No one saw this coming. At a minimal no one thought it would come this early. Blizzard dropped a huge bombshell yesterday: they are now officially in the business of microtransaction. The blog sphere was set ablaze by the change and WOW.com has covered it with multiple articles (here and here).
For the uninitiated, micro-transaction is a way for developer to earn income by exchanging something in the virtual world for real money. In Blizzard case, they released two none combat pets for the price of $10 each (which you buy at blizzard store). By doing this, blizzard erased the lines they previously draw in the sand. First, going forward Blizzard no longer maintained that virtual items carry no monetary values in the real world. Second, world of warcraft is no longer a pure subscription based MMO.
The problem with this developement is not if two none combat pets will harm our MMO. The real problem is where Blizzard will go from here. A none combat pet will only anger a few. But what will come next? If $10 pet is acceptable then is a dance move that ones don't pay worth $20? How about $30 for an epic flying mount? How about $40 for a raid dungeon only those pay can enter? How about $50 for an legendary sword? Everyone draw their lines differently but since the first one has been crossed we don't know exactly where it will end it. Many commenter hold the opinion as long as the item they are offering is not balance changing it should be allowed. I view this being a very narrow minded. Many activites in world of warcraft doesn't revolve around character balancing. Regardless it is achievements, mounts, or mini-pets. Although a few would consider giving additional pets for $20 is a problem, for hardcore pet collectors this almost become mandatory.
WOW has always been a game of have and have nots. We divide people by time, knowledge, age/maturity. From today forward, we will have a new category, those those are willing to hand over additional money to blizzard and those don't. I personally have yet to decide which side I will fall in.
3 comments:
You know Fara, I thought about this, and I think Blizzard knows just how far they can take the microtransactions. If they provide anything for pay that would give one player an advantage over another, the uproar caused by these vanity pets would be the least of their worries. As WoW gets older and loses players (as all MMOs eventually do), I think it would be more feasible for Blizzard to change the game from a PPM game to a F2P game, using exp buffs, RTM gold transactions, etc to keep the game going. But then again, I could be wrong.
I guess the line is where you have microtransactions providing a benefit characters couldn't get without alot of work, and that gives them an unfair advantage in competition.
For example, raids with an epic sword that was better than anything normally obtainalbe.
Or a set of arena gear.
Now here is where it could work IMO.
Use microtransaction (MT) to buy arena points or badges/emblems. Players can get these through normal means, it just takes some work. If i have 5 toons and Im' pretty rich i'd much rather gear up all 5 through MT than each one by one by a zillion dungeon runs.
Use MT for BOA gear. Nobody cares about leveling, and if you allow some items to make leveling easier be purchasable, then I think that's great. Especially if you dont need to buy them for each and every alt like w current BOA gear.
Use MT for pets. I guess I differ in the feeling that hardcore pet collectors absolutely need to buy the MT pets. Nobody is putting a gun to their head and saying they need to buy them. Pet collecting doesn't really give you an advantage, and frankly i doubt anyone cares how many pets you have.
D&D online uses MT now to fund the game. You can buy stuff to make leveling easier, but what they did do is make a buyable (from their store) leveling token that you need to get from say level 4-5 (its every 4 levels). Now i havent played the game enough but people are saying you can get the leveling token another way through grinding, it just takes longer. So in this game MT does create a player inbalance as far as leveling speed.
@Art
Let's hope you are right.
@Gibbie
What is valuable to you may not be valuable to someone else. The whole point I am trying to make is that after this is started it would be hard to stop.
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