Many people defended Blizzard for making paywalled transmog items saying it’s a fine price to pay for no sub fee increase. Now, in the middle of a pandemic, recession & record unemployment rates Blizzard has chosen to price gouge Oceanic players charging $20 a month for sub effectively increasing costs by 20%.
Anyone who still defends Blizzards anti consumer market practices should see this and understand that this company does not care about you, even if you didn’t get price gouged yourself. This says a LOT about Blizzard as a company - and if they’re willing to do this to us you can bet they’ll eventually do it in the US too.
Imagine defending a company charging consumers extra money. Not only did Blizzard not even pay corporate tax in the 2018-2019 but they got rebates. Anyone defending them doing this to players is a mindless consumer
It’s amazing how many people are looking at MMO-Champion and Wowhead, reading the sub stuff, and trying to turn it into the hot new drama.
Value changed based on multiple factors and is still less than the USD cost of the game. It’s something like $14.56 (USD) or something, last I checked. They didn’t jack the prices up to $20 USD, its AUD.
Indeed. And the hilarious part is that people flipped out about this crappy looking sprite darter set, saying it’s a “slippery slope for transmog,” and didn’t even take into account that they removed the three helms first. I love that part.
The exchange rate covers not just AUD but additionally NZD. The exchange rate has barely moved since 2016, this move wasn’t because of suddenly adjusting exchange rates and it’s extremely distateful timing.
Nice assumption but I haven’t read about this anywhere else but general dicsussion. I haven’t made their points or arguments. Just my own, so feel free to respond to that instead of attempting to say I don’t have my own opinion.
There’s plenty for people to be annoyed at Blizzard over but this just isn’t one of them, just google currency converter and plug the numbers in, we’re paying the same as the US now when previously we were getting a slightly better deal due to our dollar being weaker.
Admittedly, I always thought that those helms were a rip. Other MMO’s were selling entire cosmetic sets for that price while WoW tried to sell singular helmets which didn’t mesh well with 99% of the gear in the game for the price of a full transmog set.
I only snagged them when they were in that bundle, on sale, before being discontinued not long ago.
But yeah, you make a very good point. This isn’t new.
Yes, and paywalling is always anti consumer and thus always bad. It’s just sad that people defend that instead of sticking up for their own interests because it leads to things like the price gauge we saw today.
Lets see how US players react if their sub price they have been paying for 16 years went up $5.
It doesnt matter what they pay in the US, it is still MORE EXPENSIVE now for us.
It is unfair when they specifically exclude NZ from the price hike especially when their dollar is worse than ours. If it was about fairness then the EU sub price would go down and the NZ would go up.
Blizz didnt adjust the price when our dollar was strong and we were paying MORE per month in USD.
We are being screwed in Aus and most people are defending Blizz… its obscene.
I never said paywalling transmog items was new. I just said it’s anti-consumer and that it was justified by many arguing that it means they wont hike the sub fee.
Amazing how people actually defend a company - for free - when they charge people more money.
Inflation happens. Happened when I played EverQuest: Online Adventures for ps2 and they went from $10.00/mo to $15.00/mo. I can understand the frustration, I was frustrated as a Jr. High student with no steady income of my own but that was just how it was back then.
I’m honestly surprised us sub costs have not gone up yet in general for WoW after 15 years while taking into account that costs of maintenance of the game have probably gone up over the years.
However, it comes down to basic economic’s. WoW is a us game made by a us company which in turn means that sub and game costs will likely fluctuate as the exchange rate of other currencies change or other external factors come into play.
Once again, the exchange rate hasn’t moved in 4 years. My argument isn’t that there isn’t a price difference between USD and AUD which is obvious. It’s that they chose an extremely bad time to implement a 20-25 percent increase in price which will hurt a lot of people who are financially struggling already on top of the current expansions already immense cost here.
That’s not “basic ecomomics”, it’s price gauging and it’s greedy.
