I hate to say it, but Blizzard has become "The Man"

[EpsiIon]

1.5 Million WoW subscribers * minimum fee of $12/month = at least $18 million of revenue per month.

Although they have every right to charge $12/month, there's no need for them to do so (especially since they charge for the game client itself). I hate to say it, but this is a clear case of Blizzard milking consumers instead of making good games to make good games. They could easily charge $3 or $5 per month, make a tidy profit, and please their customers.

 

[chowmein]

try playing on the deathwing realm for a few days and tell me that blizzard is "the man"

 

[astartz]

They could easily charge $3 or $5 per month, make a tidy profit, and please their customers.

No way. All the servers (way over 100), bandwith, employees (300+), and then profit. No way they make a profit at 3 to 5 a month.

 

[Atrail]

There is no milking imo. You have free will. The right to pay or not to pay. It is your choice. If it is not worth $12, don't pay don't play.

BTW I heard WoW on NPR yesterday. He gave a review and he was highly addicted. funny...

 

[notfred]

The cable company charges you $50/month to watch programming that they DIDN'T create, and you're saying someone who wrote the program and lets you play it is milking customers for 1/4 of that?

 

[EpsiIon]

Originally posted by: astartz
No way. All the servers (way over 100), bandwith, employees (300+), and then profit. No way they make a profit at 3 to 5 a month.

Think about what $18 million a month will buy and how much they're paying employess PER YEAR. Servers are a one-time cost. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I say it would take at most two months to recoup the setup costs. After that it's pure profit.

Keep in mind that we also don't know how the WoW infrastructure is set up. If bandwidth costs amount to millions of dollars per month, they're better off buying backbones and owning part of the Internet instead of paying someone else to use it. They may have even done that.

Originally posted by: notfred
The cable company charges you $50/month to watch programming that they DIDN'T create, and you're saying someone who wrote the program and lets you play it is milking customers for 1/4 of that?

Bad example. I don't and wouldn't pay for cable. Besides, the cable companies are also "The Man."

 

[DefRef]

Yet another person who believes that they're entitled to cheap-like-free stuff and whines when they don't get it. I guess he thinks everything comes without cost or at least, it should for him. No understanding of supply and demand and market forces. Lame. 0/10.

 

[EpsiIon]

Originally posted by: DefRef
Yet another person who believes that they're entitled to cheap-like-free stuff and whines when they don't get it. I guess he thinks everything comes without cost or at least, it should for him. No understanding of supply and demand and market forces. Lame. 0/10.

Read the above response. If you can counter those points, please do. Otherwise be quiet from here on out; posts like this don't help anybody.

 

[ArmchairAthlete]

That's basically the going price of mmo subscriptions. I hardly think you know the real costs, but I'm sure they are profiting.

 

[Megatomic]

Just do what I do, EpsiIon, and don't play MMORPGs. If I want to play games I'll play UT2K4/KOTOR/Vampires/HL2/etc.... If I want to chat with geeks on my computer I log onto AT forums. Neither of which do I have to pay a subscription for.

 

[EpsiIon]

Originally posted by: ArmchairAthlete
That's basically the going price of mmo subscriptions. I hardly think you know the real costs, but I'm sure they are profiting.

You're right, I don't know the real costs. But even educated guesses place it at well-less than $18 million/month.

 

[Modeps]

Oh my God, PROFIT?!?! Thats so turrible! Any company that works towards a profit should rot!

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: Modeps
Oh my God, PROFIT?!?! Thats so turrible! Any company that works towards a profit should rot!

lol. Lets rise up and slaaaaay them.

 

[Malak]

Maybe they'll release expansions for free in the form of patches, like other less successful games have already done in the past.

 

[EpsiIon]

Originally posted by: Modeps
Oh my God, PROFIT?!?! Thats so turrible! Any company that works towards a profit should rot!

*sigh* Apparently somebody doesn't do so well on reading comprehension tests...

Blizzard is maximizing their profit, which it has every right to do. In this case, however, it seems a bit excessive. I used to think of Blizzard as a company that made good games with excellent services at a reasonable price BECAUSE it wanted to provide its customers with the best possible playing experience. WoW causes me to seriously reconsider my opinion of the company and its motivations; $12/month may be standard, but it doesn't seem reasonable, given the guaranteed success of any Blizzard game.

