Blizzard don't ban boosting because THEY are the boosters...crazy

[Relapses]

I don't think boosting is more prevalent because of the WoW Token. It was introduced in WoD and certainly didn't tick up then.

The President of WoW boosted with his guild which is what every guild at that level does.

The fact that you know only your friends bought WoW tokens with money and not gold suggests that your friends, like you, are also gold poor.

Finally, the reason you see so much boosting spam is because boosters are paid a commission for sales. Thus if you don't want to farm gold and want to make gold? Selling boosts is actually a pretty lucrative way of doing it considering you get ~20% of each boost sold.

The reason boosting seems more prevalent is because there are so many more things to boost in modern WoW than before the token was introduced.

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Ok so your source of information is some guy online. Mine is from Blizzards official earnings report. Where did you get your information that showed their monthly subscription revenue is in the hundreds of millions? My source, which again is an official legal report of earnings, shows their subscription revenue in the 10s of millions per quarter. Even a hundred million in sub revenue would mean almost 7million subscribers, but hundreds would put them over their peak of 10m. Its pretty hard to believe your numbers.

I was referring to yearly revenue in the hundreds of millions, not monthly. Apologies for not clarifying that part.

[T-34]

Not what I am talking about. My point is that regardless of boosting optics within parts of the community, Blizzard as a company is in favor of it because, thanks through the WoW token market, they are making the most profit of it.

Regardless of what personal ethics regarding boosting, Blizz is firmly on the pro side, because money.

On that we can agree with the caveat that Blizzard now gets some of the RL money, through the surcharge on WoW subscription compared to a regular subscription, that before directly went from the boostee to the booster, just as Blizzard now gets a significant part of the RL money that changed hands when people bought gold directly from other players.

So while Blizzard does make more money of it, then I am not so sure that the total market for gold selling/boosting is bigger now measured in RL money compared to before.
And let me add another benefit with the token system: The exchange of gold for RL money between players is now part of the official Blizzard revenue and is subject to taxation to the benefit of the whole society.

But I do agree with those that want all boost advertising away from the group finder and trade chat.
Let them have a separate channel for that.

[kranur]

While I'm not fond of boosting (neither buying nor selling), I don't see how it can make any sense to do it. Also calling conspiracies ... lol ... the people who work at blizzard and play the game are people just like everyone else and play it in the same way, the ones filling their pockets are not the ones playing the game, they don't give a fuck about it.

And before you say it's because of the token, it's not, boosting has been happening since forever ... I've been selling Algalon carries in Wrath ... why? Because we could .. it was easy gold.

And lastly, classic "boosting" does not work like retail boosting. It's the regular people that are decked out in gear that otherwise wouldn't be doing Gruul for example but do it to get a few hundred gold from the people willing to spend it.

[OrangeJuice]

The reason boosting seems more prevalent is because there are so many more things to boost in modern WoW than before the token was introduced.

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I was referring to yearly revenue in the hundreds of millions, not monthly. Apologies for not clarifying that part.

Where did you get your information on the hundreds of millions, and how many millions are you talking about? Because according to my information (their official earnings report), they (subscription revenue) aren't even in hundreds of millions a year - they're close to 200m a year. I'd like to see where you came up with your numbers though. But lets say your numbers are more accurate than their official earnings report, well then you contradicted yourself when you said that subscriptions make up the bulk of their revenue. Hundreds of millions isn't a bulk of a multi billion dollar company. Again, I'd just like to see your source of numbers come from as well as some clarification on what you meant by subscriptions being the bulk of their revenue.

[Relapses]

Where did you get your information on the hundreds of millions, and how many millions are you talking about? Because according to my information (their official earnings report), they (subscription revenue) aren't even in hundreds of millions a year - they're close to 200m a year. I'd like to see where you came up with your numbers though. But lets say your numbers are more accurate than their official earnings report, well then you contradicted yourself when you said that subscriptions make up the bulk of their revenue. Hundreds of millions isn't a bulk of a multi billion dollar company. Again, I'd just like to see your source of numbers come from as well as some clarification on what you meant by subscriptions being the bulk of their revenue.

You're grossly misinterpreting the QR to fit this argument which is why I haven't engaged with that part of what you're saying. My statement stands: A couple million a year in boosting (assuming people only buy tokens to boost, which they don't) pales in comparison to what Blizzard takes in from subscriptions and box sales.

