Is WoW Pay 2 Win?

[Lochton]

Ok so sure. You can buy gold with real money.
With this gold:
You can buy gear off the AH.
You can buy boosts in dungeons and raids to get gear.
With this gold you'll be geared af. Granted you'll need to lay down some serious cash. A boost of Mythic Nathria is going for several million etc and one token at 20 euros is 200k ish?

At the end of this you'll have a very geared pixel.
With this pixel you'll go and think you'll now get into all the best groups, guilds etc. But you won't. Because you haven't a clue of what to do. So..if P2W is being a guildless ubergeared wacko everyone knows bought his gear and wouldn't think twice about recruiting this person to actually play the game then..yeah..I guess WoW is P2W and has been so wince Vanilla.

Basically my conclusion as well, in one way or the other, it seems by the development of the discussion.

[Soikona]

but you could buy boosts/gear/gold/whatever years before token, since vanila...

But buying gold was a big no no in vanilla. Now it’s ok from the approved vendor (themselves). So spending money to buy gold, to buy a boost is not something you could do in vanilla (without breaking the ToS). How can it be comparable then?

[Cuppy]

But buying gold was a big no no in vanilla. Now it’s ok from the approved vendor (themselves). So spending money to buy gold, to buy a boost is not something you could do in vanilla (without breaking the ToS). How can it be comparable then?

Why do you even compare it to something that was 17 years ago?
We all know there was boosting in vanilla too, we all know you could buy gold in vanilla too. Hell I even played few hours with 2 Chinese gold farmers back then, in WPL. Yes, I asked them and I farmed gold with them for a few hours in vanilla.

[Soikona]

Why do you even compare it to something that was 17 years ago?
We all know there was boosting in vanilla too, we all know you could buy gold in vanilla too. Hell I even played few hours with 2 Chinese gold farmers back then, in WPL. Yes, I asked them and I farmed gold with them for a few hours in vanilla.

Buying gold in vanilla was a bannable offense. Now it’s advertised, as long as you buy it from Blizzard. Are you being obtuse on purpose? But that’s my point, as you said, why even compare? It’s not a fair comparison.

[Niwes]

Thank you for explaining another reason why SL sucks and the Token scheme.

The issue here is that the Token doesnt look like a P2W (Boost does clearly), but Blizzard didnt designed SL blindly. They designed the game focus on creating the most efficient way to farm people pockets. You made a clear explanation of how it works. Is Blizzard own work behind the game, that smart design on how they abuse the Token. And make people feel they are "Winning" by using it.

I wonder if this would ever call the attention of the authorities in the US or Europe?

exactly.

thats why its called „smart“ cash grab systems. exactly for the reason you explained. well said.

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Blizzard earns $5 for a token. It is $20 with a $15 value. The price of 1-month of game time or $15 in Blizzard balance. The $13 for game time is only reached when buying a 6 months at a time. The price is brought down to $13 per month for a total of $77.94 for 6-months. (Note it is $12.99 which is why it isn't actually 13x6). Boosting was prevalent in Shadowlands even before the introduction of Valor. So that isn't related to the token and your conspiracy.

You find a lot of advertisement for boost just because it is a popular way to make gold and real money. Those listings have existed even prior to Shadowlands and prior to the Valor smart cash grab was implemented in Shadowlands. There is a reason why people have created addons or weak auras to filter out the advertisements prior to Shadowlands launching.

Another flaw is that the tokens have increased because of the new content and not solely because of boosts. So there is nothing simple about your claims.

there is zero conspiration in here. its normal business practices in this industry these days. i know that, because as sw developer for 20+ years i had implemented such systems by myself.

i ofc agree to the 5$ thing, since i don not know american prizes. in my european country the sub per month is 13 euros (12 for six months sub, 11 for 1 year sub). so in my country they always get a net profit of 7 euros in worst case, 9 euros in best case (token costs 20 euros).

a comment to the WTS entries in PUG tool: yes, ofc boost grp always existed. but if you had read my text carefully enough, you had realized that i not said there was no boost grps before. i talked about the huge amount of WTS entries in SL. yes they were there before. in Legion as well as in BfA. but now you get (at least often in my PUG tool in my country/region) more WTS entries than normal raiding groups. and THIS was not the case before SL.

to be honest: imo a person has to be VERY naive, to not realize that SL is heavily designed around token, as a platform for a smart cash grab system.

