Then expect every thing to cost $90.
Ahem. Only for those who pay for a whole 6 months (or 1 year) up front. If you pay 6 months separately, you get nothing.
Why should you be rewarded for unsubbing? You save both money and get rewarded for your “loyalty”.
And please do remember, if you are subbed 1 month at a time, the Trading Post literally offers you a mount every month just for playing the game (And other things)…
Would be kind of weird to want them to give you rewards when you’re in a “I can cancel my sub any time with 1 days notice hehe” spot
Don’t be absurd. Players have a certain willingness to departs with some of their disposable income, and Blizzard will get that money one way or the other as long as people are playing the game.
The game not having a subscription wouldn’t suddenly result in thousands of things on the Online Store costing $90. That makes no business sense. Players obviously wouldn’t approve of that, so there’s no incentive for Blizzard to do it versus what they do now - which is to release a new mount or transmog every other month or so. That works and players tolerate it.
Your reward is playing their game.
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lol, that’s beyond naive. Why would Blizzard ditch a sub and sell amounts for $90 in place of the occasional mount. That’s not how F2P works.
What would happen is every piece of armor would be minimal effort and any decent looking one would cost money. Mounts would cost more than they cost now. The token will be gone in it’s place you’ll but a currency for cash that’s exchanged for a cha shop currency. Gold will effective be useless.
More focus would be on expensive transmog than actual content. Expansion would be dead. You’ll get a zone with a couple of quests each year.
Then there’s the mass layoffs of staff. Positions like CM would be defunct, story, nah, why when there’s very little content.
Yes but that doesn’t negate that they exist. I am not signed up to any long term plan atm either but the rewards exist for long term subscribing.
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That’s a ridiculous amount of doom posting.
First of all, if the monthly subscription was to disappear, then the game still wouldn’t be free to play. Remember, we’re all paying €50 to €90 for each expansion. And those are stated to come out more frequently.
So subscription or not, this is a premium priced box product that you’re effectively re-purchasing with every expansion release.
The subscription really doesn’t amount to much these days, because WoW doesn’t have so many subscribers anymore, and it doesn’t retain everyone all the time. It’s an income stream that Blizzard can’t really levy, because WoW isn’t going to get more popular with time.
That’s why I said that whatever Blizzard intends to do vis á vis future business schemes, they will do that anyway, because they ultimately have to slowly shift WoW’s income stream to be less reliant on the monthly subscription and more reliant on deluxe editions and online store purchases.
So that which you’re fearing – upselling and premium store purchases – is coming either way, regardless of having a subscription or not.
And many of the bogeymen that you associate with free to play – such as selling currency or premium skins in the game – and then skimping on currency gains and quality visuals from playing the game, that’s already the reality.
Blizzard hides it well by acting as a middleman with the WoW Token, but it’s essentially the same as selling currency. And all the online store mounts and transmogrification sets are already of a considerable higher quality than anything found in the game itself.
So Blizzard are already moving in that direction, and have been for years.
What you’re fearing is that upon removing the subscription, then overnight the game would take a sharp turn to the right and instantly become trash and everything would cost money and players would be miserable and so forth.
That’s obviously not going to happen, because if players get too upset and too dissatisfied, then they’re not going to buy anything - they’re going to quit.
So Blizzard aren’t going to cross that Rubicon today, tomorrow, or any point in the future, because it’s harmful to their business.
What Blizzard ultimately wants is for players to be okay with new business schemes and be hopeful about the game’s future and be excited about spending money on the game.
And they do that (as they always have) by nudging. We end up in the same place, but players are a lot more tolerable to a single $90 mount every once in a while, versus a whole slew of $90 mounts at once.
It’s the boiling frog situation. So long as the temperature doesn’t rise too quickly, the frog is happy to sit in the pot and be boiled alive.
The rest of your doomsaying, with mass layoffs and cutting content and emphasis on collectibles over gameplay content, that’s already the case. Like I said, those ills are here and will be more plentiful regardless of WoW having a subscription or not. That is the future of the game by virtue of the game being less popular whilst Blizzard are still beholden to high revenue goals. That results in a game that focuses on profit maximization, and at that point it’s honestly irrelevant whether Blizzard gets our money through a pet on the online store or through the monthly subscription. They’re going to want to get our money one way or the other.
