Blizzard is working behind the scenes to perpetuate this idea. Streamers get info from blizzard and broadcast it to their viewers as content.
You mean stop playing when your gametime runs out? If somebody doesn’t like getting ripped off by being forced to pay for gametime they don’t use, what makes you think there are going to be such amazing changes in 9.1 that it will be worth it to pay for gametime they aren’t going to use?
We keep seeing blizzard supporters telling people they should be taking breaks from the game. Blizzard knows they have a big problem. But if they were going to do anything constructive to deal with it, they’d be jumping up and down and waving banners to players.
What’s coming in 9.1 is more types of currency to grind for and “improvements” that will benefit hardly anyone.
No, just don’t buy more gametime until 9.1, if you still have some days, play some days, if you just bought 6 months, your choice.
If you think come to forums and say how this practice is predatory, you’re just chatting with other players, and maybe some community managers, but don’t create false hopes that the financial team will just give you some attention if their revenue continues high.
This is purely so people like me, that would otherwise just buy a block of 30 day gametime when we wanted to play, now have to purchase a sub, and then remember to cancel it. And make no mistake - a good amount of people will forget to cancel it. Activision knows this. This earns them more money. That is the ONLY reason they’re making this change.
Doubt that this change affects the numbers that much. Players who buy gametime with WoW gold will continue to use the WoW token in 30-day increments. There is no advantage in using bnet bucks to buy more than 30-days worth of gametime anymore. The loss (or price hike depending on your pov) for users of bnet bucks is that the discounted 90- and 180-day gametime options have been removed.
Players who buy gametime cards from Amazon or other retailers will be giving Blizzard an extra 30-day worth of every time they ‘renew’. Presumably if demand for gametime via retailers remains the same, Blizzard will have to ship 50% fewer gametime cards to retailers each month resulting in some cost savings.
So winners and losers -
Winner(s):
Blizzard will have to ship 50% fewer gametime cards to retailers per month resulting in cost savings in package manufacturing and distribution
Blizzard initially gets 30-day deferred revenue from each new 60-day gametime card purchase
Blizzard receives incrementally more in WoW token sales (and time played stats) from bnet bucks users due to the elimination of the long term discounted options
Blizzard gains an incremental number of monthly subscribers who previously relied on 30-day gametime cards
Losers:
players who couldn’t or didn’t want to pay for more than a month worth of gametime at one time
players who didn’t want to link their credit/debit card to Blizzard for monthly recurring subscriptions but decide to sign up after this change
players who used bnet bucks to purchase 90- and 180-day discounted gametime plans
This statement alone makes me think that Antone Johnson is just pro Socialism or Communism–forget fair compensation for reasonable value, gimme free stuff government!
If you produce a product or provide a service, it’s perfectly reasonable business practice to want a fair price for your efforts if they provide value to someone else. If it’s not valuable to you as an individual, just don’t buy it… if it’s not valuable to anyone, that business will adapt to produce something more useful or fail. To say that the concept of recurring charges for an on-going service is “deceptive” and “misleading” is laughable and sounds like Mr. Johnson has an agenda to put forward by any means, including his own deceptive and misleading statements.
There’s a reason why businesses use recurring subscriptions - it makes them more money at the expense of the consumer.
In Blizzard’s case, in a pro-consumer situation, a yes/no re-subscribe message would pop-up when logging in if a monthly subscription has lapsed. Blizzard can do this. It happens when you get prompted to buy a subscription with gold in your accout.
But Blizzard wouldn’t do this because doesn’t want to take the chance of losing the extra days/weeks/months that a player who is on a recurring subscription doesn’t log into the game after the day the subscription ends.
Blizzard isn’t an outlier. Businesses just do things that are in their own best interest.
I’d vote with my money if I didn’t already pay ahead. This change doest effect me personally as I stopped purchasing month to month a bit back, but I’m disgusted by the removal of the option. If I wasnt just charged for another 3 months the day before I had heard of this change, I would have canceled for sure. I’m willing to bet many are in a similar situation. At the least I will retain the membership and weigh my decision to continue once again depending on how they handle the backlash to this along with the usual factors.
I had been planning on purchasing 6 months on top of my current 3 for the mount bonus (Which is shady itself, as for once i’m not broke so I wanted to indulge) but after all this I decided to not give them that cash for a mount I would never use. Who knows if i’ll even want to play this game in 9 months anyway as 17ish years seems long enough.
This feels like an attempt to ‘guide’ players into a subscription and away from the game time option, because that is exactly what is going to happen. I assume they are trying to remove the game time option, and this may be the first step in that direction.
Lots more out there that are more successful at this point, especially if they are mobile games…
WoD was when they shot themselves in the foot, and never quite recovered from it… or so I’ve heard anyway, since I wasn’t around after having to leave the game for 7 years in 2012 for personal real life reasons…
But it affects token buyers directly, as it’s the only other way they’re allowed to use tokens to purchase game time.
Battle.net balance cannot be used to pay for a subscription, it needs to be a credit card or other approved payment method.
Moreover, it affects people who want to gift game-time using a credit card, too.
Answer me this. What if I don’t want to use a credit card to buy my game-time?
What if I just want the game-time buying options for B.Net balance I had before, that had discounts based on how many months I bought at a time. Not being forced to buy 2 months at a time if I want to use B.Net Balance? With no discount?
What you suggest is not a workable solution, and you clearly don’t understand why the people who actually understand that this doesn’t affect subscription are upset about this.
The raising of the B.Net balance value of tokens and game-time(not subscription) along side it made sense to me. It was welcome and a net positive. This change…has no sense to it. It might make sense from a marketing and profit perspective, but as a customer it makes no sense to just remove a buying option that’s been there for years.
It’s such a small thing, but that’s why it’s so important. Because it didn’t need to be changed. Thought and effort was put into the decision to remove game-time outright buying and gifting options. Why? In what way does it benefit the customer?
No. There’s the exact same number of options for paying for a subscription.
3 options for buying and gifting game-time outright were removed, and replaced with one.
Both of those things no customer asked for.
It doesn’t benefit the customer–removing options never does. However, it does benefit the shareholders… no more discounts for “free-to-play” people paying with gold that only provide $5USD net revenue (token cost - game time cost) compared to subscribers who provide $12-15USD of revenue.
It makes no sense as a customer, but it makes perfect sense as a for-profit business, especially one that answers to shareholders. Sucks, but there it is
numbers that much. Players who buy gametime with WoW gold will continue to use the WoW token in 30-day increments. There is no advantage in using bnet bucks to buy more than 30-days worth of gametime anymore. The loss (or price hike depending on your pov) for users of bnet bucks is that the discounted 90- and 180-day gametime options have been removed.
