By Kieron Gillen on October 13th, 2008 at 9:41 am.
Man, I’m totally stealing this story from videogaming247. Hell, I’ve even stole the image from videogaming247. But at least I’ve given a working link back Warcry, who covered the press conference where the following was revealed…
When asked to expand upon a button found by sifting through the Lich King beta’s data files named “Paid Character Customization,” Brack initially hesitated to give any answer at all. Several questions later, he went back to the matter, saying that he could, in fact, confirm that World of Warcraft would eventually have some form of paid character customization, though they themselves hadn’t yet worked out any details.
C’mon Pat! It’s Monday morning, but us parasitisic linkbloggers must have standards, goddammit.
13/10/2008 at 09:54 Lukasz says:
awesome! they can suck off more monies from poor losers!
13/10/2008 at 09:56 hey says:
awesome! they can suck off more monies from poor losers!
what lol
poor people have no money.
13/10/2008 at 09:59 Lukasz says:
In English poor means many things. Not only people who have no money.
In my context, ‘poor’ characterizes a person who is in bad situation, because he or she is addicted to WoW.
13/10/2008 at 10:00 Ian says:
Are we talking in-game monies or real monies?
13/10/2008 at 10:02 Kieron Gillen says:
Ian: I suspect real monies. Paid for character customisation with in-game money is… well, they have that already. It’s called “clothes”.
KG
13/10/2008 at 10:08 Ian says:
Well yeah but I thought I’d read about things such as them introducing barbers and the like and I wondered whether there were more unannounced things in that area.
13/10/2008 at 10:09 marko2te says:
Next step, paying real money for fixing items ingame.
13/10/2008 at 10:14 Mike says:
Well that guy with 36 WoW accounts will be hit right in the cheque book! and he’ll probably love it
13/10/2008 at 10:32 Ryx says:
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
My friend is gonna be pissed.
13/10/2008 at 10:58 Sören Höglund says:
Man, Blizzard are really monetizing the hell out of their games lately. Starcraft 2 as three expandalones, microtransactions in Diablo 3, and now this. You’d think they wouldn’t need to squeeze those extra few drops out of the gargantuan WoW money machine, but apparently they do.
13/10/2008 at 11:03 Tuor says:
The problem with being greedy is that what you have is never enough.
13/10/2008 at 11:04 Mike says:
Did they honestly have a board meeting and say, “Guys, I feel we need to drive up revenue. We’re just not making enough.”
13/10/2008 at 11:12 Seniath says:
In a way, they’ve already been doing this in a manner with the “Loot Cards” available in the TCG. They’re really not doing much to endear themselves to the angry internet men at the moment.
13/10/2008 at 11:17 The Hammer says:
@Seniath,
Indeed. Though, I would actually like to see the profits that WOW actually makes, when you consider the server costs, GM wages, etc. Mike Morhaine played down claims that it was an eternal money cow, although I see it turning quite a large sum of money, personally.
13/10/2008 at 11:23 Ketch says:
WoW goes Runescape.
This annoys me because I’m already paying to play, customisation is somethibng I expect to be part of the game I already bought and paid many months of subscription for. Now I have to pay my hard earned cash for a shiny jacket or a ring? Fuck that.
13/10/2008 at 11:24 Carra says:
Ugh, I thought we all agreed already that noone wants to pay 5 dollars to have a pimpier horse.
13/10/2008 at 11:36 mrrobsa says:
None for me, thank you.
13/10/2008 at 11:38 James G says:
@Mike
The problem is, as a publicly traded company they are legally obliged to act in the best interests of their shareholders, which means that if they see an avenue for making profit, and don’t think that this avenue will hurt their baseline, then they are pretty much obliged to follow it up (assuming of course it is legal). ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder ) Not too fond of the idea myself, but it is pretty central to the whole idea of capitalism and I’m not going to pretend to be knowledgeable enough to tear that system down. (Besides, it seems to be doing a pretty good job of falling down itself at the moment, although again, I won’t pretend to fully understand this.)
13/10/2008 at 11:39 Azhrarn says:
Well “ingame money” customisation will be coming in WotLK with the barber shops, so I suspect they intend to “monetize” more advanced customisation features and probably make all the cool stuff cost real money.
13/10/2008 at 11:43 garren says:
Umm… aren’t people like, paying real money monthly from the game already? WTF. Greed is bad Blizzard, what happened to you?
13/10/2008 at 11:54 Butler` says:
tbh, as an ultra uber hardcore blizz fanboy, this all leaves a real bad taste in my mouth.
13/10/2008 at 12:06 Duke Goosington IV says:
I’m totally unsurprised. Blizzard merge with huge publisher. Blizzard turn into complete di, uh, capitalists. yeah. Who didn’t see this coming?
13/10/2008 at 12:25 Anthony Damiani says:
Man. Coming on the heels of the “Starcraft 2 is now 3 games” thing, they’re going to come off looking like greedy pigdogs here.
If I’m going to pay a company $180/year (plus $50 for an expansion every other year) to play a game, I’d like to not be nickled-and-dimed on top of it, please. I very much perceive my payment as underwriting new content development, not merely server access.
Just how serious is the danger of ActiBlizzard coming off as mercenary, corporate and tarnishing Blizzard’s once-golden reputation? Isn’t the latter really their single biggest asset?
13/10/2008 at 12:30 Batolemaeus says:
And then there are companies who don’t even charge you for their expansions.
I know where my money will go to, and it’s certainly not Blizz.
