Although World of Warcraft remains one of the most successful MMORPGs on the market, Blizzard is continually seeking new monetization opportunities. For some fans, it has become too much.
How does WoW monetize? Blizzard’s MMORPG still requires a mandatory monthly subscription after all these years. Although you can pay the fee with an earned WoW Token, you need to pay significantly more than 300,000 Gold on a European server for that (Source: wowtoken.app).
What you need to know: Blizzard is pleased when someone pays their subscription with a WoW Token. This means that another player has spent 20 euros on the token to sell it to the WoW fan for gold. Since the subscription normally costs about 11 to 13 euros per month (depending on the duration of the subscription), the developers are making a significant profit here.
The subscription is supplemented by paid expansions, special editions of the new Classic variant, paid services like character upgrades, transfers or faction and race changes, and the sale of cosmetic items in the in-game shop. The latter has significantly increased with the introduction of housing.
Since the various versions of WoW are still being played by millions of players worldwide around the globe, one can assume that WoW remains a very good business for Blizzard.
“Just embarrassing to watch”
What is the community criticizing? Main-Strike-1117 summarizes the criticism well with his post on Reddit: “The aggressive monetization of this game is causing me to lose my love for it.” He has been playing WoW since Burning Crusade and finds it just embarrassing to see how “much Blizzard is currently trying to squeeze every last cent from players.”
Main-Strike-1117 also describes specifically what is different now than a few years ago:
- Expansions are coming out faster, so you have to pay for them more often. The price remains consistently high. The fast pace comes at the cost of quality, Patch 12.0.5 is considered one of the most bug-ridden updates in a long time.
- What almost always works perfectly, is the shop, which is filling up with more and more items thanks to housing. Currently, you can spend a lot of money for a new treehouse. The cozy treehouse refuge package costs a smooth 7,500 Home Tokens. 100 Home Tokens cost one euro in the shop. That’s 75 euros. The cheaper variant is priced at 4,000 Home Tokens (Source: eu.shop.battle.net).
- The player also criticizes that simple services like a faction change, which happen automatically, have cost so much money for years.
- Main-Strike-1117 also has the misfortune of having to pay for his WoW subscription in pounds. He is directly affected by the recent increases in subscription prices (details can be found on blizzard.com).
Under his post, Main-Strike-1117 receives a lot of support. The more than 3,575 thumbs up and over 900 comments underline this. For some players, it is even clear that various issues and features have been ignored for years because they do not generate money. SurpriseSoda writes on Reddit:
There are so many obvious little things that they clearly ignore because they don’t make money. No customization options, glyphs, class fantasy, different classic races or toys – just the absolute minimum to check off the claim that they added something. I have to rotate and stack decorative objects to painstakingly build a gnome house, and still can’t construct anything even remotely close to the new model that costs as much as the entire game itself.
And the money they earn from it doesn’t even flow back into the game, but directly into the development of the next housing part.
How does MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz evaluate the monetization? I have criticized Blizzard for years for constantly expanding WoW’s payment model, although the mandatory subscription remains. In my opinion, games with a subscription should automatically offer all content and services at no additional cost. Those who want to have an in-game shop and such should instead switch to a free-to-play model.
And because the WoW Token introduces a real money component into the economy that has a pay-to-win aspect and has never been able to sustainably solve other issues such as bots or real money trading.
I therefore understand the frustration of Main-Strike-1117. Especially when I look at the subscription increase in his region and the mixed state of the recent subscription. What do you think? Feel free to let me know in the comments! If you want to know more, check this out: WoW is currently suffering from a disastrous patch, much is broken – And right now, Blizzard wants a lot of money for housing items
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