I haven’t seen a single rational argument for why a company shouldn’t increase the prices of its goods and services, specifically Blizzard increasing the price of the next expansion.
Why shouldn’t Blizzard increase the price?
If you owned a business, and the cost of everything to run it was going up, wouldn’t you increase the price of what you produce to compensate for the increased cost of doing business?
They can increase it all they want.
Are players getting more in exchange for that increase in price? If not, then the price increase is bad from a consumer perspective, and that is the only perspective consumers need to worry about.
I agree.
They could raise the price to $200 for standard edition, $250 for heroic, and $300 for epic edition, but they would surely price a lot of people out if they did. However they didn’t do that, they raised it ten bucks across the board, which is reasonable given the fact that games in general have been going up in price as it is. Try buying a PS5 game right now. Min $70 for a new game, sometimes even more.
Plus with inflation being what it is, the $10 price increase isn’t much.
When I go to the grocery store and pay $4 dollars for milk when i used to pay $2.25, am i getting more in exchange for the increase in price? I’m pretty sure i’m still only getting 1 gallon of milk.
… Are you trying to argue that this is a good thing? xD
I promise that companies don’t need you making excuses for them about price increases. We as consumers should push back, not further normalize it.
Paying more for less. Sounds like Blizzard to me.
Push back against inflation?
What can you as a consumer do to push back against that?
Look around you, everything is getting more expensive due to record inflation. All i’m saying is its totally acceptable that the price of the game is going up slightly from 2 years ago not only due to inflation, but the general game pricing in the industry has gone up regardless.
If companies don’t do something to compensate for the increased cost of doing business, by either cutting expenses, or increasing prices, then they GASP go out of business. Would you rather Blizzard go out of business?
Well obviously they can do what they want and inflation is a nice excuse to up the prices but is not always justified as they might still make way more than they need. Theyre probably more selling at the price that they know will sell. Personnaly, keeping the price low for the basic expansion could have been an interesting way to get more players in the door.
[quote=“Jaylock-nerzhul, post:8, topic:1268185”]but the general game pricing in the industry has gone up regardless.
[/quote]
Again: how is this a good thing??? It’s not. Not for us. You’re literally just excusing them for raising prices “because”. I don’t understand why you are going to such lengths to make excuses for a company that didn’t need to raise prices.
As for pushing back: considering this isn’t a necessity, you can choose to not purchase beyond the price point you see as appropriate. We can also generate discussion on various forums/other points of communication to express opinions.
Do you actually think they are raising the prices just “because”?
I have given you ample explanation for why prices rise, but yet you continue to push this narrative of “its not good for us consumers!”
I get that prices rising affects people’s wallet. But if companies didn’t raise prices to combat the 8.2% inflation we have right now, many would go under. I get that Blizzard is a large corporation, but if they don’t raise their prices to remain profitable, they would need to make changes elsewhere to compensate, particularly on the expense side of the P&L. That means jobs could be cut, quality could go down due to using subpar or inferior supplies, etc.
$10 is not a large increase over 2 years. In fact, its very reasonable and lower than I expected the expansion to cost given the current economic environment we find ourselves in.
This sounds like every day Blizzard operation.
Why do they need to inflate?
Digital products aren’t affected by rising fuel costs or any packaging costs etc.
So why do they need to increase?
I did notice all games went up though, a new PS5 game is now $90 Canadian. I was like “well, not buying that for a while” and will wait until it hopefully goes on sale.
I remember the day when $100 was a lot of money, not a few hours of entertainment 
You said “inflation” and “pricing in the industry has gone up”. Ample explanation my butt. xD
And yeah, it’s not good for consumers. You are a consumer. WHY would you argue for something that hurts you? Why would you defend something that hurts you? Activision Blizzard isn’t going to marry you because you’re out here publicly justifying price increases for them. They are a very profitable company that didn’t need to raise prices to “remain profitable”.
They burned their good faith capital in the last two expansions.
That’s why.
Their employees driving to work and living expenses went up.
Building utility and rental fees went up.
Nothing exists in a vacuum.
Space?
Why do they need to inflate?
What do you mean? Are you asking why they need to increase the price of the expansion, if it is a digital product?
Labor isn’t cheap for one. Labor costs have increased dramatically across the US. In order to attract talented developers, they must pay them much more than they were paid even 2 years ago.
Electricity costs have risen about 20% on average nation wide. It costs a lot of money to run people’s computers and AC to do development work.
Arguably the majority of corporate overhead for a technology company is Labor. To the tune of sometimes 60%-70%+ of revenue.
Digital marketing costs a lot more, printing ads and marketing materials is more expensive.
To name a few.
Hello?
Companies price their products to be competitive in the market, and to ensure they make a profit to continue making goods and services (aka to stay in business).
What argument are you trying to make? Because of the fact that you are a consumer and you exist, companies shouldn’t raise prices of their products and services that you want to consume?
And yes they do need to raise prices to remain profitable. You think those expenses to turn on the lights that rose 20%+ in the last year is just going to go away? Do you think they can just tell the electric companies that they only want to pay what they paid a year ago? You think the increased labor costs are just going to disappear?
I can tell you have never run a business before with how you are acting.