Price Update on Subscription for Turkiye

Community General Discussion
63

First of all, I am very sorry.

Blizzard has priced it a bit too high. Honestly, WoW in its current state doesn’t deserve the pricing in both EU and TR. There are enough Turkish players to fill an entire server in this game. Therefore, Turkey creates a market in the gaming industry. Many games are starting to be released in Turkish, but with these prices, you will lose the market.

Finally, please don’t engage in political discussions. We are all gamers and political discussions don’t suit us. Don’t respond to toxic people.

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64

The price of WoW sub has not changed since 2004. Its 100% more than fair, and its literally the cheapest form of entertainment you can buy across all of EU and US. Including Eastern Europe.

And because we pay 12E instead of the ~30E we should be paying if you considered cumulative inflation for 20 years… WoW in EU and US is 100% subsidized by whales buying the 90$ Brutosaurus mount. Literally.

65

People can reason the prices the same way you do. You may find it ok but others may find it not ok. This is normal and subjective opinion.

What is not subjective is the fact that Blizzard increases its price by 100% in a country with annual inflation of ~50%. If this is the case, people may be more demanding and ask how this price is justified.

You can say that the price worth 6 glass of coffee and is therefore ok. Some people may enjoy 6 glass of coffee more than playing this “entertainment”. I hope it helps you to understand.

66

I understand everything you said.

But I dont think YOU understand me:

Lets take your own words here:

Why do you need to ask for a reason? You got your reason in the sentence that comes prior to it:

  • Annual inflation of 50%. That is your reason right there.

Last time Turkey got a price hike was in 2023. 2 years of 50% inflation == 100% price hike. Its not rocket science.

Also. WoW is a “luxury” commodity. In EU and in Turkey. Like Rolex watches. You don’t need to justify anything for those types of products.

Everyone knows a “Luis Vouiton” handbag is not worth 500E. Not even close. But its a luxury commodity. It can be as worth as people are willing to pay for it.

If it was food, clean water, income, healthcare… THAT is something important. WoW is not. Not in Turkey, not in EU or US.

IMO they could raise prices by 1000% all over the world for all I care. Its like telling me they increased prices of a Ferrari by 1000%. I just happen to be able to afford that “Ferrari” called WoW at the moment, but I never forget that its a luxury I (and many others) have.

There is nothing to reason. Nothing subjective.

Sub price in 2004: 12E.
Sub price in 2024: 12E.

If my memory serves me correct, where I am from this is the data:

1 beer in 2004: 80 cents.
1 beer in 2024: 3.2 E.

That is an observation. Not an opinion.

And you can do the same math for Turkish prices if you want. With the extra caviat that Blizzard works in Euro and $$. It the currency that their developer salaries, shareholders, and suppliers use. So transforming Turkish Lira into $$ is expensive for them.

Nothing subjective about that. Its totally normal.

Especially when its something every single business is doing in Turkey. From your local baker and street market vendor to all Turkish conglomerate corporations. Why is Blizzard somehow under scrutiny for something all other Turkish companies do?

67

You can buy token with gold they arent disabled.
You only can’t buy them with real money which is fair considering how steam market crashed with localized currency issues couple years ago cuz of Argentina and Turkey. It’s to prevent people from buying wow tokens for 1/5th of the price.
You can also convert your gold to bnet balance with tokens.

68

This is getting off :slight_smile: but
There is a clearly spiral of shrinking content (service) over the years as well.

Full games (whatever that means) do indeed cost more on Steam than before. 30-40€ used to be a thing when I started using the platform, now it’s 60-80-100.

WoW itself also costs more, when paying for the content (DLC) or cosmetics. Ignore Classic, that was an investment (plus the sub), but look at BC, WLK, even up to Pandaria - plenty of zones, dungeons, battlegrounds, features, all that. Heck, Cataclysm delivered a facelift and new quests for most of Azeroth.

GW2 has similar prices but for the majority, there is no additional cost. If you simply want the DLC you can still buy the 25€ edition and that’s your expense for the year. If you want to support them, you buy some epic edition for 100€ and you’re definitely done.

WoW sub in my eyes is more about ongoing cost (and a bit of content updates, if you play more, you explore more, you pay more), but most tech companies easily serve a customer for 5€ a month and Blizzard doesn’t really have customer support anymore either. Back in 2008-2010 you would connect to a GM in reasonable time (minutes to hours). Now they don’t even ban bots.

Especially as a Classic player, I’m not even getting anything new. It’s just operations.

69

No, you don’t understand.

