Damn Blizzard

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Every year, no matter how little I have actually played WoW, I always have subscribed for the holidays and and gotten to be online at New Years. This year I just have not had the time nor money, and what gaming time I do have really should be spent playing actual OTHER games that have something to teach me about design. My sister has an account, and I've created a disposable little Warlock to trot over to Stormwind, but every second I spend playing makes me wish I had my actual character.

If Blizzard let me pay per day, I'd be more than willing to spend a dollar or two to log on for nostalgia sake, but I can't justify spending $15 for a month of killing wolves that could go either towards one of the many quality games on sale right now, or to, you know, actually paying back student loans and what-not.

(Speaking of games on sale, has anyone played the Void and have anything good or bad to say about it?)
 
K

Kitty Sinatra

Dude. think about what other entertainment you spend 15 bucks on. It costs nearly that for a single movie at a cinema. If you think of it like that, 3 hours of Wow for 15 dollars is a reasonable purchase. At 6 hours its a bargain. And at just 1 hour a day for a month it's cheap.

Spend the 15 dollars and enjoy your time.
 
I actually ended up deciding to log in for unrelated reasons (it turns out I still had $24.95 available on paypal that I had determined to be guilt free money when I got it (I won it in a contest)). But then I went to call a friend and didn't get back to my computer in time, so I ended up just watching the Industrious Clock instead.

That said, I've heard your argument a lot over the years, and it's flawed for several reasons:

1. Dunno where you live, but I've never been to a non-Imax film showing that cost more than $10.

2. When you pay for a movie, you are paying for the entire movie experience. Big black room, lots of surround sound, giant screen, and a group of friends to watch with whom you can talk about how awesome the movie was afterwards. A better comparison to playing a video game is either renting or buying a movie (in the case of WarCraft renting is more appropriate, since that's what you're doing. Especially when you're only doing it to watch the fireworks in Stormwind, and especially especially when those fireworks stopped happening years ago and all you really get to see is a bunch of people casting Blizzard at the same time). That brings the price down to about a dollar/day when you consider that those little Redboxes are cropping up in supermarkets all over the place. And as noted, I'd be perfectly willing

3. If all your entertainment followed the same metric of "Compare the hourly rate to watching a movie" then all your entertainment would be ludicrously expensive. Dragon Age would be $4-8 an hour x 100 hours = $400-800. Would you seriously pay that for a game? I guess this is more of a re-iteration of point 2: Movies are priced as "night out away from the ordinary" as opposed to a benchmark against which ordinary entertainment is measured.
 
3. If all your entertainment followed the same metric of "Compare the hourly rate to watching a movie" then all your entertainment would be ludicrously expensive. Dragon Age would be $4-8 an hour x 100 hours = $400-800. Would you seriously pay that for a game? I guess this is more of a re-iteration of point 2: Movies are priced as "night out away from the ordinary" as opposed to a benchmark against which ordinary entertainment is measured.
Dragon Age would only be $4-8 an hour if you initially paid $400-800. If you initially paid $60 and played for 100 hours, that's 60 cents per hour.
 
K

Kitty Sinatra

Yeah, 10 bucks a movie is normal where I live. That's 10 bucks for 2 hours. 3 hours of WoW at 15 bucks would be roughly equal. If you want an at-home comparison: A rental costs 5 bucks; that's 5 bucks for 2 hours, so 6 hours of WoW would be roughly equal. You probably would've played about 6 hours tonight, right?

Also, you're doing the latter comparison wrong. I'd never pay that kind of money for a game. But if I'm looking at how to budget my money, a $60 game that I can whittle down to a buck/hour is a better investment than going out to a movie. And that's damn well what I'm gonna look at.

Plus, more than anything: I was trying to help you justify spending the cash to play WoW. Why the fuck are you arguing with me? :p


Where the heck's the :p emoticon? :p
 
Dragon Age would only be $4-8 an hour if you initially paid $400-800. If you initially paid $60 and played for 100 hours, that's 60 cents per hour.
I wasn't saying how much Dragon Age IS, I'm saying how much it would cost if we were using the cost/hours of a movie. Movies (in theaters) cost anywhere from $2 to $15 (Grue's original comparison was "almost 15" so that's what I was going with.). If you're willing to pay $7.50 per hour of entertainment, period, you'd be willing to pay $750 for Dragon Age.

