Cataclysm: Barrier of Entry Increases
Blizzard hasn’t announced yet what it’s going to cost to get Cataclysm. So this article might be a little premature. Let’s just chalk it up to expecting the worst in human nature. I’m good at that, and I’m rarely disappointed as a result. I was chatting with Ethic from Kill Ten Rats via Twitter this morning and he mentioned something that got me thinking and is the genesis of this post.
When Cataclysm ships many of us who are currently playing WoW will happily plop down our fifty or so bucks and grab our copy, head home, update our accounts, install, and play. For a lot of other accounts in WoW it won’t be so easy. Take my son’s account. He hasn’t played since before Burning Crusade but he’s making noises like he might want to play again. OK, cool. So he has to buy Burning Crusade, only recently lowered to $20, Wrath of the Lich King, which is still about $40 street price, and the new Cataclysm. Now we’re up to $110, and we haven’t paid a subscription fee yet.
As Ethic said;
…it would seem that too many boxes to buy will start to chase some folks away. I know of one person it already has.
And he’s right. If you read my blog over at The Grouchy Gamer, you may already know that I don’t begrudge a company their profit. Especially if they are producing quality products that I continue to enjoy. No problem Mr. Publisher, here’s my credit card number, feel free to charge it every month. Go you. I’m not one to want to put artificial limits on how much money someone makes either. If their business model allows them to make money hats for everyone who works there, then money hats they should have.
So here is what Ethic is calling for, and by extension me as well; Blizzard should make the Cataclysm box a “reset button” release like SOE has done in the past with EQ and EQ2. That is to say, if they ever expect to get the monthly stipend from me or my son for that account they should make the Cataclysm box bring you current to that level of service and take the other boxes off the shelf, save the original WoW Vanilla Edition for $20.
Here’s my rationale; Blizzard is past making money hats and is all the way to making money cigarette lighters. Reports are that World of Warcraft is a billion-dollar franchise in and of itself. A billion. With a B. For One Game. Forget how much they are going to make with Diablo III and StarCraft II. It’ll be lots. Trust me. They are doing fine, it’s time to lower the barrier of entry into the later content in the game.
Some will argue that they paid for all that stuff, why shouldn’t a new player have to? Well that is all well and good. Except we all paid for that over time, and in between we got a lot of use and enjoyment out of the game. You paid a lot more for your car than it is worth now too, and people who buy 5-year-old cars don’t have to pay what you paid when it was new. Same is true with WoW. Besides when you make an argument like that it makes you seem like an elitist jerk, and not the cool Elitist Jerks either. Just a jerk who happens to be elitist. Let it go…
So Blizzard if you are listening, take this opportunity to bring everyone current. Do it at launch, not six months later. And do it for anyone who buys Cataclysm. It’s an opportunity to do something that will not only engender a little good will, but will actually help your long-term prospects by bringing even more people into WoW. And you can get their money on a recurring basis. And make all the money cigarette lighters you want.
- Genda
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November 2, 2009 - 3:35 pm
If SOE has done anything right, it’s releasing new EQ2 expansions with previous versions so everyone has access to all of the content.
Hopefully Blizz will decided at some point to do the same in some form.
November 2, 2009 - 4:13 pm
Yeah, that’s something I meant to say in the post. Blizzard, don’t let SOE beat you at ANYTHING.
That is all.
November 2, 2009 - 3:53 pm
You’ve got to think that this surely has to be part of their strategy right? I mean, why make the leveling process faster, thus allowing people to blow through old Azeroth and Outland if you are going to rake them for the box price? Seems like the leveling bonuses and such are leaning toward this type of catch up box expansion, which would be very wise. Time to offer the expansion only, and the full boat, perhaps for a different (and only slightly higher) price.
November 2, 2009 - 4:02 pm
I wonder if anyone has brought this up with Blizzard, perhaps sent feedback? I personally think this is a great idea, it is one of the reasons some of my friends won’t join WoW.
November 2, 2009 - 4:05 pm
I think it’s pretty crazy that Blizzard force people to buy the previous expansions but I can understand why they do it – the temptation for the profit is just too much. I would like to see them do what SOE do and include every expansion. It just feels… nicer.
November 2, 2009 - 4:06 pm
Thanks for posting this so I didn’t have to!
It’s just good common sense. I’ve been putting off buying Wrath until I needed it hoping for it to go on sale or something but I finally picked it up.
I had a friend over this weekend and they tried WoW. After I explained to them what they need to buy they just logged out. Too much money and too confusing for them. Blizzard needs a catch up box for sure.
November 2, 2009 - 3:58 pm
@KillTenRats Thanks Ethic. New blog post as promised…http://bit.ly/2Ns3wc
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
November 4, 2009 - 5:35 am
I rarely quest, dont collect pets, or mounts, dont do dailes, so am I paying for your questing or collecting fun? theres tons of things many people dont do, so its unfair to single out raiding.