13/10/2008 at 12:36 The Sombrero Kid says:
i’m more bothered by battle net being ‘monitieSSSSSSSed’
13/10/2008 at 12:40 CPY says:
Looks like Blizzard deserve monopolistic fine, because it clearly abuse its sole position on market.
And i mean it, yeah there are many other mmos… yeah come on who haven’t returned to wow? I did play Lotro and Conan and still i’m back to wow…
Not talking about private servers, is blizzard compenzating it’s anger on paying costumers?
If their precious wow is such concern why don’t they just make realmlist fixed in some datafile or exe file ffs just let us enjoy good company blizz used to be, but isn’t anymore.
Every company is established to make profit not to entertain or whatever else they are doing, but abusing position by setting monopolistic prices? Come on!
Lotro have free expansion, where’s my free wow expansion?
Not to mention screwed up pvp that makes you feel like pve server even on pvp server… cities guarded like fortresses, free portals that anyone can HS and be in any city they want. New content? Once every year new battleground, i ask where is old style hardcore alterac valley? Where are those cool assault on cities where you had hard time defending undercity?
Most bgs are just bot and afkers show off.
Blood elves? Paladins in horde? What the heck? Now all kids play horde and sissies.
Horde used to be 1:3 ratio to alliance but average age around 20-25 my guess. Now? Worse than alliance.
Ratio is now 1.5:1 and 60% population are blood elves. That pest is everywhere!
I dont mind monopolistic behaviour and high prices and greed from blizzard as their gameplay ruin plan.
That game used to be awesome and unique experience, now it is boring and tasteless grind.
Where are those a**hole ganking guilds that will CC you for 4-5 hours?? No you just walk with your lvl 27 alt and make /lol on few 70s and they will just walk by or kill you and run like hell before you relog your S3 main char to kick their S1 a**es…
I ask you where is blizzard gone? Not even spending max points in mage talent improved blizzard doesn’t help here.
And yea im not native speaker so i make a lot of grammar mistakes, but not as much as blizzard is doing lately with wow!
13/10/2008 at 12:51 Dexton says:
@CPY “That game used to be awesome and unique experience, now it is boring and tasteless grind.”
That is nostalgia talking I am afraid, WOW like other mmos is and always will degrade into a boring grind. It was an awesome and unique experience the first time you played it, obviously it was unique because it was the first time you had played it (and if like me, any mmo).
If you play the same game long enough it will always turn into some sort of grind. I don’t think it’s blood elves that “ruined” wow, it’s simply the nature of the mmo that after the initial, unique experience starts to fade the users see the grind that remains. Once you see the grind no amount of new content can every really disguise it again. Then the golden memories of how great it used to be start knocking around. I did the 4 hours AV games, the grind to rank 10 and the 40 man MC raids and they are no better and no worse that the gladiator grinds or 25 man raiding that replaced them.
13/10/2008 at 12:58 AbyssUK says:
Next up diablo III pop-up ads, because we know you all love clicking…
13/10/2008 at 13:18 CakeAddict says:
Blizzard is screwing their customers lately, I’m happy I haven’t been one for ages.
The worst thing is their gonna get away with it.
13/10/2008 at 13:27 Kommissar Nicko says:
I’ll play Devil’s Advocate here, and say that maybe, must maybe, the level of customization is so amazing that it warrants paying for. As in, take a picture of your own face (or ass) and have them map it on there.
Or!
Give your troll/orc/tauren male or undead person better posture. I’m just saying!
13/10/2008 at 13:32 Pike says:
I fail to see how this screws me as a customer. Advanced customization of characters in WoW, beyond the limitied choices in character creation doesn’t exist today. So this is not some old feature suddenly being turned into a pay service. So the publishers add a new feature to the game.
The feature has no, I assume gameplay impact and it’s therefor cosmetic. This means I won’t be adversly affected by anyone else taking advantage of the feature. As a matter of fact I will probably benefit from it, since a less homogenous looking playerbase should be enjoyable. So if I choose to not pay myself I will still recieve some benefit without any adverse effects. Would the service being free have been nicer? Sure. But it’s still no loss to me if it’s a paid service, since paying is voluntary and optiong out won’t affect me adversely.
13/10/2008 at 13:43 Lim-Dul says:
Yes, we all know Blizzard isn’t a charity AND we all know that shareholders are drooling over all kinds of money making opportunities BUT taking money literally for EVERYTHING is very, very short-sighted. Some day (perhaps today ;-) Blizzard will cross the line and simply scare away most customers.
No one will pay for a pimped-out character? Oh boy, you haven’t seen much – just look at Guild Wars where there are dozens of “high level” items that have THE SAME stats as items you can get half-way through any campaign and yet people are grinding for in-game money like mad just to look cooler than the rest. If there will be paid character customizations people WILL buy them because otherwise they will start thinking of themselves as “in-game losers” – this will be even more important in WoW where crazy people really mistake their characters for themselves (unlike in other MMORPGs where they are a bit more detached) so if your character isn’t cool YOU are not cool. :-\
Situations like this one – where a company tries to suck out as much money as it can in a short amount of time without thinking about the consequences – seem to be typical of the American market. Studios make dozens of sequels, one worse than the next, to just ride a franchise to death (remember Star Trek when in the late ’90 there were THREE different settings running parallel – The Next Generation, Voyager and Deep Space Nine – no wonder Enterprise didn’t take off – people got bored) and ironically even the short-term greed of banks is what’s mainly responsible for the current economy crisis.
I think it’s time to show Blizzard the finger – remember that as a customer you vote with your wallet and from what I see Blizzard is about to literally rob you for titles that are nice and polished but by no means anything new (and what I saw so far about SC2 and/or Diablo III confirms that theory).
