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Microtransactions are something that has become almost a guarantee in games these days, however back in the days of 2004 when wow first launched, they weren’t even a thought.. or were they? And of course, for the purposes of this video, a micro transaction is an in game item that is either made easier to obtain or is only obtainable through a real money purchase.
Video edited by The Flying Buttress, Script written/Research done by Felplague
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsFg95TXR5dR13qGq6aC9ng
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this is a company video.
microtransaction is fine.
give us more money!
why are people pointing to this video equating a non combat pet with implementing a shop to sell level boosts and and mounts?
Do people really not see a difference with a one time purchase and putting an ingame shop in the game?
I am suprise you never mention Blue and Red Mountain dew promotion that gives out little robot pet before toy vendor in orgrimmar/stormwind was added
Activision sure brought in micro transactions quickly didn’t they. Ruined blizzard so quickly
Cant really compare stuff like tcg and blizzcon codes to an ingame cash shop with advertisements in the UI itself.
6:15 I love this art of Jaina!!!
Just wanted to add that the Celestial Steed mount actually came out in WotLK at the same time as Lil' XT. Thanks for the video!
Collectors edition is not a micro transaction man, come on
I am surprised to see people who are surprised to see microtransaction to plague Wow, like Microtransaction is not only a plague but also a plague that Activision willfully accepts and of course Activision also partially works on Wow, now you may say "But its partially", I call microtransaction a plague, just because you are exposed part of the time, doesn't mean you will not get infected.
Including Battlepasses.
Remember as a kid getting tricked into the annual wow sub. I still got it cancelled and they let me keep the mount.
None of these can really be called a microtransactions until the Celestial Steed. That is because it was very directly obtainable and advertised as such. It also broke the golden ethical rule of microtransactions, bringing other gains than just cosmetic. None of the stuff before really took part in causing the kind toll on WoW that made feel like the game had lost its way and just quit it.
Collectors editions are not microtransactions
Did I miss the flag of ownership tag card… or
Mooooooom it’s not fair!-cssjek
You didn't mention any of the TBC Classic microtransactions
10:00 Not a major thing but back then, the rag pet used to set nearby critters on fire could be used for cooking (like a campfire) and more importantly, the XTpet used to smash that stupid train people could buy in dalaran that made anyone nearby constantly do the /train emote. Which was a nightmare in auction houses and raids.
I'm not trying to sound like I enjoy "micro-transactions" but I think there is a very huge difference between "micro-transactions" and freebies from BlizzCon and the card game, and I think it's important to distinguish the differences between the two.
Blizzard never sold tickets to BlizzCon solely to give people stuff in WoW. Meaning that very few people (if any at all) went to BlizzCon solely to get items for their characters in WoW. I'm a big card nerd, have been all my life going through Pokemon, Digimon, Yugioh, Duel Masters, Magic: The Gathering, etc. That being said, I would occasionally purchase WoW trading cards. Did I buy them for a chance at the tabards, pets, novelty items, and mount(s)? Of course. If you played WoW that was why you bought the cards. However, it was never marketed with the intent of it being a psuedo in-game shop. It was marketed as Blizzard trying to get into the card game business.
The same goes for collectors/deluxe editions. It's important to distinguish the differences between a "collectors" edition and a "deluxe" edition. Back then there were no "deluxe" editions. There were "collectors" editions, and yes, they did use in-game items to sell a pricier version of the game, oftentimes because it was cheaper and more affordable to include in-game items, as opposed to physical items (such as soundtracks, art-books, etc) included with the "collectors editions". The collectors editions, were as the name implies intended to be sold to people who wish to add them to their collections. True "deluxe" editions didn't really take off until other industries solidified the idea during the surge of online gaming (around 2007~ when games like Halo, Gears, Call of Duty, etc started selling "dlc" in the form of "map packs".)
