I finally got to catch up on the Blizzcon WoW news. Anyways, I am disgusted right now.
First off; the expansions go up in price - I get that. I believe Shadowlands Epic edition cost me around $105 Canadian with tax, Dragonflight was around $115 for Epic with tax which I was on the fence about and only bought it once Evokers got early release. This expansion will cost me over $130 Canadian for Epic edition with tax.
So clearly, WoW is getting more expensive. Then you have the sub cost. If I bought an annual subscription with tax is over $250 Canadian. So WoW is clearly NOT a cheap hobby/game.
But then to get news about announcing 3 expansions, and with the price increases(each costing more then the last) you’re basically wanting money from customers more often, to give us less content? Buying an expansion that we knew lasted 2 years, meant that buying it gave me the game for 2 years. It made the cost reasonable. But if it became yearly? Nope. Too expensive for what we get in return.
Take Dragonflight for example; I played it a lot in the first season. By season 2, I quickly felt burnt out being on the same treadmill of loot. My PC broke in July, I didn’t fix it until October and didn’t really miss WoW that much. I already had my AOTC/KSM from season 2, so I just choose to not play.
If expansions are highly expensive, and only fun for the first few months, what’s the point? I remember older expansions like Cata, and MoP that I had fun the entire expansion. Mini/shorter expansions, just put me in the mind of WoD. At least the same amount of “content” as WoD for full price, that feels not worth it. At least WoD had raids I enjoyed.
Everywhere people have inflation, and costs of everything has risen. Food, shelter etc. People just don’t have all this extra money anymore to throw at gaming. A lot of people with disabilities and mental health problems play games like WoW as a way to escape and relax - especially if you’re housebound like myself. Our income just wont support this new model. And don’t even get me started on the fact Epic gets 3 day “early” release.
I always bought Epic editions for the mounts and pets and such, but a lot of people don’t. So what? I’d just have to wait 3 days if I wanted to level with a friend? That doesn’t sound like a good system. Or I play alone, which doesn’t sound any fun. I know other games have early release, it’s the “new” thing to get people to spend more $$$ but c’mon! WoW is an old game, don’t bring new age bad ideas into WoW for greed and cash grabbing.
Over all, I am just sad and disappointed. I currently have 5 months left of my subscription. I just have had a harder and harder time feeling any excitement over spending money on the new expansions - especially with the price increases. I just don’t feel it anymore.
It’s bad enough, I used to always buy the in-game shop mounts/pets - when they were 50% off but now you have all these “limited time” and “get tenders with this pack!” and removing shop stuff to put it on the trading post - which is fine I guess except the trading post prices are always insanely high, we can only freeze 1 item and it just feels more frustrating then fun anymore. Clearly it’s pushed towards getting people to spend real $ for tenders.
All the greedy moves and changes to WoW in the last year, have only pushed me further and further away from wanting to play anymore.
