Is there some reason I can’t use my battle net balance anymore to buy a game subscription? I have more than enough balance to buy a 1 month sub. I’ve always used this method, but suddenly it isn’t allowing me to use my balance as payment. Why?
I had the gold for a token, which it would allow me to resub for a token price. I bought the token and converted it to bnet balance -before- my sub ran out since I needed it to lapse for a few weeks while I took care of some stuff irl.
Game time is only sold in two-month blocks now. If you have enough balance, you can do that.
A subscription was never available for balance. Subscription is the auto-renewing game time that was paid for out of a credit card or a PayPal account. (Yes, using the correct word matters.)
You may have mistaken something, as when you buy a wow token for gold you effectively have these choices:
You can redeem it for gametime and gain 30 days. You can also do this when you’ve an inactive account.
If you redeem it for battle.net balance, you get 15 dollars of Battle.net Balance. Since Gametime through battle.net balance is sold through two month blocks as posted by Sniperorc above, you would need atleast two WoW tokens through this method to purchase excluding any taxes/fees.
The latter option is quite a roundabout way if you want to swap gold-> gametime essentially.
B.net Balance has never been used for subscriptions, only blocks of time. They haven’t allowed 30 day blocks for some time now - around two years ago this change was implemented. If you wanted 30 days purchasable with gold, you would have just had to buy the token from the AH and when it popped up asking if you wanted to apply it to your balance or as game time, you should have chosen the 30 days game time.
Just for future reference, Mirasol had done up a very handy dandy chart to explain what you can purchase for the different payment options.
There has been no official reason as to why, but speculations is that they prefer to have players either buy gametime in larger blocks (of 60 days) or have them subscribe (in 1/3/6 months) due changing game market.
people who only want 30 days of game time can create a 30 day renewing sub backed by a credit or debit card, and then cancel the sub just before the first 30 days runs out and comes up for renewal.
It’s really not, so let’s leave the hyperbole out of it.
The only official reason given was that they reviewed their pricing structure in all currencies. So, they must’ve found inconsistencies or inefficiencies across some currencies. They also removed the 90- and 180-day time blocks.
One month blocks of time are available through tokens.
That’s on you. If you don’t remember what you have authorized a company to do, then take the responsibility that it’s your mistake.
How should Blizzard (and the other subscription-based companies you mentioned) supposed to tell the difference between someone who wants a subscription to continue and someone who has forgotten their renewal date?
I’d also note that the subscription structure hasn’t changed at all, so anyone with the idea that Blizzard is now jumping on some bandwagon so that they can charge you a sub month if you forget… is simply incorrect. Since day 1 the subs have worked the same way.
The only thing that changed is removing the 30-day game time block - and it’s worth nothing that when this change was made, FFXIV had just usurped WoW from the number one MMO spot, and FFXIV doesn’t do 30-day blocks either. Maybe Blizz looked at SE sitting in their #1 spot and saw a pricing structure they (Blizz) liked.
Checking out your competition and copying something they did, to your advantage, is the oldest trick in the “let’s run a business” book.
In thee age of subscriptions for streaming media, it’s unrealistic to assume that one particular company will never change its pricing or policies governing its subscription services.
And on this note, it’s worth repeating that Blizzard has never raised prices on their subscriptions/game time. In 2004, it was $14.99/month (less if you bought in bulk) and remains there in 2023. Other subscription services mentioned have raised their prices multiple times.
