So, I mean… I very clearly outlined my understanding of this concept in both of my posts… ![:slight_smile:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
Could I now make a rebuttal? Certainly, but why bother? ![:wink:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/wink.png?v=6" ":wink:")
Either way, we’re both going to be paying to play Classic, so we lucky A F.
A
F
#nochanges #summerfun #workingmoms
Awhile ago before Blizzard even announced classic my guild ( on private servers of course ) would talk about what they would pay blizzard for Classic server options, let’s just say that 15$ a month is a pretty low number compared to what others would be willing to pay for servers that have a pretty good shot of not being taken down or to not have a corrupt dev team running the servers.
15$ is pocket change, if you can’t afford I guess it sucks to be a broke.
$20.17 to be exact, and I was just about to make this same point!
The inflation comments don’t really apply here. At the time WoW came out, it had minimal competition. There also weren’t as many subscription fees in the entertainment industry outside TV and internet access.
In today’s world, everyone and their mother wants you to sign up for a subscription. They are adding a lot more to subs to get you into them whether it’s Amazon Prime or Netflix. If you compare the value of modern day subscriptions to various things and look at the value of that sub and compare it to an MMO sub that only gives you access to that one game, the value of an MMO sub is absolute garbage compared to other subscriptions in this industry.
As I said earlier in the thread, EA’s premium sub gives you access to their entire game library and early access to new releases (and access to those new games when they come out without having to buy them outright). Their cheaper sub that’s like $5 a month also gives you access to a giant library of games, but not to new releases (except for a brief timed trial). EA is trying to become the netflix of gaming basically. edit: Just to add clarity for people who don’t know how it works, whiled subbed you can play any of the games, but if your sub ends you can no longer play then until you re-sub or buy the game outright.
If anything you should be demanding more for that sub now than we were getting then because we’re in a totally different environment where we’re now able to get a lot more for that kind of a sub from other companies than we were then.
If Activision followed in EA’s footsteps, we’d have an entirely new section in the launcher where we’d be able to play any Activision game while subbed. They’d fix up all their old games so they run on windows 10 well and can just be downloaded and played from the launcher (EA does this with a lot of old games). All of that would probably be a lower tier sub, then a higher tier sub would include WoW access and new releases (the highest tier sub still only costing $15 a month).
Paying for things I don’t want would be pointless.
Do you realise how horrifying this statement is?
If you dont have 15 to spare you shouldn’t be playing games
Yet another point in the favor of private servers being popular because they are free.
You’d be paying the same price you already are but getting more.
The point is that $15 a month for one game is trash value compared to other subs out there today.
EA has a horrible reputation and it’s well earned, but business practice wise, Activision/Blizzard do many things just as bad or worse. EA was forced to give up loot boxes for example in battlefront, but Blizzard gets away with them in multiple games.
The free element brings in riff raff and increases gold sellers. I only person i met who cared about the cost had a really antiblizz mindset. He probably wouls have payed another company 20 bucks before he paid blizz 15.
Considering that I don’t play any of them, no, I wouldn’t be getting anything. And most MMO’s these days are “free to play, pay to win”. I am glad for having a decent subscription that hasn’t been rising in price, while not being assaulted by microtransactions just to have the content available.
EA is the king of microtransactions. Blizzard has held strong against that in WoW, unlike games like SWTOR where cash grabs destroyed any playability in the game outside of leveling content. This isn’t the forum to discuss FPS or racing games. EA has been the destroyer of MMOs for years, and WoW is not Overwatch.
I know why they did the shared subscription, it’s a trick just to tell their investors “all of WoW” has increased subscriptions when all the Classic players start subbing ![:stuck_out_tongue:](https://d38bqls1q93fod.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/stuck_out_tongue.png?v=6" ":stuck_out_tongue:")
The shared subscription also allows people to pay for Classic with Retail farmed gold, increasing Retail engagement, and allowing people to play Classic for free.
There’s nothing but benefits for both Blizzard AND players.
Or maybe they legit don’t think Classic will have enough players to warrant having its own sub.
WoW is a buy to play game, with a sub that also has a lot of optional microtransactions. There’s an in-game store with mounts, pets as well as several optional services including character boosts.
I do agree that SWToR has an awful business model. In fact, I think it has one of the worst F2P business models ever conceived for an MMO.
That doesn’t change my mind about the WoW sub’s value being crap in 2019 where you can get a lot more for your money from other subs. The idea that because of inflation it should actually be $20+ is just wrong. If the WoW token didn’t exist, they’d probably lose half or more of their playerbase as it is because many people don’t think modern WoW is worth a $15 sub given the value that has elsewhere.
WoW’s not buy to play anymore. It’s only sub-to-play now. You only need to buy the expansions if you want to play expansion content while it’s current, otherwise you can wait two years for them to be rolled into the base game when the next expansion comes out.
I guess you could argue it’s not buy to play for that reason, but what I was getting at is that you have to purchase the expansions.
Not sure many people would enjoy playing 2 year old content while everyone else is moving on to the next expansion, but sure, you could do that.
I can easily see myself doing that if Classic doesn’t end up doing what some people on these forums keep demanding from it.
EA was the mastermind behind the changes to SWTOR. BioWare wanted to stick with the Subscription but were overruled.
The wonders of a free market. If you don’t want to pay for Classic WoW, you are totally free to go and play all those other games and not pay for it. When providing a premium service, you get to charge a premium price.
Like I said, they haven’t increased the price in 15 years, which is good because it makes things easier for us to get that premium product. They haven’t needed to lower it, because they’re not peddling trash like EA is.
To be clear, Blizzard is making more money from the WoW Token, than if everyone just paid their own subscription. So I don’t get how that claim works. The token is $20.
The point is that the people paying for game time via in-game resources aren’t paying anything out of pocket and many may simply not play at all if they didn’t have the alternative.
The fact that Blizzard is making more money because of “whales” who are buying the tokens with real money to sell for gold is essentially the same way many F2P games make the bulk of their money.
The guy that came up with the model works at BioWare. He’s currently working on Anthem and even specifically mentioned his work on ToR as being a credential on why he’d be good at coming up with systems for the future of Anthem.
If you’ve kept up with the horrors that went on within BioWare I don’t think you’d assume it was all EA’s fault. BioWare is a mess and has been for awhile. kotaku com/how-biowares-anthem-went-wrong-1833731964
Having played SW:ToR when it first came out, I also would say keeping a sub only model wouldn’t have worked. They lost a massive number of players right after release. Their F2P model was basically just a trial to try to get you back into a sub rather than being a really attractive F2P model. I would have gone back to try it again if it had a better model. The fact that you can play like 5 BGs a week as F2P or whatever before having to buy access to more is insane.
“Time is money, friend”.
Making gold in game is a time sink where someone could be out doing something else.
That may be true, as at the time we didn’t know who specifically came up with it. But from playing it at the time (and quitting when they made the change) all the information we had was that it was from John Riccitiello saying “Make it pay or make it gone”.