Justin Webb: My Little Pony
MMORPG.com's Justin Webb dedicates his column this week to the brouhaha surrounding the recent release of the Celestial Steed to the Blizzard Pet Store.
Column By Justin Webb on April 27, 2010
In this article I’m going to talk about the Celestial Steed. I’m going to mention the resulting significant shift in the social dynamics of WoW; how to make nickel and diming “fun”; and the double standard that gets applied to Blizzard by the gaming press. Then I might make some inflammatory remarks like “Blizzard’s next MMO will be F2P” and allude to “slippery slopes”. Rabid Wolverines will also be mentioned.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, Blizzard recently put a new item in their virtual store – the Celestial Steed. For 25 bucks, WoW players can now buy a spiffy all-in-one scalable mount.
This news was met in the gaming press with a resounding “meh”, seemingly requiring little further analysis or investigation beyond the fact that the Steed existed. Stories concentrated almost exclusively on how busy the store was, how much money it was making per hour, and that there was a queue … and that the queue was long. Some articles tried to do the math, with the current best guesses at somewhere between 2 and 4 million dollars of juicy virtual horseflesh traded. And there was an overtly patronizing tone in the gaming press as if anyone who bought a horsey must be an idiot. And that’s where the conversation stopped.
Forum dwellers and bloggers continued the discussion, but mostly along the “I can’t believe that Blizzard is letting players buy stuff” lines. Now, this article is NOT about whether you should be able to buy items in a subscription-based game. It’s NOT about whether its “good” or “bad” for the game, or genre – I’ll leave that up to you guys in the forum to cast the deciding vote on that. Instead I’m going to say what I think this all “means”.
In testing the waters, Blizzard pushed very hard to see what the market would bear. There’s a chance, I suppose, that the Steed’s price is as high as it is because they wanted it to be exclusive. Their experiment has shown that players are VERY willing to hand over an extra two-months worth of subscription dues just to get a fancy mount, AND that $25 is nowhere near enough cash to make something exclusive. What they have done is moved the goalposts (again) … slightly. Next up undoubtedly is the $50 mount, followed by the $100 hat, and the $200 unique class, etc. It’s a smart move. This is the kind of hand-waving marketing stuff (”evergreening” their brands; engendering goodwill; “representing the offer”) that Blizzard is really good at.
However, in doing so, Blizzard has shifted the social dynamic of their game. Originally, WoW was a game where visual customization was a direct function of achievement. The redeemable TCG cards and the Pandaren were the first fledgling steps toward becoming an active real-money-transaction game. While, in the past, players were “hardcore” or “casual”, now they can be been divided into “money” or “not money”. In addition, this distinction is beginning to affect in-game social mechanics with the introduction of weird equine profiling. For example, some guilds now have a “no-Steed” PUG policy. Now, I’m sure this is a very conscious (and not taken lightly) decision for Blizzard, and that the (old) age of WoW and the current economic climate both played roles in the “readjustment” of their revenue streams. This is also the kind of philosophical shift that drives hardcore players crazy.
Traditionally, this kind of RMT economics is also called “nickel and diming” because it involves small amounts of cash. It’s hard to justify that term at $25 a pop. But here is where the genius of Blizzard kicks in. To divert your attention from the fact that you are about to actually spend $25 on a virtual mount, Blizzard made the while process … fun. Act now! You are 65,476th in the queue. Time remaining: 8 hours. There’s only a hundred thousand left! Once you have been selected, you will have only 15 minutes to complete your order! Genius. Were any of those numbers actually real? It doesn’t matter! Here’s your pony! Any other game would just take your money and email you a code. But Blizzard makes it so … exciting. They make it sound as if the servers really are groaning under the weight of all the awesome. It must be exclusive if I have to do all this, right? Right?
The gaming press seemed to be mesmerized by the sparkly nature of the Steed, and essentially didn’t notice what had just happened – Blizzard got a free pass. In fact, the overall tone was one of patronizing affection: “Look, the silly players got iddy-biddy horseys. That’s so cute”. And herein lies the double standard.
If any other game had done this, they would have been crucified.
For example, if Turbine announced tomorrow that you could buy a special pony mount in LoTRO for $25, there would be nerdrage visible from space. Does the quality of the game affect the reaction of the press? Can polish make it OK to “double-dip” the consumer? If the pony is sufficiently sparkly, yes. Blizzard gets treated differently from every other developer in the press because they’re just so slick. You could argue that they’ve earned it, but game journalists should at least be talking about the fact that WoW just became an RMT game.
As a further example, when Bioware recently released extra content for Mass Effect 2 at a reasonable price ($7), it was “controversial” and caused a fuss in the press. The mission is so short! It feels tacked on! Note that the ME2 mission probably took a team a few months to create, while the Celestial Steed is just a texture swap on an existing model, and probably took an artist a couple of hours. Blizzard has shown that RMT/DLC doesn’t have to be extravagantly produced content – something simple and pretty can achieve greater goodwill and greater revenue. What Blizzard has managed to do is to take a concept abhorrent to many gamers and make it palatable. They’ve done it in small baby steps. Steps small enough to fall under the radar of game journalists who usually pounce on these kinds of things like a pack of rabid wolverines.
When, Activision says “in 2010 we remain focused on expanding operating margins by growing our high-margin digital/online revenues, directing our resources to the largest and most profitable opportunities”, it doesn’t just mean “sell more ponies!” Blizzard doesn’t normally do anything out of whimsy. They’ve got extremely good at protecting and extending their brands. I think we’ll find that this is an ongoing exploratory probe into what their player base is willing to pay; a way of “training” their (mostly casual) clientele into accepting that RMTs are “normal”. Hmmm, sounds like something you’d do if your next MMO is going to be free-to-play.
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Justin's column will appear every Tuesday here at MMORPG.com.
Sad but true.
Most will go like lambs to the slaughter. I cancelled my account. :)
Looking at the forum comments, I was not surprised by the overwhelming negative comments from the Blizzard change. I think Activision is championing this change not Blizzard. I also think that Activision is headed down a long slope that is going to kill their gold goose if they are not careful.
Personally I was surprised how popular this fluff item was. It certainly opens the genre to changes if the other major titles jump into the fray. Since I consider it a fluff item, I was not too excited by it, but of course this could lead to a long slippery slope ending in major concern for most of us.
Guess we will just have to wait and see how this develops. I have a gut feeling that you are right Justin, the next MMO from Blizzard will most probably have a different revenue model than Wow, possibly being some sort of derivative of the f2p model.
i like this review. Hands down Blizzard is SMART. but we must remember that blizzard is a business and there are in it to make Money.
i mean look at all the people who Drink bottled water.
I am pretty sure Blizzard will keep to a subscription model for their new MMO, that solid monthly income is too big to skip. Plus the RMT products will sell differently depending on time of year, response from the customers and the product itself.
What I think Blizzard will do is keep a low monthly sub, say $9 a month while others move closer to $15, so it seems cheap to play their game compared to other titles. You can be sure it will be released with a cash shop as well though, this experiment has proved they can do it, and get away with it.
Only time will tell what will be in the cash shop, but you can expect alot of fluff and maybe xp pots, extra bank slots or bags that kind of thing.
Good business. I'm not surprised people are outraged. Everyone gets outraged at every little change, and most of them don't even know what they're outraged about -- they're just outraged because everyone else is.
Thanks for the good read.
It is certainly interesting that the media seemed to simply gloss over the fact of how ridiculously overpriced the item was ,let alone the impact of RMT in general on the game.
While most players seem to be "meh" about the whole thing, I have noticed a growing number of people bothered by it. Personally, I find the whole thing abhorrent. But I'm one of those old-school gamers that actually cares about immersion and actually earning in-game achievements via in-game actions.
All in all, the whole fiasco has left a bitter taste in my mouth, and less respect for what I saw as a once great developer. I honestly don't know that I can trust Blizzard anymore to not bleed RMT and DLC content into all of their products, which makes me extremely hesitant to purchase from them again in the future.
Wasn´t there a press realease several weeks ago, something like "WoW stopped growing subscriptionwise"? Seems like someone starts to milk the herd, when it grew big enough.
I planned to buy Diablo 3, because I hope that it is still Buy2Play with good content, like D2 was.
the non-steed pug policy made me laugh, only in wow you can see this things
yea!if Turbine announced tomorrow that you could buy a special pony mount in LoTRO for $25, there would be nerdrage visible from space. Does the quality of the game affect the reaction of the press? Can polish make it OK to “double-dip” the consumer? If the pony is sufficiently sparkly, yes. Blizzard gets treated differently from every other developer in the press because they’re just so slick. You could argue that they’ve earned it, but game journalists should at least be talking about the fact that WoW just became an RMT game.
Good article, Justin. I do disagree with you on one point however. Blizzard just proved that tons of their client base will pay the 15 dollar monthly fee and still happily fork over more money for extra content. Why would they bother making the next game FTP when they can have their cake and eat it too?
A few years back I remember the threads in the WoW forums with "No unique 1 per server items please! It will ruin the game!" complaining about games like old EQ where there used to be the 1 per server pieces of gear.
Fast forward to 2010.
Friend sent me a link to a thread on the official forums a few day ago where there were a lot of people talking about how cool it would be if Blizz made an item that sold via the store and was limited to between 1 and 4 per server or sold for a huge amount (between $500 and $1200) effectively making the item unique to the few people who could afford it (and who were lucky enough to beat others to the 'buy' button).
