Why are we charged for expansions?

[Dazzy]

Because Blizzard isn't running a charity. Maybe one day Unicef will get into the mmorpg business, but until then blizzard are the people to see.

[Deleted]

The whole premise to your question is wrong. Why would they make an expansion if not to charge you?

[velde046]

I don't think it costs them 150 million dollar a month to have some computers running 24/7 as a lot of people here are saying.

I dont think anyone thinks it's just the servers, but there's also stuff like:
- Developer costs for patches, bug fixes etc.
- Developing new stuff
- Artist costs for content patches, musicians, modellers, artists, animators
- Customer service
- Advertising
- Cost for housing (they have offices)
- External staff (like cleaning persons, suppliers)
- Making profit
- Etc.

There are many many costs involved in running a business and a task is to make more money than just cover the costs, because the shareholders want to see profit...

[Aquamonkey]

I dont think anyone thinks it's just the servers, but there's also stuff like:
- Developer costs for patches, bug fixes etc.
- Developing new stuff
- Artist costs for content patches, musicians, modellers, artists, animators
- Customer service
- Advertising
- Cost for housing (they have offices)
- External staff (like cleaning persons, suppliers)
- Making profit
- Etc.

There are many many costs involved in running a business and a task is to make more money than just cover the costs, because the shareholders want to see profit...

They shouldn't be charging us extra for bug fixes.

[Yosef1015]

They put too much time into these expansions to not be payed more than the subscription fee. And lets all face it, everyone here would pay up to $100 or more for the expansion.

[Coldpro]

Because..they need money?

Money makes the world go round, I have no clue why people here seem to think Blizzard runs on "Gumdrops and rainbows ^-^"

It's a COMPANY. Companies want MONEY. It is as simple as that.

Everquest had a 15$ fee, You had to pay for each expansion. -Shrugs-

I miss the days when EQ was $13/mo. :P

@OP We pay for a SERVICE, not for them to develop more content for us. We pay to access the GAME not any additions with that $15.

[Deleted]

I think their prices are too high especially for server transfers. gonna unsub til' autumn anyway and save my £££s.

How long are we gonna be on dragon soul?

Seriously?

[Aquamonkey]

See, I'm not sure what people like you want. Are you wanting there to be some law that says companies can't make more than X profit? Do you want someone to force Blizzard to charge less? Neither is going to happen.

If you think it's not worth the price, you are free to not pay it, and play no MMOs, or another MMO. Video games are not an essential service, so you can do whatever you like, but no one in a government's going to force Vivendi (European parent of Activision/Blizzard) or Blizzard to change their prices because you think they make too much. The only thing you can do is stop paying it.

If they release a broken game, it's on them to fix it. Not for us to pay them more to fix what they were supposed to give us in the first place. This is only in address to fixes, the sub fee going to everything else is fine.

I can't think of any other game sub or single purchase that charges extra for bug fixes. Even Blizzard doesn't charge SC2 players a sub fee for bug/balance fixes.

[Aquamonkey]

They aren't charging you extra.
They charge you 15 each month plus X per expansion, which covers everything.
If they were charging more, we'd get a bill every time they fixed more bugs than usual.
But we don't get a bill... Understand?

Yes, I understand how all the income into a company goes into a large pot and they don't direct resources based on the source of the income. That said, bug fixes and balance changes don't/shouldn't be financed by the subscription fee. If it is, then we are paying for those things that should be included with our original purchase of the game. None of the other non-sub Blizzard games charge extra for these services. Even Battle.net is free, so access to these servers doesn't cost extra either.

[myrddinde]

Running servers and paying for customer service isn't cheap.

Get away with Customer Service, they are so cutting it down. Just reported an exploit and instead of saying "nice thanks for the report", they decided to write back

"Regrettably we are unable to assist with Tech issues via customer support ticketing system."

I mean I write them a step by step instruction to reproduce the exploit and you get this as reply?!!!?!? Some of their staff don't give a shit about the game and this kind of support isn't worth shit.

Also don't forget (yeah I am an Annual Pass User) that the fee we pay is also for new content, Firelands -> DS cost us 72€ monthly fees and now DS has been out already for another ~100€ with MOP nowhere close to release and no ruby Sanctum like filler content on the horizon.

Right now Blizzard gives us too little for the amount we pay, it has been becoming worse with Cataclysm than ever despite their promise that new content will come faster with Cataclysm we got less than ever before.

Also QA has gone down a ton, some things are not matter of unexpected hard to produce and unforeseeable consequences. Some of these issues we get are just sloppy QA work or lack of foresight (Raid Finder loot stuff) and it takes like 2-3 months to get a fix.