They had an opportunity to be different and they didn't take it. It just disappoints me.

 

[Regs]

Lets just hope they make enough so they wont be baught by EA!

 

[EpsiIon]

Originally posted by: Regs
Lets just hope they make enough so they wont be baught by EA!

lol Good point.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: EpsiIon
1.5 Million WoW subscribers * minimum fee of $12/month = at least $18 million of revenue per month.

Although they have every right to charge $12/month, there's no need for them to do so (especially since they charge for the game client itself). I hate to say it, but this is a clear case of Blizzard milking consumers instead of making good games to make good games. They could easily charge $3 or $5 per month, make a tidy profit, and please their customers.

According to the n00ble thread they only have 750K subscribers.

We don't know the upfront development cost before the paid launch, and how much of that was or was not covered by their share of revenue from the software box sales.

We don't know ongoing development costs for fixing bugs, adjusting play balance, and adding new content and features.

We don't know the monthly maintenance costs for servers, bandwidth, and staff.

We don't know how much profit they're making and whether it's "reasonable" or "excessive." Also keep in mind they need to put some of the profit into development of new projects.

Provide numbers for the above and maybe I'll join you in calling them "the man."

 

[Modeps]

Originally posted by: EpsiIon

Originally posted by: Modeps
Oh my God, PROFIT?!?! Thats so turrible! Any company that works towards a profit should rot!

*sigh* Apparently somebody doesn't do so well on reading comprehension tests...

Blizzard is maximizing their profit, which it has every right to do. In this case, however, it seems a bit excessive. I used to think of Blizzard as a company that made good games with excellent services at a reasonable price BECAUSE it wanted to provide its customers with the best possible playing experience. WoW causes me to seriously reconsider my opinion of the company and its motivations; $12/month may be standard, but it doesn't seem reasonable, given the guaranteed success of any Blizzard game.

They had an opportunity to be different and they didn't take it. It just disappoints me.

Lets take this out of the video game box and put a different spin on it. Seeing that the $12/mo is very close to how much people pay to see the latest flick in the theatres...

A movie costs $45 million dollars to make and show it to critics first (normal). The critics give the movie high acclaim calling it the "Casablanca of the 00's". People flock to it on dates, paying their $10 a ticket and love it.... They tell their friends and quickly the movie turns a huge profit in the movies. People go see the movie multiple times and this increases the profit of the movie. It's released on DVD after winning academy awards, and people pay $15 - $20 for it for years to come. In a few years, they release a criterion collection version of the DVD for $30.

By your logic, because the movie was released and was a smash, they should have done something to lower ticket prices, or the cost of the DVD so they would be 'nice' to everyone.

And that is for something that you watch. You dont interact with. There's no upkeep. There's no new content being added (exept perhaps on the DVDs). They're not fixing the boom mic that you see in certain shots...

Finally you mention that you dont know what the company's motivation is. I'll tell you what it is... THE BOTTOM LINE.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: EpsiIon
1.5 Million WoW subscribers * minimum fee of $12/month = at least $18 million of revenue per month.

Although they have every right to charge $12/month, there's no need for them to do so (especially since they charge for the game client itself). I hate to say it, but this is a clear case of Blizzard milking consumers instead of making good games to make good games. They could easily charge $3 or $5 per month, make a tidy profit, and please their customers.

According to the n00ble thread they only have 750K subscribers.

We don't know the upfront development cost before the paid launch, and how much of that was or was not covered by their share of revenue from the software box sales.

We don't know ongoing development costs for fixing bugs, adjusting play balance, and adding new content and features.

We don't know the monthly maintenance costs for servers, bandwidth, and staff.

We don't know how much profit they're making and whether it's "reasonable" or "excessive." Also keep in mind they need to put some of the profit into development of new projects.

Provide numbers for the above and maybe I'll join you in calling them "the man."

They are at 1.2 million subscribers according to latest sources.

The real problem here is that there is no way to determine how many subscribers there would be, so you charge the regular amount straight from the start. They didn't know how successful they would be. Reducing the charge just won't happen for two reasons. For one, they can't even handle the amount of subscribers they already have, reducing the cost would double that number. If anything, they should increase the subscription. For two, the monthly subscription is less than 50 cents a day, hardly a cost to you. More expensive to take a date out on the town once a month. And let's be serious, you have a better chance of cybering with a tauren than with a real woman.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: notfred
The cable company charges you $50/month to watch programming that they DIDN'T create, and you're saying someone who wrote the program and lets you play it is milking customers for 1/4 of that?

