It is something that originates from private servers. People who played on such servers, referred to real Blizzard run game as retail regardless of expansion and it meant bugless game the real deal (and yeah I know what is the actual definition of the word retail). And now when Classic aka Vanilla is once again available to play legally, to those people, BfA has become “retail” but now with negative connotation and many have adopted such a term. That is just dumb to me cause it implies Classic is some separate entity from Blizzard and a better game for that matter.
I am sure some of you will come at me and say, but the folder in which bfa files are located is called retail and classic is called classic.
Even Wotlk exe game file was called World of Warcraft retail, yet you all call Wotlk Wrath not retail. I don’t see why current WoW couldn’t be called by the current expansion name.
To Classic lovers, I have to say that I love Classic as much as you do and the point of this post isn’t to dis on it. But I do enjoy BfA aswell and in my opinion calling BfA or any future expansion retail does it no good.
I call it BfA from time to time but I can’t really call it BfA next expansion so retail it is. Guess I could call it modern WoW too but it’s just a name, who really cares?
Also you didn’t need to make the distinction in wotlk because there weren’t 2 versions at the time.
I feel dirty whenever I type it.
I’d much rather call it “real WoW” but then I’d be upsetting people 
This is the only reason I use the word “Retail”–because it is literally stored in the “_retail_” directory in the World of Warcraft install location.
I was never really familiar with private server jargon.
I presumed it was because retail is the paid for version, as in what we actually pay a sub fee for, and classic is a free bonus game thrown in that you can download if you want. Even if you only want to play classic you still have to purchase a retail sub.
When people talk about wrath or legion or other expansions they use the expansion name for clarity.
Retail is for me now the one of the WoW games that are moving forward, while classic is from the past. So while I still call the expansion BFA, I will call this version, be it BFA now or another expansion in a year, Retail.
I used to call BFA “Live”, but since classic is live and no longer beta, live doesn’t sound right, and I adopted “retail”.
Retail isn’t a negative therm in my vocabulary, so that is all in your head. And whoever feel the same as you.
WotLK is WotLK to me, because it’s not classic, and it’s not retail. Next year, when the new expansion is out(assuming about a year from now), BFA will no longer be retail, but solely BFA again('cause it’s the past!).
And this really.
I don’t like the term and yes it seems a very private server reference to me but it’s what Blizzard themselves chose to call the two folders in WoW. Retail and Classic.
I made a similar post some times ago, dude. And some people kept saying this:
They can always change the Folder name to BfA or whatever expansion comes after BfA. Meanwhile, I refuse to call it “Retail”. Maybe this may feel ridiculous to most people, but I don’t like it.
I don’t think they will change it to any expansion name. It would have to change your entire directory every time and that would cause issues.
What do you even hope to achieve with this?
Retail is a better word for it since it doesn’t have to change every expansion.
On the other hand they call them “private servers”, when they are not private at all.
tbh this
sry no conspiracy here, OP, move along
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I just call it retail because a whole bunch of people I know does, makes it easier and frankly it’s quicker to type than “the one version of World of Warcraft we are technically actually paying for but are not playing at the moment, you know the one with a bit more quality of life systems” but to each their own. It’s like, I come from a more poor neighborhood IRL, so I generally speak a bit differently than people who don’t. It’s semantics.
Or you could write “BfA”.
I call it retail and bfa. Usually this depends on the context, ie:
- If it’s about content based on the most recent expansion, I’ll call it by its name, like BfA.
- If it’s regarding older content, such as Legion, MoP, Cataclysm, TBC, etc. Then I’ll refer to it as ‘retail’.
Sometimes I don’t care and I’ll just call it whatever word first pops into my head.
I just call it modern, personally. “Retail” never sat well with me either. Modern or live are much better.
retail for me is always the most current expansion. everything else gets called by its expansion name.
and to be honest, there is no need to get hung up on this. its just a word. call it whatever you want as long as people know what you mean its all good. 
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