Sunday 6 April 2014

Warcraft Dinner- Price increase for World of Warcraft - Warlords of Draenor expansion: Justified or not?

I have a new segment called the Warcraft Dinner that I am starting now and will be a weekly post on top of other posts. Tune in and please give me feedback on what is not fun to read or is fun to read!

Warcraft Dinner #1 

So, this article may be a bit late coming into the battle of price increase for the new Warcraft expansion set. Regardless, I felt the need to bring my perspective to the table so that readers and players of World of Warcraft can have another person’s opinion to take in to either alleviate or support whatever they felt before reading this article.

-Note: I will only be talking about the price increase for the basic WoW expansion but the collector’s edition is also likely to be increased by $10.00.

Before this price increase for the Warlords of Draenor expansion set, all the expansions for World of Warcraft have been at the $39.99 range(excluding collector’s edition, which I will definitely want to get). It has been at this price for quite a long time and I feel like it is long overdue for a price increase. Without paying too much attention to that Activision Blizzard is a company which focuses on getting the most revenue out of the products they produce. The past expansions of Warcraft has given us a lot of content for the price of $39.99. Many people would counter my statement by saying they have us pay an additional monthly fee on top of the purchase for the expansion. But I believe that is necessary for the game to run smoothly and have content keep on piling up after the expansion’s original content has run dry.

I have supported my own belief regarding this matter just this week. As I am a very big Blizzard games fan and supporter*, I have played all of their current games and many past ones. Last week was the release of Diablo 3’s new expansion set - Reaper of Souls which is a spectacular game* but it also has a cost of $39.99. I have finished playing through the story content and have tried out the many other features introduced. Through that, I feel a very satisfied gamer. The price of Diablo’s expansion seemed very fitting to me. Yet when I compare the Diablo 3 expansion set to World of Warcraft’s expansion set, I cannot fathom that they are same in price yet differ so much in the content that is offered. Many players do play Diablo 3 over and over through multiple levels and challenges but they are still the same content that would go on for months, if not a full year before another new expansion is introduced. In contrast, World of Warcraft costed just the same price but it offered more content that kept many of its player-base happy until a new patch drops with even newer content. Diablo 3 does not offer that flow of content, neither in gameplay nor story. This can also apply to many other video games that are released or will be released. Those games do not offer hundreds upon hundreds of hours of playability nor the support of the massive content after the game is released.
For Warlords of Draenor, we expect to have the normal amount of content as expansions before it and even more with the housing and inclusive level 90 boost.

So now that World of Warcraft’s expansion price has gone up, I think it is very much justifiable for Blizzard. But that also means they have to manage and increase the time of which new patches are released instead of having a constant flow of content until the last patch hits and it is a full year of the same raid until the new expansion hits.

So if you still think about Blizzard’s increase of the new World of Warcraft expansion is not justified. Go to your local video game shop and look at all the games they offer and think whether or not you would spend your money on the expansion set or the game that costs an average of $59.99 which has not as much gameplay time or all the other perks that come with Warcraft.

For me, I am and always will be a gamer at heart so I would always look for new and fun games to play (all within reason and my budget of course) all the while concurrently playing World of Warcraft.

Game safe and sound all!

*  Full Disclosure: I am a very big Blizzard game fan(but also a very big gamer in all aspects). I have not been payed to say anything I post. All games I have reviewed or talked about are bought by me unless otherwise written or stated.
*  Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls - I will have a review of that game out, hopefully, later this week. Please look forward to that. Spoiler: Very fun game!
*  If any gaming company is looking or want to have reviews of their games done by me.
   Please contact me through my email: Rasely4@hotmail.com
   I am a gamer regardless of the system, as long as games are released I would love to review it.

Keep on gaming!
Avid Vancouverite Gamer

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