Just made me laugh...
As for the article, I agree with what you were getting at.
If any other game added an item shop all the gaming news outlets would be all over it pointing out how its wrong to double dip. But Blizzard does it and no one seems to care.
It sorta reminds me of how a lot of the press is quick to jump on how evil MS is because they try to force people into using proprietory software/applications/etc, yet never seem to say anything when Apple does it. I mean they both are guilty of doing the same exact thing, so why is one any worse than the other?
Curse you for getting that stupid My LIttle Pony commercial music stuck in my head.
What 'gaming media' is he actually refering to? Game review sites? Gaming magazines? Blogs?
He really should have given examples of thei alleged 'gaming media bias' since to me it seems he is just making this up to make it sound better.
My personal observation about the reaction of the gamers on forums and blogs is pretty much what expected and did not really see much 'flip flopping' or Blizzard favouritism going on. Maybe I just follow the wrong 'gaming media'.
One point to consider is, suppose the celestial mount was put in as something you could buy for 5,000 gold, or some number. What that does is inspire the WoW cheaters to buy the gold with which to buy the mount. Then the jerk gold sellers make money, it's still a real money transaction, only Blizzard doesn't get the money.
I don't like what Blizz is doing, but I like it better than keeping the gold sale businesses booming.
Apple = turtlenecks. Turtlenecks = win. In all seriousness, the only Apple product I like is the iPhone, their computers are nothing special and overpriced.
As far as this whole $25 mount goes, I was not surprised that people bought it. People bought those TCG mount cards for hundreds of dollars on Ebay, so $25 is nothing. This is just the beginning too! We'll see a lot of other stuff on the Blizzard's store as it's evident that WoW players are perfectly content with paying a full monthly fee and having a cash shop.
It is a double standard because people gave (and still do) SOE a lot of flack for selling items in the store eventhough they are mostly cosmetic. Blizzard is doing the same thing and everyone is like "Awwww, it's a sparkly mount!"
Business or not, Blizzard is getting way out of hand with this money grabbing nonsense. Starcraft II was broken up into 3 parts and each part is going to be selling for $10 more than any other PC game (listed at $59.99 on Gamestop). Now they are adding more and more items to the cash store... I can't see myself remaining a Blizzard fan if they are going to continue with this garbage.
I think the Press didn't go too negative on that change seeing how it became extremely popular. I don't think Blizzard even expected this pony to be as popular...
In this case, it's still not a game changeing element. No one is a better player because they bought a good looking steed. It does get closer to this precious threshold, though.
Still, the playerbase grows older, richer (that in most MMOs). In Aion, I've heard rumors about the playerbase being 28 or 30 years old in average. Those are no longer college students who can barely afford paying a monthly subscription. Such item, if well done, will sell well :P
Personnally, I don't care much as long as this money is invested in game. Currently the end game has never been so weak. It's to a point where players have been forced to rerun the same instances multiple times -some friends run Icecrown Citadelle 4 times a week, twice per characters- and this has been going on since Ulduar. Most guilds cant keep their members entertained more than 2 days of raiding a week due to lack of content. A lot of servers (especially the PVP ones) are emptying out, and the remaining players are flocking to few overpopulated servers in search of activity. Blizzard already started blaming it on "the game has reached its peak", but let's hope they make good use of their new found revenues in game!
In my opinion, money is not the be all and end all, not in the mmorpg business, yes its a business, but the pursuit of money will become the main reason for everything, not the delivering of a fun experience to their own gaming community, in this way, Activision - Blizzard will kill WoW.
Its easy to see when money is more important than the game itself to a company and this makes us feel like we are paying to work second jobs, not playing a game for relaxatrion and fun. In WoW's case i expect it will take a few years, due to the inertia of so many people having so many friends there.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, the whole idea of P2P+cash shop turns me off big time, and seeing this so successful definitely sets precident for future ventures in this area.
But on the other hand - why the hell aren't more F2P's offering this sort of thing? An item that doesn't affect PvE or PvP balance, offers a customized look, and allows a player to avoid a (as I understand it) rather tedious and time-consuming process that isn't particularly enjoyable. No gambling odds, no limited-time renting - just two months' worth of subscription, and you can (theoretically) spend more time doing fun stuff for the rest of the time you're playing the game.
Hehe people canning their accounts cuz of the pount. lol hard to belive.
Anyhow i wonder why people talk about it. seems no one purchased it.
25$ yeah steep but according to my friend its.
Bind on account, thus all your toons can use it.
can be used at lvl 20 and scales as you lvl.
mostly purchased by people who will never get to see the litch king much less beat him.
This is kinda why people went abomb and bought the darn thing.
I guess it is necessity - I know DDO made (is making) lots of cash from their in game content model, so it makes sense blizzard is going to do the same.
Outstanding article, Justin. Thank you.
I'm not so sure Bliz flew this under the radar and got away with one here. There has been a consistant and quite loud reaction to the creeping RMT surrounding MMO's for some time and I wonder if they have achived short term gains at the peril of long term hatred by their real hardcore supporters, you know those people that have been playing their game for years and probably bought many bilz games.
The key point for me is that you no longer have to actually accomplish something in the game through some combination of effort and/or skill, but instead you just have to spend extra money. I can't see how this appeals to gamers on any level. What's the point of grinding rep with whatever faction to get some mount when newbie suckalot can just blow his allowance on sparkle pony? undercuts the whole concept and motivation for achivement in the game imo. Very bad move.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this sort of money grab stuff happening in a game that was going down and wanted to lift as much as possible before the lights went out... but a bit surprised to see bliz doing this with their golden cash cow right now... unless they've decided to put their serious efforts elsewhere and blik whoever's left in WoW for whatever they got. Wouldn't be the first time bliz did the bait and switch while tinkering with systems in wow (pvptokens).
A friend of mine keeps telling me they will be selling exp pots a week before the expansion. I'd bet 4 sparkle ponies he's right. And that some fool will buy 100 exp pots at 20$ a piece and end up on the local news for being the dumbest person on the internets.
I'd say this isn't a valid argument when you consider the fact that in-game gold isn't the only option to aquiring mounts. The frostsaber mount, for example. The mount is fairly cheap but requires a long rep grind to reach exalted status before you can buy it. Or the mounts that drop from instance bosses. The drop rate is low so if you want one of those mounts you usually have to run that instance many times until you can get the mount. For mounts like this gold has little or no significance and there's no reason why any special mount in the game, such as a celestial steed mount, could not be aquired by such a means.
One take on the whole cash shop idea I like is used on "Runes of Magic". Items purchased in the cash shop are either sellable in game AH or players can use the items for other people's benefit. Can this be something the Gold Sellers would exploit? Is the sky blue?
Seriously, I don't care about the RMT/ F2P/ cash shop/subscription fiasco crap. I look at a game, I play a game. If it's fun, I play. If it's not, I don't play. I don't care if a cash shop item 'disturbs game balance'. I just won't play with that player. If he/she wants to spend enough in real life to buy his next few meals simply to gain a edge in a video game, so be it. If it wasn't the cash shop, then that person would buy gold and get it from the already overpriced AH or they'd grind for it and ninja it from someone else or come on it honestly. At least with the cash shop idea, money goes to the developer. The developer is happy, the game continues on and the game's staff keep thier jobs and the company doesn't need to cut corners like.. oh say, axe people from thier customer service positions like billing or GM contacts which result in obscenely long wait times to get any help.
It's not like the cash shop items would make a difference in the game anyways. Everyone expects everyone else to mad dash through the game in a effort to get to Northrend and level 80 that everyone is missing the effort that has gone into the rest of the game. I've been away from WoW for the last 3 years and just playing the game, I've discovered things that other players that have 5 lvl 80's have either never known or have only heard of on cheat sites.
It shouldn't matter if WoW picks up an item shop, shouldn't matter if they double dip! They've already watered down the game to appeal to the casual gaming masses. They've already cut corners and staff so it takes hours on the phone to get service or a week to hear from a GM about an in game issue. Throw in the fact that EVERY MMO I've played in about the last 5 years has had some sort of cash shop going on... It's about time Blizzard did the same.
If more players actually took an interest in the game instead of doing a mad rush to get to end game, maybe the game companies would put more effort into the game itself and NOT into the 'immediate gratification' cash stores.
From the article, it sounds like Blizzard will eventually sell "My Little Pwny," an automatic "I-Win" button for X amount of dollars in the shop, instead of "My Little Pony."
Yes, I got that from Modern Warfare 2. So? It's catchy. I agree that Blizzard is "testing the waters" with more balls than politicians do (OH, it's a LEAK, we were NEVER going to pass that bill!). They're pretty upfront. Still, I tihnk there's a point where WoW players say enough is enough. Note that there will always be Blizzard bots who eat up anything Blizzard puts out. Besides them, most people have a limit. We all know the commonly accepted line as it stands now: mounts, cosmetic items, fluff? Okay. Gear, characters, content (not in an expansion, but something like what Cryptic tried to pull with Champions)? Not okay.
Will that line shift? Maybe a little. If Blizzard keeps pushing, it may go further into gameplay-affecting territory. And there will still be people defending them even then. But I highly doubt they'll start selling classes for $200 and get away with it. Mainly for the fact that we got a new class in an expansion, which was only $30 (or $40?). People won't forget that.
It was interesting how you connected it to a possible F2P model, though, and I liked the spin you took on the queue.
I KNOW!
Unless of course one lives in an area with pretty crappy water.
