Way too much of this game has become micro-transactions with definite pay to win aspects. That’s clear (some details below, but assume you accept this point).
Yet the community has not cried out. If anything it will attack anyone who raises this issue. I don’t get this. I feel like we should all be angry that they betrayed us. In TBC, there was clear dev promise that they understood micro-transaction/pay to win was betrayal of wow grinding economy/philosophy.
Beyond that, it is unique to have a game where you pay a hefty monthly sub, and then you’re being prompted to pay if you want a better chance of winning, too. Pay to win and subs are different models: you don’t combine them. That’s beyond greed.
Pay to Win Examples: (3 competitive areas of wow)
BOE (which can be bought on ah with token gold you bought with real world currency). Look at the world first story in dazar’lor raid. This used to be impossible: raiding was pure effort, not money-enhanced.
Example 1 also affects pvp, particularly in low level bgs (which used to be fun way to level, not that long ago).
I know this is more trivial for some, but they outright sell battle pets that are ridiculously strong. They also sell them in oblique ways (murloc pets from blizzcon rewards).
I know some of the typical attacks on talking about this are:
A) You shouldn’t whine about your limited budget.
Response: okay, so you accept pay to win?
B) It isn’t pay to win if it doesn’t guarantee the win.
Response: That’s a crazy way to diminish the definition of pay to win. If it puts you ahead of others significantly, for no effort but adding money beyond the sub, that’s pay to win.
C) Reporting me for speaking the truth.
Response: So be it.
Because Game Publishers like spinning Narrative after Narrative to disregard Consumer Rights in such a fashion that Consumers don’t think to challenge them (Like how Call of Duty handles its DLC Weapons; Given that Software is a Product - based on the last Supreme Court Ruling on the matter - and any DLC or Add-ons Purchased are also considered Software and thus are products as well, requiring players to not only synch up with Activision Servers and Play Online to use these Add-ons is a Blatant Violation of Consumer Rights as Activision is therefore denying Consumers full usage of the instance of the Product they may have purchased).
Gear does not equate to skill or knowledge. There are TONS of people that are 410 or 415 who can barely sustain 12k-14k dps on a boss. A lot of the time they don’t even use their CDs properly or utilize mechanics to gain DPS. Your issue seems that you are mad because you can’t buy gear because you are broke.
There used to be those in BMAH. But they change it soon after wow token launch. The reason blizz gave was they don’t want to pressure people to buy token. You still can get BoE in AH now though.
as if boosting from 1 to 110 doesnt give you an advantage over everyone else that doesnt pay, you get standard gear that is ten times better than anyone would have as soon as they hit 110. thats basically pay to win.
Hell, for a one-time deal you can get a character boost for $10 USD cheaper than it normally is, via buying the Expansion which comes with it, and that Everyone, their mothers, and all their mothers’ cats are playing
compared to someone who has to spend time leveling, it is an advantage but i just wanted to clear up what pay to win is defined as. if you would say most of these practices are pay to win in one mmo, im not sure how it cant be in wow.
The difference between WoW structures and P2W is largely in how it’s largely accepted as a term.
In general a P2W game offers extensive, typically better than in game, power rewards for making a real money transaction.
So purchasing a full set of Mythic gear for example would be considered P2W.
WoW doesn’t offer any of those services, it offers in game service transactions, such as a race change or faction change, as well as cosmetic only services such as mounts, toys, or pets.
None of this directly relates to a power increase within the game.
Utilising the WoW Token to purchase items off the AH is not included within Blizzards available services. You are simply using a function along with community driven markets to purchase an item already available in game.
For every one person who uses a WoW Token to buy a BoE there are countless every day WoW players using in-game earned gold to buy a similar item.
If it is wrong to buy AH items with gold from WoW Tokens, is it not also wrong to buy AH items with gold gathered in game? At the end of the day it is the same result.
Supply also must be equal to the demand, so it isn’t a fool proof system, you can quite easily purchase a WoW Token to get the gold but not have the items you want available. In various circumstances you can also not have buyers available for the WoW Token in the first place.
i remember seeing discussions about how ffxiv offering class boosts for real money, was pay to win. or how bdo offering mount boosts for real money, was pay to win. i just find it odd that the same thing is going on here but its not pay to win. thats hypocritical really.