World of Warcraft's monetization seems to be getting way more aggressive
World of Warcraft's monetization seems to be getting way more aggressive
The monetization of World of Warcraft has evolved significantly since I played during Burning Crusade over 10 years ago. Back then, the model was straightforward - you bought the expansion and paid a subscription fee. That was all you needed to access 100% of the game's content.
Today, I'm noticing through my friends' Discord group that the purchasing model has become much more complex. Beyond the base expansion packs and subscriptions, there are now early access passes, limited-time mounts (like a $90 dinosaur mount), and promotional tie-ins with products like Mountain Dew and Doritos that offer exclusive cosmetic items. Some players are even buying these promotional codes in bulk to resell online.
Example above, someone paid over $200 just to get some of the mountain dew codes..... This shift in monetization strategy raises interesting questions about the direction of the game and MMOs in general. While additional cosmetic options can add variety and personal expression to the game, I wonder about the impact on the player experience and community. Does having these exclusive items create a divide between players who can afford them and those who can't? Or is it simply offering more choices for those who want them?
I'm particularly curious about the psychological aspect of limited-time offers. The "fear of missing out" seems to be a powerful motivator, especially with items that are advertised as never being available again. But is this enhancing the game experience or just creating artificial scarcity?
Looking forward to hearing different perspectives on this, especially from others who've witnessed this evolution firsthand. What do you think about the current monetization approach compared to the simpler model of the past? Has it affected how you engage with the game?
TLDR: WoW's monetization has changed dramatically from the simple expansion + subscription model of the past to include various limited-time purchases and promotions. People today are scalping and reselling thousand of dollars of mountain dew for in game codes
My man. Half your post history is about shit-talking MMOs and modern gaming, including repeated posts and contradictory claims.
It's irritating how low effort AA+ games are these days
Not trying to sound like I have rose tinted glasses or whatever but lots of my favorite AA+ games, including AAA, are so low effort now. My favorite game ever is World of Warcraft, and it’s just shocking seeing how little content you get for your $15 a month. [...]
How did Call of Duty get to this point?
Since I’m a WoW addict, naturally I’m a Blizzard fan, of sorts. But my mind is blown every time I see anything from Call of Duty on the launcher. I’ve been really out of the loop, and recently saw this… and I’m shocked. You have to BUY the game for “open beta access”, like how does that make any sense? Also, the general look of the game and its marketing now looks like a $5 ripoff FPS game on Steam… What the heck happened?
Is Elder Scrolls 6 doomed to fail? I can't see how it will work
After the massive blunder of Starfield, I cannot see how Elder scrolls 6 could possibly be successful. [...] But this has not been the first time that Bethesda as a whole has failed, and is in fact the third strike. [...]
Why Do People Still Play Destiny 2?
With the release of “The Final Shape,” the main storyline has concluded, and it seems like the developers are now just churning out random content and seasonal passes without a clear direction for the game’s future. I’m genuinely curious about what motivates players to stick around. Are there aspects of the game that still offer value or enjoyment, or are players simply holding on in hopes of something more substantial? What keeps them engaged with Destiny 2 despite its apparent lack of a clear path forward?
Is overwatch 2 really that bad?
I’ve played maybe 10 hours total of Overwatch 2 and it is incredibly boring (to me). [...]
Do people actually starve themselves to play games like World of Warcraft?
This is definitely one of the strangest cash grabs I've ever seen
Honkai Star Rail, a free-to-play gacha game (basically, gambling game of chance) in which players spend anywhere from $5 to $10,000 to get characters, gear, equipment… [...]
Gacha games are out of control. Gambling shouldn't be so widespread
As someone who grew up playing games like World of Warcraft and other AAA titles, I’ve seen how the gaming industry has evolved over the years—and not always for the better. One of the most disturbing trends is the rise of gacha games, which are, at their core, thinly veiled gambling systems targeting younger players. And I think it’s time we have a serious conversation about why this form of gaming needs to be heavily restricted, if not outright regulated.
People seem to really dislike Destiny 2. Why haven't they ended it yet?
I think Sims is a dead franchise now
After being incredibly disappointed by the release of Sims 4, I was someone holding out hope for Sims 5 that they would have realized, “Hey, people really didn’t want us to do anything multiplayer in Sims 4. Maybe that means we should go back and make an actual good Sims game?” But instead, we get this awful news that Sims will be just like Fortnite, heavily monetized with its own store, basically following the model of Fallout games with creation club, in a sense. Completely the opposite of what players asked for, and crushing all of our hopes and dreams of playing a new Sims game that’s just like Sims 3… [...]
Starfield's first DLC is one of the worst Bethesda DLCs of all time
Starfield steam page for the DLC currently shows eight user review score of 41%, making this one of the worst Bethesda DLC’s released of all time. This is so horribly, shockingly bad for Bethesda, because it shows as a gaming company, they are no longer capable of delivering a really good gaming experience as they had in the past. [...]