But still...
I bought one of those water machines you find in offices and have big water bottles delivered every so often, but I use glasses instead of buying thousands of tiny paper cups. I wonder if I count? /tinfoilhat
They can get away with it - in a game with an installed user base of millions who have played for years.
Starting a new game wiith a cash shop might be a very different propostition. It's a lot easier to say "screw you, cash shop", when you don't have characters you have spent months playing with.
No soup for you!
Indeed. Blizzard was once the gold standard for quality PC gaming. They are well known for greed, now.
For the time being, I have quit WoW and am boycotting Blizzard altogether. It would take a remarkable game to get me back, and I would never trust them not to radically alter the game to gouge more money.
Any that do are likely to be left of the list of Blizzard events, and have less access to information as well.
Outstanding article and I had to giggle - I've been calling that stupid thing the "My Little Pony that craps stars and rainbows" since the first time I saw someone with one.
I guess if folks have nothing better to spend $25 on, more power to 'em. I'll stick to my giant psychedelic chicken, thanks.
it should have been put in as a drop when you kill Arthas.
It makes me sad to see how Blizzard is changing... I've played Blizzard-games since "The Lost Vikings," and their games were always worth it: polished and functional, and entertaining as well.
If they at least kept a big part of the money from their "fluff" going to charity... but theres no talk about that anymore now. Sadly, I'll be very cautious before buying another Blizzard game, seeing what they have likely learned from WoW.
I agree and it's why I'm now seriously considering canceling my account. At first I didn't think this mount was a big deal. I thought as long as it's just fluff no harm done. Yet at the same time there was something vaguely disturbing about it. This article and some of the comments here have helped clarify that. It's not the mount itself but the direction it indicates.
It has also reminded me of the main reason I've always been against any kind of RMT to begin with. In-game items bought with real money outside of the game shatter the illusion of the game world, and for me this ruins the whole sense of immersion in the game. It makes the game world less real and then I feel like I'm just running an endless treadmill created by the devs simply for the sake of keeping me hooked and generating a profit for them, which is mostly true, and I don't mind doing that. I just don't like being reminded that I'm doing that. Like I said, it shatters the illusion.
So now I am seriously considering canceling my account, maybe going to LOTRO instead. With the exception of a couple of short breaks I've been a WoW subscriber since launch. But I'm really uncomfortable with the direction it seems to be taking. And i just bought the authenticator for $6.50 too. Oh well, at least I didn't spend 25$ on a celestial steed.
Don't get me started on that authenticator.
The idea that we should pay Blizzard more money to make our accounts secure is offensive and ridiculous.
Two things come to mind.
A fool and his money are soon parted.
There is a sucker born every minute.
Enough said.
Great article
This really made me laugh and unsettled me, your right it is clever but it's genius of the evil kind. Oooh mom a new sparkly horse, ooh mom they are running out, quick mom get out the credit card!
I don't really remember all that many people defending Blizzard. /shrug
We'll probably never see how "smart" it was for them to do this since we may never find out how many people cancelled in protest, losing their monthly sub fees and possibly all those sales of the next expansion. Maybe it was penny wise but pound foolish. 4 million in one time sales =160k people, or roughly 3.6% of the estimated 4.5 million Western subscribers, so apparently not all that many people, relatively speaking, were chomping at the bit to spend $25 on a digital horse.
I think any sub based MMO loses any credibility when decrying gold farmers if they start selling items for IRL cash, even cosmetic ones.
When are they going to come out with their super-happy-fun line? Anything prefaced with "super-happy-fun" has to be really, really, ... I mean really good!
OUTSTANDING article. +10 Justin, for nailing it. Shameless plug to a video that 'gets' what this whole vanity item purchasing is about, and the road its headed down.
- TCG. You got actual physical product for your money, with in-game bonuses.
- Collector pet, with 'half!' the proceeds going to charity (nevermind we're not sending it *all* to charity, our greedy selves are still sending *some*, so we can claim it and dazzle you with the 'charity' word!)
- Mount with sparkles that costs nigh 2 month subs.
- Six months from now, a super-sweet, legendary looking mace that matches all the stats of your best weapon, priced at 100 bucks, limited to 100 per server. 'But oh! The popularity was immense! We have decided to extend the offer to 500 per server! ... ok, too popular, unlimited!'
This isn't counting other game-changing services such as server change, and how it has affected the quality of group progression on backwater servers. This isn't counting things like faction change, and how it has affected the balance of servers (hi Cho'gall!). This isn't counting things like racial change, and how it has affected min/max'ing to a severe degree... and how Blizz themselves modified many of the popular racials to spur paid faction changes. This isn't counting the *requirement* to merge WoW and Battle.net accounts, and simultaneously advertising for paid authenticator!
This isn't counting the next installment, six months from now, where you pay to log into the game... or something equally outlandish.
And +5 more Justin, for nailing the double standard. There are people around these parts, typically labelled as haters or trolls who profess time and again the path the genre is headed down isn't a pretty one, and this journalistic post helps to make it known what we, the MMORPG gamer, is supporting through this game and its transactions.
I don't play all that many F2P games, but I thought mounts were a common purchase in them, and at a much cheaper price as well. Mabinogi is a great game that happens to be F2P, their item shop offers two types of mounts ($9 regular mounts, $12 flying mounts.) Anyway, not trying to derail with this other games, just pointing out that some do offer mounts.
I've played WoW off and on since beta. I have resubbed probably about 4 times, and I think I'm done for good now. I quit a few months ago and I don't see any interest in all at going back.
I think this just the start of larger items. I wouldn't be suprised if BoA gear was offered next. WoW is all about making the new player experience easy. What better way than to let them buy leveling gear. It's useless at max level so no one can argue that it would be over powered. Blizzard could sell each item for $5 in their store. That would save people the time of grinding tokens to buy the gear in game. New players don't have to buy an entire set. They don't need a level 80 to get the BoA gear for alts. What's the difference between that and a leveling mount? They already offer BoA gear in-game, expect it in their RMT store next.
Were you wearing blinders when the whole pandaren pet thing was released? People defended them *then*... but it's for *CHARITY*. No, it wasn't even for charity. It was half for charity, enough to abuse the claim of it, and half to line their pockets. But they didn't do it *for* charity. The initial design was for themselves.
If you do something *for* charity. It's all in. You don't scrape off the top. But, somehow, people defended them... and now, this is what we get.
Hell people already pay for the game+expansions+monthly sub+TGC cards and now the cash shop fluff items. It just goes to show that greed and ignorance will always win in WoW.
I thought we were talking about this horse, not the charity pet.
I understand that everyone is entitled to an opinion but its just sad when people gloss over just how bad their opinion makes them look to someone on the outside looking in. To the guy above crying about the charity pet, $1,110,000 of that money went to the Make a Wish foundation. That's 1.1 million dollars going to help brighten the lives of people who need an uplifting experience the most. If you added up every cent that you and every member of your whole family ever donated in their combined lives and threw in every penny every one of those people's friends donated in their entire lives to charity it would be closer to zero than 1.1 million. How much did you donate to Make A Wish last year bro?(and by bro I mean a myriad of words that will get me banned from this site)...
I concede that it would have been better for them to give more of a percentage of the proceeds away but when the total is more money than some people make in a lifetime, complaints against them sound like anger just looking for an outlet.
Oh well look Blizzard for all there generosity did not even make it into the top ten Philanthropists for 2009. Maybe I would agree with your opinion if they would not of followed it up with a $25 horse, or gave a higher % to charity. Right now I can not help but see them as just milking their cash cow for as long as possible. What ever it takes to make activsion\blizzard more money, so their CEO can report higher profit margins to their share holders. (Not that it is a bad thing, all buisness are out to make money). I just personality can not stand their CEO, he stands for everything that is wrong with big buisness.
We are. I'm noting how the line can be drawn between the two, and by not being outspoken then, it's a little late to be outspoken now concerning cash-shopping.
In the words of P.T. Barnum "there is a sucker born every minute" In this case sounds like a lot of them.
Now that wow is doing it, eq2 is doing it, I am sure Warner will now due it (not calling it Tubine any more they sold out)
Overall an interesting piece and I agree with his general view of the whole affair but...
Justin seems to treat gamers and the press as one and the same:
What Blizzard has managed to do is to take a concept abhorrent to many gamers and make it palatable.
But they're obviously not.
If Blizzard got a 'free pass' from the press, it's not like mmorpg.com are shining paragons of journalistic integrity. They are far from it. As in any press, there's a certain degree of self-serving bias in the mmo press eg. desire to keep on mmo developers' good side for exclusive interviews, desire to get a job in the mmo development etc. etc. Which is why no even mildly astute reader believes everything they read.
And I'm not sure exactly how biased this press is anyway. Good press is supposed to report facts and preferably without bias. The fact is the steed is sparkly and it has sold well. Those are concrete facts which can safely and quickly be put in print. The effect it's had on the game's community etc. is harder to nail down.
The supposed "double standard" may even be the complete opposite of what you see it to be. It may be being reported in this fashion precisely to get the kind of reaction (i.e. outrage) that they've gotten from you and many others.
This is where gaming companies start shooting themselves in the foot. Why? Because who wants to play a game controlled by rich people? Blizzard took the fun out of WoW with RMT because lets face it, back when UO and EQ came out, MMO's were about in-game achievements, not how big your real life wallet is. If they sold item's for a price that could also be acquired in-game with a little effort, that would seem fair. However, reserving rare and special items just for those with huge wallets is not a way to attract the "larger" player-base. Honestly, the rich folks are not really into gaming cause if they were, gold farmers wouldn't have a market. Rich folks don't like to waste time getting to the top, when they can just fork over a miniscule amount of money to get them there.
