I’ve tried very hard to consider the scenario from as many perspectives as possible, and at this point I just have to conclude that this decision was in fact just made to make Blizzard more money at the expense of the player experience, which is deeply saddening to me. I’ve been thinking about the WoW token decision nonstop since it first appeared.
As a long-time Classic player and competitive raider who does a lot of GDKPs and also refuses to buy gold, the WoW token will have a profoundly negative impact on my game experience. People seem to think that it won’t make a huge difference in the price of GDKP loot, but it certainly doesn’t make the pay-to-win issues better as far as I’m concerned. The more upsetting part to me is what implication this has for the future, as regardless of how Blizzard tries to justify this, the fact of the matter is that Blizzard now officially endorses paying to win in WoW Classic, and actively profits from WoW token transactions. This also represents a new era of Wrath Classic where the way that players see and interact with the game is now fundamentally changed for the worse. Everything in Wrath Classic that could possibly be bought with gold, including in-game services, now has a real life price tag associated with it. You could have lived in relative ignorance of this fact before, but now it is shoved in everyone’s face, and perhaps most notably in the face of newer players, who may not have even engaged in RMT for a long time otherwise.
To address arguments in favor of the token or being indifferent to the token that I’ve seen:
“It helps reduce the amount of RMT in the game.”
This is Blizzard’s only reason for including it in the game according to Kaivax’s post. I suppose it is technically true that the “black market” culture surrounding RMT will be mitigated by a small amount, an amount that is so small that it obviously does not warrant endorsing pay-to-win in my view. Blizzard also does not offer a competitive rate to attempt to drive out competition which makes me doubt that this is the real reason for the implementation of the WoW token. The only logical conclusion to me is that they are doing this so that RMT actually continues, and rather than help the situation, they are simply swooping in for their slice of the pay-to-win pie because they know how profitable it will be.
“People were already buying gold anyway, so who cares?”
It really saddens me to hear people say this. I just do not understand this take at all, unless your impression is that literally everyone is paying to win already, which I think is simply not the case. If I had to guess, just based on personal experience, I’d say around 20-40% of GDKP regulars buy gold. And in what world does making the problem even more pronounced do anything but make things worse?
“I’m just happy that I can buy gold now without the risk of being banned.”
I can understand where someone is coming from with this, since at first glance, it seems to give everyone a more equal opportunity to compete. However, given that Blizzard takes a middle man cut of 25-35%, players who choose to buy from Blizzard will still not be getting as good of a deal as what they could be getting from traditional gold suppliers. I really wonder if people saying this have fully analyzed the situation and realized what a disadvantage they’re still at compared to traditional RMTers, who Blizzard is apparently incapable of actioning or unwilling to action for whatever reason.
“I’m happy because now I can pay my WoW sub without paying real money.”
I don’t really see this as a valid positive of the token, as it is basically saying “I’m happy because I can sell gold to offset my IRL expenses”, or more concisely put, “I’m happy because I can sell gold now”. I think it’s fair to say that most of the community does not think buying or selling gold should be allowed, and I agree with them.
Why a pay-to-win model is bad for the WoW Classic player experience
When people are allowed to pay for powerful in-game items or services for real money, this fundamentally changes how players will go about making their characters more powerful in many scenarios, but most notably GDKP. If you want gear in a GDKP, you will now have to bid against your competition with real life money if you want to have a shot at gearing up faster than them. Having to pay more money results in a barrier to entry for players, meaning that IRL-poorer players simply cannot enjoy the fun and unique experience of GDKP that other players are having. This is a video game, why should I have to bid real life money against other players just to be a competitive force? How is that in any way reasonable?
In practice, for the average normal player living in the US or Canada, a pay-to-win world means that the most efficient strategy to farm gold is now to outsource some cheap labor from lower-income countries and completely avoid any grinding in the game yourself. Skipping grinds is entirely antithetical to the entire idea of WoW Classic and this system actively discourages players from actually playing the game. When pay-to-win is allowed, the best farming strategy for me goes from actually playing the game to me working a real life job and just spending money. Anything else would simply be inefficient and leave me lagging behind my competition.
Ethicality of pay-to-win in WoW Classic
I think a simple and effective way to determine the ethicality of an action is to look at the decision-making process behind it, and then think about how much better or worse off the world would be if everyone used the same logic. From my view, this is likely executives at Blizzard seeing that they can increase their profits a little bit, at the cost of making the game less accessible/fun for everyone, since more cash is now required to compete in GDKPs than it was before. This subtracts fun and happiness from tons of people around the world, all so that a few rich people can be slightly more rich. This decision is certainly outside of the lines of what I would consider an ethical decision; if everyone valued their own happiness over the happiness of others to the same degree that these executives are doing, the world would no doubt be a very miserable place. I hope these executives will see my message and reconsider their stance on the WoW token.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.