And you get tender too, which translates to free mounts, transmog and whatnot.
I buy the year sub and buy all the stuff they put on the store as long as I like it. Why would Blizzard not want a whale like me giving them money for the sub?
The orange Murloc year sub mount is a two piece for me because it’s the Druid colour and the border colour of the numbers my football team wear on their road uniform. No way I’m missing that.
It’s reality of the F2P market. Right now every player is paying for a sub somehow, even if it’s grinding tokens. In a F2P game very few actually pay anything. In order to make up for that they need to monetise everything. WoW is much more complex and demands more content than something like hearthstone, that costs money.
If a F2P transition was to fail there’s no option to move back to a sub only model. A failed (and most do) model could literally end WoW.
It’s not doom posting, it’s pragmatism based on previous games. This is no good f2p model.
Where have I said they don’t want that?
Didn’t I specifically say this initially and afterward:
So I’ll just reiterate: The subscription isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
So long as WoW doesn’t stand to gain more players by not having a subscription, and it doesn’t stand to lose more players by having a subscription, then Blizzard will most definitely keep the subscription.
They’re more than happy to take €13 from us every month for nothing in return. It’s the best business scheme imaginable. Free money, every month!
What I then said, was that even if there was no monthly subscription in WoW, then Blizzard would still do all the exact same things they already intend to.
More deluxe editions? Yep. More premium store mounts? Yep. More premium store transmogs? Yep. More Token “encouragement”? Yep. More company and product cross-promotions? Yep. And so on.
All that will happen whether there’s a subscription or not. The subscription isn’t holding anything back or providing any form of sanctuary from the ills of free-to-play or whatever. We’re just giving Blizzard €13 every month and we get no assurances or guarantees in return. Blizzard sails this ship, and they’ll be sailing it in the same direction regardless of whether there’s a subscription or it. It changes nothing. Blizzard still wants to make as much more money as they possibly can, and there’s no incentive for them not to.
We all pay €50 to €90 for each and every expansion, which is at least every two years (soon to be sooner).
That is in no way a free-to-play model - subscription or otherwise.
WoW is a premium cost game that you have to re-purchase every other year for the same premium cost.
In no reality or dimension would a €50 or €90 box product video game be labeled as free-to-play.
A free-to-play game is one that has no upfront cost. You download it and you play it. That is not WoW. Even without a subscription the game would still demand at least €50 for you to set your feet in Dornogal. That is not free-to-play. That is a standard triple A box product with a premium price tag.
Can you elaborate on which part exactly is p2w?
WoW Token. Enhanced Level Boost. Early Access.
There are mmos that give you “achivment points” with a highscore list or exp boost/bonus skill points the longer you have been subscribed and it updates each month subbed.
Im not saying wow should copy paste that, but there could ofc be ways to give players more rewards the longer you have been subbed.
And i read that people say that trading post is this what op is asking for.
Yes trading post rewards player with ppl that subs which is great.
But it was introduced out like a little over a year ago. So a person that subbed when it was introduced vs a person that subbed for 20 years get the same rewards.
I think what op is asking for is that is some different rewards for longer than a year subbed players for a “thank you for paying thousands of dollars and supporting us kibd of deal”
Doubt it will ever happen tho.
When someone brings up the early access as pay to win I already know he prolly has an IQ below 80. Good luck
isnt exactly win. is “somethin to play smoother”. for the first 2. early access no imho.
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Can’t give evidence cause blizz hid the subscriber numbers after wotlk
You can get anything and everything you ever wanted in-game as long as you provide the gold, which you can get from tokens… majority of people still buy gold from farmers on other sites which are cheaper (P2W).
Trading post is just a vague attempt to keep the cheep paying for monthly subscription.
At the beginning of WoD, but they recently shared some graphs based on the real data again.
Based on what do you know this?
Just like any other part of this game…it’s meant to keep you playing…
They have timegating for that. Trading post is just free stuff, and ironically they put things into it that were previously only available via store purchase (Tyrael Mount, Dreadwake etc). I honestly wouldn’t be suprised if the Hateforged Blazecycle would show up in it next year.