Blizzard’s World of Warcraft is no stranger to costly in-game cosmetics, but its latest super expensive mount is so popular it’s causing a shortage of WoW Tokens in the in-game auction house.
A feature that costs Blizzard nothing, given an obscene price larger than any game or expansion they’ve ever sold, dangled with rationality-undermining time pressure, and using some bullshit tokens for artificial scarcity.
Only legislation will stop this.
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.
If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else.
Not unlimited, but certainly a lot of flexibility. As long as they don’t commit fraud, I think they should be allowed to provide whatever services their customers are willing to pay for.
That said, I won’t participate, and I’ll be vocal about calling out their terrible business models. But I won’t go so far as to suggest legislation to solve a “problem” of adults making poor choices. People should always be free to make stupid choices, provided those choices don’t hurt others. I am sympathetic to some limits around kids, but those limits shouldn’t apply to adults. So maybe slap an “M” rating on a game if it has microtransactions or something and restrict direct sales to underage kids (enforcement should be lax though to avoid privacy violations).
The indie game scene is vibrant, and there are still plenty of AAA games without that nonsense. So play those and send a message to these companies that non-abusive games are absolutely still wanted. Also, be vocal about these exploitative practices by companies to convince others to avoid their products.
Choice does not excuse systemic abuse for profit. People choose scams all the time. That’s how they work!
As previously mentioned, fuck them kids. This is about abuses committed against adults. This is about the central nature of games, and how they invent value, of a sort completely incompatible with cash money. The exchange rate between enchanted scimitars and hamburgers is nonexistent.
There’s no technical reason to connect remote auctioneering to this… horse. Blizzard does it so they can gouge people you’ve given a derisive label. Every player is affected. Every player knows this is possible, and the overwhelming majority of them are denied. The game was made objectively worse for them, through their engineered dissatisfaction, specifically to bilk some tiny fraction for unreasonable quantities of money. Enough money, per person in that tiny group, to make kneejerk excuses like ‘just boycott!’ utterly useless.
Being vocal doesn’t matter - the money talks louder.
Only legislation will fix this.
I don’t think you disagree with that. You don’t want the problem fixed. You’re denying the problem is a problem, even as you describe “whales” like you’d describe “problem gamblers” or “scam victims.” So what if they made bad choices? You didn’t. It was easy, apparently. Good choices abound! Therefore, rampant exploitation of human frailty doesn’t count.
And I think Blizzard recognizes that WoW has largely run its course, so it’s trying to extract maximum profit from those who remain. That’s what happens when a company shifts from innovation to profit maximization, and it should be a signal for players to move on.
‘just boycott!’ utterly useless
It’s only useless if your metric for success is Blizzard changing their behavior. But if you shift your metric of success to “less predatory companies are viable,” it can absolutely be a success.
Depending on your metric of “success,” maybe legislation is the only option. But we don’t need every company to behave “properly” (however you define that) in order to have a competitive market for games. If you look beyond the handful of top-grossing games w/ manipulative in-game stores, you’ll find a vibrant market of games to play.
“scam victims.”
A scam is something else entirely. “Problem gambling” is largely a choice, and if you ask any gambler, they’ll be able to confirm that they understand that the casino always wins eventually, but that they continue to play because they think “this time will be different.” However, if you ask a scam victim, they’ll tell you they thought the scammer was legitimate and continued because they honestly believed they were making a good choice. Those are very different things.
Games fall under the “problem gambling” umbrella (players know what they’re paying for), not the “scam” umbrella (it’s rare for players to not know what they’re getting for their money). If there are incidents of the latter (e.g. loot boxes with lower than advertised odds of getting something of value), those should be aggressively litigated by regulators, and honestly anything where there isn’t a guarantee (i.e. not paying X to get Y product) should be considered “gambling” and regulated as such (restricted for minors, age verification required, etc).
Spending $90 for a mount is a stupid decision, but it’s not a fraudulent transaction if you get the mount when you pay. I don’t think that should be regulated, but it should spark outcry from news orgs and players and push people away from the game.
I see spending stupid amounts of money on a game to be similar to spending stupid amounts of money on any other vanity purchase, like lifted trucks, designer clothing, or expensive jewelry. If you want to buy those things, you should absolutely be allowed to, even if a lot of people would say it’s a stupid idea if they understood your finances. Adults must be free to make stupid choices, and the only limits IMO should be if you were deceived and wouldn’t have made the choice if you had more accurate information.
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.
I wouldn’t go that far, otherwise you would also kill off essentially third parties producing content a la Second Life or the asset stores in various game engines as well as services provided by players to other players.
You are advocating for a game specific solution to a general capitalism problem. It would be much better to ban absurdly high profit margins in general than to be extremely heavy-handed in the game industry and let the problem continue in all the other areas where it actually matters a lot more.
A feature that costs Blizzard nothing, given an obscene price larger than any game or expansion they’ve ever sold, dangled with rationality-undermining time pressure, and using some bullshit tokens for artificial scarcity.
Only legislation will stop this.
