If only people could start treating & debating this issue as something that excists in the gaming world, not just with Blizzard. everyone does it. Heck, in many MMORPGS you gotta BUY emotes(!), bag space(!) and so much other weird stuff that you once took for granted.
These companies probably do it because its much, much, much harder to get millions of people to play your game than it its to create cool stuff to buy on the shop. Why give two shits about making an awesome game when you can do less work and earn more?
I feel that years ago the "nerds" and the actual game devs were in the forefront of creating games - those with the ideas, passions, dreams and desire to create great worlds & games. They were driven of the desire to create great games. For gamers, by gamers. Now they have been taken over by the marketing team, those who figure out how to squeese as much buck from each player as they can while the game dwindles into nothing.
Anyone can go to each shop and compare the prices.
For example: race change:
7 euros in FF
25 euros on WoW
Pets:
5.99 euros or lower in FF
10 euros in WoW
Oh but wait guys we can just spend hour and hours farming gold in WoW to make up the difference. Yay copium!
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Yes, i think it's just generalization. People mixing up one kind of opinion with another from different people and trying to resolve them as one.
Cash shops are bad. My opinion is that WoW's has worse practices, not that FF's shop is good.
Though as i said on the first post it comes down to the fact that FF players are simply more satisfied with their game than WoW ones. So, WoW's vocalize it more.
Last edited by Swnem; 2021-09-07 at 11:05 AM.
I would actually buy this transmog (if I was still playing WoW), if the items went to a charity for equal rights or anti sexual harassment, you know something that Blizzard (with alot of the Wow team) have been facing alot of recently, having to spend money on a transmog item where the money goes to them instead of anyone else feels kind of dirty and slimey
With that said I am sure the devs worked hard on it, it looks sweet just a shame it was used to fulfil a dirty purpose.
Last edited by Orby; 2021-09-07 at 11:32 AM.
I love Warcraft, I dislike WoW
Unsubbed since January 2021, now a Warcraft fan from a distance
Blizzard is definitely in a tough spot. I think the cash-shop transmogs are a bad idea, not because of any "moral" or "ethical" reason, but simply because for a game already hemorrhaging players, they should be leveraging anything they can to keep players on-board.
Like, have a set of gear, and have a big in-game event. Maybe the Jailer actually does BEGIN dismantling reality. There's a set time each day that a "rift" will open somewhere in Azeroth, spawning some lowbies and eventually a world-boss. If you kill all of the bosses, you unlock a cool transmog. After two months, the event is over, so no one can get that armor anymore.
Wouldn't require a ton of work, but could get people excited enough to sub again. Keep doing short-term stuff like that every couple months, and you'd have a much more stable playerbase.
It’s both a big deal, and an absolute nothingburger.
In reality, it’s nothing because they’ve added cosmetics before and the competition sells 10x the cosmetics.
On the other hand, WoW is in (arguably) it’s lowest point currently in its long history and both perception in game and out are at an all time low and that is not debatable. The optics of greedy MtX currently, rather than focusing on making WoW great again is why it’ll get lambasted, and rightfully so
When your game is great, MtX are welcome, but when your game is down and needs all hands on deck… that is not the time for cash in cosmetics and mtx that further sully the reputation of a game spiraling into oblivion currently.
Wow would get far less flak for this is the games quality was higher, but when your game is rock bottom.. that’s not the time to try to get more cash. That’s the time to spend your own company cash to rebuild it up to the point people besides whales, would purchase mtx.
Wow currently has a bad stigma to it, and they need to try to redeem it rather than stay the coarse and further sell out. Sell out once you’ve salvaged WoW and turned it into WoW 2.0 essentially.
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This dude gets it
Why does it have to be one or the other? Why not both?
And before you try to argue that the shop diverts resources that could otherwise be utilized for making more in-game content, that just not a well thought out argument. The simple fact is that the cash shop makes a lot more revenue than it costs to run. It is almost a certainty that a number of people currently employed in the WoW team owe their jobs to the existence of the cash shop and the revenue it brings in that justifies the continued cost of developing this game.