Don’t support Blizzard, buy World of Goo – it’s even DRM-free! ^^
13/10/2008 at 13:47 BarkingDog says:
I’m quite disappointed by this, because I always saw paid character customization as being a hallmark of all those free-to-play mmos. I heartily approve of it in those situations when it is how they make their money, but Blizz have their millions of subs going for them already, and I’d quite like free shinies too.
Because, imo, it’s a bit of a slippery slope. You start off paying a quid to give your character… i don’t know, a different face or hair or whatever, and if that makes them a bit of cash but not enough, next thing you know you’ll be able to buy the Sword of a Thousand Truths for 50p.
Obviously that’s a gross exaggeration, but it feels slightly like they’re dicking around with their fanbase if they’re spending time and sub money on developing new ways to squeeze money out of them rather than new content.
Summary: >:(
13/10/2008 at 13:59 Bobsy says:
Since we don’t know a) what the customisation involves and b) how much it’ll cost it’s really too early to be denouncing this as the depths of all Blizzard’s moustache-twirling villainy. It sounds bad, and it may well be bad especially considering the addictive nature of WoW.
But there’s every chance that this will actually be a very small, dull thing. People have been clamouring for race/sex changes in WoW since forever*, and Blizzard have so far refused. It may just be that as a paid-for service.
*Oh, I know.
13/10/2008 at 14:00 weegosan says:
why are we making news over an asset that’s clearly just been put in as a future scope requirement when there’s no information about what it means.
also note, was anyone upset at paying to have their characters name changed? anyone disillusioned with Blizzard over that? I hate to break it to you, but that’s a pay-for customisation. Oh… it doesn’t have a fancy in game button.
13/10/2008 at 14:02 Derek K. says:
This is precisely what it should be. I’m pretty sure Blizz is smart enough not to add purchasable items than non-cosmetic. Do I care if someone wants to pay for different color palettes? Nope. As Pike said, I prefer that. More dev money, better environment, no impact to gameplay. Perfect.
If they were monitizing instances, I’d join TAIM. As is, good luck Blizz. Also, Blizz has always been a fan of money – was War 2 free? Was the expansion?
Blizz knows people have money. Look at 130 dollar custom figs….
13/10/2008 at 14:05 CPY says:
@Dexton
It’s not game anymore!
And about that used to be fun. I started playing wow after burning crusade kicked in only 1.5 year ago or so, i never played classic one ever!
All cool raids and stuff i heard from my friend who play it from beginning, so i was really started to enjoy wow but all he told me how horde used to be and how cool bg were, and all i got into is this… and i can tell you this is not what i expected.
13/10/2008 at 14:38 eyemessiah says:
@James G, you can have capitalism without shareholders and incorporation, its just that our economic implementation, which is very much a mixed market, happens to have both. IMHO actually outlawing incorporation, or the act of selling shares in your business is, crazier than just letting people do it.
RE. Wow.
If the optional extras are truly optional then I don’t really see anything worth complaining about.
Just don’t buy the new hats?
Personally I’d be more interested in buying levels because its the soul destroying boredom of levelling that I consider the real “cost” of playing wow, and other mmporgs – but that’s just me!
13/10/2008 at 14:55 Lim-Dul says:
Guys – you really are a bit delusional about social dynamics in virtual worlds, which, not surprisingly, mimic the ones found in the real world.
“Woohoo, optional extras not giving any advantages, nothing wrong with that”
Define “advantage”. They WILL give advantages to the players who buy them because they will look more unique and cooler. There ARE reasons why people spend several grand on something designed by Karl Lagerfeld and not some Chinese t-shirt even though from a functional perspective they “work” the same way.
The function of these “optional extras” will be buying STATUS and believe it or not, this is an important commodity in a game where you’re only as good or bad as your in-game avatar.
The ones who claim that this isn’t bad at all because it’s new, optional content forget that Blizzard could just as well give this content away for free. They charge you for the game, they charge you for expansion packs, they charge a subscription fee.
For God’s sake – enough is enough and I’m not even a World of Warcraft player (luckily).
13/10/2008 at 15:01 spd from Russia says:
blizz=drugdealers
13/10/2008 at 15:17 cyrenic says:
The downward spiral continues.
13/10/2008 at 15:25 Dante says:
Introducing Blizzards new way to fight back against the competition from WAR… new hats!
13/10/2008 at 15:27 Pike says:
The ones who claim that this isn’t bad at all because it’s new, optional content forget that Blizzard could just as well give this content away for free.
Bullshit. Blizzard will have to invest time and money into implementing this change. Saying that it is irrelevant to Blizzard if they get paid for that work is brutally ignorant. In the long run it might be better to not charge anything att all and see it as an investment to keep existing customers. However if they believe that they will keep their customers regardless then charging for the work they put in makes sense. It is entirely possible that they wouldn’t have considered it viable att all to introduce cosmetic changes if they couldn’t charge for them. It might not be a trivial feature to implement at all.
And it’s clear that by advantage I mean a tangiable gameplay advantage. And andvantage that gives the player a better chance of beating others in PvP or preform better in PvE. Social advantages, such as a cool looking character might be valuable in some situations. But the situations that concern me and others that worry about players being able to pay for ingame objects and other favours is if those objects affect gameplay directly.
13/10/2008 at 15:40 Junior says:
I will never pay for anything in a game ever.
I can only hope I don’t suffer too much for this standpoint in the future.
