Why they praise FFXIV here, by my experience it is pretty much ordinary cookie cutter asian MMORPG, theres dozens of them, and most of them have similar good but generic graphics, similar generic monsters, story lines etc. And most of them have shops, had long before WoW had them. Good thing about WoW it is still different. I dont know, maybe FFXIV has even typical grind wall? PS: About pay to play then there is iRacing, not MMORPG, but just an extreme example. There you have to pay for subscription and for this you just get an limited demo, few selected tracks and races. If you want more you must buy for extra cars and unlock tracks. And it is not cheap.
“The problem” is people extrapolating their nosiness in other people’s freely chosen actions and trying to pass it off as some kind of woke, anti capitalist sage wisdom. Come off it.
Also why on earth “should” a paid product not seek further monetisation?
So cinemas can’t sell you drinks?
So airplanes can’t sell you “perks”?
So no shop, anywhere, can offer you “more” than the barest of product?
And on what basis do you believe this is a good idea? I mean I’m not saying it’s invalid, but I can’t see the logical connection here. There is no rule that stipulates that a paid product cannot have additional monetisation in it.
Now if the original product said “we sell you X” and then they moved X into an additional purchase, you may have a point.
But the sub literally gives you “access and experience” it does not give you anything beyond that. So the idea the mounts are “owed content” is nonsense. Nowhere in the sub payment does it even say your sub entitles you to any form of access to a mount at all.
The only clauses in the sub product are where blizzard fail to deliver access (servers down) and in these cases there is a basis for people to seek money back. However what is in that world? That’s entirely up to blizz.
Vote with your wallet and don’t buy if you don’t like. Oh wait, you can do that already, so the problem is…?
I like my Lucky Yun, and it’s not a big spend anyway because I’ve made huge savings from all the rent free living in people’s heads in this thread.
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considering being “game developer” has literally nothing to do with anything here just shows your lack of intellect. Might as well have said, try being a janitor because someone has to clean toilets in Blizorgs HQ, would have made as much sense
Don’t really fancy reading 170+ posts, but I have no other ‘frivolous’ things to spend my money on… so why not?
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Man, I swore not to react anymore, but you just brought it to the next level. It’s funny how you made an example, but failed to defend it with your own logic.
In a cinema, you are paying to watch the movie, which is the product of the filmmaker. The filmmaker has noting to do with the popcorn, drinks, etc, that the cinema has to offer, it’s two completely different things. In the case of WoW, we are paying for the whole game. These shop items are artificially cut out products, to sell them for further profits. Now let’s head back to your example with the cinema, and compare the two cases. What blizzard does is not selling extra stuff like popcorn or drinks, they are selling the end of the movie, which they cut out.
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Just wow. its taken 174 posts and this discussion is still no further forward.
Here is the answer.
You go and buy a brand new car.
The car maker says “This is the standard car you want” it costs $5000 up front and then you lease the rest of it for $100 a month.
That is the base cost of the car. if you want the nice shiny wheel rims they are an extra $500. they dont make it go any faster or alter the handling at all, they just make it look pretty.
You can choose to buy them or drive the car without them.
its really straight forward…how can you not grasp it?
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You go to a cinema to watch a film, not own it? You’re entering their premises, making use of their comforts, and enjoying a film that they paid to show within their establishments.
It’s the same with WoW. You pay to have access to their servers, not own the game.
How is Blizzard selling an optional mount anything like them selling the end of the movie which has been cut out? Mounts are already in the game. They’re not cut out, forcing you to pay to use a mount.
The transmogg look bad, the mounts look bad.
Why do you even care if people decide to waste money on ugly stuff?
There’s so much better stuff you can get ingame.
The main question is not “How do you justify” it is “Why do you care”
Just laugh at them and move on.
So you’re under the impression it is not the cinema itself that has taken the decision to offer said products?
Okay, fair point, ticket is film. So let’s use your logic. Point me to where the sub payment EULA says “access to entire game, including hypothetical content we may make” and I’ll go on my merry way.
Ridiculous grasp and example, and again, it shows no argument. What you are doing here is comparing oranges with apples.
