Plea from Turkish Community

Ghoulogor-the-venture-co · July 30, 2020, 2:01pm

Im on your side… Blizz must do something.

Akundaera-kazzak · July 30, 2020, 2:01pm

Did I say I am earning low or smth?

Dhargan-argent-dawn · July 30, 2020, 2:11pm

I don’t know if Blizzard make this issue a priority soon but people who disagree with the idea should think about that;

I’m a senior software engineer in a decent company in Turkey. Think a senior software engineer in your country who loves to play WoW a lot but thinks multiple-times to subscribe each month, even can’t afford it time to time. Does that make any sense? If it does, maybe people in your country should ask for plea as well.

Thanks Mharla for bringing that up!

Jetlife-twisting-nether · July 30, 2020, 2:49pm

Go fix your economy first, instead of begging for local currency update.

Nonsense.

Aequitarian-argent-dawn · July 30, 2020, 3:11pm

As a Turkish player, I totally agree with this. Not to mention the fact that if the prices become more accessible, a lot more Turkish people will likely to give the game a chance and Turkish playerbase will grow massively.
Unfortunately with the current pricing WoW is seen as a game only rich people or people with a nice income can afford, however, it is not the case with other countries.

Also, I would like to say that the comments telling us to move or get a better job sound completely tone deaf.

Thanks for reading.

Demonicsoull-twisting-nether · July 30, 2020, 3:19pm

There is no such thing as “gain from demand” if there is no demand.

If blizzard makes subscription 20% cheaper for you then they need playerbase to grow 25% to earn as much as they did with the regular price from subscriptions. For “gain from demand” to happen as you mentioned they will need about 40-50% growth of playerbase.

I doubt there will be enough of a playerbase growth with currency-based subscription for them to make it worth the risk.

If there was big enough Turkish playerbase they would have made Turkish server(s) already just like Riot Games did and they would have adjusted the cost of the subscription accordingly aswell.

I doubt there is thousands of players on the line waiting for cheaper subscriptions to play WoW.

But if they nail shadowlands and make a good expansion i’m sure there will be more of an increase of Turkish players than a discount on subscription.

Haurm-draenor · July 30, 2020, 3:19pm

This just wont happen and it shouldnt , because as I said earlier in this thread , if you adapt to Turkey’s currency you have to adapt to every countries’s minimum wage otherwise its extremely unfair , some countries using the euro have horribly low minimum wage and they deserve the same treatment if turkey gets it.

Demonicsoull-twisting-nether · July 30, 2020, 3:23pm

Yep and it’s not blizzard’s job to go out there and calculate purchasing power of each country and make their subscription price based on that for each country.

Scarleett-silvermoon · July 30, 2020, 3:28pm

Do you have idea about Steam’s dollar currency for Turkey ? Its just 2.1 Turkish Liras. And for today 1 Dollar= 6.99 Turkish Liras. You can see that Steam does not change the currency for today and they still sell the games in Turkish Liras. That means its like win-win situation. And also with the local currencies you can attract the new players from Turkey or Eastern European Countries. So Blizzard should not just do that to Turkey they should do the same to any country has same problems.

Edgelordqt-kazzak · July 30, 2020, 3:46pm

Cool, from now on I am Turkish if I make a steam purchase

Canabal-darkspear · July 30, 2020, 3:48pm

People are more receptive to sentimental arguments when it’s based on necessities.

Can you imagine how many people would be driving around in a Bugatti if the price was based on what they can afford?

You’re a valued consumer only if you can afford a subscription, so make the payment and not a plea.

Scarleett-silvermoon · July 30, 2020, 4:03pm

I don’t think that video games has the same rarity like cars or etc. xd

Lunamcaeli-silvermoon · July 30, 2020, 4:25pm

You want to play on EU Server then you pay EU prices.

You want special prices, ask for Turkish servers and be locked to only those servers.

Enumar-karazhan · July 30, 2020, 4:25pm

Mharla:

Hi everyone,
I’m writing to convey a plea from Turkish community. If you aren’t from the crowd, this probably doesn’t mean much for you, but if you’d like to support us, we’ll appreciate it.

TL;DR: We ask for the option to have prices proportionate to our buying power.
We also have this changeorg petition with currently 1000+ signatures (a token number of the community from a single Facebook group more or less). Unfortunately, I can’t include links.

First, I’d like to address some common arguments:
“Why should you pay less?”
Simple, because we earn less. Let me show you how EUR-TRY difference changed over years to give you an idea. xecom can show a 10-year graph, meaning you can see the difference from roughly Cata to today. If you are feeling lazy, let me give you the info: EUR became about 5 times as expensive, meaning for the price that we roughly used to pay for a 6-month sub, we can only get a 1-month sub now. Or rather, imagine that you had to pay ~50€ for one month.

