Hi guys,
I was thinking, is it possible to make a different subscription model for people who only play a couple days a month? I only play with my brother one weekend a month, do some pvping / arena and then we go back to our regular lives. This is great, would love to keep doing that, but paying 13 eu pp every month feels a little unfair.
Would probably do better in the suggestion section, however its likely not going to happen
The service you are paying for is defined in legal documents as access to the server
Even if you’re nog logging on, that access is still there and is provided 24/7
How would they even enforce it? give you a hour tax which when spent you’re just banned for the rest of the month?
This has been suggested before, but even if you play a couple days per month money-wise, it is still a great deal versus other entertainment options out there.
That said. If you don’t think it is worth your money you could seek other (F2P) games or cheaper ones like Final Fantasy for example.
He means like the Asian China/Korean Cybercafe models where you pay per hour, those guys are crazy at min-maxing their time and honestly, just paying 13 bucks is better then paying more then that over hourly renting the PC bang, snacks and drinks there and so forth.
Ragnarok Online used to do that, track your game time by the hour XD
Oh the days you’d get the “Subscription time ended” mid War of Emperium
In China, they have a lot of consumption models, meaning they pay for what they use, and I would prefer this model more. There is no point paying for time you don’t use.
I don’t disagree, however as I said the subscription is very cheap already. If we’re going to do pay per hour, they will make a drastically low breakpoint somewhere as a game provider plus bonus problem:
(Popup that has to be clicked away in the middle of raid)
[WARNING YOUR GAME TIME IS ABOUT TO END, WOULD YOU LIKE TO TOP UP? €1,99 for 2 hours incl VAT]
And also the funny:
Please drink your verification MONSTER, RED BULL or BLIZZ-IT-UP can before you can proceed with the raid.
3 points:
The subscription isn’t cheap. Access to the WoW expansion you paid for during its 2-year lifespan comes out at approximately €240. That’s not cheap.
There are already pop-ups after loading screens about buying the latest expansion if you haven’t already.
Blizzard already does partnerships with external companies for their products (Amazon Prime) that players need to pay for in order to acquire various in-game items.
Won’t happen though. It’s when you don’t play when subbed, Blizzard is making the profit.
Alright with expansion that is 300€/2 years=0.017€ per hour. Lets say you play 4 hours a day that is 0,476€ per week.
A movie is 13€ per ticket here + around same cost in drink and popcorn (s) so 26€ for 2 hour movie average costing 13€ per hour.
A karaoke box costs 160€ for 2h excl drinks for 10p, lets cut it down to 1p so 8€ per hour.
The only things that can beat Blizzard at pricing their subscription games, is a box priced game that will not have additional DLC or DLC that is valuable enough to keep playing over it. I generally price 1€ = 1 hour myself but others price it differently.
Other MMO’s like Final Fantasy, Guild Wars?
This also includes other news, but generally yes.
Their aim is to get more players into this (and other) games, something Amazon Prime could achieve yes. I personally don’t see the value in the AP goodies however.
Comparing the WoW subscription to a movie ticket or a karaoke box is a a false equivalence and I am flabbergasted that an MVP tries to pull a fallacy like that. That’s shameful. I will not expand on this point.
With regards to the math where you take hours spent and deduce cost from that, then that’s a very skewed and biased result. You throw out 4 hours like it’s a reasonable number, but how do you know? The only official numbers I’ve ever seen were by Rob Pardo in a presentation of his:
And in this very thread the OP explicitly points out that he only plays a couple of days a month.
You’re trying to normalize 4 hours per day, but according to Rob Pardo, then “dedicated players” may spend more than 25 hours per week. If we work with 25 hours per week, then that’s 3½ hours per day. So you’re essentially using the dedicated player segment as a model for the WoW subscription being cheap. What about everyone else who are not dedicated players?! If moderate is 1½ hour per day according to Rob Pardo, then what is casual?
It’s a skewed value proposition that is of course always going to be favorable to players who invest a lot of time into WoW, and unfavorable to players who don’t. It is disingenuous to work from an assumption that players spend 4 hours per day, as if that’s some happy average that you didn’t just pull out of your rear end.
Finally, it’s also dishonest to only compare WoW to games that are competing for similar customers with a similar price model in a similar genre. That falsely assumes that any of these games are regarded as fairly priced – and I would strongly disagree with that. Considering the declining and already niche popularity of MMORPGs, it is preposterous to suggest that any of these games offer a competitive price model. They don’t. They all charge a high price for their product because they’re more focused around their existing customers who are not critical of high prices, rather than try and make their games more accessible to new customer segments. They compete on product, not on price.
Not generally yes. Simply yes. Yes Blizzard uses aggressive in-your-face pop-ups while people are playing World of Warcraft to bombard them with offers to purchase the latest expansion, regardless of the fact that they’ve previously declined and that they are paying an active subscription.
No, but it is an external company’s product that you have to pay for in order to acquire various items within World of Warcraft. So this is already happening, despite WoW having a subscription.
I usually do the same, but it is a formula that ignores the quality aspect. For example, if I sit in a queue for an hour, that’s low quality time. If I play a very short game that offers a memorable experience (something like Beacon Pines for example), I may well pay 5 euros per hour of playing, but it’s high quality gaming time.
I think the €1/hour formula that many of us use has led to games becoming more bloated.
Don’t ever make the argument that the price should be lowered, you should just quit playing, the argument doesn’t hold weight if you continue to.
Well he isn’t asking for the subscription price to be lowered, he’s asking for more flexible options.
Right now you can subscribe for:
1 month.
3 months.
6 months.
12 months.
Why shouldn’t you be able to subscribe for 1 weekend?
Best to unsub, rather than carrying on paying, but it’s easy enough to forget to cancel. I’ve taken various breaks from the game at times over the years.
I find it’s particularly nice to have a break before a new expansion or when I just feel I’ve had enough for a bit. Only tends to happen when I feel I’ve run out of stuff I want to do.
Ofc that doesn’t work if I’m taking a break from Retail by playing a Classic variation. Still need that sub then 
I agree do think the sub is good value, I play most days though. I can imagine if you don’t play the game much it can feel it’s not really worth it. Same goes for any subscription service whether it’s a game, music, tv/film etc.
Some friends will sub once in a while and do loads for a month. It really depends what you want to do.
Yes, how dare people compare multiple different sources of enjoyment…
Yea this is about “pure” gaming time, not waiting, queueing or fixing technical issues… Looks at certain games having a lot of launch issues Or long loading bars Looks at Paradox games
They’re not directly comparable, that’s why.
If you’re keen on playing a video game, then you’re going to compare prices of different video games, because it’s a video game you’re interested in buying and enjoying.
You’re not going to abandon your desire to play a video game because the local supermarket sells a bag of potatoes for a penny, or because your hi-fi store has a karaoke box on sale.
That’s a false equivalence.
But they are. Both are entertainment. You can compare how much value you get out of your money for any different entertainments.
If my options are play wow for 13 euro for a month straight for let’s say 8 hours/day that’s 240 hours worth of entertainment for 13 euro vs what… 2 hours for a movie? Of course you can compare them.
Welcome to the world and how it works.
Friends who are a WoW playing couple used to say it was cheaper to have a wow sub than go out socialising all the time.
It all boils down to what you value more I guess. But certainly a month’s sub, even two of them wont go very far on a night out 
I could easily spend more than a years worth of sub in money for 1 night of dinner and drinks. WoW is ridiculously cheap for how much you get out of it.