Save Up to 40% on Dragonflight Through May 15

[Dracullus]

Yall are trying so hard lmfao meanwhile DF is dead and everyone is on HC Classic.

That's what happens when you confuse reality with twitch. HC Classic is flavour of the month for streamers, meanwhile it's literally 1 full server on EU (+1 in US I guess). Meanwhile DF, when right now on EU I count 12 Full servers on EU + a lot high/medium, is dead. But numbers doesn't matter in your imaginary world, right?

[Osmeric]

I wouldn't overinterpret this. Only makes good business sense to time discounts with new patch releases, higher chance of snagging customers if you have an attractive update in the news.

Which is why they've done this in every past expansion.

OH WAIT

[Jester Joe]

Getting to play the then 3-month old expansion for half a month for free doesn't count as a method for trying to sell the expansion? And then you just poo-poo the 20% discount because it's ... what, not enough of a discount for you to count it as a 'real' discount?

So, basically, if we don't count anything you don't want to count then I guess Dragonflight has never been offered for sale or free for a time. That's pretty damned selective and only in service of deflecting from the reality that Dragonflight sales have clearly struggled. It's ok, you can still like the game even if it sells poorly. You don't need to debase yourself this way trying to prove "all is well, remain calm!" there Niedermayer.

I didn't think Id need to point this out, but what they were complaining about was sales.

A free trial isn't a sale.

[Shadowferal]

I didn't think Id need to point this out, but what they were complaining about was sales. A free trial isn't a sale.

It's an attempt to attract interest. Not much difference really.

[anon5123]

now the age of the game and what it is now just requires more aggressive customer attraction/retention

aka, "the game is dying hard and blizz is desperately trying to damage control the plummeting sub numbers"

[Shadowferal]

aka, "the game is dying hard and blizz is desperately trying to damage control the plummeting sub numbers"

If enough people quit, it would leave only the diehards, those that will accept anything that Blizz does, so...higher player retention at that point would be inevitable.

[FelPlague]

Nah, I don't see any improvements vs 10.0, so I'll wait till 10.2. May be it will be better.

What improvements are you looking for?

[Jester Joe]

It's an attempt to attract interest. Not much difference really.

But we're not playing semantics or moving goalposts.

There are brand new games who have demos before they even come out, the idea of lumping that in as a "sale" is just weird to criticize it for.

[Selah]

Definitely interesting, and makes me wonder about the state of the game in terms of sales. Not that I'm complaining, but I doubt Blizzard would be doing this if they didn't feel the need to.

[Thoriangun]

Whether it's a good move or not is highly dependent upon the game. There's quite a few games (or gaming platforms) that will almost never go on sale, or their sales are a very minor discount. The reason behind this is that the games and/or IPs are strong enough that you don't need to put them on sale. If your game is weak and/or not moving well, you'll tend to see them go on sale more frequently and/or for deeper discounts. While the trends slightly change for events and sales that are independent of an individual game, the general trend still applies.

This trend is easily seen on Steam. Games that sell really well or are popular at launch tend to not go on a sale at all for a very long time (almost a year in some cases), and when they do go on sale it's usually in the range of 10% to maybe 34%. However, there's been a bunch of AAA games that have had bad launches or are not well received that will go on sale between 34% to 50% within a month or two of their launch dates. What's the reasoning behind this? If a game is good or popular, you don't need for it to go on sale until you reach a saturation point of customers... at which point, you can afford to put the game on sale for events or promotions as you've likely tapped most of the potential people who will buy the game at your price point. It's not like you really have to worry much about clearing inventory for games anymore as things tend towards digital nowadays, so the reasons for putting your game on sale are more directly related to how well the game is selling and performing overall.

To put it mildly, the reason Dragonflight keeps going on sale is because it needs to be on sale. Yes, you can strategically place sales to boost purchases, but the frequency and magnitude of the sales are indicating that Dragonflight is having sales and participation issues. If Dragonflight was selling well and had good participation rates, the game would go on sale less frequently, probably only going on sale for 10% to 25% at this stage of the game. While I could tie this into WoW token and services sales with respect to how they could potentially indicate why the sales are happening, that's a really long post I don't want to make.

I mean, normally blizzard doesn't need to do sales but dont forget that blizzard is still in turmoil over the state of the game for the past few expansions and it's law suit.

It still needs to have a positive face, it still needs a lot to prove, lowering the barrier of entry of returning players it's probably the most important whilst showing changes have been made to retain them.

[Lolites]

I mean, normally blizzard doesn't need to do sales

yet still does them... literaly every wow expansion was on sale multiple times, even the most "popular" wrath...

[Yarathir]

You're forgetting the 20% discount in February and the free couple weeks trial of Dracthyr. I can't remember if there's been others. But that's four discounts or free trials of Dragonflight since launch. Nearly one a month.

There was also the one that gave you extra Trader's Tenders and the free lvl 60 boost.

[Jester Joe]

There was also the one that gave you extra Trader's Tenders and the free lvl 60 boost.

The extra tender comes with literally any purchase ever.

That's not a promotion even, that was a reward to people who already bought the game. This is such an extreme stretch.

[Tiwack]

They've got a lot of players playing other games after the scandal and shitshows of bfa + sl, naturally they want 'em back and are aware of the biggest factor: price.

They need to give a month of gametime with it though, doubt many are gonna jump aboard with the base price so high in the first place.

[Yarathir]

The extra tender comes with literally any purchase ever.

That's not a promotion even, that was a reward to people who already bought the game. This is such an extreme stretch.

I don't care.

[Jester Joe]

I don't care.

Then don't get involved...? I mean, I get this probably isn't an actual "I don't care" and more of a "I don't care to actually justify it and I'd rather use the chance to belittle the game" but it makes little to no sense to try to paint everything as "CLEARLY THIS IS THEM SHOWING THEY'RE NOT DOING WELL!!".

Like, we don't need a scientist to tell that after Shadowlands, WoW needs to pull people back in.

[Yarathir]

Then don't get involved...? I mean, I get this probably isn't an actual "I don't care" and more of a "I don't care to actually justify it and I'd rather use the chance to belittle the game" but it makes little to no sense to try to paint everything as "CLEARLY THIS IS THEM SHOWING THEY'RE NOT DOING WELL!!".

Like, we don't need a scientist to tell that after Shadowlands, WoW needs to pull people back in.

No, I don't feel like jumping through your arbitrary hoops and goalposts.

[Jester Joe]

No, I don't feel like jumping through your arbitrary hoops and goalposts.

...There is nothing arbitrary about what a sale is. This is just some weird attempt at insulting and mocking instead of actually discussing and there's no point in that.

A sale is pretty clearly defined, and it's what was being mentioned. Acting like stretch armstrong to pretend "Well getting something is like a sale...?" isn't an actual point.

[FAILoZOFF]

Why would I want to save 40% when I can save 100% not buying this crap? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Yarathir]

...There is nothing arbitrary about what a sale is. This is just some weird attempt at insulting and mocking instead of actually discussing and there's no point in that.

A sale is pretty clearly defined, and it's what was being mentioned. Acting like stretch armstrong to pretend "Well getting something is like a sale...?" isn't an actual point.

Whatever you want.