I can see this as a way to increase how many token sales they get til the end of BFA.
They could always revert their decision at the date at which they would remove the mount; citing that they “decided to listen to the players”.
Giving people the idea that something will be taken away and having them go through a proverbial “gold-rush” is definitely an easy way to increase token sales.
You may not agree and chalk it up to a conspiracy, but anyone with a business-mind can see this type of psychology make sense.
Are we? We raised this concern in the removal of portals thread and the water-strider-thread, and we were told by the “you’re overreacting crowd” that these types of decisions are a one off and to get over it.
Now we see it again. So should people just stop telling blizzard that they are displeased by such decisions? And, do you recognize that eventually, it will lead to something that affects you and what you like in this game.
Indeed we see it again. It’s like they’re making these decisions that have no benefit to players. Why remove portals when you add a new portal room? Sure the portal room is great… but the removal of portals from a freakin’ magical city in the sky is incredibly moronic. And inconvenient. Inconvenience leads to having to take the long way to places. Look at the Horde Kara farmers. They’re very sad these days.
Blizzard has stopped hiding their true intentions. It’s clear retail is going to be their F2P dumping ground for time-played mechanics because the “active” subscriptions metric is all they care about. This is another one of those things that F2P does… incite scarceness to drum up sales. Derp derp.
I don’t see it as too much of a problem for people who have a significant amount of money and can/want to spend cash for tokens to get the mount.
The only thing I see as an issue is how much of a slap in the face it is to players who spend gold to get it now. BMAH will most likely make the mount cost more than five million, but that could ensure even more token sales.
Either way, it’s a win/win move for the “profits before people” mentality that Blizzard has had. It’s become to the point where its marketability is toxic to people who want a quality game.
But don’t put all the blame on Blizzard, put it on the consumers who don’t make the right demands. It’s far more than a consumer versus Acti-Blizzard issue, it’s everywhere, even past gaming.
Kinda sad, but hopefully through the years people educate themselves to the point where we start to make more educated and reasonable demands of products to ensure we really get what we want.
The water strider change was dumb. You bought said mount for an intended purpose and they changed said purpose.
However, the overreaction I’m seeing is people jumping to the conclusion that this is Blizzard pushing token sales. It just makes the arguments lose credibility. If people focus on coming up with arguments on why it should remain on the vendor for 5 mil gold, it would possibly have a better chance at swaying the devs.
Exactly this, BMAH is not a guarantee it will be cheaper in the least. If anything it welcomes bidding wars to drive the price higher. Just like any other item on the BMAH.
Really there is no way I could ever afford this mount. So I just gave up the moment I saw the price tag. I cannot grind that much and I am not made of money to buy that many tokens for it!
Bang on the head, Kiwi. Some of us aren’t objecting to the portals, or the water strider change, or the removal of the brutosaur specifically. Some of us are objecting to the trend, and what it indicates about Blizzard’s current design and business philosophies.
Except you’d be bidding against people who couldn’t afford the 5 mil gold to get the mount this expansion. What makes you think people will suddenly have much more than 5 mil next expansion to throw at this mount?
With people having more and more gold, the gold cap will most likely increase next expansion, with small fluctuations on certain things like quest rewards, money loots, etc.
It’s always been like this and unless you know how to play the AH properly, you will probably end up spending more for the mount.
The majority of the player base doesn’t know how to play the AH. Blizzard knows this.
Then shouldn’t people be pressing for the reasoning behind the change?
It’s like what someone said, they’re not disappointed in the loss of the AH NPC itself but rather the mount is unique in model as well and they’d be happy just with a similar modeled mount. I would say that’s valid argument that the devs would have a hard time to oppose.
“We feel that making a similar mount would remove the exclusivity we’re trying to give brutosaur owners by limiting the number of mounts obtainable,” is all they’d have to say to shoot down that argument.
Well that be the thing, I am not saying they will have more then 5 million. The BMAH is a playground for people who know how to make gold. It will be easy for price tag to go over 5 million there. Really I have not seen a cheap item on the BMAH ever. Still the last time I glanced at the BMAH was back in Legion.