Corporate greed is killing RuneScape. What do people play instead?
RuneScape was my favorite game of all time when I was a kid. I’d play it for at least 8 hours a day every day, and never get bored. Now, RuneScape is RuneScape 3, terribly infested gambling microtransaction mess that looks like a really bad early access game, or Oldschool RuneScape, which is really fun, but is infested with bots. [...]
I'm tired of every game being live service
I’m really frustrated with how almost every new game these days is being forced into this “live service” model. It seems like no matter what type of game you want to play—whether it’s an RPG, shooter, or even something traditionally single-player—you’re stuck with always-online requirements. And for what? It adds nothing to the experience for most players and, if anything, it makes the game worse. [...]
My mental health has improved after deleting games that have microtransactions in them
After playing World of Warcraft for 15 years, I started becoming increasingly bored and disgruntled with the game. The game being grindy and repetitive is no real surprise, I mean it’s an MMO. But the one thing that was really frustrating was paying monthly for a subscription and a huge chunk of cash for an expansion, but still having extra stuff flashed in my face all the time that was simply not possible to earn in-game. [...] So I ditched every game that had any element of an in-game purchase. This is honestly helped my mental health a huge, huge amount. Now, I only play games that either have no microtransactions in them at all, or are completely free and 100% possible to play with no purchase required at all. So games like team fortress, deadlocked, Stardew Valley, and many other indie games that you can purchase and then never have to worry about getting suckered into the microtransaction cycle for
Corporate greed is killing RuneScape
Out of my friends list of 45 people, I know that’s not a lot but still, small list of friends that I have that have played this game actively since the very beginning, two of them still play the game and one of them does not even subscribe full-time. Only when there’s a major update… When I asked every single one of my friends why they no longer play anymore the same exact reason was said. “They were taking over by an investment company, and now it just seems like a silly cash grab. They keep raising the prices, keep missing the mark, don’t listen to players.” <<< One of my friends said this to me… [...]
7 days to die is no longer Early Access, but still looks like this
Why is World of Warcraft so goofy looking? (deleted)
And also my personal favourite:
Fields of Mistria is one of the most impressive games I've ever played
As a long-time Stardew Valley fan, I never thought I’d find a game that could capture my heart quite the same way. Fields of Mistria has done just that. I’m honestly blown away by how good this game is
note: just a random fan, have nothing to do with this game at all. It kinda saddens me that it hasn’t gotten as much attention though, there are so many mediocre games with soooo many reviews… this game is legit insane. it’s gorgeous!!Fields of Mistria review: A boring, soulless Stardew reskin
BEFORE DOWNVOTING ME, PLEASE READ: This is my opinion, you can disagree with it all you want, but it would be really nice to at least respect what I have to say just the same as I respect that people really enjoy this game I played this game before I started Stardew Valley, I have never played either of them, the look and feel of Stardew did not really appeal to me. So I decided to try this game. Instantly love the anime style characters and graphics of the game, love the color palette, love the world design. It’s beautiful. So that was what really drew me in…
What a change of heart! You seemed to really enjoy Fields of Mistria the 7th of October, because it clicked with you as a "long-time Stardew fan". Yet the 11th of November you said that you played Mistria BEFORE Stardew, and that you never played either of them because the look of them didn't appeal to you, and you gave Mistria a 4/10.
And yet the 10th October you said that:
I only play games that either have no microtransactions in them at all, or are completely free and 100% possible to play with no purchase required at all. So games like [...] Stardew Valley
The two posts are choke full of contradictory claims, so I'm just stopping here... For this one.
[continues]
If you feel like an user may be a bot, please report it to a mod so we can put said user under observation in order to access its behavior.
Your comment seem well documented, but that's something that should be sent to the mods via PM, not posted on the open.
If you were wrong, and he was legit, you'd have triggered an harassment campaign against him by encouraging others to just conclude he must be a bot because someone said so with a lengthy comment they don't have the time to fully check.Edit: clarifying why this shouldn't be done that way, as my previous take was kinda harsh (I was a bit tired)
But there are other examples as well! 16th of August:
Another game that I have really come to enjoy lately is Genshin impact from Hoyo. This is a gacha game, But it’s still relatively fun to play with no monetary investment at all because of how generous they are with being able to obtain the in-game currency, the entire storyline basically is available without any paywall. Cannot say this for a lot of games.
And 15th of September:
It’s funny that you mentioned Genshin because it’s probably one of the most predatory of all. Star rail isn’t really that bad, has much more generous pity. The new game that Hoyo just put out, however, zenless, is fucking terrifyingly predatory.