So if anything, WoW likely has more in-game content thanks to the shop than it would have otherwise. Even in the worst case scenario it is doubtful it would have less.
You're just going to get a Jim Sterling-esque rant about how the box price of a video game should be all you pay for... "Producing video games as a service is an inherently shady practice and any company which employs a cash shop is simply trying to maximize profits while minimizing development." And while there's a bit of truth to the cynicism... it's just unlikely to yield much of a productive discussion here.
In my experience, the "optics" of this issue are largely about those viewing it and the biases they already have. Let's face it, when we're talking about people who hate WoW it's like listening to a bitter ex going on about their ex-partner. It doesn't matter what the truth is, pretty much anything the ex has done or said is going to be viewed as terrible.
Well, without mtx, the game is likely to spiral into financial oblivion. And as I said above, those who are critical of mtx tend, in my observations, to be the sort of players who will be critical of the game regardless. So removing the shop is unlikely to improve the reputational situation, while causing financial harm to the company. Seems pretty obvious which way to go.
So let me get this straight: They need to spend more cash to fix the game, but at the same time you want them to their revenue?!? That's just insane.
The bad stigma around WoW relates more to issues like their sexual harrassment in the workplace and how they treated Blitzchung. I think the stigma you're referring to relates more to individuals who are acting like jilted ex-lovers after they stopped playing.
You're making a strawman fallacy here by equating selling xmog on the shop with "selling out".
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Interestingly enough, that is all I pay for with WoW.
A few issues with this guy's statement.
Firstly it isn't an inherently shady practice so much as a potentially shady practice. What tends to make game shops shady is when they end up coercing players into spending far more on the game than was advertised.
1) Nothing from the WoW shop is particularly compelling or must-have in order to be able to play the game successfully.
2) With the existence of the token, everything on the shop can be bought with gold anyway.
Essentially the logical fallacy typically employed by the anti-shop brigade around here is: Other game makers employ shady practices through their shops. Therefore because WoW has a shop, Blizzard are employing shady practices. They never bother to critically assess whether the WoW shop actually meets any of the criteria for being shady.
Probably true. But that never stopped me from trying
Yeah. I would disagree
Last edited by Raelbo; 2021-09-07 at 03:02 PM.
Whether it`s FFXIV or WoW, having a sub based game and an in game shop to sell cosmetics for real money is awful.
The shop was quite handy for using services like faction change, gender change, server migration and so on.
My Collection
- Bring back my damn zoom distance/MoP Portals - I read OP minimum, 1st page maximum-make wow alt friendly again -Please post constructively(topkek) -Kill myself
End of the day they have gotten away with selling power. Once you pass that point there really isn't any check left.
“It was never part of the game,” then lists how it was part of the game.
Also, comparatively, prices were much higher back then. Getting your first mount and flying mount in Vanilla and BC would be the equivalent of approximately 800k-1 million gold now.
Yeah, you right, Blizzard cares nothing about bots. They never do ban/suspension waves after investigating claims. Let me guess, you get upset that when you report a bot they aren’t banned immediately.
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This might come as a surprise, but some people like spending time in game doing things like m+ and raid sales. Hanging out with friends, telling jokes, passing time doing things they have fun doing. When they do this, those hours aren’t tedium and copium (as you kids like to say these days), but are actually a fun pastime while enjoying a hobby.
Also, while they do this thing called having fun, they are effectively earning in game currency which they can transfer into bnet balance and play the game for free. While also buying things in game for free. That’s not copium, that’s having fun while not spending money to do so.
This whole copium thing is just a new buzz word that applies to a very minor amount of players that are actually addicted, but people want to use for everyone who seems to enjoy something that others hate.
My Collection
- Bring back my damn zoom distance/MoP Portals - I read OP minimum, 1st page maximum-make wow alt friendly again -Please post constructively(topkek) -Kill myself