Background: I've been playing Blizzard games since original Diablo.
I spent years invested in Starcraft, and Brood War, and Diablo II.
So much time playing such amazingly replayable games. So good!
But I watched something happen over the years. I've been watching something I care about, something I really enjoy being "a part of" as a customer, and as a gamer, become infected with something.
I've been watching this company fight this infection, for years. It began with the announcement that Activision was to be taking them over (they did, sorry, not sorry), but for the best, with the most feigned of smiles appearing on the Blizzard CEO's face as he delivered this assuredly self-promoting news.
I watched announcements for new games become Babe Ruth coming up to bat calling out an exactness of expected disappointment.
Diablo III was supposed to be something amazing, but it was obviously a cashout, a quick production with a massive number of features left out (many of them praised and talked about by the people who would later squash those features in favor of not doing them).
I regret not taking this obvious grim sign into serious consideration sooner.
I've watched World of Warcraft become something different over time as well.
I won't argue about game features, other than the obvious removal of /follow from battlegrounds, a slight made by a developer in an attempt to basically kill off multiboxing because they clearly personally had beef with it (they acted unilaterally and changes were partially reversed, presumably as an internal compromise). I think follow's removal was a big sign of bad times for WoW...
...but foolishly I wanted to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt with legion. I was shocked to discover that the WoW token system basically allowed me to play for free as a multiboxer. In fact, since I've been playing WoW in last february, I've spent *less than one hundred dollars* and have farmed an inordinate number of games and playtime.
10+ legions farmed. 10+ BFAs. Several games gifted, like Overwatch (NEVER PLAYED IT, NEITHER DID THEY!), Hearthstone packs (had to throw blizzard balance at SOMETHING!), etc.
Crazy amount of potential revenue for Blizzard, lost to "free wow" and the ease at which wow gold could be attained through smart farming and auctioning.
Why is this possible?
I'll tell you why:
The WoW token system is currently acting as an illusion, a trick to get players to believe that the system itself is closed, that gold is only being generated by the WoW player and is, in no way, being manufactured by Blizzard.
The idea is an auction system is setup to allow you to purchase the WoW token with gold, and have someone "buy" the token with WoW gold, thus closing the loop and ensuring that the gold went from seller to buyer without tax, inflation, etc.
THE REALITY IS: WoW Token gold is GENERATED completely, fabricated 100% by Blizzard, and then "sold" via an autoselling algorithm, which creates the impression of what they've claimed. An illusion.
The hyperinflation we're experiencing, the ease with which a player can play the game *for free*, even on *multiple accounts*, is the grimmest sign of all: It's an indicator that the game is cashing itself out, cashing its economy out, and the gold purchased wow tokens are simply a cover, a massive gold sink created to hide the illusion as long as possible.
They're making a massive profit from the cannibalization of this game's 13+ year old economy. The faith that runs wow gold, that makes it valuable, is already slipping away as we've gone from 120k wow tokens last february to 200k+ today.
The price for the tokens themselves, the gold value bought with $20, goes up *automatically* as was seen when the BFA presale came out which took the blizzard store down, preventing anyone from buying tokens. During the time the tokens were down, the price shot up from about 180k to 280k.
They just have an algorithm that bumps the price up until the spice keeps flowing at an adequate rate.
I can't sit and watch one of my favorite games basically be bled dry by the fully-fledged parasitic infection which has now taken over the company originally responsible for such incredibly awesome games as Diablo I and II and StarCraft, Brood War.
I used to funnel a crazy amount of money into this game every month to multibox 11 accounts and play Alterac Valley allday.
It's reached the point *where it is not even worth playing this game for free*.
You can take what I've said here as a QQ, as a ragequit, or whatever other basic, baseless, useless attack you need in order to rationalize why someone would be coming online to try to share this information with you.
I simply had to post this as a warning to anyone basically investing their money in this company, because everyone does have the right to know how things work in a transparent way.
