I think your need to do some inflation adjustment, their costs increase a lot as well. And raw “record profits” aren’t meaningful when not inflation adjusted.
Everything is getting more expensive, thats mostly not corporate greed (some of it is tbh) its just the general world economics being in a very big crisis from multiple world effecting events, covid, Russia attacking Ukraine, the fucking Suez channel ship thing (yes that shit actually effected world economics), the comeback of terrorism, the right wing people playing Russian spys for their own gains in all of the western world (super left as well, but they don’t have much power gladly) Chinas entire economy is going down the drain for many internal reasons. The World economy has long covid, untreated epilepsy and very bad hemorrhoids all at once basically.
WOW did increase costs, is heavily monetized with micro transactions and thats basically state of the art for mmorpgs right now. The server and development costs are huge for such service games and a company needs to make profits, i don’t say there is no greed involved, but i do understand some of the decisions.
The subscription hike is something, but U.S./U.K. inflation from 2008 to 2022 is about 40%, and that’s not accounting for any changes in corporate taxes. Its… well, it’s kinda mad that WoW hasn’t increased the subscription price that whole time, if that’s true, but that’s partially because they sell expansions, right? And those probably creep up with inflation.
The problem is the choices they’ve made with that money, aka shoving more aggressive monetization into the game instead of keeping it simple, which was so central to its appeal long ago. Of taking short term profits instead of investing in R&D, new game development, and deeper development for Runescape. This is the real corporate greed. Making money is fine, but just taking it as pure profit at the expense of long-term health is destructive, greedy, unfair to the employees and wrong.
Also, I played Runescape ages ago, and well… I just got tired of the game. I feel like thats why many people left, and I also think it’s kinda mad expecting most players to play the same game forever.
Well, I mean wow was already at $15 a month back in the day. When it came out in 2004, It was like paying $25 per month today. It was damn pricey back then. At this point I think they’re getting all the money out of it that the market will bear. Yeah the expansions help but I suspect they’re running leaner now than they were.
I doubt anyone knows how much of the playerbase it makes up, but the WoW subscription effectively went up to $20 a month for anyone that’s using in-game gold to fund it.
Meanwhile in osrs team they have open communication with the community, new content is released only if accepted by vast majority of players, no mtx or other major enshittification of games, the developers clearly very much care of the game and want to keep it running.
You can’t say that for vast majority of the game developers
I quit probably 11 years ago. IIRC they did some dumb stuff to cap trades, and I played out most of everything that was very cool & interesting, and they kept adding new stupid skills that I had absolutely no interest in doing. Like the hunting/trapping skill. But then they’d release sick new quests, with good rewards/perks, but to do them you’d have to extensively train up that yucky, boring, dumb “skill” that you would never use otherwise. If not for that quest.
They turned my play into work, and took the fun out of it, and eventually I was like why am I paying these people so I can grind away hours on dumb stuff that I don’t even like?? So I quit.
That is truly hilarious. Idk if I’d stoop to that, maybe I would, because fuck 'em. But I’d be a relatively “active” bot, if that makes sense. Just leave it run on a secondary screen, check it often. Maybe while surfing the web, or reading a book. I’d be there! But all this clicking & clacking, running around, tedious AF. Screw that, man. I’m not your monkey. I felt it was just disrespectful of our time, and I guess I wasn’t alone in thinking that.
Botting is dangerous, though, especially when you’ve got a powerful character worth a damn. I had a really good character, I wouldn’t ever want him getting banned. I put in too many good hours to get a ban.
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I think your need to do some inflation adjustment, their costs increase a lot as well. And raw “record profits” aren’t meaningful when not inflation adjusted.
Everything is getting more expensive, thats mostly not corporate greed (some of it is tbh) its just the general world economics being in a very big crisis from multiple world effecting events, covid, Russia attacking Ukraine, the fucking Suez channel ship thing (yes that shit actually effected world economics), the comeback of terrorism, the right wing people playing Russian spys for their own gains in all of the western world (super left as well, but they don’t have much power gladly) Chinas entire economy is going down the drain for many internal reasons. The World economy has long covid, untreated epilepsy and very bad hemorrhoids all at once basically.