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it was gamble to try farm 5 million in 9 months that was given, most ppl don't even sit on 1 million in first place, so while it is 'guarantee' to get gold from token in last 1 million, the process itself is a huge gamble, will u actually be able to farm non stop and get entire 5 million gold in time? the answer for most ppl is no, since main source of gold is AH, and when everyone try to sell shit on AH, no one will, AH prices dropped dramatically at early announce days and specially last month
Do i have official info about who did what, of course not, nor u, nor anyone beside blizz, and blizz hide their numbers since WoD on purpose, because for a MMO game, they don't want to show they killed the MASSIVE MULTIPLAYER part of game just to turn it to cash cow, how many ppl will want to play a MMO with barely a thousand sub per server?
activision has a far better PR team than EA since they made Bobby shut the fuck up since years when he got CEO title and made few interviews showing his pure hatred towards gaming and how he sees us lower than insects and exist only to be abused and milked out of cash, heck his statement about how he wanted to increase game prices since years and take money from gamers alone if was done just 5 years later when internet took control over everything doubt EA would hold title of worst gaming company ever, but surprising even if they aren't hidden, few to none care to check his old interviews (probably because gaming industry has non stop new news, like the biggest fuck up lie for preorders that was No Man Sky)

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the problem that system is a little too complex than 1+1 for deniers to understand how it is P2W

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it shouldn't be negotiable in first place for a full priced game to have ANY form on microtransaction in it, regardless of wow is P2W or not, it shouldn't have a cash shop in first place of any form, this isn't just paying an expansion price like a full game, u also have to pay monthly sub that far out-cost any maintenance costs blizz claim need to keep servers
U can discuss all u want if wow is p2w or not, but what shouldn't be discussed in first place is a full price game and full price expansion AND a sub based monthly fee game also still dare to sell u items on cash shop!

hehe yes, lol. thats why its called a „smart“ cash grab system.

i implemented such stuff 2 years ago and i asked another senior: „are ppl really that stupid that they dont realize this?“ he just showed me the analytics without a comment. i was shocked.

or in short: modern multi billion companies make millions with that stuff, because the average wow player (in this case) is stupid as fuck.

ppl would be surprised when they see how much effort also going into the whole monetizing platform. there are mathematics and analyst ppl, finding the EXACT midground between „loosing subs“ and „selling tokens“. this means the data analysts watching closely if and how many ppl they loose for that game design, how many using a boost grp, how many tokens are used and where that gold flow is going too and so on. they have ALL the data. and they know EXACTLY if they have to stear back or forth with a game design supporting more token sells (because the sells outweighs the loosed subs) or slowing down the token support (because the sells not outweigh the subs).

to be fair: ppl getting older and today we live in a fast world. its all about quarter numbers. blizz has zero gurantee that a customer paying a sub this month still paying next month. game get older. ppl get older. so they cant bet on future incoming. also, cause of quarter numbers, they want the money NOW. the times are long over (since around the early 2000s), where you do a big longterm investment, for a payback from longterm customers. its all about quarter numbers. so what blizz do, is trying to rotate ppls through wow, for 2-3 months, selling the xpac, getting the sub and stuff like token money, until the user quits and the next user shows up. my best statement for this, i ever heard: „every day a new 16 year old kid is born.“ thats normal business rules these days and not solely a blizz thing.

to see this in action, BfA was a great addon. we did an analytics by our own, using the wow web api and wowprogress and other stuff, to see how many high level chars switched to an allied race. by using a paid service. you do not wanna have a look at the results. they made a HUGE amount of money solely with allied races. and additionally it had a good carrot on a stick effect, by all the ppl that leveled x alts for the heritage armor, staying another month or two. thats what i mean, when i say they know exactly how to do a game design that finds the midground of carrot on a stick sub paying (keep ppl playing and paying) and makin most possible money with the ppl buying the xpac and playing for 2-3 months until they left (maybe till next xpac). thats the whole idea behind modern wow.

simple as that.

[Shaetha]

No, it's not pay to win.

You're always able to pay someone else to play a game for you. Nothing in the store gives power you can't get from playing the game. It is strictly not pay to win.