If people were forced to buy every little bit of the game they wanted, it would make for a very poor game.
As far as the expansion goes, no one will have to buy vanilla WOW, since it wont exist anymore. Not sure about the outlands and northrend though, as I dont know at what point you will stop leveling in the new old world. I know theres new start zones, and I know theres content for 80+ but I dont know what happens when said new player reaches 60.
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 4, 2009 - 5:37 am
oh, and since most servers are old and packed full of 80s, where are you getting your stats to say raiders are the minority? I would be surprised if they are, especially these says when they are a lot easier to get into. Back in vanilla pug raiding didnt exist, and only kara was pugged at the back end of TBC, these days theres pugs for everything.
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 4, 2009 - 5:58 am
That is the discussion about the content: what is content and what can be taken as the core content. The current trend of speeding up the levelling is nearing the point in which the levelling content is void and every character should be started from at least at the same level as DK’s are (lv55), even though that seems to be too low already, too.
Cataclysm comes and changes that, though, but will the speeded up levelling stay? Only to be masked behind the great perfectness of phased personal experience? That remains to be seen, really.
Oh, and you have already used up your levelling content, so you have gotten what you have paid, friend. It was worth the ride to get there, wouldn’t you agree?
C out
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 4, 2009 - 6:03 am
I agree that that was something dating back to some earlier discussions, but still the top end raiding content is used by only a minority of the WoW population. Even though the ‘entry’ to the raids has been made easier and the loot piñatas like ToC and Ony exist to make the gearing even easier than ever, how many of the new comers and/or ‘true casuals’ playing only one or two nights a week really have ever entered the raid content itself? I doubt that not a lot, not majority at least.
Or do you see a lot of casuals in the raids, especially the gear checked high end ones? The ones who login only couple of times a week? I doubt that many, even in a guild like ours.
C out
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 4, 2009 - 6:10 am
I skipped a lot of it, just like you did. You choose to do it, or bypass it.
Same with picking servers, if you pick an old server to play on, obviously there will be a lot of empty places
But, thats little points, you talk about paying for content just because you missed the start. now imagine if paid content was in there from day 1. Lets not remake the game around bits you missed. If it was there from day 1, there wouldnt be the appeal there is today, there wouldnt be as much content either since, blizz gets a set fee, so it knows roughly how much money it has to spend on development. Without that, its making stuff people might not buy, which is a far greater waste.
Blizz charges a set fee, and has the most subscripbers of any online game but a huge margin. Micropayment ones, have a tiny share, because their games are not that appealing, and they cant fund/plan decent development
true 1 hour a week casuals might not see raids, but who is to say they are the majority? they could very well be the minority these days. Unless you have figures, you are just guessing and discussions based on guesses can last forever and not get anywhere ;o)
Fact is raids have more people in now than ever before, and the "high end" now is not the raid itself, but the hard mode of the raid. Anyone can get into totc normal for example (from toc5 man gear), but they wouldnt stand a chance on the hard modes, but they do get into the raid and see what the hard cores see.
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 4, 2009 - 6:11 am
ps wish there was an edit button, typos ftd ><
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 4, 2009 - 7:32 am
Windavell, there is an edit button, you just have to be signed in or something I think. I once registered instead of just putting in my name or something like that, and ever since my name shows up on the site when I come here etc. When you do that, the edit button appears I think
Anyway, on the topic:
As Windavell already pointed out, some people skip out on questing, others skip the raiding side, you can’t really base a payment system on that. Next to that, Vanilla+BC can be bought in a cheap package nowadays and Wrath needs to be bought seperate for the full price, so the new players get everything the old players had, but at a much lower price, is that fair then? We (the players) have paid Blizz for years for development etc, and the new players just get it for a low price. Sure not everything of our monthly subscription has gone into the expansions, but it sure as hell didnt only go to supporting the servers and patches.
Also following a statement by Windavell "now imagine if paid content was in there from day 1". People would have to choose what to buy. Each time they need to buy something there is a threshold of actually choosing what to buy and if it will be worth your precious cash. Sure looking at the entire game, such a micro payment would be something like 1 or 2 euro’s, but the threshold stays the same.
Blizzard is offering us a complete package, you can fill it in anyway you like. There is only a limited amount of time a person can play each week. How you spend that time is completely up to you. Why would a raider, spending 20 hours a week on raids, pay for each successive raid, whereas a player who is PVP active for 20 hours a week only pays once for the Arena aspect, it is a full game they play afterall…Compare it to an amusement park. You pay an entrance fee, and whether you spend your day in all 15 attractions, or just ride that one single roller coaster 50 times is completely up to you, no additional charge.