I like Blizzard, I like WoW but that doesn't change that I feel milked.

[s_bushido]

If you don't think the cost of a subscription plus the cost of the expansions is worth it, why would you continue paying? I'm not seeing the logic here.

[Frozen Death Knight]

They put too much time into these expansions to not be payed more than the subscription fee. And lets all face it, everyone here would pay up to $100 or more for the expansion.

Well, that I would disagree with. Unless all games started to become more expensive and more money was given from jobs overall, I would reconsider buying the expansion.

[Kaldreno]

They spend hundreds of hours per person on their staff, per expansion. It's enough content for a whole other game, were it not an MMO. I have no problems with buying expansions for a game I truly enjoy, and have for over 5 years.

[Aquamonkey]

See, I don't understand that, either. If you (not you, bushido) think Blizzard is 'milking' you, why are you still paying them? Go pay someone else. If you think it's 'not worth the price' then stop paying. It's that simple. No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to pay for a video game if you don't want to.

So if I'm renting a flat and there's leaky pipes and electrical shorts, I have no right to complain to the owner to have him fix it or lower the rent because I can just move out and find something else?

[Deadraline]

Because blizzard is a business...and every busniess's goal is (or at least should be) to make money. To provide people expansions for free is a loss. It takes time and money to produce expansions. It also takes time and money to keep the current game updated and going. Your $15 a month basically goes towards maintenance and patches. To keep the game running. The cost to make new content is much higher than a patch...so they charge you more money by selling you the new content. Makes perfect sense.

[Aquamonkey]

There are laws that cover that on the flat, and shelter is an essential service.

A video game is not. You can find another video game easily if you don't like the service. Blizzard fixes bugs, and doesn't charge an extra fee for it. They charge the sub fee for many things they take care of to keep the game running. If you don't like the fee, stop playing and pay someone else. Simple.

Again, a video game is not an essential service, so, you can't really compare it to a flat.

FFS it's just an analogy, no need to take it so literally. It could easily apply to any number of things.

In any case it seems my original comment has gone way over everyone's head. "They shouldn't be charging us extra for bug fixes" was in response to:

I dont think anyone thinks it's just the servers, but there's also stuff like:
- Developer costs for patches, bug fixes etc.
- Developing new stuff
- Artist costs for content patches, musicians, modellers, artists, animators
- Customer service
- Advertising
- Cost for housing (they have offices)
- External staff (like cleaning persons, suppliers)
- Making profit
- Etc.

There are many many costs involved in running a business and a task is to make more money than just cover the costs, because the shareholders want to see profit...

It was specifically against including bug fixes in the list of things covered by the subscription fee.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Yes, I understand how all the income into a company goes into a large pot and they don't direct resources based on the source of the income. That said, bug fixes and balance changes don't/shouldn't be financed by the subscription fee. If it is, then we are paying for those things that should be included with our original purchase of the game. None of the other non-sub Blizzard games charge extra for these services. Even Battle.net is free, so access to these servers doesn't cost extra either.

Look at any game made, nowadays. Any serious gaming company patches their games. Blizzard have been supporting their older games far longer than most companies. Still, patches cost resources like money and development time. Of course it's at the expense of what money you spend on the game you're playing, despite that you are not necessarily paying more after buying a copy (games without a subscription fee, in this case).

Are you really going to argue about what companies decide to do with their money? Plus, this completely goes against the argument people have had about wanting to put more resources into the game by not wanting balance and bug fix patches to be at the expense of the money they pay to play the game. Really, can people decide their position, already, or do you have some other position than everyone else who has been arguing about this "issue"?

[stgeorge78]

Because an expansion is much larger than a patch or two, and takes significantly more work and resources.

Blizzard is a BUSINESS. They need money to develop this game and they need money to make profits to attract investors.

Why do they need investors if they have all this money coming in already? GREED, that's it, pure and simple. Corporations exist to extract money out of people, there is no other reason for their existence. Is this a good thing? I'd say no.

[Sansnom]

Running servers and paying for customer service isn't cheap.

I keep hearing that. Does anyone has any idea what the cost are to running servers? Costs that have real world figures to back it up? Amazon runs a lot of servers, so does Google, how much are they spending keeping their systems up 24hrs? How much revenue are they receiving? Compare that to the cost for Blizzard.

[DoctorDoomkin]

Bottom Line: They are offering a service. To get that service, you must pay a fee.

If you don't pay for it, you don't get it. You do NOT need to pay an expansion to play this game. Hell, you can play this game for free. However, if you want a service, it will cost you. They are the provider. You are the consumer. Vote with dollar bills instead of complaining.