I've been debating about ever going back to WoW and I know for a fact, it won't happen now. I refuse to support RMT games with monthly fees. Blizzard makes enough money and the fact they're going RMT speaks volumes about the direction of the company. Sure, every company wants to make money, but please don't tell me Blizzard isn't making a profit without RMTing. Good luck to the folks who stick with WoW, cause this little ripple in the calm diverse waters of rich vs. poor is not something you want your flagship to be floating on.
"If any other game had done this, they would have been crucified." and "Blizzard gets treated differently from every other developer in the press because they’re just so slick. You could argue that they’ve earned it, but game journalists should at least be talking about the fact that WoW just became an RMT game."
I'm glad that it was pointed out. I considered WoW to have turned RMT when they started with the pets, this though comfirms it. I really don't care at all one way or the other about cash shops but it's nice to see someone else point it out.
Some of us did speak out back then.
The idea of money going to charity does make one feel all warm and fuzzy. But I worked briefly in the the profit-from-charity industry and it's ugly.
It's often referred to as the 'charity pet' but only half of those profits went to charity. It is obviously good when money goes to charity - but I also find it a bit disturbing when private industry profits from it.
Like the recent trend in charity is not to ask for one-off donations but to get people to sign up to donate $30 a month on their credit card. The very fine-print that they hope you don't look at is that not a single cent goes to charity until you've donated $30 a month for a bit over 2 years. All of that money goes to private companies who manage these schemes.
What Blizzard did was worse though. They pocketed over a million dollars from that scheme and most of that would have been pure profit.
It's actually kind of where they started. Back in the planning stages WoW was originally to be a free-to-play game. But they crunched the numbers and just couldn't see it working so they opted for a subscription.
But WoW really is turning into the doomsday scenario. The pro-MT crowd cry "it's only fluff and it's cheap" when the little MTs are added and the anti-MT crowd cry "that's just where it starts".
What I think is especially hypocritical is the way everyone jumped down Allods throat just a month ago for having prices like this. The Russians should have stuck to their capitalist guns instead of caving in.
EQ2 beat WoW on this one - didn't SOE drop cash shops into EQ and EQ2 a couple of years ago without warning?
Alright, and how many lives did they destroy with a terrible game?
"Hmmm, sounds like something you’d do if your next MMO is going to be free-to-play."
*Dingle-lingle*
It makes my want to twist my evil moustache in respect. I didn't even think about how they did the TCG thing long before SWG did, and far more successfully. This *has* been a weaning process.
Here's an analogy that fits in this situation:
Chairman Mao was incredibly smart in the way that he changed China. He was very strategic. Did he change China for the better? That's just personal opinion.
Blizzard is being very strategic in releasing this celestial steed. Has the steed changed WoW for the better? That's just personal opinion.
All they had to do was make the mount BOE. That's all they had to do...
If it were BOE, then people could sell it on the AH, and the complaints about double-dipping would have had no ground. Not only that, but if they expanded on that idea and sold a variety of cosmetic items on the item shop, all of which were BOE and could be sold on the AH, they'd be killing two birds with one stone.
First, people who don't want to work in-game will have an avenue to drop some extra cash and get that item. But second and more importantly, if someone wants to buy gold for some reason, there's no need to use a 3rd-world company anymore. Just buy something off of the blizzard store, and sell it on the AH. Problem solved.
They could even sell game time-cards on the shop that would be usable in-game. That way you're also helping the subscription situation, where some people could "work" in-game for gold, and buy a 30-day card on the AH. Blizzard still gets their money, and the players are happy.
But no... they had to sell exclusive items. This is just greedy double-dipping, and will do nothing but tarnish their otherwise excellent name. Can anyone even estimate the long-term damage this will do to the Blizzard name?
I know it definitely hurt their image in my mind. And their Starcraft2 tripple-dipping scheme doesn't help either.
I am absolutely sure that it will end up speaking for itself. Either all three versions are awesome as standalones, and have a decent length (god help them if it's over in a few hours a piece), or it may be the most loathed product from blizz yet. It's not going to stop people from buying all 3, but the vast majority is simply not going to, especially after tasting one and not liking it.
Great article.
BLizzard /Activizion will keep pushing this further. Personally they are going alot faster than I expected. This mount is after all an item that has unique features that no other item in the game has. And it is DIRECTLY affecting gameplay cause you will not need to buy any other mount in the game.... ever !! And once it was acutally some acomplishment to get a mount...
Whats next ? WHy not items that level up with you ? Green or even blue valued? Im not sure... but this store is not created for just 4 items. It is created for much much more and bigger things. You can count on that.
So much fail. 10% of my monthly proceeds is more of a SACRIFICE than 1 million in raw numbers... for a game that boasts 1 billion in revenue (1 per mille?). But hey, let there be a sliding scale because someone pushes more raw volume, not mass per volume.
Keep the blinders on. How are taxes tallied? Oh, based on someone's income, which is ratio'ed against a national average (hi percentage!), of which calculations are done (those calculations being percentages), to obtain a raw number on the output. Seems to me like percentages ARE the measuring stick, because it's a standard that can apply to any and everyone in any bracket of life.
My statement stands. It's insulting to claim charity, and give short of 100% of the net profit. They use the word to trigger emotions by the consumer, but it's not the purpose nor cause of their product.
Well I know what I'm "outraged" about - though that would be too strong a word for it for me. A better word would be disgusted or disappointed.
Disappointed at how the genre is slowly but surely making a steady turn away from being about achievement through playing, and moving toward acqusition by paying. Try as I might to keep an open mind to it, I can not understand the attraction nor mentality behind skipping the gameplay aspect of a *game*, and instead just wanting to buy things outright.
What's wrong with charging $25 for a mount - besides being charged on top of a subscription, plus a game and at least 3 expansions?
- It's more than half the cost of a stand-alone expansion, or many games - for a single item.
- The item *could* have been presented through actual gameplay, such as a quest line, a difficult fight... something done *in-game* to earn the mount as a reward at the end - you know... by actually *playing* the game. Instead, Blizzard have said "Screw that... Want the mount? $25. Pay up suckas".
- There is no in-game alternative (that I'm aware of) to acquire the mount, so if you want it... you have to pay up. Can't afford it due to budgets? Oh well.. Too bad. Welcome to the world of "have-nots".
Were there at least a way to acquire the mount through gameplay for those who want one but don't have the extra cash to buy it... fine. But then the $25 price-tag might not be so "reasonable" to as many people, would it? They could simply earn it in game... and that just wouldn't be as profitable for Blizzard.
I've been reading MMORPG for quite a while now, and I have to say, I'm a little appalled at what seems barely above plagarism in this news post.
Frankly, I agree with the post and most of the views it represents, but I couldn't help but feel like I'd read it before... oh wait, I pretty much did. Right down to the word choice and post organization, Webb's article bears striking similarity to Brennan's. From my perspective, this article is a joke, and brings Webb's credibility as a writer into question. I expect better of my news sources than to publish such an obviously "inspired" article without a solid nod to a similarly "inspirational" source.
Now maybe that seems like an overreaction at first, but then I look at when these articles were posted. Massively reported on this exact same phenomena over a week and a half ago, yet Webb claims in his article that the rest of the video game press is pretty much oblivious to the fact that Blizzard is being praised by its players for doing something that would put any one of a hundred other MMOs in its grave.
So I'm calling you out on the same double standard you're calling out the players on. In a day and age of this kind of global communication, I expect better of the associated video game press than to ignore the accomplishments of one another, and pretend to be oblivious in the face of brethren site reporting on the exact same issue over a week before you did.
If CNN were to report on "breaking news" a week and a half after the BBC reported the exact same story, using identical word choice, article organization, and phrasing, but without putting out a nod to the BBC for picking up on it first, there would be media outcry for the blunder. But MMORPG can get away with it, apparently. No big deal, right?
Normally MMORPG is much better about this. You've been man enough in the past to link to your competitors sites in the past when they get cool interviews or catch news stories when your columnists were busy doing their jobs elsewhere. So why not this time? Why was this article not written with consideration to the associated press? I hope you can rise to the expectations of your readers and news community, MMORPG, because you've just lowered your own bar for acceptible conduct.
OMG CHILL OUT Justin! This streed doesnt do anything better than you can aquire with ingame gold.It doesnt make a player better in PVP or help his gear score. If you dont want to buy them , DONT. You are acting like the NRA when they took FULL AUTO Maching guns away from the public and thought the next day you wouldnt be able to even own a gun. or are you just trying to stir the pot to get responces out of us (which makes you no better than Blizzard)?
I played WoW from late beta until around 6 months before BC. Picked up BC and played it until around October 2008. After the introduction of the TCG with in-game prizes, daily quests to strictly regulate how quickly you could attain in-game rewards, and some comments the devs made in the forums, it seemed to me that they were no longer interested in creating the the best gaming experience around, merely trying to keep players on the hook for another month and/or TCG pack (and another and another and another...).
Last year, I ran into this article ( http://www.gamespot.com/news/6226758.html ), in which Activision Blizzard CEO Robert Kotick pretty much killed any desire I had to pick up any further Activision Blizzard titles. The moneyshot was this beautiful line, "The goal that I had in bringing a lot of the packaged goods folks into Activision about 10 years ago was to take all the fun out of making video games."