$50? In many areas you can't even get basic cable for that little, though The Dish & DirecTV have forced cable companies to loosen the price-noose a bit. You can easily pay $150 or more if you want pay channels, then there's pay per view... and the stuff on TV is just absolutely fvcking awful, honestly I don't see how anyone with an IQ over 75 can watch 98% of it. Even Discovery dumbed things down for ratings. $13 is an absolute steal for the entertainment a mmorpg provides.

 

[Lonyo]

They currently have at least 25 job openings, assumed 50k/yr on average, that's 100k/mo.
And that's just the openings, forgetting all the existing staff.
Safe to say that a lot of that money will be used.

Blizzard Entertainment is very proud to announce that World of Warcraft has surpassed 1.5 million subscribers worldwide. With record breaking sales numbers in North America, Korea and Europe, World of Warcraft is continuously growing and expanding in both size and scope. For full details on this momentous occasion, please refer to our press release located here.

1.5 million according to Blizzard themselves.

 

[Malak]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: notfred
The cable company charges you $50/month to watch programming that they DIDN'T create, and you're saying someone who wrote the program and lets you play it is milking customers for 1/4 of that?

$50? In many areas you can't even get basic cable for that little, though The Dish & DirecTV have forced cable companies to loosen the price-noose a bit. You can easily pay $150 or more if you want pay channels, then there's pay per view... and the stuff on TV is just absolutely fvcking awful, honestly I don't see how anyone with an IQ over 75 can watch 98% of it. Even Discovery dumbed things down for ratings. $13 is an absolute steal for the entertainment a mmorpg provides.

Well I don't know where you live, but $50 sounds about right for cable here. Frankly I'd rather pay per channel, as I only watch maybe 5 channels of it. But since I don't pay for it anyway, it's not my problem.

 

[EpsiIon]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
According to the n00ble thread they only have 750K subscribers.

1.5 million subscribers (with more expected, you'll note).

We don't know the upfront development cost before the paid launch, and how much of that was or was not covered by their share of revenue from the software box sales.

Very true. However, I've heard and read that *most* game development costs are in the tens of millions of dollars (for the entire project) these days. A Google search yield differing figures, but most are at least in the millions. Most triple-A companies (like Blizzard) also make a profit off of just selling the boxed copies. In addition, Blizzard has provided a free matchmaking service for years (I realize that matchmaking is much simpler than a server that hosts a game world. My point is that they have provided a "beyond the call of duty" service off of just box sales for years.)

We don't know ongoing development costs for fixing bugs, adjusting play balance, and adding new content and features.

Again, true. But I think we can safely say that this is considerably less than the overall development costs (if you disagree, please tell me why). I'm sure Blizzard has excellent tools in place to simply produce new and exciting content, considering just what they've made available to the community with games like StarCraft and WarCraft III. Consider that they're making a substantial fraction of the game's entire development costs per month, and again it seems recouping these costs is trivial.

We don't know the monthly maintenance costs for servers, bandwidth, and staff.

This is the hardest point to contest. Tell me if I'm wrong, but bandwidth >> staff or server maintenance. Given that assumption, we just need to find out how much bandwidth costs (since staff and maintenance are comparatively negligible). Unfortunately, I can't find numbers for bandwidth costs. Most of my search results include words like "insane" but that doesn't tell me anything other than that somebody thinks they're really high.

So... millions of dollar? Thousands of dollars? Somewhere in between? Somehow I doubt the millions, but I could be wrong.

We don't know how much profit they're making and whether it's "reasonable" or "excessive." Also keep in mind they need to put some of the profit into development of new projects.

True. But, again, they've been financing their next projects off of just boxed sales for years.

Provide numbers for the above and maybe I'll join you in calling them "the man."

I realize that these are fuzzy figures instead of numbers, but nobody really seems able or willing to provide the community with numbers (try Googling this information -- if you find something, I'd love to know what it is). On the surface, though, the charges still look exhorbitant to me.

 

[gsaldivar]

Originally posted by: EpsiIon
they have every right to charge $12/month.