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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsGameStop offering Black Friday deal on WoW Battle Chest and expansions
by Anne Stickney 
Nov 14th 2011 at 1:00PM
Retail gaming store GameStop is offering a huge deal on Black Friday for those who want to pick up World of Warcraft. The WoW Battle Chest, which includes both WoW and The Burning Crusade expansion, can be snapped up for $9.99, and both Wrath of the Lich King and Cataclysm will be available for $19.99 each. This means that players looking to get started with WoW can pick up the whole collection for $50 total, which is a great deal no matter how you look at it.
Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and falls on Friday, Nov. 25 this year. So if you're looking to pick up the game for a friend (can we say Recruit-A-Friend, anyone?) or to open a second account for yourself, this would be an ideal time to do it for an ideal price.
Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and falls on Friday, Nov. 25 this year. So if you're looking to pick up the game for a friend (can we say Recruit-A-Friend, anyone?) or to open a second account for yourself, this would be an ideal time to do it for an ideal price.
Filed under: News items, Cataclysm
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
vincentmagius Nov 14th 2011 2:42PM
If you are going for a second account, I think you still need to purchase a license key for each box at least. Unless you want to get stuck at level 20/70/80
Drakkenfyre Nov 14th 2011 2:54PM
The discs mean nothing. What you need is the CD key to create an account. If you want another account, you do need new copies. Just installing another copy on another computer means nothing. You need the actual account to use it. And unless you log in with a trial account, you need a full, second account.
Hunglao Nov 15th 2011 2:40PM
You can technically install it, but you can't login and play through the content unless you buy the license for each expansion. The free trials get you to level 20, classic gets you to 60, TBC to 70 (also unlocks Blood Elf and Drenei zones), wrath to 80, and Cata to 85. If you want to setup a second account and advance to end-game you have to pay for the entire set.
Sae Rom Nov 21st 2011 11:44AM
You can download it but you can't level past the trial of first 20 levels. Having the game and having a second account to play are completely different.
kgavrin Nov 14th 2011 2:55PM
My dad's been saying for a long time he's interested in WoW, but the up-front cost is too much for him ($100 normally, unless you can find the stuff on-sale). So I've seen how it could turn off some people. This could be a way in for him. And I think it might set a precedent, especially with SW:TOR just around the corner and WoW dropping subscribers in large amounts.
If it would lower the price, I'd recommend ditching strategy guides. Heck, even the one for Cataclysm is already out of date (some class changes have made that info wrong, and it doesn't include Zandalari or Firelands).
As for Rift... I've seen it for $10 recently. At least they recognize they have a problem and are doing something to fix it. That price point could attract more people, which is going to produce even more competition for WoW.
Recurring funds are where they get their real money, so it'd make sense to lower the up-front cost and attract more subscribers.
DarkWalker Nov 14th 2011 3:21PM
I sincerely don't see why even have an upfront cost at all. Blizzard makes a ton of money from pets, mounts, services, and subscriptions; just phase out the need to purchase expansions and the base game and turn the game into a two-tiered affair (subscribers get everything they get right now, unsubscribed players get what the free trial gets now, but players are able to just let their subscription lapse and still log on characters up to level 20 as if they were still on a trial account).
This should provide a nice incentive for new players (and even returning ones, if they left before the latest expansion, and thus face the prospect of having to purchase one or two expansions to really go back to the game), helping reduce, or maybe even revert, the player base decline; and the extra players might make Blizzard even more money, through subscriptions and store purchases, than they would get with box sales.
Smashbolt Nov 14th 2011 3:44PM
I'd love for the base game and expansions to be free with the only cost being the sub...
Whether changing that would be worth more money for Blizzard, I couldn't say... but unless my memory is shoddy, weren't both Wrath and Cata releases the fastest selling PC video game releases of all time on their individual release dates? Just the ability to say they did that seems like a big enough reason for Blizzard not to phase out the "go buy a box" aspect of an expansion release.
perderedeus Nov 14th 2011 3:14PM
They really need to consolidate all past expansions into 1 box, and then have the current expansion. Two purchases to get caught up.
Who is buying Wrath and expecting anything more than 10 levels of rapid questing? Maybe they'll get an ICC or Ulduar retro run... or more likely they won't. It's just "necessary" to get to the current stuff (Cataclysm) and hardly worth the retail price.
Eyhk Nov 14th 2011 3:18PM
Doesn't Blizzard themselves do a really cheap deal about this time of season?
The Dewd Nov 14th 2011 3:33PM
i think Blizzard's always (wrongly) assumed that folks would buy the Classic game, and then, after spending a few weeks (or maybe a couple of months) poking around the old world, they'd buy BC. Then, after another month or two, they'd be ready for Wrath. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work that way. It seems like most folks are all-or-nothing with the content and xpacs and, even if they aren't, recruit-a-friend is going you level you so fast that you might as well buy it all at once.
