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Denver, 5:39 AM
Sun Dec 20
16 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/04/09
When Bethesda started selling horse armor in Oblivion, people freaked out too, but selling meaningful items in multiplayer games hasn't become prevalent, and it's not going to happen on WoW, either. There is an enormous difference between selling cosmetic perks and statistical upgrades, and while the former may not be pleasant or palatable as far as those unwilling to shell out the cash required are concerned, most players either don't care or are perfectly willing to drop five dollars here and another five there. For the purists this will still be unacceptable, but for the majority of the people who play the game, it's a non-issue, and I'm sure I'm not the only WoW player who has noticed that Blizzard *gasp* has been catering to the average player's whims for several years now. Yes, this is how companies make a profit, but this is also how said companies keep their customers happy. We are not dealing with economics on a macroscale, supply does not create its own demand within the microcosm of the game world; Blizzard is selling pets because they know that enough people will buy them to turn a profit, which is among other things one of the reasons that the company exists--to make a profit for its shareholders. If you are uncomfortable with that, don't play, better yet, play indie games that have absolutely none of the wicked taint of capitalism. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
Personally, I find this deeply alarming. I dislike it for the reasons that have been mentioned- price for the content, the tax deductibility BS, but there is a bigger reason for me. WoW is deeply addictive, I think this is pretty well documented. I'm not saying most people get addicted, I'm not, but a lot of people do. And this move clearly caters to the addicts.
The problem, then, is one of philosophy- how can anyone remain loyal to a company that instead of regretting the addictive nature of their game, decides to capitalize and profit off of it? This is the black side of capitalism. It's not the same extreme, but it's the same thought process as drug dealers and war profiteers. In my eyes, this move is nothing short of evil. I dropped my WoW subscription two weeks ago because I was getting tired of it. I'll be honest, with as much work as I've invested, and as much as I enjoy it, I will probably be back. But this certainly gives me pause- and any progress in this direction (further, more grand microtransactions) would cause me to quit the game, if only because of how much I despise it. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
Honestly I knew Blizzard had sold out their moral values when they decided to allow race changes/faction Changes.
I used to to think that Blizzard would never go so far as to have all of this "Pay for extras" garbage but let's be honest, how long is it before you have to pay $5 to access the newest raid dungeon or play in a new battleground? Things are going downhill fast for Blizzard/WoW and it seems like their stockholders are gaining too much ground in the company.
Mark my words it's only a matter of time before they implement more and more drastic things that you can pay real money for to do in the game rather than make the awesome free content they have in the past. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
Seriously, these allegations are ridiculously paranoid. For starters, any free items. dungeons, or any other general content Blizzard elects to put in the game is done purely out of their good will toward players. What you pay for when you purchase the game is the content that is there, and an unspoken promise that things that are broken or imbalanced will be fixed as the issues are discovered. You continue to pay for this support, as well as the right to use Blizzard's servers, as you pay the monthly fees.
Receiving free dungeons is not part of this detail. However, new raid content has been released for free by Blizzard in the past, as well as numerous other elements. This is another sort of unspoken agreement wherein Blizzard sets a certain precedent of behavior. With the sort of support WoW receives, it would be dangerous to act outside of that precedent and do all of these paranoid things that are being claimed, e.g. charging for raid content.
Honestly, the kind of slippery logic being used to prophesy the downfall of WoW is very much akin to diagnosing cancer from a sneezing fit. These charges are purely cosmetic, and the only impact they have on the game is that some people will want them and can't get them, and others will look at them at the great portent of Doomsday. Everyone else will play the game, and as long as the standards Blizzard has set for actual, playable content remain the same, that set of 'everyone else' will do just fine to ignore the hell out of the conspiracy theorists. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
I think most people feel this newly popularized trend of micro-transactions is smearing the lines of ethics in an burgeoning market that is relatively unregulated. I personally, drew less on the obvious logic that Blizzard is a business and first and foremost their responsibility is to their stockholders and not the consumer and had an emotional reaction. I think that's what is happening with many of the posters here. #worldofwarcraft
11/05/09
I will freely admit that you are obviously paying for any new content as you pay the subscription fee, but what is really relevant from a consumer standpoint is what you feel like you're paying for. Granted this is anecdotal, but most of the players I've met don't think about the fees going toward new content. They take for granted that they are paying 15 dollars a month to access Blizzard's servers, and that's where they leave it.
I think this sentiment is somewhat apparent in the above arguments, seeing as one expressed concern is that we might be charged for raid content. Well, we already are, but so long as no extra costs are applied, it appears as though all changes made are free within the package we purchased. It's more a question of psychology than anything.
That said, Blizzard has been successful for a long time, and I highly doubt that their business managers would make such a huge misstep as charging for things they're already doing. I don't really see this move as being any different from giving Grunties to people who paid to watch the Blizzcon feed. It's fun to have if you've got the money, but it's completely unnecessary otherwise. #worldofwarcraft
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They also didn't just lose an entire country of subscribers. #worldofwarcraft
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11/04/09
I mean for petes sake, no one is forcing you to buy it, it doesn't do anything useful at all. If people want to spend ten bucks just so they can have a little panda dude follow them round when they remember to bring him out so be it. If you don't want to spend ten bucks on it then you get the sense of smug self satisfaction that you didn't support Blizzards capitalistic ways. See, even if you don't buy it they're giving you something for free! #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
You bought the game out of the box. You pay for the subscription. You buy the additional expansions... The players of WoW have, substantially, paid the company for their effort and then some. But it doesn't stop there.
