Should wow use paid promotions?

Happy Vault Day readers,

Hope the RNG gods treat you well.

In this week’s issue, we have:

• How to unlock the new buzzbee mount in patch 11.0.7

• New void elf racial visual

• The wow-head economy weekly round-up

• And more….

News

• New visual for void elf racial (Wowhead)

• How to fly in the new siren isle patch 11.0.7 (Wowhead)

• Hotfix summary (Icy-veins)

Guides

• Daily anniversary trivia quest levelling for alts (Wowhead)

• Automate levelling mop remix characters in the anniversary event with this add-on (Icy-veins)

• How to unlock the new buzzbee mount in patch 11.0.7 (Icy-veins)

Economy

• The Wowhead economy weekly round-up (Wowhead)

Datamined info

• Legion time walker vendor refresh (Wowhead)

Creature feature

Sock Goblin

Strength: stealing socks from unsuspecting adventurers who are trying to equip them

Weaknesses: Being forced to equip the same socks they were trying to steal

Attributes:

Strength - 8

Agility - 7

Stamina - 6

Intellect - 2

Are paid promotions in wow good or bad?

Video games are changing, MMOs are changing, video game companies are changing, the economy is changing, and the world is changing. Sometimes for the better and sometimes not.

Once upon a time, players would purchase the base game, then purchase each expansion and also pay a monthly/yearly subscription and that would be it.

These days there is more. Not only do you have these payments but there are now optional additional payments for in-game perks. These have been presented to us via a Blizzard store and now we are seeing the beginning of paid promotions for in-game assets such as pets, mounts and cosmetics.

But there are more assets in the game now and companies need to find additional revenue streams to stay afloat.

This week, I want to examine the pros and cons of these additional payments and promotions and ask whether they are good for the company, the players, and, ultimately, World of Warcraft.

First up let me explain what we are talking about. In order to play World of Warcraft you have to buy the base game, buy the latest expansion (if you want the latest content) and set up a subscription. There is an option for a free account but this only gets you to level 20 and is designed to give you taste but not the whole experience. This is all you need to play and has been fairly standard for most MMOs for many years.

The Blizzard store has been around since about 2008. This offers players who want to spend money the option to buy mounts, pets and cosmetics. There is also the option of buying in-game services such as realm, name and race changes. None of these are mandatory and offer additional content to the game but are not required to play or enjoy the base game.

Recently we have seen this system expand. Certain affiliated products have been given unique access to special pets, mounts and cosmetics. The most recent one is the promotion with Doritos, Mountain Dew and Rockstar. When you buy these products they come with codes that you can redeem for points which you can then spend on in-game items, some of which cannot be acquired by any other means.

Then there is the controversy over the anniversary Brutosaur mount. While store brought mounts are not anything new this mount does have some differences, first of all, its cost is the highest ever seen for a single mount at $90. Also the mount comes with the unique features of an auction house and mailbox combo, thus making buying and selling items much easier and more efficient.

Pros

• Let’s look at the positives of these paid additions. World of Warcraft is the product of the company Blizzard and as such needs to make money in order to survive. With the face of video games and the economy changing these promotions offer a new way for World of Warcraft to make money which in turn pays wages and allows Blizzard to make more content that we all enjoy.

• These promotions are not mandatory to play the game; they are optional additions that provide fun ways to help players show off their commitment to the game and interesting new art assets. They are not required or make one any stronger or better at the game (however, this line is blurred with the new functionality of the Brutosaur mount, but we will come to that later).

• Blizzard has provided a way to acquire these additions with in-game gold. Using the wow tokens at the auction house one can use in-game gold to buy these and exchange them for credit at the battle.net store. This credit can then buy subscription time or store items such as services, cosmetics, pets or mounts. This means you don’t have to pay real money for these additions.

Cons

• It is easy to argue that a game that requires both purchase of the game, each expansion and most importantly a subscription, shouldn’t be charging for additional assets. Even if they are optional assets and do not add in-game power, it can still feel bad to know you don’t have some things because you are not able to pay more money for them.

• The Brutosaur mount has broken an unofficial rule. By adding both an auction house and mailbox to the mount it is significantly slower to try and make in-game gold via the auction house without one. This means if you aren’t willing to buy the mount you are at a disadvantage to players who are willing to buy it.

• While it is true that you can buy these additions with in-game gold and not real money, in order the acquire the large amounts of in-game gold to purchase anything, one has to play the game and commit lots of time to gold-making. Some people don’t have the time for this or don’t enjoy playing the game that way and therefore this isn’t an option for everyone.

• The new promotions are unique to the product and can’t be purchased with in-game gold. The Dorito/Mountain dew promotion requires one to purchase the related products for the codes and therefore a purchase must be made, forcing a player who wants the related rewards to spend real money. Also, these promotions are only available in the U.S. so other regions don’t even have this option.

We need to talk about FOMO

FOMO also known as the fear of missing out is what drives much of the ethos behind these promotions. This idea is what drives much of the World of Warcraft money-making ethos. Let’s use the Brutosaur anniversary mount as an example, this mount is only available until January 6th 2025. This provides a strong feeling of FOMO in most players, if I don’t get this mount before January then I will be one of the players who doesn’t have one and I will be weaker or lesser for it.

This feeling also works for other game elements not just store mounts. The recent MOP remix event ran under the same feeling. A unique currency connected with the event meant that one needed to play the event and get the currency to get all the rewards that were unique to the event and one would miss out by not playing this event.

This is not always a bad thing.

This feeling of FOMO means that the game keeps making money and players keep playing, whether we like it or not money does make the World of Warcraft go around. But we all love the game so supporting it and allowing it to keep going is what we all want so if it requires our money to do that that is why we pay for it.

My problem with FOMO comes from the negative mental impact it can have on me and other players. “It feels good to not miss out” but what is more accurate is it feels bad to miss out, which is an important difference. I am planning a future edition/guide on the impact of FOMO and how to deal with it/what has worked for me, so keep your eyes open for that.

Conclusion

I have tried to stay impartial on whether paid promotions are good or bad but now is the time for my opinion.

Overall I’m FOR it (sorry if that upsets some people).

My reasons for this come down to managing FOMO and Blizzard needing money to make the game. The company needs money (and as times go on more of it) to make the game, and this system allows them to do that, there are players who are happy to pay for additional parts of the game, I do agree that the Brutosaur mount and future mounts shouldn’t provide “power” benefits as that blurs the power/payment line, but mostly these additions are cosmetic. FOMO is hard to deal with but ever since I have let go of this feeling I feel much better about other players paying for cosmetics in-game that they find appealing even if I don’t participate myself.

A long and controversial topic this week, but what are your thoughts? Do you agree with me? Was there anything I missed? Let me know on our unique Facebook page.

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