I spent years invested in Starcraft, and Brood War, and Diablo II.
So much time playing such amazingly replayable games. So good!
But I watched something happen over the years. I've been watching something I care about, something I really enjoy being "a part of" as a customer, and as a gamer, become infected with something.
I've been watching this company fight this infection, for years. It began with the announcement that Activision was to be taking them over (they did, sorry, not sorry), but for the best, with the most feigned of smiles appearing on the Blizzard CEO's face as he delivered this assuredly self-promoting news.
I watched announcements for new games become Babe Ruth coming up to bat calling out an exactness of expected disappointment.
Diablo III was supposed to be something amazing, but it was obviously a cashout, a quick production with a massive number of features left out (many of them praised and talked about by the people who would later squash those features in favor of not doing them).
I regret not taking this obvious grim sign into serious consideration sooner.
I've watched World of Warcraft become something different over time as well.
I won't argue about game features, other than the obvious removal of /follow from battlegrounds, a slight made by a developer in an attempt to basically kill off multiboxing because they clearly personally had beef with it (they acted unilaterally and changes were partially reversed, presumably as an internal compromise). I think follow's removal was a big sign of bad times for WoW...
...but foolishly I wanted to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt with legion. I was shocked to discover that the WoW token system basically allowed me to play for free as a multiboxer. In fact, since I've been playing WoW in last february, I've spent *less than one hundred dollars* and have farmed an inordinate number of games and playtime.
10+ legions farmed. 10+ BFAs. Several games gifted, like Overwatch (NEVER PLAYED IT, NEITHER DID THEY!), Hearthstone packs (had to throw blizzard balance at SOMETHING!), etc.
Crazy amount of potential revenue for Blizzard, lost to "free wow" and the ease at which wow gold could be attained through smart farming and auctioning.
Why is this possible?
I'll tell you why:
The WoW token system is currently acting as an illusion, a trick to get players to believe that the system itself is closed, that gold is only being generated by the WoW player and is, in no way, being manufactured by Blizzard.
The idea is an auction system is setup to allow you to purchase the WoW token with gold, and have someone "buy" the token with WoW gold, thus closing the loop and ensuring that the gold went from seller to buyer without tax, inflation, etc.
THE REALITY IS: WoW Token gold is GENERATED completely, fabricated 100% by Blizzard, and then "sold" via an autoselling algorithm, which creates the impression of what they've claimed. An illusion.
The hyperinflation we're experiencing, the ease with which a player can play the game *for free*, even on *multiple accounts*, is the grimmest sign of all: It's an indicator that the game is cashing itself out, cashing its economy out, and the gold purchased wow tokens are simply a cover, a massive gold sink created to hide the illusion as long as possible.
They're making a massive profit from the cannibalization of this game's 13+ year old economy. The faith that runs wow gold, that makes it valuable, is already slipping away as we've gone from 120k wow tokens last february to 200k+ today.
The price for the tokens themselves, the gold value bought with $20, goes up *automatically* as was seen when the BFA presale came out which took the blizzard store down, preventing anyone from buying tokens. During the time the tokens were down, the price shot up from about 180k to 280k.
They just have an algorithm that bumps the price up until the spice keeps flowing at an adequate rate.
I can't sit and watch one of my favorite games basically be bled dry by the fully-fledged parasitic infection which has now taken over the company originally responsible for such incredibly awesome games as Diablo I and II and StarCraft, Brood War.
I used to funnel a crazy amount of money into this game every month to multibox 11 accounts and play Alterac Valley allday.
It's reached the point *where it is not even worth playing this game for free*.
You can take what I've said here as a QQ, as a ragequit, or whatever other basic, baseless, useless attack you need in order to rationalize why someone would be coming online to try to share this information with you.
I simply had to post this as a warning to anyone basically investing their money in this company, because everyone does have the right to know how things work in a transparent way.