[Pandragon]

Retail boosting just encourages the purchasing of wow tokens - noone is buying boosts with gold they've earned lmao.

Thats true, after all, there was no boosting before wow tokens.......

The problem with boosting is when the group finder is loaded with boost sellers.

[OrangeJuice]

The reason boosting seems more prevalent is because there are so many more things to boost in modern WoW than before the token was introduced.

And just to be clear, you don't see a correlation between the number of systems designed that can be circumvented by boosting, and the amount revenue token sales provides?

[Relapses]

And just to be clear, you don't see a correlation between the number of systems designed that can be circumvented by boosting, and the amount revenue token sales provides?

I don't think it's nearly as meaningful as I'm sure you would like to believe it is.

[OrangeJuice]

You're grossly misinterpreting the QR to fit this argument which is why I haven't engaged with that part of what you're saying. My statement stands: A couple million a year in boosting (assuming people only buy tokens to boost, which they don't) pales in comparison to what Blizzard takes in from subscriptions and box sales.

Well now you're saying different things. You said that token sales were a drop in the water compared to them. Now you're claiming only tokens purchased specifically for boosts. Where are you getting your information from that separates boosting tokens from the overall token sales?

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I don't think it's nearly as meaningful as I'm sure you would like to believe it is.

Not nearly as meaningful but you agree that it has a role in their design decisions?

[User517849]

The reason boosting seems more prevalent is because there are so many more things to boost in modern WoW than before the token was introduced.

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I was referring to yearly revenue in the hundreds of millions, not monthly. Apologies for not clarifying that part.

M+ was introduced in Legion. M+ mount was introduced in 8.3. What drastic change that made more boostable things am I missing? The locked out no loot change was at the end of MoP (so you could keep raiding with a character even if they were already saved to the instance).

The only real change I can think of was the change in Legion. It used to be that a player could only buy 18 tokens / 24 months with gold per bnet account. When they removed that restriction, coupled with allowing you to exchange game time to Blizz balance is the only thing I could think of. That made buying tokens for money more affordable for boosting.

Still, the WoW gold whales control the token price.

[Relapses]

Well now you're saying different things. You said that token sales were a drop in the water compared to them. Now you're claiming only tokens purchased specifically for boosts. Where are you getting your information from that separates boosting tokens from the overall token sales?

???

Yeah, I give up dude. Take care.

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M+ was introduced in Legion. M+ mount was introduced in 8.3. What drastic change that made more boostable things am I missing? The locked out no loot change was at the end of MoP (so you could keep raiding with a character even if they were already saved to the instance).

Four difficulty levels of raiding. It used to be two. And now you can boost pretty much every level of M+.

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Not nearly as meaningful but you agree that it has a role in their design decisions?

No, I don't believe anybody at Blizzard has ever once thought to themselves, "Man, we should design the game this way because it will give us so many fucking token sales."

[Tumile]

Retail boosting just encourages the purchasing of wow tokens - noone is buying boosts with gold they've earned lmao.
Classic boosting just encourages RMT.

Both are bad for the game.

I do my shitty new alts usually buy a few boosts till they can somewhat pull their own weight instead of burdening friends with a completely fresh char to boost for free.

Never bought gold, not paid sub since the wow token was released till 4 months ago since I quit retail ever since classic came out, and I dont trade my classic gold for retail tokens.

would imagine the majority buys their gold though. but I know around 50 ish people personally who buy boosts for their alts, and do not buy tokens or gold. and I know secondhand of thousands of people. so claiming no one buys boosts with gold they've earned is pretty god damn uninformed. its common practise to usuall also get discounts in ur own boosting communities for your alts. so 99% of boosters, buy boosts, with gold they've earned, usually through boosting.

The same occurs in Classic with GDKP, the gold u earn usually goes into ur alts gear in another GDKP.

Again, please stop talking on a subject that you are so uninformed about, you obviously never paticipated in these activities, why embarass urself like this?

[User517849]

???

Yeah, I give up dude. Take care.

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Four difficulty levels of raiding. It used to be two. And now you can boost pretty much every level of M+.

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No, I don't anybody at Blizzard has ever once thought to themselves, "Man, we should design the game this way because it will cause us so many fucking token sales."

4 difficulties was the end of MoP.

