That would be a win win for them. They get the token sales AND people can still buy the mount later if they want it. That and people are less upset over the mount’s status changing. It’s not removed, just the achievement is being removed.
But of course they have to go for Maximum Greed! (tm pending)
Can’t say I’m surprised, just one more thing that irritates me adding to the pile until I inevitably quit.
Every so often companies in the video game industry surprise me. But the companies that surprise me are almost never the AAA companies.
I mean, I think the only company I halfway trust right now is CD Project Red. I may not like many of their games, but I do have to respect how they behave toward their fans.
I’m fine with exclusives being in the game, but this is just stupid.
If they’d announced it from the get go that it was only available during BfA there wouldn’t have been so much outrage. But, only announcing it this late in the game, and it being announced RIGHT before xmas when people tend to be loose with their wallets … that smells fishy.
I bought a really good game called Wargroove on release day, and the developers just announced an entirely unplanned expansion with free content as a thank you for supporting them.
The future is indie. They actually give a toss, and don’t have to be able to garner infinite growth.
I make a good income. I work in tech and data analytics and have a long career in that and have made it into management. I could just drop the money on buying the brutosaur. My wife would probably yell at me about it, but I have the $s. I have bought a few tokens here and there to get gold. It’d only take me like half a day of work to afford the damned thing.
But the naked cash grab on their end just feels repulsive.
It’s making it more likely for me to just cancel my subscription all together and not give them anything else. Tell them to go <censored to not put a vulgar/obscene code of conduct violation word on the forums> themselves, and walk away and hope to see them crash and burn for their idiocy because they will have earned it.
Not only that, it was only confirmed AFTER I made this thread to warn everyone that the Mighty Caravan Brutosaur mount appeared to be going away come 9.0.1.
Yep. And what makes it worse was a player had to come forward with this and then Blizzard comes forward and lets everyone know that it’s going away.
What they are doing is gross because we all know that a lot of people spend real life money on having in-game collections because they can afford or for fun, but blatantly appealing to those people directly in a subscription-based game with expansions, right before Christmas, on something that costs 500 dollars, is absolutely vile. It’s not enough that they have to appeal to them though, they have to step on the rest of the playerbase too while they are at it.
In short, its them trying to save face. Otherwise, like I said above, I think they wouldn’t have said anything until their normal end of expansion blurb.
You know, the whole “hey, expansion is ending, here’s all this stuff that’s going away, get it now before its gone!” deal.
Blizz: “We’re sorry for getting caught.”
If they reversed this decision, and left it available, and then made a Shadowlands themed mount for the next xpack, and announced it would only be available during Shadowlands, and cost as much or more?
I wouldn’t care. I’m not a huge fan of removed content. But it wouldn’t feel like a predatory sleazeball move on their end like this does.
They way they handled this just reeks.
That a few people are handwaving this away by saying “nobody will spend $500 on a mount” brings up another shady aspect of this.
Yes, the number of whales who will blow $500 on a mount is tiny. But how many people that have a 2-3 megagold will see the numbers thrown around and think “I can get it for half price?”
How many that have 4+m will think “oh, it’s just a few tokens,” and plan to pay future sub time with gold to offset it but never do? Kind of like how stores often run “buy X things now for $Y off your next visit” promos knowing that most people forget to bring the coupon/receipt next time.
Blizzard isn’t the only one guilty of that. The video game industry regularly pulls that stunt. When they do anti-consumer things and they’re caught. They try and spin doctor it, giving all sorts of excuses, but it is obvious to anyone who actively uses their noggin for something besides a hat rack that greed was involved.
Profit is perfectly fine. I mean, it does cost money to make games. It’s perfectly fine to do things to make a Profit. But there is a line between Profit and Greed.
And in this case, they crossed that line.
Oh and to rub more salt in the wound, this was announced by a random blue on a forum reply instead of an announcement rofl.
Oh god Blizzard, how many times do you have to learn the lessons the internet teaches you?
Blizzard’s way of saying: “We are improving our communication with the community.”
That would require actually improving their communication and we can’t have that.
They won’t learn until they have a repeat of the debacle that forced them to create Patchfinder. Sorry, Pathfinder.
You know that was a fast reaction. I mean, going from “no flying ever” to “ok, we’re bringing flying back!” in a matter of weeks. We got their attention.
Sadly, it seems the only time Blizzard listens these days is when we YELL loud enough. And if people realize that’s what works, they’ll keep doing it. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
Until Blizzard actively tries to change things, the cycle will continue. They’ll screw the pooch, we’ll yell loud enough and sometimes they’ll listen. Ad infinitum. Which also reinforces even further the mindset the forums are a cesspit. One largely created by Blizzard’s attitude toward the playerbase.
I pay $15 a month to play this game. Why does Blizzard expect me to spend $20 a token to get the gold required for this mount that I don’t have, that I won’t be able to grind in the time it will be available. Garbage decision.