The Truth About Microtransctions

Community General Discussion
1

Ok so I have seen a lot of threads in the past about how WoW is going to end up in the state like Destiny 2 when it comes to micro transactions there are a lot of misconceptions let me explain them.

Microtransations by themselves are NOT bad, they only BECOME bad if one of 3 conditions are met.

  1. the game is so grindy that the only way to make progression in a reasonable time is to buy the micro transaction.

  2. The Micro transaction provides such a competitive edge to the player that it is mandatory to get if you wish to do online play

  3. you are paying just for the CHANCE to get the item you wish (AKA lootboxes)

Now for WoW since WoW does not have lootboxes the only things on the shop that can be considered part of these factors is the WoW token and the 110 boost. However this is not entirely the case. Let me explain starting with

The 110 Boost: Now people say that this would fall under example 1 as 1-110 can be a bit of a grind, normally they may be correct if blizz did not introduce SEVERAL in game items and buffs to help you reduce this let me give some examples: Heirlooms, The Darkmoon Faire Carosel buff, the WoW Aniversy Package, Darkmoon Hats, The Midsummer’s ribbon Pole Buff, even rested XP counts. So yes there are ways to reduce the grind EXTENSIVELY without the need to buy a boost.

The WoW token: Now with Blizzard reducing the amount of gold you can get via quests and the mission table, some players are crying that blizzard is trying to encourage players to buy WoW tokens
this is NOT the case. I run alc and herb my main and in an hour I can farm enough mats and make enough potions to sell on the AH for bout 10K which is bout the same amount as I was making via mission tables on that char. Sure we are not getting as much gold as we are used to but proper use of the professions and the AH means that we can get enough gold to make all the purchases we need to sustain ourselves as players (repairs, trade items, etc) with even some left over for us to spend on whatever we wish.

So in conclusion even though WoW has Microtransactions they are NOT Done in the way EA has done them and as such WoW does not deserved to be lumped in with EA.

2

A very erudite explanation. I think most of us probably already had that figured out, but there you go.

I don’t think people are terribly concerned about ‘microtransactions’ as such in WoW. They would only be concerned if Blizzard ventured into the area of the much-despised “pay-to-win” concept. That would make all previous rants on the forums look like a teddy bear’s tea party. :upside_down_face:

:australia:
:koala:
:australia:

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I don’t think they will what with all the blacklash to some AAA companies for shady microtransactions.

4

counterpoint:

a game that runs on a subscription model shouldn’t have microtransactions

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5

You get a free boost anyway with a current expansion, and it takes like a week otherwise to get another alt. People that complain about the 110 boost are laughable. Don’t buy it, then, it isn’t that difficult or gamebreaking.

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I will admit I may be living under a rock, but I think you may possibly be literally the first person I personally have ever seen argue whether or not char boosts and game tokens are considered microtransactions in WoW. Or at least, negative ones (though I haven’t even heard them positively called that, either).

Character Boosts

The primary focus of a MMO is not the storyline/lore. It is the community, and what you can do in that community, playing with others. I’m not saying that it’s not important, or that it can’t be good. I’m just saying it’s not the primary focus, and If storyline/lore is really what you want to be primary, you’d be better off playing a single player game.

And most players in a MMO are in current content, more specifically, end game / max level content. So, getting to the current / max level content is the primary focus. Even if you want to stop and smell the roses, etc. it is still the end goal to get there.

And getting there is a very real problem virtually all MMOs with more than one expansion under their belts. And it becomes worse over time. No MMO has really fully solved for this in a 100% good way, but character boosts are a solution that helps.

On top of that, $60 for a character boost isn’t what I would call “micro”. That’s the cost of a full AAA game price right there. In fact, I get the impression (not just from Blizzard; from other MMO vendors, too), that part of that higher price point is specifically to deter you from considering it a micro-transaction to purchase willy-nilly. (Sidenote: you do get a free boost when you buy the expansion, but that’s free , therefore not applicable to this discussion).

Game Tokens

Yes, you can use real world money to acquire in-game gold. Yes, it is relatively cheap. Yes, this can probably be rightfully called a micro-transaction (though $20 is kinda pushing it to the end of the spectrum for what I’d label as “micro”
).

However, the primary purpose of Blizzard introducing this was to directly combat the gold farmers. More specifically, the gold farmers who may or may not actually give you the gold in exchange for your real $$, but who will almost certainly hack your account in the process.

Sure, it’s a perk to Blizzard that they get more real $$ in their pockets because of this. But that doesn’t negate the primary purpose of the system.

Also, I’m not sure there’s any meaningful way to get ahead in the game because of it. I mean yeah, if you have the gold you can gear yourself with BoE’s to get into some content sooner, but you’ll quickly replace those BoEs anyways.

And most of the BoEs are fairly easy to get on your own anyways (the crafted ones). Yeah there’s some higher end BoEs from raid drops, but most people avoid those anyways, because of how much they cost vs. how long you actually make use of them.

And there’s nothing else in the game to really throw gold at that’s any kind of meaningful. (Not that you were arguing against any of these points ; they were in fact more or less your points to begin with. I’m just putting this here for sake of completion; my main point is the gold farmer blocking).