I'm not surprised that they have started adding straight cash shop items to WoW (as opposed to just the TCG items) - I am surprised it took them this long to do so.
It would seem that Mr. Kotick has had his WoW minions hard at work, trying to find new ways of not only taking "all the fun out of making video games", but also out of playing them.
Here is what I think WOW tried to sell the masses, this is the original pony they had in mind > http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/ef4c3a6dc8/dildocorn-pony-my-little-pony-trailer
Responding to your post, Rampage, but answering the blue bit in particular, because I've seen the same argument made by many others. So, this post is in response to any who have put forth that point-of-view....
My issue with that blue bit is the short-sightedness it demonstrates.
What of those who *enjoy* collecting things like mounts, but prefer to do so by playing the game? Or don't have the excess cash to spend on such a thing? What of those who would rather obtain it through actual gameplay - you know that thing you're supposed to find in a *game*? What if they'd rather complete a quest line, or fell some tough enemy, or "tame" the animal to make it a mount, or some other in-game activity to receive it as the reward at the end? They don't matter? Their sub fee doesn't entitle them as much to the content they enjoy as yours does? Their entertainment should be set at a higher price tag, and that's okay, because it doesn't affect you?
There are a significant number of people out there for whom PvP stats and uber gear are not their prime motivation in playing a MMO. There are many out there who play MMOs for the social element.. They enjoy collecting things, like mounts, or pets. That's what is fun to them. They pay the same subscription fee you pay. To a number of them, having no option but to spend $25 - on top of their sub fee - on a single mount that they can't obtain otherwise very likely *is* a big deal.
I'm not particularly interested in "collecting" mounts myself, certainly not to the point that I'd spend $25 on one. I likely wouldn't bother with it even if it were available via gameplay. However, I am not short-sighted enough to presume that there aren't others out there who *would* want something like that, nor self-centered enough to say "oh well, doesn't matter to me since I don't want it". And, frankly, I think Blizzard making it avail only through purchase, not to mention the price, sucks. It's a blatant cash grab.
Perhaps it's a side-effect, or a symptom of the "solo only" and "lone hero" mentality that's taken hold of many players in newer MMOs, but this whole "if it doesn't affect me, then it doesn't affect anyone else either" mentality is very indicative of how "me-centric" many people are in these games.
To those who say "meh... It's a mount... only fluff... doesnt' affect me, so I think it's fine they charge for it", I have a question... and please answer it honestly, should anyone answer it at all. If Blizzard introduced a piece of armor, or a weapon, or trinket, or something with some kind of unique, useful ability or benefit that *did* affect gameplay, but was *only* available by buying it for $25 and had no in-game means of obtaining it, would you be so permissive of it then? Would you think "it's fine"? I would wager most wouldn't. After all, it's easy to be dismissive of something when it doesn't affect you. When it does affect you, however... well... that's a whole different story.
interesting read and where can i get a skeletor my little pony?
I think few of us are making a billion dollars a year. I know I would be doing a lot for charity if I was.
One's generosity is measured as a percentage of what one has.
Blizzard only donated that money for a few months. They still sell the pet.
Wrong. What other mount binds to your account and scales up with your riding skill?
That is exactly right. You can't earn it ingame, because then fewer people would buy it.
The 'convenience for casual players' argument is bogus.
Chances are, most future mounts, CS-bought or not. Then watch people bitch that the 25$ was wasted, then again, you'd probably be right behind them bitching as well anyway.
Damn I didn't know how much this stupid thing actually costs. 25 bucks for a vanity item?
I truly would have thought that the backlash of such an experiment would bring the giant to it's knees. Instead it seams to have only made it grow bigger. I guess if your a die hard fan it would be worth it. But for someone like me who never got into WoW, it's just another reason to stay away.
RMT will not fail due to player backlash unless you talk to other players and organise a backlash in your MMO. Get those threads started on the forums, talk to your guildies, there is no other way this will stop.
Do a thread where players pledge not to buy this item in the cash shop and so on, this will not go away due to wishful thinking.
Unfortunately, I think RMT item stores in mmorpgs are here to stay. I used to be neutral on them, but they tended to be relatively rare in P2P mmorpgs so I felt it was no big deal. I've changed my mind.
Now it seems they are becoming more widespread and I am sure it will only be a matter of a few years when they are a huge and permanent feature of all mmorpgs and which account for a massive, maybe even the largest, chunk of a mmorpgs revenue. For me what is worrying about the creeping RMT options in WOW is that WOW is seen, by mmorpg developers and investors, as the standard of good (i.e. successful) business practice.
I think mmorpgs can be addictive. I think you can get lost in mmorpgs in the same way you get lost in movies and books and comics, but mmorpgs hold onto your time and identity more tightly. I think people care a lot about the look of their virtual characters, about their vanity pets, and their mounts often just as much as the stuff that has stats attached and as such they may be a lot less "fluff" than people claim. I think big mmorpgs have slick advertising and dedicated marketing departments who are specialists par excellence in manipulating consumer demand. All of this make RMT items in mmorpgs a ridiculously astute, and horribly exploitative, method of increasing profits. Add to this the fact that children play these games (something that not enough people are mentioning btw) and we are beginning to have a toxic mix.
Yah, your "free" to choose to buy or not to buy. The tobacco industry makes the same claims and although I ain't saying that buying vanity pets and tobacco are the same, I am drawing attention to the fact that the existence of free will does not suddenly excuse questionable business practices, however lawful, or diminish the opinions of those who are critical of the business ethics of such practices.
P2P mmorpgs are aleady ridiculous time-sinks, make them persistent item store money sinks too and I am thinking more and more of boycotting any P2P mmorpg that has such features. Not because I think it will change anything (because it won't), and not because I lack the self-control to resist the "BUY NOW" button, but because it makes me feel 'dirty' to do business with such an overt bunch of moneygrubbing bastards.
Regards
Melmoth
ed for typo
They do offer account protection: It's called a username and password. It's called encryption on any page with sensitive information (account info, etc), they offer pages and pages of info on how to protect your system, choosing a good password, protecting your info, etc... They take every reasonable measure to help inform and protect their players.
They can't, however, force their players to pay attention to all that.
Frankly, they don't have to offer a security token all. Blizzard are not responsible for the fact that a number of people aren't more careful with their account information, go to suspect websites and/or download add-ons or what-not that have embedded key loggers, etc. They can't stop players from giving out their login info to "friends", or power leveling services with the assumption nothing bad will come of it. They can't go to every individual's house, check their computers for infected software, and put blocks on infected websites. They can, and do, warn against it, but ultimately those are things that are out of Blizzard's control.
To be fair, it *can* happen, as an exception, that someone goes to an infected site believing it to be safe; it's happened to major sites for at least a few MMOs I'm aware of. But that is not the rule... It's the exception. 9/10 cases I've seen where people's accounts were hacked has been from their own carelessness. If you use a reasonable amount of common-sense and caution with your login info and other sensitive data, then you have very little to worry about.
So, yes, they offer a security token as an optional security measure; an extra level of protection that benefits the player who might otherwise get their account hacked.
The way I see it... $6.50 to protect potentially hundreds or thousands of hours worth of gameplay, and potentially years worth of sub fees (and box purchases) is a damn good bargain. I have never had problems with my accts being hacked, because I am reasonably cautious with my info. However, on the off chance that I just *might* happen to pick up a keylogger somewhere, I think it's a no-brainer. I have one for WoW and for FFXI.
In a nutshell, though... Blizzard is not responsible for protecting players' from their own carelessness. They require a login and password to access your account. They can't go all "Big Brother" and start watch-dogging every player to make sure their login and/or account information isn't getting into the wrong hands, because then that would lead to forums discussing a whole other kind of problem, the whole "Blizzard scans your HD! They are teh Satan!" type deal.
In another sense... to say that Blizzard should be doing more to protect players from their own carelessness is so typical of the "no accountability" people demonstrate these days. Someone makes a poor choice, and then blames it on someone else for not "protecting them" from it.
I quit long ago when they announced an item shop. I pay a sub fee that should include the whole game.
I love the little pony with the skeletor outfit. Now thats a mount worth 25 bucks! =P
So, I guess you have no theft or fraudulent charge protection on your credit/debit cards?
Of course we do - because while a lot of credit card fraud happens because the card owner is stupid/careless, there's also a lot of ways fraud can happen even if you don't get suckered in that way, and the stakes can be far higher than just an MMO account.
Is Blizzard conditioning it's customers? I think so.What it really shows is that many if not most WoW gamers aren't like gamers used to be, or at least used to think they were like. Watch for the next wave of games that crash and burn because they try to do what Blizzard does.
The manipulation going on here is seriously creepy. All mmos manipulate us to a certain extent and profit by tapping into that desire to acheive in a game because it makes us feel good about ourselves, but this takes things to a new scale. It is simply embarrassing to see how many players went for this horse.
To be honest, it is hard to blame Blizzard. It is like putting a plate of sausages in front of your dog and then expecting him not to touch them. Moral of the story... don't be a sausage. :)
And this is where it breaks apart. Valid statistics, not ones pulled from the fourth point of contact? Exception rather than rule?
I got a malware alert from opening a *.pdf straight from a university professor through the school email system. It's called a 'virus' for a reason.
