LordOskuro wrote:I think they are missing the reason people pay for WoW, there's a constant stream of content, good customer support, and the game model is built around online interactions, they really can't be as stupid as to think people will be ok paying a monthly fee for a 10-hour long game with a simplistic deathmatch multiplayer option.
And if they are thinking about microtransactions for extra content, that's pretty much what expansions were about already.
I don't think the Blizzard part of Activision is missing why people play WoW, and I'm not too sure Activision is, either. As you noted, there is a constant stream of content. In fact, most people don't ever access all the content in WoW, they just aren't on-line enough hours of the day. I've been playing for four years and it wasn't until two months ago that
any of my characters got the "Explorer" title meaning they had explored every zone. Four years to explore the world, that's a hell of a time sink! (Of course it wasn't the
only thing I was doing, but that's the point, there's a LOT to do in that virtual world) On a certain level this means there is always something new for you to do, or something you haven't done in awhile, so it's harder to get bored with the
entire game world. Communities do form on-line. Problems do get fixed (even if not as quickly as many would like). Customer support...? Well, I'd call it adequate. There are times it becomes overloaded and you can wait days for response. On the other hand, handling a 12 million person subscriber base spread across several continents is no easy feat. That's more people than make up most
nations.
A couple other reasons you missed: the game is
flexible. While there is clearly support for end-game raiding and PvP you do not have to do those things to find enjoyable content. Some people go on WoW as much or more to hang out with others in a virtual world as to focus on the end-game. Spontaneous, player-originated and organized events occur as the virtual world allows non-scripted actions.
One perceived downside is the monthly subscription fee (or in some countries, the need to purchase hours in advance of game play). It is that steady stream of revenue, however, that allows for the constant development of content and the "world event" content that occurs every few weeks. For all its faults (and I could list a few) WoW does continually upgrade, fix, and generate content. You get something for that money you spend.
For a long time WoW has maintained its base subscription, and you can play that game for just the cost of "vanilla WoW" and that monthly fee (which hasn't gone up for years). Granted, you won't access everything, but for someone just starting and playing casually those first 60 levels can take a year to get through (or more if you play a lot of alts). You can stop playing, save your money, then resume where you left off because your characters don't just simply evaporate.
Want more? Buy the expansions.
Now, recently (this year) WoW has started to offer "microtransaction" items. At first this was things like a server change, name change, or gender change. Those really are above and beyond playing the game. You can access all in-game content without any of those three, they really are extra. And what Blizzard discovered is that a significant number of people will pay for it anyway. There were items from the Trading Card Game that could be redeemed in on-line WoW - again, entirely extra to the game itself (vanity pets, cosmetic but non-functional tabards, etc.) but people buy decks just to get those items. Now they're offering in-game vanity pets that you can purchase with money. They are darn cute, and one of them has some very nice animations and will interact with other players on a limited basis (If you bow to a Panderan Monk pet he will bow in return - this has led to a LOT of bowing in WoW lately) but again
they are not part of the actual game play.
I think that the player base has a high tolerance for that sort of microtransaction, and Blizzard has stated several times that they want to keep the microtransactions at that level, the level of vanity pets and not-vital-to-game-play. The extras sure might be nice, but they're entirely non-essential to accessing content. Keep the base cost low to keep a large subscriber base. A large subscriber base means a microtransaction item that only 5% or 10% of players buy will
still make a crapload of money. If you don't have a large subscriber base, though, you won't profit nearly as much.
And really, I don't see anything wrong with that model. I think games where you can buy gold with real money, have to purchase (or can purchase) items that really are connected to end-game or even mid-game play, and so forth that people start to feel they're being bled dry.
