This is pretty weird cause uhh, the Canadian dollar went up in value (0.78USD) whereas before it was as low as 0.70 USD.
Dollar value goes up vs USD, price goes up? Does not compute.
Shadowlands far from worth $22 (PLUS TAXES) a month. What a spit in the face. After Classic is over if there’s even a chance I care about RETAIL I’ll just use that loophole you refuse to fix and make a south american acct to play NA and pay like the third world does; $3 USD.
Ya’ll are WHACK.
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What some folks aren’t understanding is the incrementalism of this… sure, maybe subs aren’t affected (yet), and the same hasn’t happened here in the US (yet)… but eventually that will be the case, which is why it’s important that even those who are currently unaffected bring attention to this issue and make their voices heard…
This is not true… Subs are unaffected period. Only one-time purchases of game-time are increasing in price.
P.S. US is overdue for an increase from $14.99 USD to $20 USD just based on CPI inflation from 2004 to present.
I really hope Activision Blizzard would put in more efforts in fixing in-game bugs, the current player-unfriendly Covenant system, as well as adding tried-and-true systems from other games that can forge a better community in World of Warcraft.
ATVI’s focus shouldn’t be on reducing in-game rewards from the contents that players enjoy, or on increasing the price of Game Time and other items that has long been available.
Nothing is free.
could have at least waited until the pandemic was over before hiking prices.
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Step 1: raise the price of something and be like “don’t worry subscription is still the same!”, moves people over to subscription model.
Step 2: raise the price of subscription to “keep consistent with game time cost”
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Im confused is this game time you buy physicall at a store like cards because subscription through online looks same
Bobby Kotick the CEO of activision Blizzrd made this comment.
During Activision Blizzard’s Q2 2009 financial results conference, Kotick was asked about his “comfort level” regarding pricing of some of his new games. After Activision Publishing CEO Mike Griffith answered that there was “strong retailer acceptance and support” for the pricing plan, Kotick joked that “if it was left to me, I would raise the prices even further.”[44]Although Phil Elliot of Gamesindustry.biz understood the comment as a joke, he added that the comment could be seen as “insensitive at a time when consumers are likely to be feeling the economic pinch.”[45]
They want subscriptions not month to month players that represent volatility to investors. But let’s face it, subs aren’t what makes them the money. It’s the design of the game surrounding tokens and the lack of real method to make gold in game. And by that it’s nowhere near as efficient to make gold and have a life.
In other words a win win for blizzard.
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I get the sentiment of this statement, but I don’t think it’s necessarily true. Maybe in Shadowlands it’s harder than it was, but it’s the beginning of an expansion, so our characters are weak (compared to the last 3rd of BfA) and soloing old content for gold does seem to be harder and less lucrative. However, the real gold making game has always been playing the Auction House. Finding price pattern disparities allows for easy gold making (e.g., raid consumables being 20% up from their14-day average on Mon/Tue and then deflated by Sat/Sun) through your own tracking or with a semi-automated tool like TradeSkillsMaster.
Plus tokens only have good value for cash buyers if there is also a good value for gold buyers. If people can’t earn gold in a reasonable time to buy game time with tokens, they will leave the game and the market of gold buyers shrinks, which drives the gold price down (since cash buyers didn’t shrink–supply/demand). If a cash buyer still has to spend $20 but tokens drop in value from about 118K gold (20-Dec-2020 in NA) back down to 30K gold, I’m pretty sure cash buyers might reduce their purchases and that would decrease Blizzard’s profits. Subsequently, it’s in Blizzard’s own best interest to make sure gold buyers have a way to earn enough to buy a token in a reasonable amount of time. Of course, Blizzard (like any company) makes mistakes, so maybe they’ll screw up this balancing act between gold/cash token buyers as well.
You make some great points.
I however am one of the perhaps (few) who doesn’t make enough gold to play. I’m casual, if I sit at the computer I don’t want to feel like I need to start managing finances or addons to keep up. But I used to enjoy crafting especially inscription when it was actually a good gold getter.
50 cents a day is okay but 75 cents is too much? 
Yes, especially when it’s still 50 cents if you have a subscription, Set up subscription, wait for it to charge, cancel sub, play for length of sub , rinse repeat. Or just use a sub.
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Wow Blizz somehow got even worse now. Impressive.
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cancelled my subscription
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This is like another Carbon Tax. Did Blizzerd hire Trudeau to work for them? lol
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Erm… what?
Perhaps a reference to the new CA Digital Goods Tax being like another Carbon Tax. Good idea, but just ended up raising prices for consumer? Just a guess…
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This is the answer. Canada has long had a national sales tax. They recently expanded it to include digital purchases. Their tax is like 5% national sales tax and 8% local sales tax. Their income tax is 15% so they have like a 13%-15%
tax system. Some have argued for a similar system in the US.
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