Please stop trying to force your opinions on people. I’m talking about you not deserving this price. You’re saying something completely different. You’re talking to everyone, it’s not nice.Wow is no longer of the old quality. That’s why these prices are high.

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70

My friend how can an MMORPG be luxury? It’s not like we are putting cables on our bodies and experience the game with VRs and such. We are playing a 20 year old game with keyboard and mouse. If this is called luxury in your dictionary, I will feel pretty bad for you.

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71

Luxury in this context means something that you can live without. The luxury that you are referring to is not economics

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72

It’s not called luxury. It’s called unnecessary.

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73

Yes, yes, linking IMF article is racism. Guilty as charged.(lmao)

If you did simple forum search instead of throwing ridiculous racism card you would see that “Turkish Lira” threads have been regularly created in the past five years. (since i am here on the forums, idk before that.)

At first they asked for Lira payments instead of euros, which they got.
BTW, i remember one particular argument if you can even to call it an argument when person claimed that 1euro = 7 lira (or whatever number was it) means that Turks are paying seven times more than EU players. You can’t make that up.

Once they got localized payment people started using VPN to buy cheap Turkish tokens which lead to token being removed from Turkiye.
Then some Turks asked for back to Euro payment because they want tokens, which didn’t happen.
So in some sense there is no consensus between them do they want lira or euro payments.

And what happened now is nothing more than inflation adjustment.

But hey, when you lack context you throw racism card. :man_facepalming:

edit: BTW, everyone is paying in national currencies since MS acquired Activision Blizzard
not that long ago. Not sure if it would even be possible to go back to euros.

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74

Also known as a luxury commodity. You misunderstood something, I’m explaining your confusion. A quote from the Cambridge dictionary:

“something expensive that is pleasant to have but is not necessary”

75

Whatever you call it, my point still remains. Luxery or unnecessary, its still a privilege to have money and time to invest into something as unproductive as playing videogames.

What opinions ?

I pointed out an observation. Literally that.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we are paying less than half of what we should be…

I mean… expansions used to be 30E, and now they are 60E or even 90E if you want the “premium version”. Not only WoW but games as well…

I mean the Game Boy used to cost 89.99$, which is equivalent to $221 in 2023 (from wiki page). A PS5 costs 500$. Imagine for a minute that you had all the console market selling stuff at 200$ to 500$, but Nintendo somehow was still selling their Game Boy (5 or 6) at 90$…

It would seem incredible dont you think ? As in, either Blizzard is getting $$$$ from somewhere else, OR, we are being duped in quality. Probably a combination of both.

Neither is surprising…

So basically asking for a better quality or more DLC has to come with a price increase. Because I cannot justify in any way more quality but 2004 prices. Makes no sense.

76

I understand comments from some players in Europe such as “We pay the same amount,” but I must emphasize that the purchasing power in Turkey is not comparable to that in Europe. There are significant differences in economic conditions, which make it very difficult for players in Turkey to access the game at such high prices.

I believe localized pricing policies could help Blizzard generate much greater revenue through volume. More reasonable pricing would allow a broader player base to access the game, creating a more sustainable market for Blizzard in the long term.

Additionally, the fact that players in Turkey are expected to pay such high prices for a game that still lacks Turkish language support makes it even harder for Blizzard to establish a stronger foothold in the Turkish market. I kindly ask you to reconsider how these changes might impact the player community.

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77

while that might be true and probably is .but what blizzard mostly has been pushing is for prices to become more uniform with eachother while maintaining local currencies . most other people countries who dont have euros are paying blizzard in euros while having to also pay exchange rate fees because of different currency .

problem with turkish lira is it has been losing its value .it is around 35 dollars now i think or somewhere around that mark .when i was in turkiye it used to be 1.75 lira to 1 us dollar .so if turkish lira lets say god forbid lose its value to 50 dollar then you can expect further hikes and still hope that they dont remove turkish lira altogether from local currencies .

your point has weightage but if we see blizzard or more of such companies they are always looking at short term profits instead of looking at bigger picture .

78

Not since MS acquisition.

80

This has become a very good meme in my guild xD Now we are asking guildies how many empires their countries had in history when they ask to join a key or have a craft done.

Please keep posting <3

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81

Im glad to be of service !

So I recon that your guild thinks Turkey is a turd of a country that requires babysitting and NGO help to get its citizens out of crippling poverty.

Got it !

82

Are you aware you have been talking about CIA, nuclear weapons and empires on a post about game-time price?

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83

Well if you like to take snippets and specific words off whole paragraphs with out reading them… then yes… sounds absurd…

:slight_smile:

Like I said, enjoy.

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