People are not, actually, playing just to play. They're playing to level so they can do all the cool endgame stuff with their friends. Sure, they might wind up being alt-aholics later but I can't imagine that's the initial appeal to a tentative player.
OUFanInKansas Nov 14th 2011 5:39PM
There is another problem with the "buy classic, then BC, then WOTK, then Cata" approach. I have two kids that have started playing WoW. Both of them want to play Pandas in MoP. Neither of them are going to be hard-core raiders. So, for them to play a panda through level 1-60 content, they (translation: me) have to buy three expansion packs that add zero value to them.
Not level 60 and not wanting to roll a blood elf or space goat? BC adds nothing
Not level 55 (for Death Knight) or 70? Nothing new in WotLK
No desire to roll a worgen or goblin? Nix Cataclysm
With the next XPac, Blizzard has a built-in tool (aka Pandas) to bring new casual players in (or back to) the game.
Perhaps an alternative is to allow "skipping" xpacs? Perhaps allow a player with only vanilla (and BC for free now) to skip WotLK and Cata. That way, they buy Pandara, they can roll a Panda monk. But, no goblin/worgen and a level cap at 70.
Abbadon Nov 14th 2011 4:21PM
Gamestop had about the same deal last year - the vanilla/BC chest for $10. They also had vanilla for $5 plus you got a $5 gift card free. I bought a couple of those for the heck of it and then used the gift cards towards Cataclysm.
On a side note, you can always take the GS ad into Walmart, Target or Best Buy and price match.
Bossy Nov 14th 2011 4:54PM
Several actions could be taken. But the best strategy foe Blizz would be:
1. Combine all expansions into one new battle chest: @ 39.95 dollars.
2. Offer 1 month of free WOW subscription for every Diablo 3 copy sold.
3. As the next expansion will be launched: market the game as FREE to play with a real money Auction House like Diablo 3.
Despite what Blizzard managers stated WOW can be transferred with ease to a RMAH game. Certainly with the upcoming pet system and a transfer to 50% more BOE gear.
Just introduce the latest Tier and PvP as BoP and mix the system with a few very rare high end pieces of BOE to complement the Tier.
The result would be devistating for the competition.
It would be the end of subscription based games and the bundle WOW + Diablo 3 would simply double the number of players in both games.
The subscription based games are already losing all steam these days. Xfire showed an astonishing 88% loss of Rift players in just 7 months time.
Just remember this: SW TOR will see a massive launch and an equal massive exit of subscriptions within a few months time.
People simply want to play for free these days and the era of subscription based games is almost behind us.
The RMAH could be a real alternative and as such Diablo3 will sell as hot cakes.
No doubt WOW will follow that road before the next winter.
amryxx Nov 14th 2011 5:11PM
"Xfire showed an astonishing 88% loss of Rift players in just 7 months time. "
Xfire is not exactly the most accurate tool around. And given the profits they're making, I doubt Blizzard would want to switch from the subscription model to the F2P one.
Bossy Nov 14th 2011 5:33PM
Actually Xfire is a very good tool to watch the activity of ... XFire players in one game to follow.
Rift went from 5200 players on weekends in the first 2 launching weeks (and position 5 on the global ranks) to 650 players in the last weekend play.
That's an exact loss of 88% over 7 months time. They hardly have 100K players left IF seen by the servers too, where only low and medium trends are shown.
Besides Rift lost 48% of its servers, which were HIGH and FULL on launch and these days you will have more success in finding life on Mars than finding a Rift server on full status.
Rift is now even OUT of the top 30 games on PC games played on Xfire and so it simply dwindled to falling below all expectations.
Rift is simply the last proof of failing subscription based games.
And SW TOR will prove it as of May/June.
Only then people will start to realise subs systems are OUT these days.
OUFanInKansas Nov 14th 2011 5:43PM
I wouldn't say Rift is proof of failing subscription based games. Rift is just proof that a game with a marketing line of "You're not in Azeroth anymore" better deliver a consistent better-than-WoW experience.
Bossy Nov 14th 2011 6:35PM
Nah,
Rift was just the latest proof of something what has happened for 5 years straight now/
Subscription based MMO's fail to keep their number of players and don't grow after the initial bang and "new players" no longer coming in.
Lotro, Tabula Rasa, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Aion, Rift and some 25 other lesser known MMO's (like Pirates of the Burning Sea, ST on line, Lego on line, etc, etc,...).
All had very reasonable explanations why they didn't retain their players, while the only simple logic always was: players quit after having to pay multiple months of subscriptions.
The fact FREE to play stuff and other means of free to play games on IPads and Facebook and AAA MMO's going Free to play even hurt the good ol's WOW and EVE in 2010/2011.
SW TOR doesn't have a chance of holding on to its initial players. On the contrary, the bigger the initial bang, the bigger the absolute drops will be. No recruitment and 70% players not wanting to prolong past 3-4 months play is the only reason.
Cambro Nov 14th 2011 7:24PM
I wonder which items Gamestop will be sneaking out of the boxes before they stock the shelves.