Subscription Fee is a joke now

Community General Discussion
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That is true, but the gaming landscape has changed since then…yet WoW has not.
No game that gets released today would opt for a business model similar to WoW’s. Even WoW itself cannot escape a downward spiral with its current business model, evident by the shrinking playerbase. But Blizzard are cynical and maintain the status quo, because it’s more profitable to have a small playerbase that are willing to pay a lot as opposed to a large playerbase that pays a little.
From a business perspective that’s understandable. But from a player perspective it’s not desirable.

I don’t think I’ve suggested a pay-by-the-hour idea at any point, ever.
I think I once suggested more flexible subscription options, like a 2-week long subscription or a weekend-subscription, or other alternative subscription lengths that were shorter than a month.

And China has – to my awareness – different options, both a subscription and a pay-by-the-hour model. And as I see it, choice is good.

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145

And blizzard knows it .thats why they will keep subscription fees .
People who left playing wow didnot leave cuz of subscription fees . They did it cuz they were not enjoying bfa .
So the whole subscription debate is useless .

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146

Removed ages ago.

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You are of course linking the business model with the declining playerbase. Given the vast majority of grips on the forums are to do with content and in-game features rather than pricing, I doubt that’s the case.

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Yes I know. And I realize it’s a bit of a catch 22 situation. But I don’t think one should be less critical of Blizzard just because they’re unlikely to change.

Point taken. WoW in China is driven by NetEase, so technically their server upkeep costs aren’t related to ours anyway. But that wasn’t much the point anyway. The point was more to say that it’s silly to say that the subscription cost is there to cover for server upkeep when Blizzard’s other games don’t have a subscription associated with them, and the Russians pay a lower subscription cost despite gaining access to the same-quality servers.

It’s not like the subscription cost exists just so Blizzard can break even. Insinuating that to be the case is silly. That’s my point.

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Point is all there other games are free to play but staff wages have to be paid for somehow.

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Certainly cause and correlation are not that straight-forward, and players will have many different reasons for choosing to not play the game.
I would be surprised though if cost does not correlate with how many players WoW has.
I mean, Overwatch is 50% off right now. Blizzard wouldn’t lower the cost of the game if they didn’t think it would result in more people buying and playing it. So there’s obviously a correlation there.

For sure. I’m not suggesting that WoW should be entirely free either, that’s absurd. I’m just saying that all-together the cost of WoW is relatively high, and in my opinion too high.

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Wow in bad enough place already without going ftp which will bring more toxic players from LoL over.

I rather paye tbh.

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I personally wouldn’t want WoW to be a free-to-play game.

WoW can be more affordable whilst maintaining its subscription model.

It’s not an either or scenario.

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You know what you gotta do man. Dont pay dont play. Bye then.

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Have to disagree.

SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, Elder Scrolls Online.

Whilst they have cash shops of sorts none of them are game breaking in anyway and 98% aesthetic. With simple things such as XP Boosters to full on outfits for your character.

I believe Guild Wars 2 method is the best.
Pay for the game+expansions, you get daily login rewards, a cash shop which offers aesthetics and low end boosters and such.

It keeps the money flowing for the devs, you have the option to buy it if you want.

They also manage to innovate and produce more content on an expansion to expansion base (and the patches) than a team that has a considerably larger funding amount and development team.

Subscriptions are a thing of the past, either make it £5 a month and any new expansions that come out are included plus all priors for those who want it.

Free to play model you have to buy the expansions - that is all.

These games also prove the argument of free to play/ toxic players completely wrong as I have much better encounters and people generally talk more in both ESO and GW2.

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i used to think the subs were a way for the devs to flood new content each month or so.

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Even full month didin’t pass at all and you already miss the game :D, you can log into your account without re subing -> you will just wont be able to play characters higher than lvl 20.

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Pssssst! Black market crates. Wanna buy one? Just buy a token and exchange it for gold. Oh! You can also get them by playing game.

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When I returned I noticed the subscription fee had gone down about 30% over the 7 years I was gone… Also the price for game was reduced.

Every game platform has issues where I hate I have to pay for something I don’t use or the amount of money doesn’t add and sometimes they are so unstabil it’s a wonder I don’t throw around with stuff in anger.

I was genuinely pissed when I found out I just couldn’t plug in and play when I bough my PS4, I had to install a bunch of stuff and create an account (not having to sub at first, but eventually you find that you have to).

Not to mention all of the times the servers breakes down - but you know, I’m a patient person so I just use the time to make some more coffee :coffee:

Personally if I have to make some honorable mentions to some platforms I didn’t see; I will say that Nintendo is bar far the cheapest and it works and also Steam is one of those I haven’t (some might, but I haven’t) experinced any problems when it comes to management between users and payment.

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WoW token.

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They haven’t needed the money since 2005.

They still ask for a sub fee because they know they can get it and their shareholders expect the same level of profit regardless of how the game itself is actually doing.

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**lol!!! Its Blizz. Poor story, class, graphic… You name it BUT the subs must be High.

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Neither ESO or FF14 are pay 2 win, though you could argue ESO touches grey areas a bit with paid XP gain boosts, but for the rest, both shops are cosmetic (and FF14 offers, in essence, levelling skips to the point of starting level of current expansion, just like Wow, only they do it for a third of the price of WoW).

Could be somewhat wrong about ESO, as my time there has been brief, but much enjoying FF14.

Would be nice if people put a bit more thought into the WoW tokens too. It is a brilliant way of curving gold selling, while boosting their own income.

Old situation: player A and player B both pay £10 a month for their subscription, £20 made for the month…

Token situation: player A pays £10 for his subscription, but needs gold and pays £20 for it through the purchase of a token. Player B farms gold and buys said token, exchanging it for game time. £30 made for the month, same net end result in game for players A and B. Blizzard makes 33% more money.

The tokens are a far fetch from any attempt at charity. Just because the money isn’t coming out of your pocket, doesn’t mean it isn’t being paid. The second people stop paying real money for gold, the system crumbles to pieces. Why do you think so many gold sinks are finding their way into the game, while at the same time earning gold in game is being made harder?

As for the wow shop not being pay to win, the whole token/gold/boe epics thing has been addressed a few times (just look at how this was blatantly abused in the BoD world first race, putting Method neck-high into ingame debt and probably also their main competitors). Top guilds also have been known to use race/faction changes to give them an edge.

Factor in pet battles that are now a real corner in the game for some and the fact pets can be bought for real money, this goes beyond ‘cosmetic only’ for me.

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Is this game worth the sub fee? No.

Will something change? No.

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