Originally posted by Battleskar

Originally posted by Zayne3145

No.

Blizzard are a business not a charity. As such, in the current financial climate they would be worse off making the expansion free. As for the prolonged development cycle on their expansions, this is simply because they want to release a finished product and not a half-baked game to appease the masses.

 

So they do not make enough from their monthly charges to fund such a project?

That isn't their business model. You know, the plan on how they get things done.  There are free to play games out there for poor people.

Expansions give old MMOs shelf space and mind share. Which are very important to any video game.

First WotLK expansion. Then WoW Battlechest with WotLK. Then the reissue with the new packaging touting 15 million subscribers.

Stores constantly restock copies of WoW, which means new customers see the boxes and buy it.

The WoW juggernaut rolls on.

Originally posted by MyPreciousss

Yeah fanbois keep wasting your money on this dumb shit, at least i won't see you in my other games.

Don't count on it.  Right now I'm playing Warhammer too. :)

Oh and back on point, Blizzard is actually giving a few things that the expansion brings for free.  Not gonna list them here as I can't remember what they are, there's another thread somewhere that talks about it.

Edit: Here's the link

http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/205675

Blizzard is a company...and a company wants to make profit.  If milions of people are willing to pay...Why not charge them a extra buck ?

Blizzard is running a business, not a charity. If they feel that they can make money with WOTLK, then they'll sell it. Nobody is forcing anybody to buy the game. If people feel that the financial turmoil is getting heavy on the pocket, then I don't believe that not buying the expansion is gonna kill them anyway.

Originally posted by Battleskar

Originally posted by mklinic

What about all the free content that is consistently added via patches instead of as a paid expansion?

Perhaps you should add a poll to your OP though so people could vote. It might provide an easy way to gauge opinion of the audience here.

 

 

I think mmo's should offer way more for free than they already offer since how they are already charging way to much per month as it is,but hey as long as gamers keep payin out the bucks they will keep charging more and more.I am sure most of us can afford the price of an expansion,the point of this post is game companies should reward their players way more than they do.

  One then a couple of reasons why YOU -  you deadbeat MMO player should pay for the Linch King.
 

 First is that WoW Does not do expansion very often like this. iIt's only their second one in 5 years - comparing that to the Gotcha expansion factory at SOE ( over 20 times for the Everquest Franchise).

Second is that I would like to have hard copies of an expansion incase of a HD failure for a much quicker restore. 

So save your pennies there , you cheapskate and stop whining about the second expansion to a 5 year old game with over 1O million players.

Originally posted by MyPreciousss

Originally posted by Battleskar

Originally posted by Zayne3145

No.

Blizzard are a business not a charity. As such, in the current financial climate they would be worse off making the expansion free. As for the prolonged development cycle on their expansions, this is simply because they want to release a finished product and not a half-baked game to appease the masses.

 

So they do not make enough from their monthly charges to fund such a project?

 

Greedy company, they'll pull your last golden tooth out if they can. Not even contemplating 1 free character transfer for 4 year old customers, and not willing to enforce any rule on their servers (aren't we paying for that too???), eternal gold spamming and brats talking rubbish for months on trade channel, sex stuff, insults, without never ever a GM intervening. Yeah fanbois keep wasting your money on this dumb shit, at least i won't see you in my other games.

Goldtooth is in the mines close to goldshire.. wait what are we talking about?

The fact is, Blizzard is making HUGE amount of money with only the montly fee. And, the free content is pretty low if you compare to some other Mmo, and since they say they want to be the best, and I'm not saying they are or not, only that they want to. They should give WAY MORE free content. I don't see a full expansion, but they should double or tripple their free content, and, if that's mean in the end a free expansion, then I'm up for it.

Want some exemple about what I've just said,

Mithic gave 1 free expansion on 2. Turbine gave as enought free content as the base game before doing an expansion, and event, DDO doesn't got it's expansion soo far. Both these two company doesn't have half the players base that wow has ...

Blizzard's total net income (after all expenes and taxes) is 344 million dollars. That is the amount of cash the folks that run the game can throw into a pile and roll around in.  They will probably see another 200-400 million (in net profit), when WotLK is released

http://www.hoovers.com/activision/--ID__42465,period__A--/free-co-fin-income.xhtml

Yeah, they make enough mony that they could well afford to give away the expansion, but why give away what all their players would gladly pay for? Wow players are addicts, they will pay anything just to get the Blizzard fix (I was addicted too, before "The Burning Crusade" cured me). Blizzard is a large corporation, large corporations have no heart, no soul, no loyalty, they only exist to make profit, no matter what.

Originally posted by Battleskar

I was just reading the MSN front page and watching the Stock Market crash again. I think Blizzard should offer the new expansion as free content and here is why.1st and foremost I think Blizzard should reward its fathful playerbase with something huge like this as a way to say thank you for making their game tthe huge success it is.Second,with the financial markets in turmoil alot of players may be hesitant on purchasing this expansion,and possibly some of the vets who do not want to invest in what most feel will be more of the same rehashed.Finally,I think since Blizzard has been so slow at adding expansions the playerbase deserves something awesome like having an expansion such as this to be offered free,Its not like Blizzard cannot afford to reward their customers in this way. I would like to open this topic up for discussion as to why or why not offer this expansion free of charge discuss:)

Free?  Are you kidding me?   Look bud, here's a heads up for you, even if Blizzard had made $1,000,000,000.00 from WoW they shoudl still charge for WotLK.   

See, it's this thing called "capitalism" and while I know the country looks like it's ready to elect a socialst who promises to give you everything for free... companies aren't in business to "make just enough" they are in business to make a profit, and KEEP making a profit.  

It utterly amazed me when people pop off stupidity like "This company has made enough off us, they should give us something back!"

THEY DO!  It's called they make a product, and in exchange for said product you give them money.   

Should Coke give away soda's for free?  After all they've made billions, how about Ford?  Free CARS!!!

Please, get a clue, get a job, and take a course in economics.

Originally posted by MrVicchio

Originally posted by Battleskar

I was just reading the MSN front page and watching the Stock Market crash again. I think Blizzard should offer the new expansion as free content and here is why.1st and foremost I think Blizzard should reward its fathful playerbase with something huge like this as a way to say thank you for making their game tthe huge success it is.Second,with the financial markets in turmoil alot of players may be hesitant on purchasing this expansion,and possibly some of the vets who do not want to invest in what most feel will be more of the same rehashed.Finally,I think since Blizzard has been so slow at adding expansions the playerbase deserves something awesome like having an expansion such as this to be offered free,Its not like Blizzard cannot afford to reward their customers in this way. I would like to open this topic up for discussion as to why or why not offer this expansion free of charge discuss:)

Free?  Are you kidding me?   Look bud, here's a heads up for you, even if Blizzard had made $1,000,000,000.00 from WoW they shoudl still charge for WotLK.   

 

See, it's this thing called "capitalism" and while I know the country looks like it's ready to elect a socialst who promises to give you everything for free... companies aren't in business to "make just enough" they are in business to make a profit, and KEEP making a profit.  

 

It utterly amazed me when people pop off stupidity like "This company has made enough off us, they should give us something back!"

 

THEY DO!  It's called they make a product, and in exchange for said product you give them money.   

 

Should Coke give away soda's for free?  After all they've made billions, how about Ford?  Free CARS!!!

 

Please, get a clue, get a job, and take a course in economics.

100% agree. Nice post! 

Yes dfinitely should be free or blizzard actually should pay people to play it.