[unlockedz]

it is a bit, but i can live with it. whatever advantages they gain they will just hit a max on their gear, be that 220,226.
ill get there, i only need to do 4-10 dungeons/week and i'll be there even if a few weeks later. it means nothing compared to actually p2w games where you're months behind people paying for shit.
maybe pvp is hurting more cause of it...but in pve i couldn't care less, i'd still check their rio which would tell me all i need to know.
so let them get boosted, buy boes whatever, cause who cares
i friend of mine bought boosts after he got tired of playing on his boomie. bought boosts for 3 classes that he doesn't even play on a whim.
i fail to understand why people are so mad (unless it affects pvp more) when it's mildly annoying at best in pve.

[sam86]

I wonder if this would ever call the attention of the authorities in the US or Europe?

it won't, 80% of world politics is controlled by the lovely boomer generation that literally holds the title of the WORST generation in over 4.5 billion years of earth existence, and the boomer generation doesn't understand video games, 2nd in power is z generation (ironic) who grew up with cash shop as normal thing, we millenniums have least presence in anything, so unless u make average Z way smarter than any generation ever, political-wise don't expect hope sadly, in fact best hope is it stays the same and not get even worse

exactly.

thats why its called „smart“ cash grab systems. exactly for the reason you explained. well said.

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there is zero conspiration in here. its normal business practices in this industry these days. i know that, because as sw developer for 20+ years i had implemented such systems by myself.

i ofc agree to the 5$ thing, since i don not know american prizes. in my european country the sub per month is 13 euros (12 for six months sub, 11 for 1 year sub). so in my country they always get a net profit of 7 euros in worst case, 9 euros in best case (token costs 20 euros).

a comment to the WTS entries in PUG tool: yes, ofc boost grp always existed. but if you had read my text carefully enough, you had realized that i not said there was no boost grps before. i talked about the huge amount of WTS entries in SL. yes they were there before. in Legion as well as in BfA. but now you get (at least often in my PUG tool in my country/region) more WTS entries than normal raiding groups. and THIS was not the case before SL.

to be honest: imo a person has to be VERY naive, to not realize that SL is heavily designed around token, as a platform for a smart cash grab system.

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hehe yes, lol. thats why its called a „smart“ cash grab system.

i implemented such stuff 2 years ago and i asked another senior: „are ppl really that stupid that they dont realize this?“ he just showed me the analytics without a comment. i was shocked.

or in short: modern multi billion companies make millions with that stuff, because the average wow player (in this case) is stupid as fuck.

ppl would be surprised when they see how much effort also going into the whole monetizing platform. there are mathematics and analyst ppl, finding the EXACT midground between „loosing subs“ and „selling tokens“. this means the data analysts watching closely if and how many ppl they loose for that game design, how many using a boost grp, how many tokens are used and where that gold flow is going too and so on. they have ALL the data. and they know EXACTLY if they have to stear back or forth with a game design supporting more token sells (because the sells outweighs the loosed subs) or slowing down the token support (because the sells not outweigh the subs).

to be fair: ppl getting older and today we live in a fast world. its all about quarter numbers. blizz has zero gurantee that a customer paying a sub this month still paying next month. game get older. ppl get older. so they cant bet on future incoming. also, cause of quarter numbers, they want the money NOW. the times are long over (since around the early 2000s), where you do a big longterm investment, for a payback from longterm customers. its all about quarter numbers. so what blizz do, is trying to rotate ppls through wow, for 2-3 months, selling the xpac, getting the sub and stuff like token money, until the user quits and the next user shows up. my best statement for this, i ever heard: „every day a new 16 year old kid is born.“ thats normal business rules these days and not solely a blizz thing.

to see this in action, BfA was a great addon. we did an analytics by our own, using the wow web api and wowprogress and other stuff, to see how many high level chars switched to an allied race. by using a paid service. you do not wanna have a look at the results. they made a HUGE amount of money solely with allied races. thats what i mean, when i say they know exactly how to do a game design that finds the midground of carrot on a stick sub paying (keep ppl playing and paying) and makin most possible money with the ppl buying the xpac and playing for 2-3 months until they left (maybe till next xpac). thats the whole idea behind modern wow.

simple as that.

