Originally Posted by
Squigglyo
Blizzard is a business first and foremost.
If those skulls took twice as long to create compared to other head pieces, what would be the point, to Blizzard, to create them if not to sell?
There are a finite amount of resources available because that is what Blizzard puts in. The goal is profit. They put in enough resources to get the product they want for the maximum profits.
They decide that they need 1000 'low' quality transmog options this tier, fast to produce. 300 'good' ones, medium time to produce and 10 'amazing' ones at a lot of time to produce. They might then create 1 'super amazing' transmog that takes way more time than everything else, but they justify the resources/time by adding it to the cash shop.
Put it this way, do you think that there are people paid to just sit there and do nothing? It might seem like it, but no. Everyone has a job there, everyone has deadlines and things to create.
They arent going to go to tell their teams to spend twice as long creating models for the next 2 weeks, because we really want these ones looking super duper.
They are going to be told, churn out the models for the content. No slacking off, no extra frills, make them to the specs given.
The cash shop exists because Blizzard goes out of its way, spending additional resources, to create 'better than average' items. The entire reason they can justify creating these, to offset the additional cost in doing so, is because it brings in additional revenue.
People need to stop thinking that Blizzard loves making games and that is why they do it. They love making money, like any business does. They just do it by making games. There is ZERO point going above and beyond unless they can justify the cost in doing so. No one is resubbing because a boss drops some super cool flaming skull helmet, but someone that is subbed might fork out $20 to get it.
If I have 10 artists and I need 1000 models made, I can dictate that an hour at most should be spent on each model. That woukd be 1000 hours needed to produce the work, 100 hours spread over 10 workers. If one of those workers runs off and spends his entire 10 hours on 1 piece, the entire team is then behind despite having 1 amazing piece of work.
If I wanted 1 piece of amazing work, I would have to allocate resources into that area to ensure everything gets done. Which would end up costing more time/money overall.
It is purely a cost vs return scenario.