Cata 4.3 introduced LFR but heroic/mythic still shared a lockout.

MoP 5.3 introduced flex but lfr/flex/heroic/mythic no longer shared a lockout.

In WoD 6.0, the nomenclature was changed from flex/normal/heroic to normal/heroic/mythic.

[Tumile]

???

Yeah, I give up dude. Take care.

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Four difficulty levels of raiding. It used to be two. And now you can boost pretty much every level of M+.

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No, I don't believe anybody at Blizzard has ever once thought to themselves, "Man, we should design the game this way because it will give us so many fucking token sales."

On that last bit, surely you havent thought that through. they quite obviously have designed a lot of things in ways that gets them Token sales. I doubt any of the Raid or M+ content has ever been designed around it, but Mounts, BMAH, even Azerite reforging quite obviously was influenced by it, BOE's is arguable, but at the very least after seeing how it affected token sales, they surely realized and did nothing to change it.

[Julmara]

i dont like boosting myself but as long as its only gold or gold bought via token its legit
the solution is simple dont use boosting yourself if you dont like it
as long as people can get a profit of something it will continue to exist

[Relapses]

4 difficulties was the end of MoP.

Cata 4.3 introduced LFR but heroic/mythic still shared a lockout.

MoP 5.3 introduced flex but lfr/flex/heroic/mythic no longer shared a lockout.

In WoD 6.0, the nomenclature was changed from flex/normal/heroic to normal/heroic/mythic.

I meant loot lockouts, apologies. I've been responding rapid fire in this thread and not nearly specific enough. The overall point remains, I think: There are far more reasons a player would want to buy a boost in 2021 than there were in 2012. That's part of the reason for the increase in the prevalence of boosting advertisements.

[OrangeJuice]

???

Yeah, I give up dude. Take care.

So you don't really have any source of information other than some guy online, you're ignoring Blizzard's official earnings numbers, yet you came in to just argue with people based on that foundation, and now that I'm asking you to dig deeper you're just shutting me down.
Its like I said in the other threads - you just make up stuff as you go, only to argue in defense of Blizzard, even if it makes absolutely no sense. Thank you for proving my point.

[Relapses]

On that last bit, surely you havent thought that through. they quite obviously have designed a lot of things in ways that gets them Token sales. I doubt any of the Raid or M+ content has ever been designed around it, but Mounts, BMAH, even Azerite reforging quite obviously was influenced by it, BOE's is arguable, but at the very least after seeing how it affected token sales, they surely realized and did nothing to change it.

I think those are circumstances which prove the token is a kind of shitty thing to have in the game but I don't think they were designed specifically for token sales.

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So you don't really have any source of information other than some guy online, you're ignoring Blizzard's official earnings numbers, yet you came in to just argue with people based on that foundation, and now that I'm asking you to dig deeper you're just shutting me down.
Its like I said in the other threads - you just make up stuff as you go, only to argue in defense of Blizzard, even if it makes absolutely no sense. Thank you for proving my point.

No, nothing in the post I quoted by you made any sense. You're just being weirdly semantic.

[User517849]

I meant loot lockouts, apologies. I've been responding rapid fire in this thread and not nearly specific enough. The overall point remains, I think: There are far more reasons a player would want to buy a boost in 2021 than there were in 2012. That's part of the reason for the increase in the prevalence of boosting advertisements.

The loot lockouts were also changed at the end of 5.3. I was selling Garrosh runs for the heirloom with my tank. My tank could run them over and over but didn't get loot.

I don't think there's really been a significant change since WoD, outside of Legion adding M+ and the M+ box.

I remember someone who sold ~9000 WoD Heroic friendship mount kills.

[OrangeJuice]

I meant loot lockouts, apologies. I've been responding rapid fire in this thread and not nearly specific enough. The overall point remains, I think: There are far more reasons a player would want to buy a boost in 2021 than there were in 2012. That's part of the reason for the increase in the prevalence of boosting advertisements.

Can you give us the reasons people buy boosts in 2021, and what people were buying in 2012? I can count 3 reasons for advertisments in SL - Raiding, PvP, and M+ dungeons. Off the top of my head, from what I remember in cata/mop boosting was for leveling, Raiding, and PvP. Thats an even 3 by my count but maybe I missed something. You said far more reasons though, I'd like to hear what the other reasons for boosting are.