I don’t understand the logistics of it myself. I raised that question with the source because I was under the impression that most hackers/botters/gold farmers use phished CC details, which would make the change useless as they don’t really care how much money they have to spend when it’s not theirs.
While I didn’t get an answer to that, my thoughts are that maybe the phished CC trope isn’t as common as I thought. Which would make sense for your ‘average botter’ who likely just wants to cheat in WoW and doesn’t want to get hammered for any actual crimes.
What part of that quote says what you think it says? The individual I talk to didn’t say that ‘it wasn’t hurting legitimate players’ they said they didn’t like the changes that WERE also hurting legitimate players.
Guys let’s remove the bulk game time option so people have to give us their credit cards or pay more money.
Ok Bob but how do we explain that?
Just get rid of the 30 day game time option too and we’ll blame the whole thing on bots.
Oh ok.
I mean, if I had to guess I’d say that there’s a high chance that the removal of the bulk options was not to combat botters/hackers, but to bring blizzard shop game-time purchases in line with retail game-time purchases. Most retailers now, unless they have old stock (which can still be used), are only selling 60-day game-time cards.
The 30-day option removal was likely to target botters and hackers specifically.
I think you are trying to find an explanation because you want this reason to be true as do all the other bot haters.
They are trying to increase sub numbers. Why would they care if a botter buys 3 or 6 months of game time and gets kicked after 1? They wouldn’t. Sub numbers are a better metric because they imply a dedication to the game that time purchased doesn’t. People who purchase time may be viewed as more “temporary” players and not long-term customers (especially by investors).
People can say they are being greedy, but this is how corporations work. I play with game time purchased and not a sub currently, but if I quit it won’t be just because of this change. It will be this change plus the poor content.
I mean, I have actually talked to someone from Blizzard, that I know works for Blizzard. Who exactly have you talked to from the company?
My guess is no one.
Sounds like you just want to make up excuses as to why you ‘really’ think this decision is being made, because you want to believe that greed is king and Bobby Kotick needs a new yacht. This of course flies in the face of pretty much everything we’ve learned about the relationship between Blizzard and Activision, which is that Blizzard has retained its autonomy and that Activision execs have no say in how Blizzard manages its products. This was confirmed as recently as BFA when Blizzard allowed us to unlock Dark Irons and Mag’har Orcs.
Just to be clear, I am not ‘defending’ this as a good decision. One of my first posts in this thread was calling for Blizzard to revert it and I still think they should. I understand why they did it now, but I still don’t like it.
Why do you think a corporation needing investors and to make money is “greed”? It sounds like you have issues with how corporations work. I even wrote that I have no issues with this and then you throw a tantrum.
I don’t need to know anyone at Blizzard - I have a job that lets me know their decisions for pricing and their product offerings. If someone actually bothers to listen at these meetings they pick up a lot of things. Maybe you should quit sleeping through company meetings and having daydreams about Blizz telling you all their secrets.
I wonder if perhaps a stockholder could attend the virtual meeting this year in June and question the Board about the change in policy. Perhaps they can explain it to the shareholders?
Smells like Activision influence in here, there is no reason to remove these payment options other than to pigeonhole you into a sub, then hopefully you’ll forget about it and it auto-renews.
But they have never sold 90/180 day game cards, so why the change now if not for some other reason? Bringing the online purchases in line with physical card purchases is not a reason it’s just the result of whatever the reason actually is.
If you all been so honest I beleve in the end you skip a month…
Then…
I all good with promoting that.
Just to let you know maybe .001 person can say this is the accounts that are in my real name. Please give me ; why thank you.
What I see are paid in gold or real money cards given … Wink wink nod nod as payment for services rendered. And that’s the loop hole we are talking about.
But carry on…
Or they block your paypal over the years when i canceled my sub on paypal blizzard block me from using that options for a month or so its happened several times.
I think my particular prepaid cards work as subscription payments, so I can sub and cancel resub immediately still last I checked which was months ago but I hope they still work. Otherwise, problems.