Zarhym talks premium WoW services
by Mathew McCurley 
May 4th 2011 at 2:00PM
Zarhym first makes the point that these features and premium services are in no way made to be needed to play the game. In fact, I'd take things a step forward and say that so far, Blizzard has been exceptionally good at providing only cosmetic and quality-of-life premium services, where other games could have already cashed in on a playerbase like WoW's. These optional services can improve your own personal quality of life, be it race-changing to an obviously superior blood elf or transferring servers to be with a new guild, but they are not tied to the core gameplay experience.
Zarhym's full statement, after the break.
Why do we need to be nickeled and dimed?
These are premium services added to better accommodate the wants and needs of players. They do not factor into what you get for buying the game/expansions and paying monthly for access to the serers. By no means do you need any of these premium services to enjoy World of Warcraft gameplay to the fullest extent. Should you desire to take advantage of some extra services to enhance your enjoyment of the game though, they're certainly there for you... if you feel it's worth the price.
We've made countless quality-of-life improvements to the game in terms of content, UI, data storage, character profiles, etc. We've expanded upon what you get for your monthly subscription by leaps and bounds since the game was first released, but the subscription price has not changed.
Everything we do and every service we add costs more money than you might realize. So, if we do occasionally add some premium services which are purely to give you more options for enjoying the game how you want (changing your realm, faction, race, name, physical appearance, etc.), we need to make sure there is an appropriate value added to those services so we can sustain them, sustain our business, and keep focusing on making this the best game possible. :)
We've made countless quality-of-life improvements to the game in terms of content, UI, data storage, character profiles, etc. We've expanded upon what you get for your monthly subscription by leaps and bounds since the game was first released, but the subscription price has not changed.
Everything we do and every service we add costs more money than you might realize. So, if we do occasionally add some premium services which are purely to give you more options for enjoying the game how you want (changing your realm, faction, race, name, physical appearance, etc.), we need to make sure there is an appropriate value added to those services so we can sustain them, sustain our business, and keep focusing on making this the best game possible. :)
There is always the issue of cost, and Zarhym freely admits that every service costs the company money, from support to implementation and more. Services also need value; otherwise, they would be seen as rights or privileges that you could take advantage of at any point. Also, it seems that the cost associated with name changes, server transfers, and the like force players to keep their attitudes and behavior in check in an online world, lest they totally ruin their reputation and have to change servers and identities. Premium services are about options being optional.
The news is already rolling out for the upcoming WoW Patch 4.2! Preview the new Firelands raid, marvel at the new legendary staff, and get the inside scoop on new quest hubs -- plus new Tier 12 armor!Filed under: Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Aenorn May 4th 2011 2:10PM
I don't mind most of the prices, because he's right. They aren't necessary to play the game. However, I feel that the server transfer price is far too steep. If I wanted to move all of the characters I actively play to another server is would cost me well over $100. I have real life friends on other servers that I'd love to play with, but I'm not spending $100+ for it.
Koleckai May 4th 2011 2:27PM
They need to build in a feature that allows you to build parties with RealID Friends as long as everyone is in the same faction.
Cleric May 4th 2011 2:28PM
I have no problems at all paying for things that are additional. But the cost of these things being $15 and up for people who are already paying $15 a month is a little absurd. Ok i could definitely see $5 per feature but lets be realistic, we will never see that. Although i think that lowering the prices would give blizzard more income because players would be able to do it cheaper and it would be more attainable. And thats a load of crock that it takes that much money to say, transfer a character or change the race. But i guess that's business, which is why my company charges $180 per hour for our engineering services and not the real rates that WE are getting paid.
Spider May 4th 2011 2:31PM
It would be nice to see them introduce a 'package deal' move in the future. If single-character transfers are $25, then perhaps $50 might be a reasonable price for a full server transfer including all of your characters. I'd say it's still considerable enough to discourage people mass-transferring every week on a whim, but cheap enough so that those who really need to move a large number of characters can do so at a decent cost.
Zachariahs May 4th 2011 2:43PM
Its also a bit pricey if your friends are not only on another server, but also, opposite faction. Too bad they couldn't lower the price a bit by having both bundled somehow.
wow May 4th 2011 3:05PM
Though the prices are high, I think that they are also gauging the abuse factor as well. If the rates were cheaper, people may use the services just for the hell of it, instead of a practical reason. Just my opinion though. It is something to keep in mind.