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.
If we allow this to continue, there will be nothing else.
Disagree. Let the whales waste their money, I have plenty of other options. In fact, indie gaming is better than it has ever been.
I certainly don’t like that type of revenue model, but I don’t think it should be banned, especially since the alternatives are plentiful and growing.
You’re a libertarian who has personally told me corporations have unlimited right to manipulate people out of their money.
Sorry if I’m misremembering - you might’ve said “exploit.”
Not unlimited, but certainly a lot of flexibility. As long as they don’t commit fraud, I think they should be allowed to provide whatever services their customers are willing to pay for.
That said, I won’t participate, and I’ll be vocal about calling out their terrible business models. But I won’t go so far as to suggest legislation to solve a “problem” of adults making poor choices. People should always be free to make stupid choices, provided those choices don’t hurt others. I am sympathetic to some limits around kids, but those limits shouldn’t apply to adults. So maybe slap an “M” rating on a game if it has microtransactions or something and restrict direct sales to underage kids (enforcement should be lax though to avoid privacy violations).
The indie game scene is vibrant, and there are still plenty of AAA games without that nonsense. So play those and send a message to these companies that non-abusive games are absolutely still wanted. Also, be vocal about these exploitative practices by companies to convince others to avoid their products.
Choice does not excuse systemic abuse for profit. People choose scams all the time. That’s how they work!
As previously mentioned, fuck them kids. This is about abuses committed against adults. This is about the central nature of games, and how they invent value, of a sort completely incompatible with cash money. The exchange rate between enchanted scimitars and hamburgers is nonexistent.
There’s no technical reason to connect remote auctioneering to this… horse. Blizzard does it so they can gouge people you’ve given a derisive label. Every player is affected. Every player knows this is possible, and the overwhelming majority of them are denied. The game was made objectively worse for them, through their engineered dissatisfaction, specifically to bilk some tiny fraction for unreasonable quantities of money. Enough money, per person in that tiny group, to make kneejerk excuses like ‘just boycott!’ utterly useless.
Being vocal doesn’t matter - the money talks louder.
Only legislation will fix this.
I don’t think you disagree with that. You don’t want the problem fixed. You’re denying the problem is a problem, even as you describe “whales” like you’d describe “problem gamblers” or “scam victims.” So what if they made bad choices? You didn’t. It was easy, apparently. Good choices abound! Therefore, rampant exploitation of human frailty doesn’t count.
And I think Blizzard recognizes that WoW has largely run its course, so it’s trying to extract maximum profit from those who remain. That’s what happens when a company shifts from innovation to profit maximization, and it should be a signal for players to move on.
It’s only useless if your metric for success is Blizzard changing their behavior. But if you shift your metric of success to “less predatory companies are viable,” it can absolutely be a success.
Depending on your metric of “success,” maybe legislation is the only option. But we don’t need every company to behave “properly” (however you define that) in order to have a competitive market for games. If you look beyond the handful of top-grossing games w/ manipulative in-game stores, you’ll find a vibrant market of games to play.
A scam is something else entirely. “Problem gambling” is largely a choice, and if you ask any gambler, they’ll be able to confirm that they understand that the casino always wins eventually, but that they continue to play because they think “this time will be different.” However, if you ask a scam victim, they’ll tell you they thought the scammer was legitimate and continued because they honestly believed they were making a good choice. Those are very different things.
Games fall under the “problem gambling” umbrella (players know what they’re paying for), not the “scam” umbrella (it’s rare for players to not know what they’re getting for their money). If there are incidents of the latter (e.g. loot boxes with lower than advertised odds of getting something of value), those should be aggressively litigated by regulators, and honestly anything where there isn’t a guarantee (i.e. not paying X to get Y product) should be considered “gambling” and regulated as such (restricted for minors, age verification required, etc).
Spending $90 for a mount is a stupid decision, but it’s not a fraudulent transaction if you get the mount when you pay. I don’t think that should be regulated, but it should spark outcry from news orgs and players and push people away from the game.
I see spending stupid amounts of money on a game to be similar to spending stupid amounts of money on any other vanity purchase, like lifted trucks, designer clothing, or expensive jewelry. If you want to buy those things, you should absolutely be allowed to, even if a lot of people would say it’s a stupid idea if they understood your finances. Adults must be free to make stupid choices, and the only limits IMO should be if you were deceived and wouldn’t have made the choice if you had more accurate information.
I wouldn’t go that far, otherwise you would also kill off essentially third parties producing content a la Second Life or the asset stores in various game engines as well as services provided by players to other players.
Developing a video game is not “inside a video game.”
When somebody’s playing raid sherpa or whatever, pay them in gold.
Even if stopping this cuts off some legitimate niche - that beats letting it swallow the entire industry.
You are advocating for a game specific solution to a general capitalism problem. It would be much better to ban absurdly high profit margins in general than to be extremely heavy-handed in the game industry and let the problem continue in all the other areas where it actually matters a lot more.
This specific business model is a scam, regardless of which numbers we twiddle.