Also, you're doing the latter comparison wrong. I'd never pay that kind of money for a game. But if I'm looking at how to budget my money, a $60 game that I can whittle down to a buck/hour is a better investment than going out to a movie. And that's damn well what I'm gonna look at.
You're the one who made the original comparison of "$15 movie is a legitimate amount of money to spend per hour on entertainment, ergo less than 7.50 an hour on WoW is a bargain." If that were true, you'd be willing to shell out $400 on Dragon Age. If you're not willing to do that, then $7.50 per hour must not actually be your going rate for entertainment. $5 for a rented movie is better (you're still overpaying. Even if you don't count the robotic Movie-Vending-Machines because they frankly DO lead us to undervalue entertainment, you should be able to rent a movie that's at least a month old for $2-$3 tops. (And as I earlier noted, WoW is more than a month old). And regardless, that's $2-$5 for an entire family (or at least two people) to watch a movie. Divided accordingly, even starting with $5, that's $1.25/hour.

I actually DO think $1/hour is in the right ballpark, (Dragon Age frankly was a lot of work and is probably actually worth about $100, but people are used to all games starting at $40-60 so that's what they went with) but that's still for entertainment on the expensive side. I'd have to play at least 15 hours (which I don't want to) to theoretically get my money's worth, and even then there's the fact that society in general has agreed that one month of MMO = $15. You're not watching a movie, you're playing an MMO, and a dollar per hour of MMO is ludicrous.

Plus, more than anything: I was trying to help you justify spending the cash to play WoW. Why7 the fuck are you arguing with me? :p
Oh I know and if you had got to me while I still had time to activate my account I'd be busy activating my account and heading back to Stormwind. But you (and I) are both too late, so now I'm maximizing my entertainment cost/hour rate by making fun of your bad logic. For free, I might add. :p
 
It's interesting that so many people claim that it's so hard to leave WoW and they keep going back. I've been gone 2 months now and it's been a cake ride. I haven't even been doing it by "ignoring" it to try and wane off the addiction. I've looked at screenshots and storylines for the stuff that comes out and just no single urge at all creeps up. That being said, I definitely got my money's worth for the 5yrs I played.
 
It's interesting that so many people claim that it's so hard to leave WoW and they keep going back. I've been gone 2 months now and it's been a cake ride. I haven't even been doing it by "ignoring" it to try and wane off the addiction. I've looked at screenshots and storylines for the stuff that comes out and just no single urge at all creeps up. That being said, I definitely got my money's worth for the 5yrs I played.
Pretty much this. I quit cold turkey maybe a year ago, and haven't looked back since.
 
K

Kitty Sinatra

My logic's not wrong, here. I just haven't fully explained everything (and I never will cause I'm not that interested). Suffice it to say that there's more than the single benchmark of cost:time I'd use. The most obvious other one is "initial investment." I'd have to be damn sure that I could get 40 enjoyable hours out of a game before that $200 equals $5/hour becomes relevant.

Think about it some, and you'll understand what I'm getting at.
 
It's interesting that so many people claim that it's so hard to leave WoW and they keep going back. I've been gone 2 months now and it's been a cake ride. I haven't even been doing it by "ignoring" it to try and wane off the addiction. I've looked at screenshots and storylines for the stuff that comes out and just no single urge at all creeps up. That being said, I definitely got my money's worth for the 5yrs I played.
Oh I have not played (nor cared to play) WoW for almost exactly a year, and had not played 9 months prior to WotLK coming out. While I'm playing WoW I get really into it, but afterwards I don't feel a continuous compulsion. (It helps that I'm not that interested in raiding or PvP or anything other than leveling. Leveling is the only element that provides the direct dopamine rush, but starting a new character doesn't provide me with the same excitement because the mid levels are so boring compared to the newer expansions. Cataclysm will probably change that. I'm wary of buying it at all because I might not stop.