I've paid for a couple of Server transfers already and wasn't really bothered about the price.
Shinanji
Aenorn May 4th 2011 3:20PM
@wow - A simple solution would be to have a cooldown on realm transfers.
Aykwa May 4th 2011 3:36PM
I think that by merely implementing a server transfer service at all they have in some cases made it required to play the game to its fullest. Take the case of a server where several major guilds all transfer off a server because (as used to be the case), they decided they wanted to be in the higest pop servers with better battlegroups and a few more friends. That, in turn, leads the server to a lower population, lower average quality players, more discontent by remaining players, and more and more transfers. Pretty soon a server that used to have thousands of active players on one faction now has merely 100.
Now, you can't tell me that playing the game with a total of 100 active players is anywhere near the same possible experience as one with 5000 active players. Almost every feature that Blizzard implements is stunted in its usefulness and merit if there are so few people to play with. Everything from the new guild features to new rated BGs, etc. There is a minimum mass of active players required for such features to have some or even much of their intended benefit.
So now we have the last 100 active players of one faction on the server... they can't have nearly the same game experience as people on more populated servers, yet they are stuck on that server with all the time they've put into their characters unless they pay many months or even a year's worth of subscription fees to take their hard-earned characters over to another server where they can actually play the game as intended and as it is played on most servers.
So I believe that Blizzard has created this little problem for themselves by creating this premium service. And I think that makes them responsible for taking care of it. Maybe by drastically cutting prices of server transfers away from servers with a small number of active players on one faction. Or maybe by being more aggressive in their free server transfers to these realms.
On a pure business note, I really do believe that Blizzard would actually make more money on their server transfer premium service if they would cut the prices substantially. I think a price of $10 per character and no time restraints would actually net them so many more server transfers that the added volume would easily offset the lower per transaction price and the few additional costs involved.
mingdi9 May 4th 2011 4:18PM
@Aykwa
Though I do feel sorry for players on an underpopulated server, this suggestion seems particularly stupid to me.
"Oh, our server is underpopulated and players on it aren't having as much fun as players on different servers. So Blizzard should make it easier for those remaining players to transfer off, thus making it even worse for anyone who chooses to stay."
Also, the problem with free realm transfers is that, for the most part, people want to transfer from underpopulated servers to overpopulated servers, and not the other way around. Since Blizzard can't force people to transfer servers one way or the other, I'm sure they've been very busy trying to figure out an acceptable solution to the problem [which was one of the motivations for the TB faction balance, if you recall].
drysta May 4th 2011 5:36PM
Actually from time to time Blizzard do offer free realm transfers from over-populated ones to under populated ones be it the entire realm or just one faction of the realm. Keep and eye out for Blue posts when they announce this (several times a year if not more) and that usually remains intact until they hit the target that would provide the best balance for that realm. In the same manner they also lock realms that are overly populated from new people rolling or existing customers transferring (or occasionally re-rolling).
Personally I think the charge is about right and stops a level of abuse that could be out of control. With the speed at which it takes to level a new toon if the price is too much, then re-rolling is certainly an option and people can also enjoy the great new content that was released this xpac.
My two cents. :)
Rojslade May 4th 2011 5:44PM
Well, a solution would be start merging realms. Is it really necessary to have so many, especially with the amount of low pop, one faction-sided realms up and running to maintain? Of course this doesn't come without consequence of cost and labor to do so but it's "a" solution, not necessarily a great one. :D
And what someone else had mention, make it possible to form groups through real-id.
I think WoW would be much more interesting if it was all one huge server. Though I know full well that's not technologically possible at the moment, it would definitely give it a more unique, worldly feel. Maybe in the near future...
Noyou May 4th 2011 6:00PM
Yeah the sub price has been the same over the years. Yes they give us a lot for our base sub price. But it also costs a lot to play. $20-30 a month for internet. $30-40 for WoW+BC (battlechest). $40 for LK $40 for Cata. That's just for a casual player. If you want to be hard core raiding/PvP you will obviously want to spend more on PC/internet and accessories. I don't mind paying extra for premium features. How about a "hey thanks" for those of us who have paid for 3-4-5+ years without unsubing. Would it kill them to throw us a free recustomization? Or how about a toon swap. Trade in an 85 lvl toon for a couple months playtime or something like that. Just a couple ideas.
