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How/why hasn't WoW's subscription price increased in 15 years?
- Thread starter Digital-Kill3r-7
- Start date
My feeling is that the main reason this many people are still paying a $15 subscription is that they've been doing so for years. The subscription fee now being raised would be a great way to lose even more subscribers.
Seeing how they've always charged for services like realm transfers or faction changes, and considering how many cosmetic items they sell on the store (as well as selling gold through tokens), they don't really have to increase the subscription, either. I find it far more likely that the game eventually goes free to play and they add in more in-game purchases.
Seeing how they've always charged for services like realm transfers or faction changes, and considering how many cosmetic items they sell on the store (as well as selling gold through tokens), they don't really have to increase the subscription, either. I find it far more likely that the game eventually goes free to play and they add in more in-game purchases.
Why are people in this forum obsessed with corporations making more money? Making everything more expensive doesn't necessarily increase your revenue, not every company is Apple.
Besides, we live in a world were free to play + microtransactions is far easier to digest for consumers than paying a monthly fee.
Besides, we live in a world were free to play + microtransactions is far easier to digest for consumers than paying a monthly fee.
I think people are far less likely to pay a sub for a game now than they were before. Probably wouldn't be smart to risk making the existing ones mad.
The mental image of this hypothetical weird family where mom, dad and all four of the kids play WoW for ten years straight, is so ridiculous that it's amazing.
Contrary to what Jim Sterling says, corporations aren't stupid enough to kill a golden goose if it's not necessary.
honestly I've never wondered why they haven't increased the sub price, I've only wondered the opposite - why they haven't gone F2P and doubled down on microtransactions (obviously because they've still got plenty of paying subs, but I'd expect that before a sub price hike, which will never happen)
Burning their most dedicated fans like that would make their future projects from Blizzard a very difficult sell, particularly online games that require some kind of investment from the player.
From my experience a lot of players still playing are only subscribed out of habit or the social connection to other players they've known for a long time, any sort of aggressive change like a price hike would be used as an incentive to finally leave a game they haven't enjoyed for some time and that would create a ripple effect from guilds collapsing and matchmaking becoming more difficult for the rest of the players.
From my experience a lot of players still playing are only subscribed out of habit or the social connection to other players they've known for a long time, any sort of aggressive change like a price hike would be used as an incentive to finally leave a game they haven't enjoyed for some time and that would create a ripple effect from guilds collapsing and matchmaking becoming more difficult for the rest of the players.
That's easier to model; calculate lifetime ARPU for all the current MTX/services, then you'd have a benchmark of the F2P growth you'd need to get to justify switching to F2P.
Hint: ARPU on MTX/Services is almost certainly very low ($0 - $2 lifetime), while ARPU for current subscribers is $15 per month at minimum, with lifetime value being much, much higher.
The subscription is a floor for player ltv and a lot of their offerings - various account services, cosmetics, etc - drive revenue from more engaged players. As they've run the game, I'm sure their marginal cost per user has fallen dramatically such that their profit off of the subscription is up, even in "real" dollars. I bet there is far more discussion within Blizzard about removing the subscription altogether rather than increasing the price. That decision likely has a lot to do with user (re)acquisition costs, the performance of their (at the moment) secondary offerings, and learnings from games like Heroes of the Storm.
yeah but that assumes all things being equal if they were to switch to an F2P with mtx model, which it obviously wouldn't for the reasons you stated. they would monetize much more aggressively and still offer an optional sub, probably, something like SWTOR does (although probably not AS aggressively, that game is super gimped without a sub)
Look up price/revenue elasticity, OP. they will make less revenue doing this.
AS someone said they may actulaly make more money LOWERING the sub, as it lets people who are interested in cosmetics get in at a lower baseline.
But also the problem is that BFA is meh. If BFA was out in 2016 and Legion was out last August, you wouldnt be saying this.
AS someone said they may actulaly make more money LOWERING the sub, as it lets people who are interested in cosmetics get in at a lower baseline.
But also the problem is that BFA is meh. If BFA was out in 2016 and Legion was out last August, you wouldnt be saying this.
Well, their amount of users would be a lot higher, maybe not 8 times higher though. And I feel like the median revenue per user for mtx is a better measurement than the average.
If you subscribe now do you get access to Modern and Classic at the same time? If so, I'm surprised they didn't make it so that bundle would cost you $5 more. Or $10 for standalone Classic.
But yeah I don't think they'd do it at this point. I'm probably gonna dive into WoW once I'm done with Shadowbringers, out of curiosity more than anything, and I sure as hell wouldn't if it cost anymore than it is already.
But yeah I don't think they'd do it at this point. I'm probably gonna dive into WoW once I'm done with Shadowbringers, out of curiosity more than anything, and I sure as hell wouldn't if it cost anymore than it is already.
Exactly. They didnt have all those micro tx at launch OP. Now the game legit has a store button last I checked solely for you to buy stuff.
It's even more absurd than 8x, the $15/mo is monthly.
For almost every game with optional MTX, the median revenue per user will be $0, as a non-zero amount would imply "atleast half of the playerbase has purchased atleast 1 MTX", which is rarely true.
People said that literally every expansion, Wrath was great with the only real down side was it was the start of the queuing problem that would plague later WoW... but honestly, it was fine for quick farting out of your 100th dungeon run. The issue was when WoW started making dungeons serious progression, and when they started adding raids and lowered raid difficulty for those queue modes.
They will have less kids after a few of them get trampled by the 30-50 feral hogs in the yard.
The MOP daily complaint still annoys me, it was a good way to get people out in the world again after Cata was just sitting in the cities all day.
I could see it going the other way. As in some day creating a Blizzard Pass for $15 that gives you WoW and either access to or extra perks in all other Blizzard games (like card packs in Hearthstone, mtx stuff Overwatch etc) in. Seems like where things are heading in general.
You know, I actually want to meet this family of 6 who all happen to love WoW. That sounds rad.
