The price increases by Blizzard in World of Warcraft and Hearthstone annoy many players. Including our house demon.
Once again, we have gathered here to vent a bit about Blizzard. Well, actually that’s just me doing it and you have to deal with what I present to you here – but you get the idea.
In recent weeks, Blizzard announced that the prices for additional character services, mounts, and pets in World of Warcraft as well as the prices for card packs and arena rounds in Hearthstone will be increased. The increases range between 4% and 25%, depending on the service offered.
While in World of Warcraft you can still console yourself that these are merely optional services, that’s a whole different matter for Hearthstone.
Of course – strictly speaking, purchases in Hearthstone are also optional – but for a large portion of the player base, they are not. Many of my acquaintances choose to throw down 40€ or 50€ at the launch of an expansion to treat themselves to a big stack of card packs. For those who don’t have the time to complete their quests every three days or only check out the game at the start of an expansion, Hearthstone is now significantly more expensive.
Especially the justification I find flimsy. If Blizzard really “regularly looks at the local and regional markets and makes price adjustments,” I wonder what rhythm this happens in – every 10 years? Or why didn’t they do this when the Euro was a bit stronger? No, don’t tell me – the answer is obvious without words.
Of course, prices for digital goods are always a tricky matter, and finding a healthy middle ground that satisfies all players is probably simply impossible. Just making everything more expensive across the board does not strike me as the right way to make anyone – except Blizzard – happy.
Ultimately, I still believe that Blizzard will make larger profits from it. The dissatisfaction about the price increase will probably stay in the players’ memories for a month or two, before they are overwhelmed by the cuteness of the next shop pet. The problem with this? I still love both games way too much to give them up. Grrr.
What do you think about the price increases? Justified and perfectly normal or unjustified and just a “cash grab”?