Baba May 4th 2011 6:41PM
Blizzard can make a perfect solution in my opinion, by keeping the service paid, but allowing you to freely transfer 2 characters every 2 months. This lets people gradually move characters over to a friend's realm if they want (hey, you're not going to need every single character over there at once) but also stops people jumping from server to server on a whim.
bdew May 5th 2011 2:31AM
"Blizzard can't force people to transfer servers one way or the other"
They can, or atleast could when they nuked Warsong EU and a few other servers (they were left almost empty after a certain nationality transfered to their new regional servers), Blizzard have given free transfers from those servers then gave some deadline and everyone who was still there after it got moved to a randomly selected server.
Then a few weeks later they launched "new" servers under new names reusing the hardware.
Spider May 4th 2011 2:12PM
"We've expanded upon what you get for your monthly subscription by leaps and bounds since the game was first released, but the subscription price has not changed."
I really love that he pointed out this, it's so true. I think WoW has a very reasonable subscription fee for the fantastic game we get. It's one of the most polished and long-running MMOs out there. People can complain if they really want to, but there's no denying how good we have it. The customer service is fantastic, the quality of the game is astounding. They could have upped the subscription on us any time I'm sure, but padding that additional value with completely optional features is fantastic in my opinion.
Devin May 4th 2011 2:52PM
My only complaint about this comment is that it comes off sounding like they're doing us a favor by not hiking up the price; when in reality we continue to pay the subscription fee because we're consistently getting new content. If they'd have left the game static and not given us all these new quality of life upgrades and new content "for free" then most of the player base would have stopped paying said subscription. I also feel that a lot a the different costs should be rolled together. For example, my uncle plays on another server Alliance side, my toons are all Horde, if I want to go play with his guild I have to start a new toon (which I've done) or transfer. Doing the latter would cost me $50 per toon when I think a straight $25 fee would be enough and should be able to select multiple toons to transfer per transaction.
Astoreth May 4th 2011 3:13PM
I look at it this way: for the price of two WoW subscriptions, my husband and I could go to one non-matinee movie and share popcorn. That's $30 for two hours' entertainment, no dinner, and assuming grandparents are willing/available to provide free babysitting (unreliable).
Heck yeah, compared to that, WoW is an incredibly good deal. Yeah, if our entire guild decided to server/faction transfer we'd be in a bind, because $120 to move just our two mains would be prohibitive. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it -- which may (and hopefully will) never happen at all. I don't feel like my game experience is hampered by the cost of 'premium' services, or like I'm missing out by not utilizing them.
PodPeople May 4th 2011 3:23PM
Unfortunately it is Not true. While the pure month-to-month subscription has remained the same, the cost for those who purchase 3 or 6 mo blocks have seen an increase. When I started my account back in '05 the 6mo subscription cost $67, a little over $11/mo. My most recent 6mo re-subscription cost around $80, making it over $13/mo. While yes, it is still cheaper than the $15/mo that people who pay month-to-month, there's just much less incentive to do it. so for Mr Zar to say that the cost has not increased, it is really a statement that is somewhere between a 1/2 and 3/4 truth.
lady.silverdragon May 4th 2011 3:23PM
@Devin- you are forgetting about the impact of inflation. Because Blizzard hasn't raised the subscription fee since it started, they are in effect earning less money per subscription now than they were five years ago. Blizzard needs to make up the money somewhere, and it can't just rely on increased volume to do it (increased volume adds increased costs). And they can't just decide to turn out less of a profit, since they have to answer to their shareholders/Activision. This is ultimately the best solution to a complex problem.
loop_not_defined May 4th 2011 3:45PM
PodPeople, I've been paying the 6-month subscription for quite some time, and I don't ever recall it being below $12.99/month. I am more than willing to admit my memory is a bit foggy and I could be wrong here, but I wanted to point out that several US states now have online subscription taxes which could be accounting for the discrepancy:
http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=21266&parentCategoryId&pageNumber=1&categoryId=2324