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 4, 2009 - 8:44 am
No, I didn’t mean that you pay for each raid session separate, but that you pay to unlock that content. This is how DDO works currently, after they changed to microtransaction model. They began with this assumption that because WoW had a subscription model, everyone should have, and it failed: the game isn’t WoW nor does it have the backing of the games Blizz has. DDO only has the legacy of D&D and related games which are not necessarily the best merit especially as the producer is different.
However, they got it running. It would be an amusement park in which you get to see all the attractions, but can run in the attractions which you choose to as many times as you possibly want to. The amusement park is there for all, but the roller coaster for only those who pay for it. The content is there for the paying customer to get, but it contains enough contraptions for the free rider to enjoy. Like WoW without instances: it was all about quests in the beginning and it has been built on quests ever since the beginning. Instances are just the decoration on the cake: something to top the levelling off with.
I’m not saying that Blizz should -or would- do this. I’m just saying that this is something that might happen or be viable way to do it. And that someone else has it working for their game already and is finding success in some other form of payment system than the subscription model (I’m not stating that subscription model is dead, either, even though there are such speculations, too).
C out
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 4, 2009 - 9:34 am
I pick the Pay Once to get everything option every single time, because they you know you can do anything you like, even if you also know you wont use half the stuff, its nice to have the option.
In places where I pay per "ride", I tend to not enjoy the place as much as Im too focused on what each thing is costing me.
Same with Satellite TV packages, could any subscriber say they watch all the channels they pay for? I know I didnt used to but I liked having the option to watch them if I chose to. Now I dont subscribe to them all and even if a film is on I want to watch, I dont do the "pay per view" because its all adding up to my monthly budget
£8.99 for a whole month of something I do every day, that sounds cheap to me. WOW costs me less than a TV package and I play wow more than I watch TV. To me, the £8.99 is already a micro payment, I’d probably pay more if I had to, per month
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 4, 2009 - 9:05 am
how are you defining mirco payment, what kind of number? just curious because on thinking about it. I pay £107.88 per year, if I pay per month with no discount for paying 6 months (I currently buy 6 month chunks). So thats £107.88 for a years worth of entertainment, something I do every day of the week, near enough 365 days of the year (yeah yeah get out more I know)
less than 30p (33 cents) per day to play wow as much as I like, whenever I like, and experience everything it has to offer with no restrictions or additional cost.
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 4, 2009 - 10:43 am
And I didnt mean that you pay for every raid session, but pay for each raid instance, first you buy naxx, then you buy ulduar, then you buy TOC, then you buy Icecrown etc…when you compare raiders with PVP-ers, the raiders pay much more each time to fulfill their hobby, while Arena guys just pay once..
But like I said, and Windavell confirmed, each time you have to buy something you have to look at your budget, think about how much you already spent, and what you are spending it on…The experience won’t be the same…
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 5, 2009 - 1:14 am
That definition of micro payment is one tricky question, as you mention also: in a sense even the monthly payment is a micro transaction when compared to the total revenue the game’s box sales generate.
That price may be so for someone who has WoW as a daily hobby, but for a casual with totally different approach the price is something way different. For myself, if I calculate the current login rate of three times a week, it comes down to something aroung 1 €/day, and I’m paying in 3 month slots. And still I feel I’m not getting enough value for the money because I’m not getting to use the content to the fullest.
Like I stated in the post, this has been discussed time and again in other blogs already, most notably in Tobolds over the years, and I’m quite certain that the discussion will emerge soon again.
C out
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 5, 2009 - 1:22 am
Well, Arena in the sense of ”e-sports” is a seasonal payment already, and the BG’s could be paid content, too. Then -however- the expectations of the playability and equality of the BG’s would be more of an issue than they currently are.
My intention wasn’t to start a discussion what could, should or would be payable, but to bring out that this might be one system which could be used. I’m -for some reason- currently bending on the idea that I would rather pay for the time I spend in the game rather than the real world time the subscription is measured in. Why? Because for example this month and the next are such that there is next to no time for playing and the ‘payment’ is still ticking in the background. I’m playing for supporting the game without enjoying the benefits, much like buying a ticket to a movie and not seeing it, just because it’s supposed to be good.
WoW is the biggest and most beautifull there is at the moment, and the smaller and upcoming games cannot expect to have steady subscriptions the same way this mammoth can pull out. But they may well shake the balance by coming up with different payment systems which may later be the way for WoW, too.
And for the experience: it’s the same when you experience it. It just has a different price tag on it and as long as it works it doesn’t matter. That’s how it goes in DDO and I see no reason why it wouldn’t work in WoW, too.
C out
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra
November 5, 2009 - 2:48 am
Well, I pay on a monthly base, sure it will cost me a bit more, but I’m willing to pay that bit of extra if it gives me the option to skip a month or two when I want to….done that exact thing 2-3 times already when I got tired of the game or just didnt have the time to spend in the game.
This comment was originally posted on BullCopra