I can work out everyday, I can take my vitamins, eat healthy etc. But if I cross the street on my way about my usual business and some chump crosses my path with the flu... guess what... there's a fairly good chance I'll be under the weather a couple days later.
So no, this entire post is completely full of it. Mistakes happen, period. Don't put the blame on the user because of situations *you* have seen (which, by the wording, is quite questionable). Just because you run a tight ship and haven't fallen overboard doesn't mean others aren't doing the same but haven't been as fortunate. Get off the high horse. Acknowledge that it's a service being run for financial gain when it could/should very well be a service installed as an industry standard because of a solid understanding of what goes on in the internet, and just how commonplace it is.
Hell, *Blizzard themselves* have had high suspectability of having been hacked. Feel free to read through clippings of people who's accounts had been compromised after being inactive for *years*. Of course, Blizzard, the masters of good PR, never outwardly say anything about such things...
For the first time since launch they do not have sub growth and have started a trend downward. This is a way to plug that gap and continue revenue growth it really is that simple. A lot more of this to come. Revenue growth for a publically traded company is king and rules every choice they make and will.
Yay more horrible Yellow Journalism from MMORPG.com
Now with even more flawed Slippery Slope Arguments.
What I love is that every one is either using the Slippery Slope argument or the "I pay a monthly fee so it should be accessable in game" argument.
So what about mounts like Invincible? You know the mount that Justin Webb said only took one person an hour to reskin(good to see Mr Webb make assumptions on things like programmer even though he knows nothing about it). There are like a dozen people in the entire world with this mount. Your monthly fee went to making it so why arent you angry over that? Ah yeah its accessible in game ....but you have to be in a top raiding guild and kill 25 man heroic Arthas who only drops 1 mount per kill.
Its good thing for Justin Webb that you dont need little things like facts or objectivity when you preach to the choir.
It sounds like an epic reward for an epic accomplishment. Kiling Arthas is the top goal in the game.
Does it bind to account? Does it scale with riding skill?
I've never played WoW, but if I did I don't think I'd care about this. It's nothing game-changing, right? It's not going to make someone uber in PvE or PvP, is it? I say grats to Blizzard for finding ways to generate more revenue to support further development of their game. And for maximizing shareholder wealth.
Why not send them a check, if maximizing wealth is so admirable to you?
They maximize that wealth by taking in more money while providing less service to their customers. Gamers. Us.
I'm always surprised at what people are willing to pay for, but this 25.00 mount topped most of them.
I mean, if it did impart some sort of in game benefit I might have understood the rush for it, but as simply a cosmentic change that anyone with 25 bucks can buy I can't imagine why people would purchase such a thing.
I'm just too far out of the mainstream it seems to grasp it all.
But I agree, this was just another step to turning WOW (and many other games) to a hybrid payment model where we'll pay a monthly fee for 'basic' service and extra fees for additional functionality. (much like cable TV I suppose)
It scales with riding skill (though I am not 100% sure), but I don't think that's a crime. You should be able to show off past achievements a year after the fact and not move slower because of it.
Anyhow, Xiaoki also said Mr. Webb said it took 1 hour to reskin, when he actually said it took a few (difference of a few hundred percent). Even if it took someone 20 or 40 hours to reskin, that's very little work for the price tag.
I thought the comparison with Bioware was fairly apt. They have 7 buck items that are whole adventures. That feels a lot more sensible to me (though if they do the same with ToR I'd expect free content and a bit cheaper price as well unless there's no sub fee).
Like I've said before elsewhere, I think Blizzard gets a bit of a free pass here from its customers because in a very real way it's the only game in town. The other AAA MMOs in the last few years have largely failed. Once some real competition apppears (hopefully in the form of Guild Wars 2, The Old Republic, Final Fantasy XIV, and a couple others), then RMT in the big games will have larger implications on whether people keep playing them or not (helps that GW2 provides a sub-free alternative as well).
Anyhow, overall I thought Mr. Webb had some very good points. Maybe Blizzard won't ever sell a class online, but they'll keep adding stuff to the store. Sooner or later they'll add items that can be used but aren't necessarily "better" than what you can get in the game, I think. Well, that would happen if no competition appeared I think. Given how the market is going to change in the next couple years (assuming all new MMOs aren't made of fail), I think Blizzard will start acting more sensibly.
Because it does give an advantage.
Maybe they will and this is certainly a possiblilty if they keep putting items, mounts, pets, etc that subscribers will buy. Honestly if we had the money we(my hubby, our son, and myself) would have the "pretty" pony. Currently it will just have to wait.
On the other hand it is also possible they are looking at a F2P. I mean after all how long now has it been since D3 has been in the works? It was supposed to be more along the lines of WoW as far as open world and the like. So maybe that is what is in store for it. Time will tell.
It is true they are definately looking at the market and what the gamers will and won't do. This pony is not hard to get but the 2 seater flying mount is. I mean you have to invite a friend who has to stay with WoW for X time before you can qualify for it. That means if you open a new account to get this useful mount then you have to keep it for a time anyway. But it is not account bound it is only going to be one of your characters. So this mount is more special. Might be a bit more costly to get but I am sure there will be some that will do this. Not as many as the pony but have already seen one on our server.
Webb made me realized that a 15 minute purchase window might mean that a lot of people in the ridiculous queue might not have ended up buying the steed. We actually don't have any good data on how many were bought as far as I know. We just know how many people queued themselves (assuming those numbers are accurate), but people could have had to requeued themselves several times or even changed their mind before the queue for them ended.
You are assuming that the new 'competition' won't have cash shops, as well. Given the success that WoW's is having, that is less likely than say - six months ago.
The other issue - as you pointed out - is customer inertia. Players are less likely to leave a game they have put a lot of time and money into, than to just refuse to start a new one with a cash shop.
Granted, but some games will have fewer cash shops than others. That will tend to encourage people to go to those games over time. Even though in many ways it seems like the Steed might have been a success for Blizzard, you have to remember that even if everyone in the queue bought a pony, then that's not even 5% of the population. Most of the players AREN'T using the cash shop and so aren't beholden to it and are open to the possibility of being turned off by it.
Also, let's say the sub models are all the same. Then you have cash shops. If one company has adventures sold in the shop, then those items are going to look a LOT more attractive to potential customers. Worst case scenario I think we'll at least see cash shops over much more reasonable bang for the buck. Lastly, GW2 will come out as an MMO with no sub fee. TOR, FFXIV, and WoW will have to compete with that.
Overall I think once the market gets more healthy by having actual competition, then the competition will tend to regulate the offerings in and out of potential cash shops so that things are far more reasonable.
I am curious Doubter, if a game had a Sub fee and a cash shop, but the shop only sold adventures (which might lead to items and such, but you'd have to play the game for it), would you consider that bad? What if it had two sub fees, and the higher fee gave you that stuff for free? I think competition in the market would push shops toward a model more like that.
Since I am completely against tiered memberships in mutliplayer games, I would not support a game that sold content individually. One fee, the same for all players. There is more than enough inequality in the real world, without having it jammed down our throats in a game we are paying to play.
I just want to say- Great Article... Normally the MMO.COM articles are....lacking at best and at worst are almost "advertisments".
You have told the truth about this disturbing trend... It will continue unless we stand up NOW.
I wish I could make this "Jabba-laughter" at this moment. Well, imagine it. ... The human mind always baffles me.
How the same thing is cute and cool in WOW and would make a nerdrage in LOTRO, how with a simple trick anyone can see people are made belief. How a in itself irrelevant thing like who spents his money on what even makes a news. I mean, last time I checked on what I spent my money is my private thing alone, no? A MMO developing company is no charity organisation! They are there to make profit, the more the better. Its what sports stars make as well, and the poor masses cheer for the millionaires. Such is the reality of men, thus it has always been since civilization began. But why humans are always so surprised by these age old mechanisms... must have something to do with human lifespans being to short to see the patterns.
As to the matter at hand: gold selling was widespread, way more than most would realize, so we all knew RMT would come to MMOs in the future. Now the future is here. As long as it is cosmetic stuff like mounts or so I dont care. Acutally I would prefer pay some cash instead of months of painful and dull ingame money grind and then focus my time on the more pleasurable parts of the game. I never shared this ideology of making cool mounts some endgame reward, because I never was interested in playing my maxxed out chars anymore. People need mounts early not when its almost game over. We can get what we can afford, thats capitalism. *shrug* The alternative crashed 1989. I know, because I was there. ;)
Ever go to a concert and then afterwards buy a t-shirt with the band's log on it? Ever buy a Star Wars figurine or a lightsaber? Ever buy a replica sword to hand on your wall? Ever gone on vacation and bring back souvenir hats, mugs or 'folklore art'?
It really is the same thing. You spend a decent chunk of cash on an item with little practical value because it 'looks good', 'looks cool' or 'holds fond memories'. It is all extra fluff that really has little impact on the 'big event' experience it is tied to but it makes us 'feel better' and we have something to show off to people who really do not care about those things at all.
Except all your examples are real, physical, tangible items. Items that can be held, like a photograph, that spur memories or feelings.
One doesn't watch a star wars movie, paying an extra 25 bucks to infuse it with more lightsabers. You're trying to blend two mediums- the visual and the physical...
It is a savings of 161 gold if you are at least level 70 and have already spent 5000 gold on an epic flying training. Otherwise it is a saving of 61 gold at level 60 after you have spent 250 gold on normal flying training. If you want to use the mount in Northrend you need to spend another 1000 gold. It is a saving of 1gold at level 20 for a normal ground mount and a saving of 10g at level 40 for epic ground mount.