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7

Microtransactions would be if Blizzard was like:

  1. “Sorry! You’ve already done 5 legacy raids this week. Please pay $xx to unlock more.”
  2. “Congrats on getting [boss] down! Pay $xx to move onto the next one.”
  3. “Would you like to buy this gamebreaking damage or healing boost that you can only obtain by this transaction? Pay $xx!”
  4. “Congrats on getting to level 60! You can ONLY proceed with your leveling though if you pay $xx beyond the expansion.”
  5. “Your dungeon que ability is on CD for 24 hours! Pay $xx to unlock it now.”

This does not nor will ever happen due to the subscription. We unlock the ability to do everything we could want/need on our own via the $15 a month. A free to play system would be exactly what I mentioned.

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Nah I’m gonna stick to my belief that ALL micro transactions are bad. To each their own though.

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What mobile games with Micro transactions do not have at least one of your 3 conditions?

I am sure their are some but since our experience says otherwise that is now what we expect, I have zero problems with the micro transactions in wow but i do no expect Diablo immortal to follow wow it will be just like the other mobile games.

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Microtransactions are fine for cheap, fun, little perks that aren’t game-breaking.

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You are of course entitled to have your own opinion, and I respect that.

I am personally okay with micro-transactions that offer “superficial” items. Things like mounts, xmog gear (has no stats on them; just used for xmog). I may not agree with the prices of them, but if they look cool to me and the price is right to me, I’ll throw money at it.

But I won’t throw money at something that alters my gameplay experience in any meaningful way, and I am on the same page as you as far as considering them bad.

For example, ESO. Yeah, there’s no required subscription, but you feel so gimped without one. e.g. that lack of inventory space really hurts. Versus paying the sub and getting extended regular inventory + unlimited material inventory. Is just one thing they do to gimp you. They knew what they were doing.

And thing is, I would be okay with paying 15/mo sub to them in general, same as I do with WoW. But the fact that they offer a very gimped free version instead of just doing 15/mo and that stuff be standard part of the game, leaves a sour taste in my mouth. This is just my opinion; I’m sure others probably disagree.

12

I’m not sorry for buying my micro transaction heresy fey dragon mount. I would’ve ground faction for one
or paid gold for one in game, but they didn’t give me that option. And I wanted it from the first time I saw one in WoDLand. /grin

That said, I’m totally in agreement with OP and Fallynn on this.

13

I would have to agree.

It’s handing game design over to accountants and psychologist. Once you go down that path you’re intentionally making the game worse in some way to encourage people to pay to get around it. Mounts, pets, you have to pay to get around the fact they are removed from the subscription game.

And a step worse is something like the herbing mount. That used to be unique druid skill/benefit. Now the only thing unique is druids don’t have to pay for it. Maybe they’ll start micro transaction off every classes unique abilities.

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And that’s fine. I just find it scummy and deplorable when game companies try to make an extra buck off people who just bought their full price game, like they don’t have a gajillion dollars anyway. If you can’t make a complete game and include ways to get bonus items in said game w.o gouging your customers, why tf are you making games? That’s my 2 cents.

15

I wouldn’t care if the game had microtransactions as long as they werent gamebreaking. If it’s cosmetic stuff and the same boosts/pets/mounts I don’t see any harm in it.

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Character boosts should just flat-out not be in the game other than maybe pre-ordering an expansion. The fact people buy them and want to skip content is more concerning because it’s obviously because leveling is a chore and bad. I much rather preferred it when there were none of these gross in-game services like boosts.

I recall the first week you could pre-order BfA and use your free boost, it was a nightmare and you could tell who a boost was because they were terrible.

17

Three frog mounts will be added to the game in Patch 8.1. Each of these new mounts will cost 333,333 gold.

Oh, but you want some frogs? Okay.

The token has been hovering at about 115k for a while now. How many times does 115k go into 333,333 gold? 2.899 is your multiplier.

Now, multiply $20 by 2.899 and what do you get? $57.97

Yep, why buy a store mount for $25 when you can pay $57.97 per frog in-game. 
 Get mad or this will be the new standard.

Oh, and that longboi: 20 (5000000 / 115000) = $869.57

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Or make the gold yourself and stop being lazy?

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Here’s my reply from another post to someone on the 2k emissary ‘reward’:

"Nope. It takes time to move between the three quests and even more to then fly to the rep hub to hand in the emissary quest. For 2k gold? Here are some rates (to make 2k gold) based on average token prices today and employment:

$10 per hour @ 115k per token = 2.09 minutes of work
$20 per hour @ 115k per token = 1.04 minutes of work
$30 per hour @ 115k per token = 0.70 minutes of work

The game, right now, is not at all worth slaving away in the sweatshop to farm gold (including trading). BfA is the ultimate expansion (other than vanilla) where it pays to invest all of your playtime in a single character (for fun), ignore your alts, and buy the odd token for a few seconds of worktime at your rl job whenever you may need a flask (or whateva).

The three quests and completion at the emissary hub will take about 15 minutes of time to complete. Based on the aforementioned rl wages:

$10 per hour @ 15 minutes = $2.50
$20 per hour @ 15 minutes = $5.00
$30 per hour @ 15 minutes = $7.50

Now, is 2k gold even worth $2.50? Nope. Given this valuation, 115k gold (current value of a token) actually would be $143.75 and not $20! It gets even worse for people with jobs that pay more with the $20 per hour job person essentially paying $287.50 and the $30 person paying $431.25 per 2k gold.

Time is money, so don’t undervalue your life."

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I would agree that applies to wow except that $15/month is probably way underpriced. What else can you buy in 2018 for the same price it was in 2004.