again true, ur words is correct and it seems u talk about the system in general everywhere, not just wow and how they abuse it
of course TEH biggest gaming company in USA (and either 1st or 2nd worldwide) will have analytics who calculate VERY well if that step will increase profit or not, fuck souls, fuck long investment
I can easily say for sure that someone like Chris Metzen no matter how fucked stuff he did in wow, he won't pull wow plug ever, it is his child and while he did mistakes (no one doesn't), he loves it
Bobby Kodick on other hand, won't mind kill it, mutilate the corpse, and cut it to small pieces and sell it if that increase his bonus 1%, for him wow isn't passionate project that he loves deep from his heart, it is just a cash cow that exist to give him money and nothing else, he won't try to fix or save or rescue it, as soon profits drop, he will shot it and rape its corpse if that gives him more money, that's it

[Lolites]

Why do you even compare it to something that was 17 years ago?
We all know there was boosting in vanilla too, we all know you could buy gold in vanilla too. Hell I even played few hours with 2 Chinese gold farmers back then, in WPL. Yes, I asked them and I farmed gold with them for a few hours in vanilla.

i love how some people say it was against tos so nobody did it
every now and then there is a bug that get tens of thousands people banned despite knowing its against tos, and some people still think someone gave a fuck about breaking tos with gold selling/buying

[Lochton]

But buying gold was a big no no in vanilla. Now it’s ok from the approved vendor (themselves). So spending money to buy gold, to buy a boost is not something you could do in vanilla (without breaking the ToS). How can it be comparable then?

You could do this from October 2006, with TCG loot (BoE's) for gold, which just made P2W exclusive to the people with even more money. The token is inclusive for everyone to make use of, either for game-time or gold from a player. It does not create gold, nor do you buy gold from Blizzard with it. You buy tradeable game-time, a method that in the past was breaking the ToS but now with less chance of scam or hacked accounts.

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Buying gold in vanilla was a bannable offense. Now it’s advertised, as long as you buy it from Blizzard. Are you being obtuse on purpose? But that’s my point, as you said, why even compare? It’s not a fair comparison.

Well, it is not really advertised either. It was heavily advertised in the past by 3rd party people, and Blizzard scooted in with a safer method that has a benefit for both the seller and the buyer.

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i love how some people say it was against tos so nobody did it
every now and then there is a bug that get tens of thousands people banned despite knowing its against tos, and some people still think someone gave a fuck about breaking tos with gold selling/buying

I recall in Vanilla and TBC mostly, they had mostly moved when Wrath came, but if you were on a PvP server (in my case, an RPpvp server) then you could go to Ratchet as Horde, and start farming easy kills, there would always be 20-50 LVL 3-10 characters waiting for someone to pick up their order of gold, or to trade gold between accounts. Commonly, you would see a few max-level accounts arrive, and slowly getting stripped down and whored out as a piggy bank till they had no gold or items anymore.

Later on, for Wrath, you would find them in Tanaris, or another place with neutral availability but away from too many people. In Cataclysm you could find them back in Ratchet or right outside Stormwind and Orgrimmar, during MoP, it was Ratchet or Booty Bay that they were easily found, in WoD the same, in Legion, the numbers were going really low to the part where you knew they were now using higher leveled accounts, most likely hacked, so do trades safer and faster so they could keep up the farming because the token put pressure on them. I have not seen many gold trade accounts after Legion, I spotted a few in BFA, and some recently in Shadowlands.

People break the ToS because there is an income to break the ToS, where there is a market, there is a vendor.

[Cuppy]

Buying gold in vanilla was a bannable offense. Now it’s advertised, as long as you buy it from Blizzard. Are you being obtuse on purpose? But that’s my point, as you said, why even compare? It’s not a fair comparison.

Advertised how? Are you trying to say this company should have watched aside while dickhead-Jack-company is selling gold and players buy it? You ban 10 bots and 100 come up. You ban their website and 10 just came up. Please tell me more efficient way to tackle this gold selling issue than the current where a game owned by company x, sells currency for that said game.
Please do, but don’t come up with ”well i dont know how but not this way”. Come up with something.

And once again pay to win how? Players selling you boosts? I’ve said it 50 times in this marvelous thread thst you pick any game and I will find you a booster. You name it, and I will pay for you for playing it for me, getting that achievement or whatever.

[melodramocracy]

Kind of, yes.

The "but vanilla" crowd is missing the detail that gold buying is now a Blizzard approved feature as long as that gold buying is happening through them.

Let's not pretend that Blizzard had no idea that tokens would lead to an increase in run sales. That's their primary function.