If you have multiple alts this does not change as you have to still get flight training on every character before the mount upgrades. The saving on every character are proportionally very small compared to the amount you have to spent to get the savings and the savings are releatively small amounts (chump change) at the levels at which they become available.
That is two very separate and different things though.
Buying said items after a concert or movie are to capture a moment, like taking vacation photos. It is a keep sake that you can keep with you your whole life and maybe pass down to others. Its an item that, while maybe not valuable to others, might hold significant value to you as every time you look at it or hold it you are taken back to that moment.
Buying an ingame item is more akin to paying extra at the concert for the band to add more lasers/lights to the display. It might enhance the moment for some people, but ends up being a complete waste as when the concert is over so is the moment.
Basically you are compairing and item that captures the moment to an item that exists only in that moment. Two very different things.
In 1993 I bought a CD at a small punk concert in Mass. Even got the band to autograph it because I thought they were really good. It was a great show and an even better day because there were a bunch of us that had sort of an adventure that day. That CD is still in my collection and just looking at it makes me think of that day and all the fun we had.
I remember buying an Epic Mount in WoW a long time ago. Don't remember the details of that day for anything.
"For example, if Turbine announced tomorrow that you could buy a special pony mount in LoTRO for $25, there would be nerdrage visible from space."
LMAO! Best line ever!!
This... Makes no sense.
Ok. So you are cancelling based on principle. What principle is that? You don't like the idea of sub + item shop? You don't like item shops? You feel cheated?
And what rewards is this item granting beyond what you get by playing it? They say on the website it scales with level, so you will save yourself the cost of the basic land mount, epic land mount and basic flying mount and epic flying mount. AFAIK the 310% flying mount has requirements to it that require more to obtain. So it essentially is a RMT trade for Blizzard for a very few items.
So lets move on. Two years they have a full blown item shop. How does cancelling your account now save you subscription money based on an item shop? Did you not enjoy playing the game? If not, then you've been wasting money already.
You see, I am opposed to item shops for two reasons. 1, the majority (not all) require active participation in the item shop to remain competative or functional. 2, I am too damn poor to pay for crap. If I have the money for a sub to a game, then I pay for the game. But item shops are more difficult to manage with the limited budget to be within price and retain quality of gameplay.
Other than that, I dont care what they put up for whatever price. As long as I can remain as competative in an cash shop as I am in a sub based game for the same price, I dont care.
Of course I do. And should I somehow have my personal information compromised, the respective credit card company would take the necessary measures to correct the situation.
Similarly... If someone's account is hacked, Blizzard also will take necessary measures to correct the situation - should it be a legitimate case of an account being compromised.
In either case, the account in question could be compromised due to the careless use of said information by its owner, or it could be a case of legitimate theft. In neither case is it the credit card company's responsibility, or Blizzard's responsibilty, if you go entering your information, for example, into an unsecured website, or give your information to someone who then goes and runs up your account.
Regardless, that's not really a good comparison, MMO_Doubter. We're talking about an item that helps prevent an account from being compromised in the first place; probably even better than a credit card company's "theft protection" does, as it stops a would-be thief from accessing the account in the first place, unless they're really good at picking random codes in 30 second intervals. I've known of plenty of cases where people have their credit card info compromised and used despite having that "theft protection" on it. "Theft Protection" on a credit card is not fool proof.
Again... you seem to be making an argument here for it somehow being Blizzard's problem that their customers are careless with their own info and so it's their responsibility to "protect" them. No... It's each individual's responsibility to protect their personal information as well as they can.
Some people just want that extra protection. If you played WoW for 2+ years and invested a lot of blood, sweat, nerdrage, and tears into your characters, wouldn't you want them to be absolutely secure? You'd take all precautions and be extremely careful with your information, but the nagging possibility that something could happen would eat away at you until you saw Blizzard selling Authenticators. Suddenly, you'd realize that $6.50 (or whatever the price is) is worth it, and you'd pay up.
It's smart. I'm sure there are some people who are truly careless, and they expect Blizzard to keep their account secure for them. Honestly, though, it's not that hard to protect your information, and if you can't do it with an MMO, I don't know how you'll do it with things that really matter (like the example you gave).
I agree... I boutht a security token for WoW myself when I was playing... and I *do* take extra precautions with my information. I've never (knock on wood) had an account hacked, or information stolen. Regardless, the token is well worth it and provides peace of mind that there's that *one* extra layer of protection that a would-be thief couldn't likely get past even if they did get everything else.
I simply don't agree that Blizzard should be "giving them out for free" because a portion of their customers are careless with their own account info. Would it be nice? Sure. Is it a "bad thing" if they don't? I don't think so. Hell... if they charged $25 for a security token - like they do for their new mount - it would be worth it. I think they got the pricing backwards on that, personally.
"If any other game had done this, they would have been crucified."
Like:
- SOE selling backpacks for $20 or furniture bundles for $50 in EQ2?
- Wizard101 selling houses and mounts for $10+ bucks?
I'm sure gamers can bring up plenty of other examples.
No crucifixion, no media attention, the games are running along just fine. The gaming press wasn't dazzled by the pony, they just didn't think it was anything to be up in arms about. How many times have gamers paid extra for "Collectors Edition" of MMO launches or expansions to get those in-game items? Paid 15-20 more? You've essentially done the same thing that the buyers of WOW did, you paid extra for in-game items/RMT/Microtransaction or whatever you want to call it. MMO'ers have been doing it for years, its olds news. The fact that they are not waiting for expansion launches to sell these items is realitively new, but tis been going on for several years now as well.
This is not a big deal. If you feel its wrong, don't support it with your sub. If enough folks did it, they might change it back....who knows.
Actually SOE had their fair share of headaches from "media " ,first link for comments from mmorpg members .You can find many more media comment against SOE about stationcash if you search google for " soe stationcash" . It is all about double standards actually ,everyone else insulted/smacked/ for this microtransaction thing but when it is/was blizz everyone closed eyes .
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/214935
http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=16377
http://www.examiner.com/x-544-Games-Examiner~y2008m12d10-With-SOEs-Station-Cash-are-MMO-microtransactions-becoming-the-new-standard
This is EXACTLY the thoughts I had when I heard about the mount. You have become my new favorite columnist for this. There is nothing I disagree with.
I personally divide now games into those where you:
I agree wholeheartedly. Up until recently I had no problems with paying for a game's expansion or two. But this is going on the 3rd, which will most likely be full price ($50+) again. If I decide to keep going (which I probably will, let's be honest with ourselves here), the "full" game will have cost me $200+ by itself, not to mention how much I've paid in subscription fees. I honestly feel sorry for people just starting out. SC2 is gonna be worse.
Once again, I'd like to thank the money grubbing pricks at Activision for their influence on WoW's "recent" changes post BC. Not that BC was the greatest, but up until they joined up, the game was still about the quality and fun gameplay. Now it's just about the money and how long you can make players run the same content 70+ times a week.
I knew their merger was gonna be a bad idea and as time goes on, I'm seeing exactly what I thought would be coming. I miss the days when dungeons actually felt adventurous (Deadmines, Shadowfang Keep, Scholomance!!!!). Now it's just a race to see how fast you can get through them.
Don't get me wrong. I enjoy playing WoW. I think it's an excellent game. I just don't like the direction it's been going since WotLK and I sincerely hope that Cata will put the adventure feeling back into it.
One thing for sure, if they completely sell out and start selling dungeon access (a la DDO) via the store, I'm done for good. I refuse to pay a subscription AND pay for individual dungeon access.
You know....
I just blame the airlines for this "nickle and dime" crap. Ellen elaborates on this pay 2 play situation for us by describing how it works now with airlines, which...also wasn't always the case.
Ellen on the Airlines' Version of RMT
Hope that link works for ya...if not...it's Ellen's Monologue 04/28/10
Good point. But I think there can be a point where there isn't a lot of distinction between a "Cash Shop" and an "Expansion" or perhaps "mini-expansion." Obviously the shop would be offering fairly significant amounts of content per shop item for this to happen. I think it is obvious you'd be ok if they had expansions only available as an online download (which could be redownloaded as much as you wanted). So an expansion might cost what....40 bucks? What if they broke up the expansion into say...8 parts for 5 bucks each and you bought them over the course of two years. Would that necessarily be problematic?
Hmm, you'd probably have some of those purchasable content better than others which might cause problems that a "pay once and get everything" model would avoid.
Hmm. I think overall I'd prefer a cleaner model of just having a higher subscription cost if the game needs more revenue. Of course, revenue to survive isn't why big games do cash shops that are like WoW's or most (all?) others. That said, I'm not convinced that a Cash Shop necessarily needs to be a "Cash Grab". There's certainly a gray area between downloadable expansions and an buyable ponies.
There is no question that Blizzard will keep their subscription model while they introduce RMT, they want to have their cake and eat it.
That's excatly what I did, I went straight to my battlenet account page and unsubbed. But as they say I am only a dime in blizzard's cash cow flow.
I find it very suspicious when a company ventures into RMT and uses "it's for charity" to cover the fact that they are jumping into an arena that most of us hate. I think it is downright low and decietful to try to cover up your new business venture with a charity ploy and not give 100% of the proceeds to said charity. Is it not odd to anyone else that their fisrt footsteps into this arena were cleverly masked with a charity donation. 1.1mil is a drop in the bucket to Blizz specially considering most software companies do a 2 year development cost recoup, that gives Blizz 4 years of revenue - operating costs. Not to mention character recustomization, server transfers, faction change, name change etc. Its not about how much they contributed to charity its about how they went about it and how they used it Blizz giving charity 1.1mil is like me giving charity $11.