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https://www.eurogamer.net/world-of-warcraft-subscription-prices-will-rise-in-november
WOW did increase costs, is heavily monetized with micro transactions and thats basically state of the art for mmorpgs right now. The server and development costs are huge for such service games and a company needs to make profits, i don’t say there is no greed involved, but i do understand some of the decisions.
deleted by creator
Yeah i also understand you that pushing micro transactions sucks for the players.
deleted by creator
Oh wow, didn’t remember it being that bad. Sounds like its getting close to Diablo Immortals territory…
You do realize you’re the probelm right? The only vote that matters is the one you make with your wallet, and you voted the subscription hikes are ok.
Typical .ml moment.
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I feel like you’re attacking the wrong thing.
The subscription hike is something, but U.S./U.K. inflation from 2008 to 2022 is about 40%, and that’s not accounting for any changes in corporate taxes. Its… well, it’s kinda mad that WoW hasn’t increased the subscription price that whole time, if that’s true, but that’s partially because they sell expansions, right? And those probably creep up with inflation.
The problem is the choices they’ve made with that money, aka shoving more aggressive monetization into the game instead of keeping it simple, which was so central to its appeal long ago. Of taking short term profits instead of investing in R&D, new game development, and deeper development for Runescape. This is the real corporate greed. Making money is fine, but just taking it as pure profit at the expense of long-term health is destructive, greedy, unfair to the employees and wrong.
Also, I played Runescape ages ago, and well… I just got tired of the game. I feel like thats why many people left, and I also think it’s kinda mad expecting most players to play the same game forever.
Well, I mean wow was already at $15 a month back in the day. When it came out in 2004, It was like paying $25 per month today. It was damn pricey back then. At this point I think they’re getting all the money out of it that the market will bear. Yeah the expansions help but I suspect they’re running leaner now than they were.
I doubt anyone knows how much of the playerbase it makes up, but the WoW subscription effectively went up to $20 a month for anyone that’s using in-game gold to fund it.
Doesn’t sound like corporate greed is killing it at all. Sounds like corporate greed has made it exceptionally profitable.
Meanwhile in osrs team they have open communication with the community, new content is released only if accepted by vast majority of players, no mtx or other major enshittification of games, the developers clearly very much care of the game and want to keep it running.
You can’t say that for vast majority of the game developers
deleted by creator
That’s… the opposite of killing the game
Inertia.
I quit probably 11 years ago. IIRC they did some dumb stuff to cap trades, and I played out most of everything that was very cool & interesting, and they kept adding new stupid skills that I had absolutely no interest in doing. Like the hunting/trapping skill. But then they’d release sick new quests, with good rewards/perks, but to do them you’d have to extensively train up that yucky, boring, dumb “skill” that you would never use otherwise. If not for that quest.
They turned my play into work, and took the fun out of it, and eventually I was like why am I paying these people so I can grind away hours on dumb stuff that I don’t even like?? So I quit.
deleted by creator
That is truly hilarious. Idk if I’d stoop to that, maybe I would, because fuck 'em. But I’d be a relatively “active” bot, if that makes sense. Just leave it run on a secondary screen, check it often. Maybe while surfing the web, or reading a book. I’d be there! But all this clicking & clacking, running around, tedious AF. Screw that, man. I’m not your monkey. I felt it was just disrespectful of our time, and I guess I wasn’t alone in thinking that.
Botting is dangerous, though, especially when you’ve got a powerful character worth a damn. I had a really good character, I wouldn’t ever want him getting banned. I put in too many good hours to get a ban.
I quit when they announced the membership increase a few months ago.
I’ve been logging on for the new updates since my membership lasts until next month but they have all been pretty much terrible since.
It really saddens me to see the game go down this path.
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I’m just glad I came back for the Elder God Wars year, that was some of the best RuneScape content we’ve ever gotten.