give you that.

[rhorle]

Echo spent 478 million gold on their world first race, lol 'no power gain tied to the token' my ass.

Buying gold, or tokens, does not give power. Gold can bring power but that is a normal part of the game. It is not a direct transaction of Real Money for Character Power.

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Lol, we got a currency-based in game economy, and where high end play depends on having an unattainable amount of in-game capital, capitalist wet dream is putting it lightly.

If it is unattainable how was is obtained for the world first races? The entire way "illegal" or "legal" micro transactions for gold work is because that gold is obtainable by someone. Having gold isn't the win though.

[Ekis]

If it is unattainable how was is obtained for the world first races? The entire way "illegal" or "legal" micro transactions for gold work is because that gold is obtainable by someone. Having gold isn't the win though.

Unattainable by normal player standards. It may have been attainable by gold farming companies, or someone with a multiple bots. That amount of gold is unattainable for most players unless it was the only thing (gold farming) they are doing. I don't reasonably expect even some of the most hardcore goblins to have that kind of gold by themselves let alone willing to let such a high amount go to someone else without paying for it.

Under normal circumstances they wouldn't have that gold in order to participate in the WF race, hence the need to buy it

[minitiative]

I'm genuinely shocked so many people don't know what pay2win means. It's not hard at all to fathom if you look at countless other monetized games, especially mobile ones or the legion of freemium games coming out of Asia over the last ~20 years.

A character boost is not pay 2 win, it's pay 2 not grind or pay 2 skip. Spending money or gold for m+ or mythic runs is likewise, not pay2win, especially since it requires the help of other people. Common pay2win is simply a person spending real money having a definitive, unobtainable advantage compared to someone who doesn't spend money. No matter how much real money you sink into being mythic carried, at the end of the day a group of people still had to carry you on their own power and skill. Real pay to win would like buying an item that provided you a permanent benefit that couldn't be acquired through normal means; for example, a person spending $20 to acquire a ring that grants them permanent movement speed, damage bonus, health bonus, etc. No matter how minimal the buff is, even if it's something like 2% health, you officially have hit pay2win territory because it's an advantage that a person spent out of game resources to purchase and can be used against others in a competitive environment.

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Doesn't matter where they bought the gold, just proof that WoW's a pay-to-win game. Who you pay off, whether its Blizz or some Venezuelan gold farmers, doesn't change WoW being pay-to-win. It's intrinsic to the game design.

Wait, you seriously believe that ~500 million gold was all linked to tokens and that it's the reason they could participate in a world first race? Seriously? Making money on high pop servers is not some mystical thing dude. Furthermore, them using an in-game resource doesn't play the game for them, nor does it exclude others from competing. The BoE's had to come from somewhere. The PVP runs had to use the assistance of other players. The consumables had to be made. All this obtainable through in-game resources generated by players, and none of it excluded from their competitors who don't spend. Furthermore, all if it becomes tangibly useless if none of the players execute.

Now if you told me they spent $ to have something no one could have without spending $, then it would be pay2win... that's obviously not the case. Your point becomes further diluted once you frame it from the point of the entire playerbase being able to experience the content - what did they actually win here with $? Being world first is nice, but ultimately meaningless to millions of other players who don't experience the content, or thousands of other players who DO clear mythic without spending a single dollar. What did they lose by not spending money? The answer is nothing. The world first race is a player-generated concept to begin with that holds value to a very, very tiny portion of the playerbase.

[rhorle]

Unattainable by normal player standards. It may have been attainable by gold farming companies, or someone with a multiple bots

If they are buying tokens then the are likely buying from players. Gold farming bots likely wouldn't be selling for the same rate as Blizzard due to the volatile nature of their business. That is the thing about the token. It is attainable by any player because it is 100% player funded. Every amount of gold was obtained by a player at some point. Sure some might be bots but I bet the vast majority is not.

[Raelbo]

You seem very triggered by me for some reason.

As I said, you came into this debate with arrogance and condescension. So I called you out on it.

I came here to have a discussion and did just that

Insulting people, dropping one liners, and telling others they are wrong because you disagree is NOT having a discussion.

Just calm down, wow is p2w and as others have already said, that's okay.

If you want to take the position that wow is p2w then you need to substantiate it. No, wow is not p2w. I have explained why, as have several others. And that is ok.

[Relapses]

Now if you told me they spent $ to have something no one could have without spending $, then it would be pay2win... that's obviously not the case. Your point becomes further diluted once you frame it from the point of the entire playerbase being able to experience the content - what did they actually win here with $? Being world first is nice, but ultimately meaningless to millions of other players who don't experience the content, or thousands of other players who DO clear mythic without spending a single dollar. What did they lose by not spending money? The answer is nothing. The world first race is a player-generated concept to begin with that holds value to a very, very tiny portion of the playerbase.