13/10/2008 at 15:42 Brian Carnell says:
“@Mike
The problem is, as a publicly traded company they are legally obliged to act in the best interests of their shareholders, which means that if they see an avenue for making profit, and don’t think that this avenue will hurt their baseline, then they are pretty much obliged to follow it up (assuming of course it is legal). ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shareholder ) Not too fond of the idea myself, but it is pretty central to the whole idea of capitalism and I’m not going to pretend to be knowledgeable enough to tear that system down. (Besides, it seems to be doing a pretty good job of falling down itself at the moment, although again, I won’t pretend to fully understand this.)”
Yes, the whole point of a corporation is to maximize its profit, but depending on how it is implemented this is the sort of move that is likely to damage the brand long-term.
I could see a charge if it is changing sex or race, just like there is a fee for name changes/server transfers. But if it becomes pay-for-uber-looking-gear/hairstyles/whatever, then it will be a huge misstep for Blizzard.
13/10/2008 at 15:45 Lim-Dul says:
Oh yeah, Blizzard have to invest time and money – newsflash – they have LOADS of it and giving away stuff for free is NOT a completely unselfish act for big companies – it’s good publicity. With charging everybody for EVERYTHING you only come across as a greedy asshole and this is NOT good in the long run. In my opinion all the recent news about stuff Blizzard wants to charge you for show how arrogant they have become.
“We are rich, we are big, we have a huge customer base, we don’t have to do ANYTHING to keep our customers – they’ll buy our shit no matter what.”
I really hope they will get a slap in the face or better yet a punch to the balls some day like Sony with their PS3-related arrogance. Even if Sony has meanwhile crawled back up from the depths of peril, they have still managed to fall from the top of the world to a meager, albeit still profitable, third position.
Sadly there are simply too many Blizzard fanboys out there to make that happen. Hell, I used to be one as well – basically until WoW came along and I realized that through sheer marketing and slapping the Blizzard and Warcraft logos onto a box you can take over a market niche with a polished yet unoriginal product like WoW. Now they’re about to do it all over with SC2 and D3. When will it stop?
13/10/2008 at 15:45 Duke Goosington IV says:
Pike: They’re already getting paid for their effort. by ten million people. EVERY MONTH. This is what your subscription PAYS FOR. It’s completely indefensible they can charge for extras when they want paid every month just for the luxury of playing their game.
13/10/2008 at 15:50 Joshua says:
Junior: I hope you like the games you own now, because with that attitude you won’t be buying more moving forward.
Paid-for content is the way of the future. Let’s be honest! Games today are $60. That is pretty much exactly the same price games were 10 years ago, or if anything they cost less (adjust for inflation, etc.). However the cost of making these games has gone up way faster than inflation.
So how do you bridge this gap? With paid-for content. It’s the only way I am afraid. If companies were to charge a price which reflected the higher cost to make them, PS3/360 games would be about $100 now. At least. Of course, nobody would buy the games at that price – but people who wouldn’t buy it at $100 will buy it at $60 and buy expansion packs for $10+. It’s how it will go. Get used to it.
13/10/2008 at 15:53 RichPowers says:
$15/mo + expansions + core game = shit ton of money paid to Blizzard already. Charging for in-game customization on top of that is lame.
In light of all the nitwits who want to charge for horse armor and new maps and new parts for your Spore creature, it’s a pleasant surprise when Valve releases a ton of TF2 updates for free.
13/10/2008 at 16:05 Lim-Dul says:
Exactly, Rich. I read an interview with the lead designer of Team Fortress 2 somewhere and he explained WHY they are releasing all those wonderful content updates for free – it’s NOT charity, this is what keeps the product alive and draws new customers to buy it even months or years after it has been released. Valve has ALWAYS known this and that’s why there are still people who play HL1 mods, why they support mod developers (recent cooperation with some mod teams) etc.
If WoW was a non-subscription game like e.g. Guild Wars, to draw a similar comparison, I’d be all for additional micro-payments. If they charge SO much money for a game already then what they’re doing is pure greed and harming the company’s image.
Don’t give me any bullshit about how much they pay for server maintenance and patches – read up some data and you’ll know that saying stuff like this is pure marketing bullshit. In fact not even Blizzard use this excuse, it’s only fanboys trying to justify their favorite company’s despicable strategies.
13/10/2008 at 16:05 Pike says:
With my subscription I pay for what is included in the game today, not every possible future addition. Expansions is an example of new content I’m expected to pay extra for. This is no different from any other form of subscription. I pay for a basic package and some additions will come free of charge and some others I’ll have to pay extra for.
Is charging for cosmetic changes a good business decision by Blizzard? Time will tell. I personally have no idea. I just find the moral outrage over the issue to be severly misguided. Just because a company makes a lot of money that doesn’t meanthey should stay away from trying and make even more. No one finds it strange when a broadband provider charge extra for certain new features. An MMO is no different in principle.
13/10/2008 at 16:09 Lim-Dul says:
Yeah – then ask yourself WHY. There are hundreds of thousands of other games, some of them with great replayability, some of them with online multiplayer etc. you aren’t charged for playing.
Ask yourself for a second WHAT you are paying Blizzard for. Server maintenance and patches notwithstanding, as outlined in my comment above.
13/10/2008 at 16:16 Larington says:
As someone who has grown up with computer gaming (rather than DownLoadable Content using consoles) I find it very frightening that developers are moving to a system where I might be charged 3 times in the space of one month for a game (The game itself, a Monthly subscription & microtransactions).
I can understand microtransactions/paid-customising being used as a monetization method for a free to play MMO, but Blizzard doing this for a subscription game?