“Why should Blizzard take this into account and decrease prices?”
Well, that’s obviously up to them to decide, but we believe that adjusting the prices will increase the number of people who pay for the game in three ways:

More people who are already interested in the game, but can’t pay constantly (and try to meet ends by farming gold for every other month etc.) will pay

People who can only and only play it “free” (ie buy the game and just farm gold) will start paying

People who don’t even play because they know it’s expensive will be interested

Not only that, but we believe this will actually increase the quality of players’ own time and even the social status for at least some people as they will have to focus less on farming and more on enjoying the game.

Last but not least, this has been successfully incorporated with results by several platforms already, Steam being the biggest example and likewise, regions like Russia also has their own pricing in Blizzard system. This means that Blizzard is able to do it, and this system is doable in Turkey and solutions should exist. It’s purely a business choice.

“Gaming is luxury, don’t play it if you can’t afford it!”
Sigh. I hope we covered this in the initial comment. We recognize this but there are levels of luxury and WoW is actually quite an affordable hobby compared to how much time you sink in it. Not in Turkey though, so we want to change that to an extent.
Let me tell you this way.
For one month of minimal pay in, Germany, you can buy around 100+ months of game
For one month of minimal pay in, Greece, you can buy around 60~ months of game
For one month of minimal pay in Turkey, you can buy around 30+ months of game.
(I used google for numbers)
Obviously better economy means better buying power, but before you compare with buying a car or something, these are digital products with adjustable prices. And before you start lecturing me about it, let me remind you two facts again:
There are other platforms that does this in Turkey.
There are other regions that Blizzard does this.

By the way, if you find prices in YOUR country expensive, consider asking for the same. I’ll back you up buddy.

“Negative comment about Turkish players”
I’m sorry you’ve had such experience. Believe me, I’ve had my share of avoiding Turkish players. That being said, believe it or not, there are more and more players who are open-minded, who care about the game, the lore and behave differently (some of the biggest influencers on wow are very much into lore and people love that!). There are also a lot of people that has been part of the game since vanilla that also suffer from the same situation. We are part of the community and some of us are even more productive than many people from other countries. This isn’t about a particular part of the community.

So, regardless of what you think, experience or feel about some players, we are here as a pretty big community and Blizzard has recently been doing marketing and community management in Turkey.

“It’s not Blizzard’s fault that your economy is bad”
We always hear this, it’s funny. Do you think we blame Blizzard for it? But anyway, they might make more money and have more happy customers with a small change.

"They can’t do it "
As mentioned, they can and they do. There are already regions with local pricing.

“”
Not the place. And people and politicians are not one and the same. Can you tell me your entire country’s representation can be boiled down to your president? If so, I’d like to know where you live, sounds interesting!

So, whether you are a member of Turkish community or just someone who’d like to support TR players who love this game especially the young people who aren’t yet in the working life, feel free to send a message, upvote, like and subscribe etc.

Thanks for reading.

PS: I’m posting on WoW forums as it’s the biggest title and has a subscription but we have players for all games, including some successful proplayers as well : )

I know at least 3 person who can return to game with this price change.
On the other hand, i really dont want government involvement in wow.They would probably tax it more to make it same prices as before lol. In addition i like the originality of wow,i really dont want to be forced into a seperate ‘‘zone’’.
I play wow to meet and play with international eu players, not for local play.

Also this can create issues with other eu player zones too ; they would want cheaper prices too if ours is too low compared to them.(Personally i dont see a problem in here, but blizzard would lose revenue, though the number of new subs could substitude it, maybe.)

Currently, a Turkish player roughly pays 8 times more than a average eu player.
Personally; im a wow token player ; doesnt seem to affect me much; but game prices are really high in here.

I dont know how local money based system could be added; or if government would allow it ; but its certain that it would increase sub numbers in Turkey.ALOT.

Furyeclipser-kazzak · July 30, 2020, 4:42pm

No they don’t ,they pay same.

Enumar-karazhan · July 30, 2020, 4:49pm

Im a Tr player, you cant know better than me pal. 1 euro equals to 8TL atm.

Furyeclipser-kazzak · July 30, 2020, 4:52pm

13 euro is 13 euro in EU in Turkey and on Jupiter.

What that has to do with anything ?
1 euro is 88 Indian rupee .
According to your logic Indians pay 88 times more.

Jetlife-twisting-nether · July 30, 2020, 4:57pm

1 Euro equals 8 liras only for TODAY. Next week it will be equal to 9 who knows.

But the subsciption fee (13 €) is still the same since 2006 (far as I know because I started playing back then).

%0 inflation on subscription fee. I think you should even thank Blizzard for this.

End of discussion, this thread is a joke.

Dejarous-draenor · July 30, 2020, 5:02pm

This only works if you earn 8 times less, It’s 20 ZAR to a pound. Do you think that means South Africans pay 20 times more?

If this is your take on things, less time gaming and more time studying is prescribed.

Furyeclipser-kazzak · July 30, 2020, 5:03pm

That’s the thing.They think that exchange ratio is linked to purchasing power ,which is simply false.