Even though I fully agree with the reasoning behind your take, I do kind of have an issue with that last bit. Both Echo and Limit (the two guilds at the forefront of the RWF) are gaming organizations at this point. (As of the last few years, we've seen a stratification of guilds into organizations around the Top 10 in both regions, as well. But that's a slightly different topic.) There is a lot of eSports money that these organizations funnel into their players to ensure that they're able to continue performing at the highest level possible. So while there isn't anything to lose from a players' perspective, there's certain a level of performance expected due to the amount of resources put into these guilds by the organizations to make the RWF possible.

[Garretdejiko]

Bought H Denatrius kill so I could quit earlier. So yes, it is p2w

[hulkgor]

Bought H Denatrius kill so I could quit earlier. So yes, it is p2w

Did you seriously think you "won" by having a heroic kill, especially a purchased one? That's like asking a friend to beat Super Mario for you and then bragging to others for having completing it. You didn't win anything, i'd say.

[Ekis]

If they are buying tokens then the are likely buying from players. Gold farming bots likely wouldn't be selling for the same rate as Blizzard due to the volatile nature of their business. That is the thing about the token. It is attainable by any player because it is 100% player funded. Every amount of gold was obtained by a player at some point. Sure some might be bots but I bet the vast majority is not.

Oh I don't disagree, though I just don't think they got it purely from WoW tokens or BoE's. I can't prove it, but that still is an obnoxious amount even by WoW token standards (bad math here but if a majority of that 478m gold was financed through WoW tokens and assuming WoW tokens were or are worth 170k, that's about 2,812 WoW tokens or about $56k USD).

Either way, buying that much in tokens at least for me would amount to paying to win in a sense that the number is so high up there. Is there still a limit to the number of tokens people can buy? I know they did boosts as well, but assuming 25 players did all of that primarily or only through token purchases that's about 113 tokens split between them, which seems like $2250 per person in the WF chase which is a lot of money that most people wouldn't fathom spending that amount to likely having to do it again (on top of including other WF orgs that are also dropping huge stacks of gold). Either there's still a massive influx of gold or they gotta be getting money from other more "nefarious" means. I could totally be wrong though.

[Garretdejiko]

Did you seriously think you "won" by having a heroic kill, especially a purchased one? That's like asking a friend to beat Super Mario for you and then bragging to others for having completing it. You didn't win anything, i'd say.

I have the achiev, which isn't much. My wow rotten brain was too far gone to realize that aotc denny didn't award a mount. I wouldn't have wasted 60k gold if I've checked lmao.
Got the weapon from it tho, I adquired character power for 60k gold, gold that can be adquired thanks to a cash shop item called WoW Token. That's the very definition of Pay To Win, isn't it? Get an advantage through real money. There are more expensive runs that funnel the drop to you.
Not that I'm saying it is a bad thing, by the way. If the literal president of the company sells boosts, who am I to judge?

[Raelbo]

I never said boosting would dissappear, boosting as you said, has always existed, but not to the degree we see today.

And the type of content that is well suited to boosting has always existed, but not to the degree we see today.

The only way these boosting communities survive is because people who dont have time to play the game pay real money for gold that can be used for boosts.

While I totally get the appeal of such a claim for someone who likes to hate on the token, I don't see this claim being backed up by any actual evidence. And if you stop and think about the token works, it doesn't even make a hell of a lot of sense, because the total portion of gold in the game acquired by means of tokens has to be very small.

It's the very definition of pay to win.

This again.... The definition of pay to win is that you need to pay in order to win. And if you aren't paying, there is just no way you can complete the content without putting in an insane amount of effort.

This notion that pay 2 win classifies as anything in which you pay money and get some nebulous advantage out is what you get when someone decides to look at the phrase without having any understanding or appreciation of what the term means in broader gaming circles.

And if you look at how token sellers get to "win", it is entirely by getting other players to help them, firstly in terms of obtaining the gold, and then in terms of carrying them through content. At no point can spending ever money ever be a requirement to achieve these outcomes since...you know... those players providing the gold and boosting obviously achieved them without needing to spend a cent.

Boosting was a thing pre-token, but it was reserved to the people who played the auction house or farmed their ass off. Not just joe schmo who wanted to drop a 100 bucks to get his alts geared in a week.

There can be no denying that tokens have opened up the opportunity to legitimately obtain boosts to a bigger audience. The question of course is how much bigger? And while you would like to believe that most people being boosted are token sellers, I suspect that the opposite is true and that most are probably still people who play the auction house or farm their asses off. This on the basis of how much of the gold economy resides in tokens. Of course if you can provide a source of information on what the actual numbers are, that would be helpful.

It's circular, so infinite really.

I sell a token to you for gold, i give the gold from the token to you for a boost, repeat.

You're assuming spherical chickens again.

No that is definitely not infinite. There is still a limit to how many boosts any given booster is both able and prepared to provide. There is also a limit on what you can spend a token on, and by extension, how much effort a booster will be willing to expend in the pursuit of obtaining more tokens.