I think Acti-Blizz might have just missed the point of microtransactions.
Console games can keep their downloadable content, frankly, the way things are going now, next we’ll be asked to pay £5 just so we can patch a broken game. And I happen to like being able to download SDKs or the work of a playerbase using those SDKs, are we going to be charged for those two?
I’m really concerned that this is going to be taken too far and just because shareholders/investors want even more money – That is, mercenary investors who are only interested in the return on investment, rather than the success of the company… Just look at the leeches who gathered around Take 2 when EA were attempting a buy out – People like that need to be euthanised for the good of all humanity.
13/10/2008 at 16:16 arqueturus says:
I’ll engage my Eve smug mode right now. 5 years on, multiple content updates and one entire graphics engine upgrade later and I’ve still only ever paid my monthly subscription fee.
13/10/2008 at 16:19 Pike says:
I’m paying to get access to a game I enjoy. If I don’t pay I won’t be able to play it. I know there are other games out there, and I still choose to pay for WoW, since I view it, at this point in time, as better value for my money than the alternatives. Blizzards profit margins are irrelevant to that enjoyment. If they expand their revenue by introducing a paid for feature that won’t impact my enjoyment of the game I pay for, why should I be bothered? I will just choose to not pay for that part. This is no different from not buying an expansion pack to a best selling single player game that you enjoyed.
13/10/2008 at 16:20 Tei says:
Maybe this stuff is to make Wow F2P in assia, and never intended to be a europe/usa thing.
13/10/2008 at 16:45 Nick says:
“With my subscription I pay for what is included in the game today, not every possible future addition.”
So you’d be happy to pay them for every patch and update then?
13/10/2008 at 16:55 Pike says:
No, and that would probably make me switch games. The same thing would happen if they decided to just triple the subscription fee. That is just my personal breaking point for the price I’m willing to pay to play though. It’s not a matter of principle.
There is also a difference between having to pay for patches, which would effectively keep me from paying the game altogether and having the option to pay for content that to most people is superflous extras.
13/10/2008 at 16:59 The Hammer says:
Customization says to me that it’ll be cosmetic. If it’s to do with actual gear, and being better at the game, then yeah, that’s a bummer, and a reason to get angry. But like Seniath says, Blizzard have been doing the Trading Card Loot for a while, and things like changing realms and names are paid-for things as well.
I agree that this definitely looks like a product of the Activision merger, so perhaps the blame is to go to that company, and not Blizzard. I don’t think it’s going to affect actual patches (I sure hope not!), and it’ll just be a case of looking cooler with tabards and snazzle.
And I can tolerate those guys with the fancy cosmetic stuff. The PVP Machines on the other hand? Heh…
13/10/2008 at 17:06 Nick says:
“There is also a difference between having to pay for patches, which would effectively keep me from paying the game altogether and having the option to pay for content that to most people is superflous extras.”
Yes, there is, but you stated you were paying only for the game in it’s current format and not any future additions. Your sub fee does fund extra developement (not to the scale of a full expansion, but think of all the extra things they have added since the game was launched. Suddenly they are adding cosmetic things for money. Now, we don’t know how indepth they’ll be, but look at the Oblivion thing – they had some free good quality dev made plugins for Morrowind, then fairly gash ones (albeit more of them) in Oblivion for cash. An extra hat or clothing piece isn’t going to cost them much time or cash at all in assets.
It’s a slippery slope, thus far every microtransaction MMO has been free to play (that I’m aware of anyway, at the very least the vast majority) and suddenly adding micros to a game you already pay for monthly is not a nice thing, reguardless of how small the item is. It’s a precident and a bad one, especially when you are already making so much money you can sit on a big pile of it and require oxygen due to the thin air.
13/10/2008 at 17:14 Lim-Dul says:
Very well – so do most MMORPG players out there. Somebody mentioned EVE online. That’s how this stuff works, nothing wrong with that.
Oh yeah – you won’t be bothered AT ALL by all those guys showing off their e-peen shiny capes or whatnot. Who are you kidding? If you are really a fan of WoW you WON’T resist the urge to buy something like that. How do I know?
Because:
a) you’re already paying quite a lot of money for WoW
b) I fell for that trap several times myself, with games I was far less addicted to, so I stay as far away as possible from companies who try to pull that trick on me again
Oh yes, it is. You don’t have subscription fees for single player games AND you are STILL paying for WoW expansions. LOL!
Say, you really are so blinded by WoW that you won’t deem anything that Blizzard does as unacceptable?
Man, I really admire those guys at Blizzard. First they make an addicting game, yes, most MMORPGs are very addictive because you get better the most time you spend playing (unless it’s Guild Wars :-P) and the more time you spent on your character the less you want to part with it. Then, once the company has you firmly in their grasp they can start charging you for virtually anything, especially if these are small amounts of money.
“Oh, it’s $1 for a cool looking hat, why not? I’m paying for the game $15 monthly anyway and $1 isn’t much. My level 70 Warlock I’ve been playing for 2 years certainly deserves a treat, doesn’t he?”
And BAM, this is how it begins. Before you know you’ll be spending FAR too much money on a single game and EVEN if you enjoy it you WILL come to realize one day that there are THOUSANDS of cheaper alternatives that make you just as happy – but you won’t go out and look for them if you don’t escape Blizzard’s or any other companies clutches.
It’s a bit like with phone bills. A provider introduces a new offer for cheap phone calls and you go like “woohoo, now I’ll be able to talk with all my friends for hours” and at the end of the month you’re left with a $600 bill even though in theory you should have saved money.