The whole market embraced "dlc" and that's what essentially sky-rocketed "micro-transactions". I get why people claim the TCG and BlizzCon items are "micro-transactions" before the time of "micro-transactions" but they really weren't, in my opinion. I mean think about it – "micro transaction" literally means a transaction for a small amount of money. What constitutes a "micro" or "small" transaction"? I would gamble here and say that it is anything under the 19.99$ USD threshold. Which essentially means character transfers were the first "micro-transaction" that was actually intended to be a true micro-transaction.
Think about it like this – what if you really wanted to play the WoW trading card game, but never played WoW, just heard of it's success. You get a spectral tiger mount card. You've never played the game, though. Why would you purchase a pack of cards if you don't play the online game? I dunno…maybe to play the card game? What about BlizzCon. What if you're a big fan of StarCraft or Diablo, and want to go to BlizzCon, and as such you get your complimentary WoW item. Does that mean you purchased BlizzCon tickets for that? No.
I've played WoW on and off since 2007, and as of late they are absolute dog-shit. Their GMs don't give a single fuck about the players. They're difficult to reach. They dish out bans for minor transgressions. They don't know their shit, and rarely look into things before they ban you. (I recently got banned about a month ago for mailing my main account 2000g gold from my alt account. – they banned me for 3 days and took away all of my gold across both account and removed anything that could've been sold on the auction house such as my stockpile of consumables, gems, enchanting mats, and other stuff I flip) and when explained to them in as dumbed down a dialect as I could, still got told to kick rocks for 3 days.
However I would still go up to bat against calling most of those things "micro-transactions". Just sayin.
Thank god for micro-transactions, they should be the main profit driver for all games and all games should be F2P.
Trading card games are the original gacha and lootboxes. It's hilarious watching people who say they play Magic or Yugioh complain about gacha and lootboxes, what absolute clueless morons.
Actually, gacha and lootboxes are less gambling cuz in trading card games, YOU HAVE TO pay real money to spin the lottery if you want to play the game.
The only time I pay for cosmetics are for the BlizzCon rewards. I enjoy collecting BlizzCon related items a lot. They become very rare overtime.
I have zero interest in purchasing regular store items that are obtainable at all times. They aren't "special" or sought after in the slightest by the majority of players including me.
Damn. So many microtransactions. Goddamn it
Back when it was current, I had pulled the Spectral Tiger and the War Bear mounts. Plus a few other in game items. A new emote dance and some kind of campfire thing I believe. And some kind of drums.
I am embarrassed to use my promotional mounts in the game. I would like to use the spectral tiger mount. It flies great an is small enough to fit into tight places. Plus, it looks cool. But alas, I want to get in a decent guild someday.
It's worth noting that some of these 6 month promotions had to be manually claimed. For example, I took a break before legion and apparently still had a 6 month sub rolling each year. While i did hop on and play a bit through each expansion, I never got the dreadwake or the butterfly transmog because i guess i never claimed them. probably some others, but those came to mind.
i had the tcg cards for the ethereal and partygrenades. you may should have added that on the tcg website you were able to register boosterpack codes seperate to the lootcards, wich when reached a certain amount were able exchange for things like tabards. those were recolored versions of the original tcg one wich was red came in yellow, grey, green, orange, purple, white and blue
Bit of a nitpick, but I feel like you're really stretching the definition of "microtransaction" (small-value purchases for in-game items designed to bolster a developers revenue stream from a game) by including Collectors Edition items and Blizzcon freebies, both of which were not "small value purchases".
The TCG I could almost justify as calling a microtransaction because card packs aren't expensive and it's the closest to how microtransactions actually work, but that game wasn't made by Blizzard, so they didn't see any money from the loot cards beyond whatever licensing fee they were paid by Upper Deck/Cryptzooic.
If you're classifying any purchase that makes getting an in-game item easier, or getting it instantly, than where is the micro part? If you pay $60 for a game, then pay $40 to get something, how is that micro?
4:50 That's not a monkey, go back to school man.
don't forget wow tokens in classic wow!