Anyways... I'm only feeling weak now because New Years is a particularly nostalgic moment.


My logic's not bad...
It might not have been bad if you were applying it towards a different product. There are products (even games) where I am willing to pay more than a dollar/hour for. I finally got the Orange Box for $15 two days ago, and although that is technically an amazing deal the fact is I got it mainly for Portal (I only got Windows relatively recently so I hadn't actually gotten to play it yet), which takes about 6 hours. But those 6 hours are way more creative and filled with funnier dialogue than any given 6 hours of WoW, the game had no dull moments, and it was a game I can actually share with most of my family and get to watch their reactions to as they play it. (My sister cares a little bit how my WoW character's doing, but only barely). It was also a new experience for me instead of a game I've already logged hundreds of hours on.
 
Hours of Value only works if someone WANTS to spend those extra hours playing. $15 is a lot if you only want to spend an hour or two doing the event missions.
 
K

Kitty Sinatra

But that's what I'm saying, Ash. 15 bucks for a couple hours of something he really wanted to do is a reasonable price.

He shouldn't necessarily be comparing it to any one form of entertainment specifically, he should be comparing it to whatever works best so he can convince himself to do it. The goal is to find some way to justify spending the cash on it, to himself or to his gal or to his banker: "Look, I could've spent about the same for a movie, babe; let's just pretend that's what I did instead and lay the fuck off me, mmkay?"
 
A

Alucard

Oh this is WoW. Yeah......thought you guys were complaining how Diablo 3 isn't out.....leaves..........
 
R

RealBigNuke

I have trouble quitting WoW for good, but it's not the game, it's my guild. I meet them every year at PAX and quite a few of them I consistently hang out with in real life, so I often renew my account just to hang out. If it weren't for them I wouldn't play that grind fest at all.
 
And as I said, if I had gotten back to the computer during the window when I still cared that much we wouldn't be having the argument. But I really am poor right now, and it still would have been a bad idea for me to have done it.

However, I'm now open to a different form of persuasion. (I genuinely do not know whether I care to do this, but I might depending on what the facts are) :

I kinda want to log back in for the purpose of completing the quest where you actually get to kill Arthas. I figure having come so far (and given that Blizzard did a good job with the storyline in WotLK) it may be worth seeing through to the end. But the last time I played was before Ulduar even came out, and I'm not a particularly skilled instance-run-er.

So, as someone with a character who just hit level 80 before quitting, which instances am I going to need to run, in which order, and approximately how much time am I going to need to spend before I'll be equipped well enough to try the casual version of Ice Crown? (This time I'm actually hoping for the opposite of last time - that there are a relatively small number of hours so I won't have to spend a month grinding away to build up to a single moment).
 
I actually do kinda see what you mean now that I think about, based on my original phrasing. If I wanted it badly enough, it'd be worth $15, just by virtue of me wanting it badly enough. I didn't actually want it that badly, and I knew how little I could afford it and how guilty I'd feel the whole time playing and how even more guilty I'd feel after the fact. But I suppose that wasn't necessarily apparent.
 
R

Rubicon

Yea the $15 for WoW is my entertainment budget a month, usually.

Its at LEAST $15 to go see a movie in a theater, for one person, and buy popcorn + soda, thats 2 hours of entertainment and some snacks versus access to a game I can play when I want for 30 days. And since no other games really interest me atm or aren't out yet, I'm getting my value out of $15
 
D

Deschain

I'm afraid that logging on for nostalgia's sake will only lead to something much much more.
 
Yeah. In my case, logging on for Nostalgia would result in me wasting the rest of the month. I know I wouldn't keep going past the end of the month (I'm pretty good about that) but this is a really important month for me, and I can't afford to lose it to the Lich King.
 
Quit it a year ago after playing it religiously in a TOP 100 raiding guilds in the world.

Haven't looked back and lost 25 pounds.
 
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