Micro-transactions "betray" players

By Oli Welsh Published 21 February, 2008

Blizzard wants level playing field in WOW.

Blizzard's senior vice president of game design, Rob Pardo, has said players would feel "betrayed" if a micro-transaction system, of the sort common in free-to-play MMO games, was implemented in World of Warcraft.

After his talk on multiplayer game design at GDC, Pardo was asked if the company had considered introducing the fashionable payment model to its smash hit MMORPG. Pardo argued that any use of outside cash resources unbalances the game, and likened micro-transactions to sanctioning gold-buying.

"We've taken the approach that we want players to feel like it's a level playing field once they're in WoW." he said. "Outside resources don't play into it - no gold buying, etcetera. We take a hard line stance against it. What you get out of micro-transactions is kind of the same thing and I think our player base would feel betrayed by it."

Asked if the ability to buy powerful items might not help casual players with less time to invest in the game catch up with the hardcore, Pardo said: "They aren't going to be the ones spending the money".

Head over to WOWInsider for a full transcript of Pardo's talk on multiplayer design. Plenty of interesting morsels and good sense there, on both WOW and Starcraft, from a company that can be said to know its onions in that field.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (11) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • bad09 #1 4 years ago

    Whenever I read something about WOW I can't help but smile and think of that South Park Episode......

  • skillian #2 4 years ago

    Good idea, micro-transactions would just be excessive money grabbing at this point. I know lots on here don't like that phrase, believing companies should do all they can to maximise profits, but this would surely piss off a lot of players and lead to quite a few cancelled subscriptions.

  • JohnnyWashnGo #3 4 years ago

    This is the third or fourth article that has appeared twice on the RSS feed for Eurogamer in the last few days.

    Anybody know what is going on?

  • Oli Verified Reviews Editor, Eurogamer.net #4 4 years ago

    Just a little after-the-fact editing. Trying to make the title look nice and all fit on one line. I'm the new boy and I haven't got the fine art of news-story-naming down pat yet... Apologies.

  • JohnnyWashnGo #5 4 years ago

    S'okay Oli, I wasn't trying to whinge or anything.

    I just wanted to point out something that may have been wrong with the site. As long as you guys know about, everything is cool :)

  • Eraysor #6 4 years ago

    I think I'd probably give up on WoW if they let you buy an advantage officially.

  • kangarootoo #7 4 years ago

    @skillian

    Are you suggesting that maximising profits ins't part of the WoW business plan? Of course it is. Their share price speaks for itself on that one.

    WoW has a plan, and micro transactions aren't it. Micro transactions are part of the business plan of WoW competitors.

    That is why Blizzard don't like it. Business as usual, plain and simple.

  • Pirotic #8 4 years ago

    Blizzard don't like it because they don't need it, they have 9 million subscribers and have probably calculated that the money brought in by allowing purchase of in-game assets, would probably be offset by the lost subscription of everybody who would stop playing because of it.

    The only reason other companies probably adopt the micro payment system is because the market isn't large enough to sustain that many subscription based games. The 9 million Wow subscribers are probably not interested in forking out another £9 a month for another game, but if the other game is free to play then they might give it a bash and end up buying an item or two.

  • skillian #9 4 years ago

    Are you suggesting that maximising profits ins't part of the WoW business plan?

    No, of course not. If anyone knows how to maximise profits, it's Blizzard.

    I was just saying, like Pirotic above me, that rather than increase revenue, micro-transacations would probably lose them money through lost subscriptions. If they thought micro-transactions would make them money, I'm sure they'd do it in a heartbeat.

  • Bumadan #10 4 years ago

    "we want players to feel like it's a level playing field once they're in WoW"

    ???

    You wouldnt have to play much WoW before realizing that the playingfield is far from level as it is now. If you have other things you have to do in your life and cant set aside several hours of uninterrupted playing time on specific dates and times you will never get to enjoy all of WoW.

    Even just getting accepted into any of the top raiding guilds will be an extremely timeconsuming process. And in WoW almost noone ever does old raid-stuff so you cant even say you will eventually get to see it all.

    "Level" playingfield my ***.

    If you think that micro-transactions are excessively money-grabbing and an unfair way to get "stuff" then why is it alright that the way it is now where the game itself is excessively time-grabbing which seems almost as unfair to me.

    It almost comes down to who you want to be unfair to...

    People with lots of time and less money or people with plenty of cash but not so much time :-)

    Atleast if you waste some cash on something you can earn more but if you waste time on something (WoW?) then there is no way you'll be getting that back.

  • kangarootoo #11 4 years ago

    @skillian

    Fair enough, I was being a bit stroppy for a moment there :)

    I guess we agree that micro transactions aren't part of their model, ans that in either case its not really about treating players fairly.

    If Blizzard had firm business reasons for using a mt model, that is what they would be doing, level playing field be damned.
    Edited by kangarootoo at 21/02/08 @ 13:52