I was referring more to the current items and their prices. That said though you are correct that SOE took quite a few lumps initially, but there they are still moving forward. 10 million registered players on their game and still selling subs/expansions on their older games.
I wouldn't say everyone closed their eyes on Blizzard though. They have been doing pet sales and the TCG mounts for awhile, this wasn't really that earth shattering of an event.
Firstly I would like to say how good an article this is . It very much gets to the crux of the matter .
I've often wondered how far Blizzard can push RMT before Warcraft players stand up and say this is a step too far .
From what I've seen and read in these forums the answer is that Blizzard could introduce a cash shop selling non-vanity items and vast numbers of players would still argue that its a great thing for the game .
I don't think its likly we will see the sale of armor and weapons before the Cataclysm xpac but I think theres a strong possibility that it will happen within the year following its release .
How it will be justified is that the items will offered will be most likly the welfare epics for those people that don't want to waste hours earning them through battleground play etc . A short cut as it were .
In the meantime I think we will see such things as paid class transfers ( ie change your hunter to a rogue etc ) . This is something I suggested would happen in these forums a couple of years ago .At the time I remember many Warcraft fans saying it would never happen because it would be a step too far ( along incidently with faction changing , allowing players to have horde and alliance characters on the same servers and premium pets and mounts all have which become a reality ).
I guess all bets are now off and I'd imagine Blizzard have every intention of seeing how far they can go .
Seeing the way things are going I'm glad I gave up last year and if I get the urge to get Cataclysm and go back . I'm going to pinch myself and remember the push towards RMT which makes Warcraft a big No Go for me in future .
Is Blizzard that smart? Not really. But with such a reputation, they will fool anyone into buying whatever they want to sell at overprice. Why? Because people think Blizzard equals quality.
I'm going to assume that the author of the article wasn't actually excited over having to wait in a queue for the mount. But I'm certain many people thought that way. Would they react the same if some other company did a similar thing? Of course not.
And that's why Blizzard will keep on making lots of cash. They're not smarter, but bolder than other companies. Because the name they made for themselves lets them do this.
Let's just boil this down to a simple comparison based on the overall opinions from various sources I've been following on this subject (presented as the same person for both):
SoE/Turbine/everyone else RMT: "OMG, NO! This sucks. I can't believe that they've stooped this low. They're just want more money. I don't want to have to pay for additional content, even if there is no subscription fee. RMT ruins games and can't wait until I can come back to say "I told you so!" At least Blizz donated stuff from one of their pets. <insert company> is just nickel and diming their players. I'm going back to WoW"
WoW RMT: "Awesome. Best thing to ever come to an MMO since the action bar. $25 for a twilight pony that I still won't own as stated in the terms of usage? I don't wanna be accused of not being able to afford one and/or being a loser if I don't get one, so here's my money! I can't wait to see what else they add that I'll just HAVE to have!!!! I can't believe they didn't have a cash shop earlier in the game. The RMT is just another step in the direction of "UBERPWNAGE" WoW will have over all the other MMOs out there."
As I said, this article nails it dead on. I've seen this topic on several different forums on several websites and they all boil down to what I posted above.
If any other company does something that WoW doesn't, it's the worst thing ever and it's a game breaker.
If WoW ends up doing the same exact thing, it's the best thing ever and everyone else is just trying to copy them, despite the fact that they were doing it long before WoW.
90%+ of gamers are sheep. The other 10% either don't play WoW or at least have the common sense to not fall for this hypocricy and the "give us your money for something stupid" scams.
I agree with you that most believe Blizzard = quality, and yes making lots of good games has built the reputation...but I think back to the Apple of long ago, when taking that fact for granted ended up in god awful software; I hope Blizzard doesn't repeat some history.
And as for not being smart? Blizzard is very, very smart and they make money as a direct result. You could be the boldest, most well known person on earth...but if you run into the middle of the highway, you sure won't be sticking around long. Blizzard lasts because of planning, design, and smart people above all...the boldness comes in second :P
And at the end of the day, at least Square won't let me down :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCjuFpQ3EeA.
nuff said.
I think your right whats happening with Blizzard is a kind of Brand Loyalty . Its also proberbly a type of pier pressure amongst younger gamers too . When your at school you want to be different but you also need to fit in . So if WoW becomes the game everyones playing if you try something else you step outside of the box . ( think Butters in South Park playing hello kitty island lol ). This mount is has "the look at me factor" which all mmos have but pardoxically in the past when you've looked at someone in the game you've seen something they've worked to get .
This mount really is just a status symbol but relating to the size of the wallet so I wonder how the more serious WoW players view it .Its a bit like a kid showing off his trainers or what his mobile phone can do .
People when they think Blizzard do think quality but that can change very quickly and once thats gone in the long run it can lead to a companys decline . Single player games are a different matter to mmos and thus far Blizzard is a one trick pony in this genre . Maybe they realise this is as good as it gets and are making as much money as they can off of it before the bubble bursts .
Make the money while you can . I would be doing the same thing in their position . But as a gamer I would prefer to play a game by companys that show a little more credibility and stabilty in terms of game play .
At the end of the day you really never know where you stand in WoW because the goal-posts keep getting moved .
(Sorry for the double post. MMORPG.com's new comment system sucks hard. They need to either fix it or fire the guy who came up with the thing. It's auto-subbing when I hit space.)
I think that Blizzard won't give up subscription fees, because those help pay the overhead. Power, rent, etc. You use subs to keep your ship sailing.
They'll use RMTs to help pay for the cost of new content, though. I can see future expansions easily paid for with a small infusion of cash with new mounts, pets, heirloom items, etc. Nothing that would really rob end-game content, just give nice things to existing players and a hand up for newbies.
It's basically a perfect business model: you'll never need cash on-hand for projects, just a new RMT item to bankroll them. Your subs keep the lights on and the ramen noodles cooking in the break room. There's no "risk" because all you can do is waste RMT money on a failed project; you can always scavenge more money from more RMTs later, maybe fire failsauce programmers and the like for wasting money.
But there's a catch: you gotta sell this to the customers. If you make a whirlygig and nobody thinks they are worth buying, doesn't matter how good of a deal it is.
League of Legends. Its not exactly an MMO, but people buy the skins for their campion. Each skin can range 3$ to 10$.
I must admit, I myself buy these skins and when new champions release, I spend 10$ to buy the champion and their skins in one bundle.
But, the champions are free, it just costs "IP". (Gained from winning/losing matches)
I probably spent over 100$ on a F2P Game like League of Legends. The only thing that costs money in the game is Cosmetics, or Champion unlocks if you don't have enough IP.
I assure you, under the hypothetical situation that every subscriber was at the reduced rate (using this number because people tend to nerdrage if you use $15 across the board), I still highly doubt that expenses run $2bil+ a year (not including services, merchandise, stupid twilight ponies, etc.). An expansion maybe costs a couple million, but that's about it. They make that back in pure box sales.
It's about the money going into their pockets. Pure and simple.
this ......
Bli$$ard......needs reality check ....but with Diablo 3 and SC2 coming :(
this whole cash shop in a subscription based MMO is terrible. All this does is say to other developers that it's ok to make a CS inside a game that players pay to play. I think Blizzard should just go ahead and jack up the price of monthly subscriptions to $30/month to see how many would pay up.
I've been playing WoW since release. Off and on of course, resubbed several times, but in the end i'm still a paying subscriber.
What's going on right now in the MMO community is a direct effect of our real world economy.
I'm a smart and intelligent individual, but i'm not "educated" and because of this lack of "education" i cannot obtain the fund i deserve.
I play MMo's to not only kill time and entertain myself, but to be rewarded for my in-game actions and time invested.
MMO's were always about in-game achievements, not how big your real life wallet is ...
I think a lot of people feel the same way as you do and maybe not because they can't afford the item but because is defeats the object of the game .
The problem for Blizzard is they could easily go from being linked quality to exploitation .
At that point they destroy long term earnings for short term gain . Thats a very bad way to run a buisness unless you building a property up with the intention of selling it on .
I wonder . Maybe it'll be sold on to the likes of Time Warner .
^ What nobody seen my link to the real WOW pony, you guys know you want one these it's only $25
'Can polish make it OK to “double-dip” the consumer?'
That comment made my day :-)
Great article, interesting.
This is so stupid... if you don't like the mount don't buy it. It has zero effect on your experience in the game, it gives no one an edge over you except that they have a sparkle pony and you do not.
DON'T HAVE SPARKLE PONY ENVY
I think it's not so much the pony - most people couldn't care less whether someone shows up with a shiny pony or not - but more the direction Blizzard (Activision?) is gradually taking the game WoW that people are concerned about, step by taking it into acceptance of more and more RMT next to subs :-D
The little pony fits so nicely into the lore. Should have called it the "little phony".
Um...last i checked WoW was RTM for a while
Or do Race, Gender, And Faction changes not count?
Or pets
Make that 20 cents.
Fools and their money are soon parted....
again soundsl ike another great reason for me to tell my sister to #@$% off when she wants me to come back to wow again forcing me into their guild to 5 man raid with them...ugh...sickens me to think about it...
Just say NO to RMT! That's all I got to say about that...