[Rageonit]

Kind of, yes.
The "but vanilla" crowd is missing the detail that gold buying is now a Blizzard approved feature as long as that gold buying is happening through them.
Let's not pretend that Blizzard had no idea that tokens would lead to an increase in run sales. That's their primary function.

So basically, now it's officially pay to win, and before it was unofficially pay to win.

[Lochton]

Kind of, yes.

The "but vanilla" crowd is missing the detail that gold buying is now a Blizzard approved feature as long as that gold buying is happening through them.

Let's not pretend that Blizzard had no idea that tokens would lead to an increase in run sales. That's their primary function.

So basically, now it's officially pay to win, and before it was unofficially pay to win.

But that just makes it officially P2W from October 2006, but exclusively, while inclusive P2W was in WoD (6.1.2) if we call it indirect P2W..

[Cuppy]

So basically, now it's officially pay to win, and before it was unofficially pay to win.

If you consider getting gladiator title(or whatever you call ”win) by being boosted, then yea, every game is pay to win, also wow.
i myself consider it pay to win when there is no other way to receive a 79 strenght trinket, but to buy it in blizzard store.

[melodramocracy]

So basically, now it's officially pay to win, and before it was unofficially pay to win.

Developer endorsement makes all the difference when making a determination. Citing methods that historically could have resulted in account suspension, or methods that completely circumvent in-game systems really aren't part of the discussion.

[Lolites]

Let's not pretend that Blizzard had no idea that tokens would lead to an increase in run sales. That's their primary function.

id say primary function was to get rid of shady websites used for phishing and other shenanigans, which cost blizz money (people leaving, blizz having to deal with getting everything in order, bad "reputation" from it, etc), getting their cut from it is just huge bonus

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Developer endorsement makes all the difference when making a determination. Citing methods that historically could have resulted in account suspension, or methods that completely circumvent in-game systems really aren't part of the discussion.

people are wiling to risk ban over something as unimportant as artifact power ("repeatable wq" bug in suramar) and shite like that, you think they would care about selling/buying gold/items or whatever?
my old guild was seling gold/items/carries since vanila for over a decade, never had single guildmate or customer banned... blizz looked the other way as long as it wasnt some shady bullshit (phishing for rl information and whatnot)...

[Frosteye]

Start a new WoW server without level boosts. Everyone is level 1, it's a fresh start, there are no items, nobody has any gear.

Now, explain to me, EXACTLY how and what you can do with $50 to be ahead of little Jimmy and his friends that do not have $50 to spend. Now go to Neverwinter Online, or Everquest 2, and do the EXACT same thing and see the difference.

My "Kind" actually know what the hell they are talking about when concerning genuine Pay to Win, your "Kind" clearly don't have a clue.

Give it a week and people will be boosting for gold ($wowtoken) and require ___ minimum IO score.

Boosting is a problem because of the WoW token (which blizzard makes $20 vs $15 per subscription off, so they actively support systems that boost wow token sales)

[Lodreh]

...What do you guys think? Is WoW really pay to win nowadays or am I just over interpreting something in this?...

I suppose it depends on how you define 'win' in a persistent virtual world. As I recall... you could always use gold to get raid clears... does that achievement mean you won? BoEs have existed since Vanilla are those a win condition? What about full BiS? Those are generally BoP and will take multiple clears... is that how you win? On the PvP side you must end in the top 5% to get a mount... is that how you win? Ultimately, 'win' is very subjective and can mean different things to different people. Is the goal of the game to win or have fun? One could argue if you are having fun then you are winning.

Putting all of that a side... it seems as though you take issue with people using Real Money to buy Tokens... in turn using the gold from Tokens to buy BoEs. First, if it was a true Pay-to-Win then the best gear would come from the shop. There would be no other way to get it... you would spend Real Money get BiS which was unavailable through in game means. Instead you are paying other players to farm BoEs for you. You don't have to buy Tokens to get these BoEs... you could earn the currency in game through other means. That is a choice... more importantly you could go on the raid and have the BoE drop for you. Point is spending Real Money might help you acquire some gear quicker but by no means puts you so far ahead as to be considered 'Winning'.

TL;DR ~ WoW is not Pay-to-Win

[Lolites]

Boosting is a problem because of the WoW token

boosting was ingame over DECADE before token...