It’s also like Larington said – WoW makes a SHITLOAD of money, Blizzard makes a SHITLOAD of SHITLOAD of money and that attracts money sharks. Thousands of games with subscription fees OR micro-payments are doing absolutely fine BUT when people see money making opportunities of this scale they start acting “weird”. They will bump a company to shareholder heaven and pull out just before it all comes crashing down because a given company or franchise have had all their life force drained out. Basically they discard it like a used condom and who has to suffer? The real fans of a given game/product/franchise because the bubble simply bursts.
Remember that while I AM theorizing about WoW in particular, I am describing what happened in real life to all too many franchises (I used the example of Star Trek, I could use the example of point&click adventure games that are slowly recovering from the shock or the infamous Video Game Crash of 1983). This isn’t pure fiction, this madness has a pattern and you could see it if you followed gaming/franchise/product history or analyzed famous company breakdowns. It’s very, very sad, since if handled properly you can make EPIC amounts of money with minimal investment (minimal compared to having to create a whole new franchise after killing the last one through greed) off any franchise that is popular enough.
Some companies remind me a bit of the Necromongers in the (very, very shitty, but that’s not the point) Chronicles of Riddick – suck out as much money as you can and leave a barren wasteland. Then move on to a brave new world.
13/10/2008 at 17:14 Alaric says:
Why do people seem to express some sort of misplaced pity for those who can afford things? Why do people make a strange and fallacious connection between enjoying something and being addicted to it?
I like WoW. I think it’s a fun game and I enjoy spending time playing it. I also enjoy (and can afford)the following: traveling, photography, women, music, weapons, etc, etc. I love my job, make a good living, drive a new car, and about to sign off on my purchase of a new condo. Every morning I wake up happy with the things I do and the stuff I have.
I suppose I am truly pathetic.
In the spirit of brotherhood, would those who pity me send me as much as they can part with, so that I can try to offset the destructive impact of a WoW addiction on my contemptible life.
Spare a coin, brother?
13/10/2008 at 17:23 Dean says:
It already exists. You can go on Ebay right now and buy yourself a card from the card game that has a scratch-off panel which gives you a code to get you a fancy in-game tabard.
13/10/2008 at 17:34 Lim-Dul says:
We’re (at least I am) criticizing Blizzard, not WoW players. You can afford a $1 cool hat? Be my guest – perhaps the other guy can’t, and he will be jealous, and he will enjoy the game less. It’s fine if a game divides players according to the size of their wallets right from the beginning BUT you don’t change the rules mid-way because you suddenly realized how much MORE money you can suck out of people even though you’re sitting on a mountain of gold already.
I must repeat – there are NO paid-for options in WoW that will NOT affect gameplay because a large part of the gameplay are your looks, your in-game social interaction etc. Don’t kid yourself.
If I pity WoW players then it’s only because it is them Blizzard will strike at instead of kissing their feet because it is them that made the company the multi-billion concern it is now.
Ah – another thing – let’s not forget that Blizzard already went onto the slippery slope with some ideas that were deemed “unprofitable” but hurt the fans in more than one way. Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans, StarCraft Ghost? Anybody remember those?
Well, apparently it will get worse…
13/10/2008 at 17:43 Alaric says:
Yes, I remember those. Not sure I follow you though. I can hardly recall being hurt by their cancellations. In fact I benefited from them, since I did not get sold an inferior product.
As far as not being equal. Yes. Of course. Why are you surprised?
People are not equal. Some of us are smarter, prettier, healthier and overall better than others. Some have more leisure time and more means with which to finance the aforementioned leisure.
Is this unfair? Yes. Such is life.
Is there anything wrong with a company charging people for something that people are willing to pay for? Umm… no. That’s where the whole “willing to pay for” thing comes into play.
And if someone here can’t afford WoW in general or a “cool hat” in particular, then … too bad for them. Perhaps some education, some connections and a better job can take care of that.
If not, then in the words of Nelson Muntz: “Ha-ha!”
13/10/2008 at 17:48 cliffski says:
“Looks like Blizzard deserve monopolistic fine, because it clearly abuse its sole position on market.”
WTF?
It’s a fucking video game. And if you don’t want to play it THEN DON’T PLAY. Play Eve, or play Kudos 2, or read a book.
How dare they be so good at making games that they make the most popular one? Bastards. They should have deliberately made the game suck, so as to not sell many copies.
I reckon heinz should get monopolistic fines, for clearly making the most popular ketchup. bastards!
13/10/2008 at 17:56 Lim-Dul says:
Alaric – I think you have trouble with reading comprehension and hence I think I have written all there is to say on this subject lest the discussion turns into a flamewar because of the usual “TL:DR” (Too long, didn’t read) syndrome.
Re-read the following lines, please:
(Keywords: right from the beginning, change the rules mid-way etc.)
Yes, I know HUNDREDS of games where real money is a central gameplay component BUT then I can choose to avoid them in the first place – the rules are clear and simple. I’m not bitching about the world being a cruel and unfair place, especially in MMORPGs – I’m bitching about Blizzard introducing a new system of dividing players they didn’t know about when they signed up.
Blizzard suddenly decides to MAKE money a gameplay-experience-altering factor (I repeat – your looks, your status etc. ARE part of the gameplay experience in WoW, even if they don’t affect the gameplay BALANCE in the most narrow sense of the word), which it wasn’t before (unless you count people buying gold which is universally frowned upon and fought with if I’m not mistaken) and this is NOT how you treat your customers if you regard them as any more than walking wallets without opinions on their own.