Changing the NAME of your character... a process that costs virutally nothing to do... costs $10. Changing a faction, another process that costs Blizzard nothing to perform... costs $30. I count 5 seperate "pay absurd amounts to change a data variable in our database" in my blizzard account page. Does Blizzard NEED to throw out ridiculous charge fees for these things? No.
They don't care if they're blindsiding the computer illiterates of their customer base, so long as it results in some extra dough.
Blizzard is not a company that is in financial trouble. Rather then giving a little something extra to their fanbase for free to share in their wealth and community, they pull garbage like this because money is their biggest incentive. The Blizzard of the 90's wasn't looking at every possible way they could squeeze a buck and that was respectable. Now it's "how can I get some sucker to feel insecure about inaccessable content and trick them into paying $10 for virtually nothing".
As a Blizzard fan from Starcraft until WoW's first expansion, I think these strategies are dispicable.
11/05/09
I'm sorry, I didn't know capitalism stopped when your business is financially stable. Here I thought business was all about making as much money as possible.
Blizzard still provides me with decently stable servers to play on, a well maintained game and regular "free" content updates. I feel I get my moneys worth from that. If they want to charge for a bunch of inconsequential little things I don't really care.
Also it's not like they don't hand out freebies to their playerbase often enough. Just recently they handed out a minipet just for merging your BNet account. Also they're hardly trying to trick people into buying "inaccessable content" it's not like they're pretending this is some kind of new race you can play and when you buy it going "HA HA it's just a pet!". If you play WoW you know what these do, you know how little they mean. If they still want to buy it then that's their decision.
It's cosmetic, it's optional it's not going to change the damn game one bit. I don't see how they could trick anyone into thinking otherwise. People will buy it because they want it not because they feel they have to.
@Sabbatai:
Oh wow I didn't know that. I mean it's not like they add these sort of things to the game all the freaking time. I never knew they were slowly destroying their servers by adding content.
/Sarcasm #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
at least TF2 hats are free, albeit rare.
WOW is a cancer anyway- i hear people talk about it and it just seems like a huge time sink that gets you no where. I play games, sure, but not to the point where i'm living a double life. i mean, seriously. if you like RPGs, go get a game that actually ENDS, so you can, you know, experience life. or at least another game. :) lol #worldofwarcraft
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11/04/09
There's two ways AND ONLY two ways this would be OK:
1) 100% of the proceeds went to charity or
2) WoW became a free-to-play MMO (which is the only way I'd download it and give it a try).
Doesn't matter that pets are cosmetic only. Thank God CCP doesn't sell special bloodlines or avatar backgrounds for extra money, or sell Hello Kitty skins for Titans. It's stupid and disrespectful and people would unsub because of it. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
Buying a Pandaren is essentially paying Blizzard so they can get a tax break.
If you donate directly you can write it off on your own taxes instead. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
Bastards.
What were we talking about again? #worldofwarcraft
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See this article for my feelings on this, and many other things in this world of ours. [gizmodo.com] #worldofwarcraft
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The only way this wouldn't be crossing the line is if ALL of the money went to charity. Blizzard has lost some credibility here. At least with me.
I predict that we'll see pay 25 dollars to skip to level fifty in a matter of months after Cataclysm, maybe sooner.
From there it's a small step to RMT weapons and armor.
If I didn't think it would be totally ignored I'd actually write a letter to Blizzard explaining my displeasure with their inching ever-closer to full blown RMT. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
11/04/09
Loot cards are silly. I made £300 off two mount cards (a bear which went for £100, and is probably one of the worst mounts ever so I was lucky to get that. And £200 for the giant rooster mount, which is actually pretty awesome) which has reimbursed me for a good chunk of the money I've spent on the TCG overall. #worldofwarcraft
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Blizzard has always and continues to provide free content on a regular update schedule. I don't think Blizzard has become anything they were not before. At the end of the day employee time costs Blizzard money and they are well within their rights to put a cost on any content they feel deserves payment.
It seems like there is a new millennium version of 'keeping up with the neighbors' going on. If someone else has this pet, I need to have it too! It costs $10?! This is some kind of outrage! Que petition and/or mindless hate and 'speaking for the community'. #worldofwarcraft
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11/04/09
Because fifteen dollars a month is what should be covering the employee time that you say is developing said content. #worldofwarcraft
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11/04/09
@maraxusofk: You do realize that some of Blizzard's employees are working on their next expansion, which they will charge you for, yes? And that some other employees are working on entirely separate games?
Since when did you assume that every single Blizzard employee must work on your free content? As long as they are giving the same quality of free content that you have come to expect, what's wrong with them having a person not working on that content spend a few hours to make a non-combat pet? #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
Yes because paying a $15 dollar monthly subscription is "free" content. I expect updates because I am paying for a subscription. If this was coming from some cash shop based game or pay once type online game like Guild Wars, then I would neither expect nor care what the producers are doing since I am not paying for their time. I assume the subscription is used to cover the costs of maintaining and updating WoW and driving Blizzard profits, so anything they release should be a part of the subscription I paid for. While I realize Blizzard can maximize their profits by trying to milk every cent they can, we as consumers are nonetheless entitled to complain about the problems as we see fit to. If Actiblizzion suddenly decided to start charging for potions to give you quicker exp leveling or faster respawning, that is within their powers. Doesn't mean we can't complain though. #worldofwarcraft
11/04/09
DLC on top of a subscription game that has yearly full priced expansion packs. Bobby Kotick may be the bane of gaming, but damn he knows how to turn a tidy profit. #worldofwarcraft