I’m a day one player of World of Warcraft, I remember when it was a quaint little mess of a game that had a lot of charm and was very tight-knit, community-based, and frustratingly difficult. Retail, as many people have come to call the current version of the game, has shifted into something else remarkably different than what it has been traditionally. But that’s okay, I have no problem with that at all, I am honestly okay with the fact that a lot of the game has changed into a way that is very different than what It was in the past…

But the amount of microtransactions and monetization being flooded into the game is shocking and alarming, especially since it’s a paid game. We’re not talking about something like a Gacha game, or Overwatch 2 which is completely free. Like, if we’re talking about something like Elder scrolls online, which is completely free to play, sure that makes sense that they would have some element of monetization. But, this game requires a lot of money to play just off the bat. It’s $160 minimum per year Just based on subscribing, and a $50 expansion every year or two, they are hoping to make it yearly soon. So this is a paid game. They introduced microtransactions into the game in very small amounts, starting with a very humble little store with a few pets, some mounts, and on live stream seemed to suggest that it would not overtake the game in a major way. That was at least 5 years ago. Now, we are seeing $90 in game mounts like the new dinosaur, They have run numerous promotions with food companies like gummy worms, Doritos, mountain dew. It seems like they are always peddling something new in the real world that people are literally freaking out about. Like, a couple weeks back I saw a post on Facebook how someone spent over $500 buying all the mountain dew they could possibly find in their small town to get codes that they could then flip and sell online to desperate World of Warcraft players. People were paying as much as $30 per code to get things like mounts, pets, optional cosmetics.

Like, this game is starting to feel a lot like a cheap microtransaction infested Asian MMO. The fact that there is always some sort of cash grab, but you also are paying for a game that you subscribe to, and expansions that cost a little less than a new AAA game. It honestly crazy to me.