I will not even comment on “inferior products” since you obviously are not from the gaming press and most likely don’t have the info I have.
13/10/2008 at 17:57 cyrenic says:
What he said.
13/10/2008 at 18:12 Alan Au says:
Three words: Night Elf Mohawk
13/10/2008 at 18:26 h4plo says:
Mmm .. with WAR getting a little stale and the new WoW expansion looking shiny, I was seriously considering reactivating my subscription. How this changes things! If I wanted a microtrans game, I’d play a Korean game and just pay extra monies for bonus experience. I have to admit, though, that being able to potentially get a cool item without having to spend eighty hours farming for it .. er, no, these thoughts must be resisted.
13/10/2008 at 18:38 Lim-Dul says:
h4plo – buy gold then. Oooops… ^^
13/10/2008 at 18:44 Dreamhacker says:
So… who’s up for a total Bli$$ard boycott?
13/10/2008 at 19:02 arqueturus says:
I’ll disengage my Eve smug mode now as I’ve literally just found out something that’s left a nasty sour taste in my mouth..
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=896003
13/10/2008 at 19:49 Alaric says:
I will not even comment on “inferior products” since you obviously are not from the gaming press and most likely don’t have the info I have.
Ha-ha-ha! Good one! Not only have you assumed (and assumed wrong at that) but you’ve actually used your Assumption to make an argument? Fail any logic classes lately?
In any event, if we were both to give up the ad hominem arguments, I would say that I disagree with you once again. There is nothing wrong with changing the rules slightly, as long as the change benefits most of your clients – and has been requested by them over and over again.
Yes, I admit, there must be a few people who will be unable to afford the paid customizations, and whose experience will be utterly ruined because of that. I can only imagine the agony of not having the “cool hat”. Since we all recognize the importance of small things like that, nobody will be surprised if a bunch of people quit WoW outright because of it. O, those broken hearts.
However, as much as I am going to miss those unstable and demented human beings, I think I will survive their exodus. Partly thanks to the influx of new people.
In short – the way to treat your customers is to listen to what they ask for and to give it to them. Even if the AMotI are throwing hissy fits and holding their breath until blue in the face.
Regards.
13/10/2008 at 19:51 Pike says:
We heard your little rant about how looks is a central core element of MMOs the first time, dim-sum. However it’s just not convincing those of us who don’t place any significant emphasis on those aspects of the game. The paying for vanity additionas has also always been present in WoW, through vanity pets and mounts available from pre-order bonuses and similar. You claim that paying extra for an aspect of the game wasn’t present when the game was launched. That is true. But the concept of subscribing to an MMO was unheard of before Ultima Online and that has now become an accepted norm for MMOs. Microtransactions are already in free to play games. It’s nothing sinister about trying to intoduce the comcept for extra content in a game with subscription fees as well. If people think they don’t get value for money it will fail, like the horse armor in Oblivion. If people are satisfied it will succeed. For some ungodly reason you seem to view this as a morally repugnant move by Blizzard, when it’s just a normal business decision.
Adding a persistent channel for buying such vanity items won’t affect me adversly. Unlike you I don’t seethe with envy when someone buys something I’m not ready to pay for, either in WoW or the real world.
You opinion of what constitutes hurting customers in the name of profit also seems a bit skewed, if I’m being kind. Dropping projects because you think they won’t be profitable can in no way be seen as hurting the customers. What would the alternative be? Release an unfinished game and hurt your brand and displease customers buying a sub par product? That is hardly a desirable outcome either. If your answer is that they are under some strange obligation to push on and “finish” the game properly and make a loss then sorry, you have a very tenous grip on reality.
The argument about this being a slippery slope is also rather strange, A slippery slope to what? We aren’t Blizzard’s slaves. If prices become too high they will lose subscribers because we will move elsewhere. So what exactly is the problem?
13/10/2008 at 19:54 Downloads_Plz says:
So basically, people will more than likely be able to spend real money to make their in game character look even more awesome, but any changes will also likely have no real effect on the gameplay besides just looking cool.
…..Why is this such a terrible thing?
13/10/2008 at 20:00 Nate says:
“I sent Blizzard money and all I got was this lousy breastplate.”
What Blizzard’s trying to do is interesting, but will it work? By selling customization, Blizzard is asking players to advertise that those same players sent money for doo-dads– it’s not invisible, as with purchases of items that are available through other means. MMOs are very social, and it’s clear that there are some very negative attitudes towards players who pay extra for extras. How popular could pay-for-customization get in the face of the potential shaming?
13/10/2008 at 20:05 Alaric says:
What shaming? o.O
“You have that sword?! You paid money for it?! Oh, you dirty capitalist pig! Who, if only comrade Stalin was around! He’d rip you a new one! Shame on you!”
13/10/2008 at 20:05 Pike says:
@Nate.
I doubt that will be much of an issue, as long as it’s purely cosmetic. What is being frowned upon in the player base is using real life money to gain practical advantages such as gold buying and leveling, especially if the gold is then used to buy for an in game advantage such as being bosted in arena play.
I have yet to see any scorned aimed at anyone for buying WoW cards to get the vanity pet though. That seems to be completely accepted. As long as it’s not seen as cheating, no one really cares.
13/10/2008 at 22:02 Rufus T. Firefly says:
Perhaps they are trying to steal the Maple Story marketshare. Next, they will implement numerous jumping puzzles and add the ability to purchase facial expressions.
13/10/2008 at 23:34 MeestaNob! says:
Ugh.
I am SO glad Blizzard felt the need to merge with Activision.