There's also the fact that you "accidentally" used AI to slip in wrong misinformation in your posts, such as Monthly subscription costs are no longer affordable (deleted, but can still be seen in your profile history)
Thanks for pointing that out. My math was horribly off here. That’s what I get for using Google sheets to try and work this out myself :( I corrected it. I was accidentally multiplying by something without realizing it.
Was it Google Sheets or Google's Gemini shit? Oh, wait, it was not Gemini. It was Claude.
Are you sure about that? This is a huge amount of information. I put all the facts into Claude and asked it who was correct, you or me. It told me I’m correct based on the facts provided to it. So even a multi million dollar language learning model came to the same conclusion I did.
It honestly seems to me that you are either trolling, or using an AI to generate catchy rage-bait posts. To what purpose, I don't know, but you certainly are not engaging in good faith with the community.
CALLED THE FUCK OUT
Archived for when OP deletes this post too: https://archive.is/ClLBn
Edit: seems they elected to delete their account instead. Oh well, I suppose with that name they didn't intend to think before posting anyway.
Thanks for contributing in unneccessary witch hunting. You've shown that Lemmy can be just as petulant and inhospitable as reddit. Nothing I have ever written is AI generated, such a weird criticism and hilarious to lob that at someone considering that even million dollar tech companies who have made "ai detectors" have failed spectacularly with false positives. But you dislike what I say so you're 100% correct, right? yea that makes sense dude sure.
It's amusing to me how you felt the need to write this incredibly long "shame on you" rant, like you were really that bothered by some words you saw that you had to write up a long witch hunt and try to harass me.
What is your obsession with WoW? First you make multiple posts about the costs vs. investing that money, now this? Didn't you also complain about the art style changing, even though multiple people said it's always been like that?
You really just need to understand that different people have different feelings.
The game uses every type of dark pattern there is to make you log on every day and soak up all your time.
How so? I actually think in recent years, they've gone away from making you log in all the time, with less daily quest and much better catch up mechanics, so it doesn't matter too much if you don't play for weeks or even months.
That could be true, I quit during battle for azeroth
The amount you complain about WoW you should probably just quit the game, if you're even playing it. Also why do you keep making topics and then deleting them? You complained about subscriptions, and now you're complaining about optional additional cosmetic content.
Like 99% of the community likely doesn't care about promotional stuff. You can just pay the game and subscription and get access to all gameplay features just fine. If someone spends hundreds of bucks to get some useless promotional item, then let them. It doesn't affect my gameplay.
Yeah, you can buy a mount from the store that saves you like a 2 minute walk or flight to your closest auction house, ironically I've never ever seen anyone even use these mounts outside of the cities that have actual auction houses, they're usually just next to a mailbox or bank across the street of the auction house.
The fact that these things sell is probably one reason why subscriptions in the past 20 years haven't rising in the first place.
This has been a thing since TCG mounts and pets... back in TBC.
I won't bother with any more of an argument since you'll probably nuke this thread, too. I suggest you stop flapping your butt about WoW and go find a game you enjoy that respects your time and money.
World of Warcraft's monetization seems to be getting way more aggressive
of course it is. it's a microsoft property now.
I think you're looking at this through rose-tinted glasses.
In my opinion mounts, pets, toys or whatever don't count as content, so in that case, you still get everything with the expansion and a sub.
But even if you think it's content, back in the day you also already had Collectors edition mounts and pets, the stuff from Blizzcon (before it was digital), TCG codes, etc. Not much different than today I think.
Idk what point you're trying to get across. Back in TBC everything was in game. Every mount and cosmetic. There was no shop. Collectors edition obviously existed, sure. How is cosmetics and mounts not content? It's part of the game lol
Not exactly true. There were mounts you could only get from buy the trading cards (spectral tiger being the most popular)
While additional cosmetic options can add variety and personal expression to the game
I guess if bragging about spending extra money to advertise for some company is personal expression, sure.
I just started playing WoW again and I don't feel any pressure from the supposed "dark patterns", or having to buy this stuff (which I can't, because I'm not in the US). It has zero effect on my gameplay. WoW is fun and addicting in a sense for sure, but there are way worse MMOs when it comes to this. Just look at any Korean MMO, like Black Desert Online. I'd even argue ESO is way worse than WoW when it comes to monetization.
Yeah it's the same when people say this about FFXIV, which does have an extensive money-shop for extra mounts/animations/skins/etc.
They're pricey as hell, but at the same time the only thing you ever might feel pressured into getting are:
- Fantasia (character do-overs) after enough years because you feel like you've seen enough of this face and want another one and want to finally become a cat-girl like everybody else is! The game does however give you two for free, and we're soon getting a third one, at least temporarily.
- Character boosts if your friends are being assholes and berate you for not skipping the story (seen it happen), instead of what 99% of the community does which is the exact opposite. 😅
World of War craft would rather you have diabetes by the looks of things.
Meanwhile Final Fantasy XIV is doing a collaboration with hair dye.