The Chinese WoW community is in turmoil. Blizzard is taking away a payment option, and many players are up in arms.
Players’ Outcry: Subscription in China without Alternative Option
When it comes to payment methods in MMORPGs, different continents are each cases on their own. In America and Europe, a subscription usually makes for a comfortable experience, but Free2Play is also well received. In China, however, they swear by a “per hour” payment model. But that will be disabled tomorrow, on August 4th, in China. Then World of Warcraft will also adopt a subscription model in China. Long-term players have been looking forward to this, as those who play more than 100 hours per month can benefit from it. All others, who only occasionally play for an hour in the evening, will come out as losers from this change.
The Chinese players can still use their previously purchased playtime until 2018 “as usual” or convert it into days for their subscription. 150 minutes of purchased playtime equal one day of subscription.
Especially in contrast to Taiwan and Korea, players now feel disadvantaged. There, both systems run parallel – players can choose between a subscription and hourly payment.
Mein-MMO believes: It would be easy, from our perspective, to claim that “the Chinese should just toughen up”, after all, the rest of the world also has a subscription model. However, this does not do justice to the situation, as China has had the model of hourly payments for years – and there are good reasons for that. Many “casuals” there simply lack the funds. Now they are forced to pay as much each month as they might have spent over several months otherwise – and this will inevitably lead to a decline in players. What has motivated Blizzard and the local publisher Netease remains a matter of speculation.
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