WOW's paid customisation launches

By Oli Welsh Published 11 December, 2008

Sex-changes available to Americans.

World of Warcraft's paid character re-customisation service has launched for players on North American servers, allowing players to change their characters' sex for the first time.

The service costs USD 15 and allows you to change your character's gender, skin colour and facial features. You also get a free name change if you want it (this normally incurs a USD 10 charge).

Furthermore, you can change your hair style and colour, and the other cosmetic details which can already be altered in the in-game barbershop for in-game currency.

There's no word yet on when European players will be able to use the service, or how much it will cost here. A Blizzard poster on the official forums said: "We hope to be announcing this service in the EU very soon."

Blizzard explained to Eurogamer last month that charging for character services like this one was intended as a deterrent as much as a money-spinner, to prevent people constantly changing their name, look or server.

Picture of Oli.

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 (13) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Blackloch #1 3 years ago

    Money money money ;)

  • Orange #2 3 years ago

    "deterrent" my arse.

  • stevetuck #3 3 years ago

    a whole army of gnomes with pigtails inc

  • makeamazing #4 3 years ago

    Its just another way to milk as much money from the game (its not like they are making enough already :D

    Its probably also going to help pay for the adverts (one just appeared on tv)

  • dudefella #5 3 years ago

    I don't mind that they charge for it, don't want every muppet changing between male and female at their leisure. It's only cosmetic anyway so only people with too much money would bother.

  • paulf #6 3 years ago

    sex changes for only $15?
    they are gonna put all those thai surgeons out of business

  • hulahoops #7 3 years ago

    It is a deterrent.

    There are plenty of more surreptitious ways these guys could try to squeeze more money.

    So long as Blizzard are making billions simply from subscription fees, the objective is to keep people happy and maintain stability. They don't want to screw with that. Why would they want to twist a bit of cash out of you when it threatens your subscription fee?
    Edited by 1 at 11/12/08 @ 23:21

  • Fozzie_bear #8 3 years ago

    Why on earth would anyone pay good money to look like this?

  • Red-Moose #9 3 years ago

    @BlankOBlank!: because they *are* twisting more cash out of you? The purpose is to make money. Charging $10 doesn't bring in a critical addition of say $2 million extra a month (given they already make around €10 x 11 Million each month alone), make it $15 and allow anothe single byte change on the server and it might get more people to take up the offer.

    I am so jealous of how Blizzard are basically going to have more money than God by the end of the decade.

  • George-Roper #10 3 years ago

    @Red Moose

    "I am so jealous of how Blizzard are basically going to have more money than God by the end of the decade."

    I wish people would understand, Blizzard don't make a jot out of it. They don't own WoW. Vivendi Universal do. They're the ones rolling in vats of 50 quid notes.

    And of course its about making money. If only a tiny portion of the playerbase use this service, even just once every few months, thats still more money flowing into their coffers for what amounts to a couple of database value changes.

    Still, if they continue to put content of the same quality as WotLK out then more power to them.

  • butler` #11 3 years ago

    wired_protocol, as a bit of a MMO connoisseur, I can completely understand why you don't get this kind of thing. To be honest, I'd find it quite difficult to justify or even explain it.

  • Rizzle #12 3 years ago

    It's not about making money - it's about taking money. It's about upsetting the status quo, because the status... well, it's not "quo".

    Or something like that. I don't really follow the WoW scene too closely.

  • Bleh #13 3 years ago

    Sure they want to make more money but what about service to their customers. You can't really say it's going bad with Blizzard so why don't they show it to their customers. They have it good because of them.

    Don't get me wrong they shouldn't make everything for free but as I see it they have also some responsibility to their customers. And it's also in their interest, keep looking at the remarks more and more people are giving comments that they only do it for the money etc. I can remember that people were only saying positive stuff about them but this is changing.