This just basically comes towards it. 15 years ago, when you paid for a game, you would unlock the whole full game. Or atleast, with World of Warcraft at that time. Pay to access it, but in return, Blizzard would unleash new content and would hotfix things were needed to keep the game bugfree and playable.
Right now, they sell you the base game. A game you bought in the first place.
Take good note that you bought for an expansion.
Then you pay to access it. You don’t own anything. You simply rent your character and playtime from Blizzard. Blizzard can restrict it at any will.
And on top, in today’s age, it’s perfectly normal to withhold content from a product you bought and offer that seperately under a transaction for real life money. Something that you paid money for to access, and on top they charge you money to use the damn thing.
How is this ever okay?
I could understand in free to play games, this would be okay, but it’s not.
This is such a weak argument. Ofcourse you should care how other people spend their money. You don’t live in a bubble. It affects you. When whales spend thousands of dollars on MTX, it sends a message to developers and publishers. It tells them that it’s okay to lock items behind a paywall instead of allowing the player to unlock it by in-game accomplishments. Decades ago, bonus costumes in games were unlocked through side-content that was already part of the game when you paid $50-60. Now you are expected to pay $5-15 on top of the $60 for extra costumes because enough people told developers it’s okay to do that.
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I think its you who does not have a grasp on this my freind…
At no point in the history of wow did they state that you would not have to pay for more content… thats what you do everytime you buy an expansion.
These (optional) items in the store provide no ingame tangible benefit to your gameplay, they simply look nice… thats it. No one that ever played WOW NEEDS one of these mounts, they only ever WANT them.
It astounds me how many people complain about companies trying to make more money. In the real world you dont give things away for free to your customers, you charge them for your time and effort.
Businesses that dont make people pay for things soon become ex-businesses.
You’re not expected to though.
The store mounts are completely optional. You’re not expected to buy them. You can still use a mount regardless of these mounts being on the store. These are just extra mounts that you can purchase if you wish.
oh and you can get ALL these items by farming in game currency and converting it into Battlenet Balance so that kind throws a dampner on your whole outrage thing…
They’re still cut content that could’ve been made available ingame.
That’s not a valid consistency because the prices of tokens are always changing and are influenced by something out of your power.
Mounts are available in game though. These just have different requirements to obtain.
Paying a fee to access their servers does not entitle you to exclusive products free of charge.
How do you know they are cut content? They may have hired a designer specifically to work on store mounts as they knew people wanted to buy them. They may never have made it into the game…
The consistency of the Gold to Token price is irrelevant. Your argument is predicated on the basis that these items are not available through playing the game but they clearly are.
Does your argument still applies to gold, and the fact that you can buy it for real money, which indirectly translates to player power?
Let’s say there’s 2 players, both of them can play the game for 2-3 hours / day at maximum, and both of them are raiders, they only care about gearing up their characters, and performing as good as they can, to achieve CE or AotC. If one of them is not willing to spend real money to buy gold, he’ll be unable to afford mythic BOE items, over the standard, necessary items that you need to buy for every progression raid (flasks, pots, food, runes, enchants). On the other hand, you have a player, who spends money to buy gold, therefore he can afford to buy the best BOE gear from the AH, giving him an edge in terms of player power. Is it still fair in a game where we already pay money to play?
My god…
That could’ve just been ingame content? LOL
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But this doesn’t apply to the mount situation, does it?
If I refuse to buy one of the store mounts, I still have the option to move at 100% speed, absolutely nothing in terms of game-play is being denied to me.
My standing in the game doesn’t change in the slightest, as those mounts specifically don’t afford me an advantage over the other mounts in the game. It’s a completely different kettle of fish comparing mounts to gear as you’re not “paying to win” in this situation.
Now, if the mounts could move at faster speed, thereby giving you an advantage over other players, it would be a different situation altogether.
The same goes for transmog. They don’t provide you with any stats! You’re not gaining any benefit from buying them other than being able to say “I paid to look like this.”
What I am saying is that they should never have been part of the store in the first place. Not that they should be removed from the game. Even now after having bought them with gold if they got removed from the store and handed to everyone for free I would find it better than them being offered for real money.