/sarcasm.
13/10/2008 at 23:55 Larington says:
The post that used the word precedent hit the nail on the head, which was what I was trying to get at in my earlier post. Fair enough in free to play MMOs, but I think its asking a lot for a subscription game to request these sorts of payments.
Personally, I think its a shame that Starcraft Ghost was cancelled because WoW was demanding too much development resources (IE content creators, designers, etc.) from the company as a whole. I think I would rather have seen Starcraft Ghost, though sadly I don’t think we’ll ever get to know if that would have been the ‘better’ game.
By the way, on the subject of the use of the word ‘addicted’ in the contect of to computer games, I remember once reading an Ernest Adams article about how we should avoid using the word to describe good games, like how in books you might say its a “real page turner”, but you’d never actually call a book addictive. Of course, good is a subjective term – I find WoW to be a dull button pressing contest wrapped in an admittedly stylish 3d environment, but others seem to find WoW to be really, er, compelling.
I think WoW is a bit boring personally.
14/10/2008 at 00:54 Lim-Dul says:
Sorry, sir, but I fail to find any references to Alaric (or your real name which I won’t post for privacy’s sake) the famous video game journalist anywhere. Your blog doesn’t count by the way.
And yet you still fail at reading comprehension as I will soon demonstrate instead of making a NEW point here. ;-)
For example:
To answer that I will just paste in part of my previous post.
To sum it up in Tarzan-speech so you understand:
Company scores a major hit.
Company and its shareholders get greedy.
Company starts trying to make money off the franchise like crazy.
People rebel (exactly what you said – they are not the company’s slaves) and become less interested in the franchise.
Franchise stops being profitable.
Company drops franchise.
Fans of the franchise have to suffer.
Do I have to use the Star Trek Enterprise example (just ONE of the many examples) again?
People like Star Trek.
Paramount starts churning out movies, games and new series.
People get bored from the franchise-overload.
Nobody watches Star Trek Enterprise.
Paramount drops Star Trek Enterprise.
Star Trek fans have to suffer.
(The above example shouldn’t be interpreted as a sad autobiographical story but as real-life proof how these things work – I could name more.)
Oh man, discussions on the internet are really funny.
14/10/2008 at 04:01 Alaric says:
O illustrious “journalist” from spectacular playpc.pl, thank you for putting your revelations in Trazan-speak for us peons. Surely dismissing your opponents as idiots is the best ways to win arguments and advance your cause.
Also, thank you so much for protecting my privacy. I value your honorable intentions very much. All that clever hacking you did to discover my true identity can not be replicated by mere mortals, so my secret is safe. Well, unless they click on my name… Do’h!
In any event I am sorry you didn’t find me among the great journalists. That’s probably because I am not one. The last time we conversed, being “great” was not a requirement. I regret letting you down. Since I’ve done a number of reviews/interviews in the past, I figured that it qualified me as having been “in the gaming press.” My apologies if I was wrong.
Now, all this BS aside, none of your points stand up to the slightest criticism. Fans got what they wanted. Period. End of story. A tiny minority is upset, but they are always upset. There is absolutely no indication that any of the things you are trying to frighten us with will happen.
You seem to base your entire questionable theory on the assumption that people will rebel. Unless you or provide records of you having seen the future – this argument is pure speculation and will make you the laughing stock of any high-school debate team.
14/10/2008 at 07:07 CPY says:
Stupid Blizzard if they want those stinking money so much why dont those asshats start selling in game gold for $ and selling lvl 70 chars or freaking T6 for $.
They cant get this game more facked up, then it already is.
14/10/2008 at 08:12 Pike says:
Fucking hell, dim-wit, if anyone fails at reading comprehension it is you. No one is questioning that businesses can alianate their customers by becoming to focused on short term gains. What we are questioning is if this particular example is such a move. Your outraged little hippy triade about greedy companies filled with clumsy shark metaphors and refrences to Star Trek is hardly a compelling argument in your favour. It only makes you appear like a ranting loon.
What also is being questioned is your level of moral outrage. Just stating that sometimes a company makes a bad long term decision in favour of short term profit and then stating that this move by Blizzard could prove to be such an example would have been reasonable. What is being questoioned is your moral outrage at this change and your insistence that it will mean that Blizzard alienates major parts of it’s audience, with nothing to back up this argument than a single example of the explotation of another franchise in another field and your own inability to stand up to peer pressure.
14/10/2008 at 08:29 cliffski says:
all teh games companies are teh EVIL!!! with their GREED!!11111ONEONEONE It’s FACISM!! This is worth than Hitler.
etc…
14/10/2008 at 10:43 Bobsy says:
Hey Cliffski. You know what’s wrong with Kudos 2? Not enough orcs.
14/10/2008 at 13:35 CPY says:
Pike: you should try to live in communism, or socialism.
What blizzard do is stupidity, in communism there is lack of goods and services, nobody can’t get anything and there is no freedom or free speech.
If blizz want to sell in game content i want to be able to buy all of in game content. Or they just dont know meaning power of money.
Everything you buy on this earth is bought by money so? Why not in WoW? If they want to make money they will surely will make more with this.
They will get rid of power levelers and gold sellers, that make game that sooo much unfair. What fair is that every realm is pve? No pvp realms all balance issues are based on whiny kids that dont understand pvp content.
15/10/2008 at 16:28 no says:
Awesome, so I can get my own character with customized shitty WoW graphics! Amazing! Why, it’s worth any price for a bunch of random people I walk by in-game that I don’t know and will never know to see my customized face. Golly gee!
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