Blizzard's In-Game Store for World of Warcraft

I just watched a video from Nobbel, my trusted guide for soloing old content, that informed me that apparently players are getting harassed for having stuff from the Blizzard store. I couldn't believe what I was actually hearing, but it turns out that people with transmog helmets would get kicked from LFR/LFG just for having that stuff. And it's not just limited to the helmets, as people with pets and mounts have been harassed too. If you are one of these people harassing those with Blizzard store items, what the hell are you doing on the Internet? Do yourself the favor and get off the game before Blizzard employees make you.

I've been aware of the controversy over the Blizzard store for a while now, ever since a couple of months after I got back into the game again, but I don't think the complaints have ever been this vocal. I'm sure it has to do with all the advancements Blizzard has made with that store, having added several items and having plans for the store to appear in-game. People seem to fear that Blizzard is just trying to take more money on top of the monthly subscription, that having little items that people paid for is somehow ruining the actual in-game items everyone else plays the game for, and thus all of this is leading to the end of WoW. If that is your belief, I won't discriminate against you, but do know that I think you are an idiot. You can rest assured that I won't do anything to harass you over your belief, but if you're ever in a group with Blood Elf paladin, who is tanking with her little cinder kitten out, and if you bitch at her and if she just abandons your group, know that that tank was me.

Let me start with the idiots who think they know economics. This store cannot hurt the game's economy because all the items you buy from the Blizz store are bind on account, meaning you can't trade with other players. Therefore, it's not like the store is giving you free gold. So for god's sake, enough of that already. Now for the idiots who are treating this exclusive content as if it was something new: this has been around since the start of the WoW TCG. There have always been mounts and pets and other odds and ends that you could pay real-world money for and have in the game, and all of these have no method of obtaining in the game aside from spending ridiculous amounts of gold on the auction house. Maybe you could say that this hurts the market, but really, do you think there are enough people spending two hundred dollars or a hundred and fifty thousand gold on these items in order to ruin the game's economy? This has been going on for about eight years already, so how is this a problem all of a sudden with the Blizzard Store?

One of my questions is the same when applied to the Blizzard Store. People complain that Blizzard is just making killings and mountains of more money than they need because of the overpriced Blizzard Store items plus the monthly subscription, but do you really think there are that many people buying from the store to justify this nonsense? I'm pretty sure Blizzard doesn't think of their store as quite the cash cow and the probably never intended for it to initially be just that. Why else are we all paying a monthly subscription then? What I truly believe is going on is that Blizzard is considering making WoW free to play, so they are trying things out by experimenting with this store, seeing what people will and won't pay money for. I'm sure that as time goes on and as more items get added, the outrageous price of fifteen dollars for a stupid cosmetic helmet will drop. People seem to suddenly believe that everything Blizzard does is set in stone, when they're forgetting that Blizzard has actually made quite a huge number of changes to this game during Mists of Pandaria; so much in fact that they said themselves they felt like it was during this expansion that they've made the most changes to the game.

Maybe I'm just optimistic, but I really think this store will be the revenue Blizzard makes off this game in the future. Blizzard already has another MMORPG in the works, and I seriously doubt they are going to pull a Square Enix and charge subscriptions for two MMO's when all they need is revenue from one subscription. So that's what I think makes sense for WoW's distant future, but I'm sure there are bizarre, miserable people out there with stones for hearts and monkey feces for brains who believe that making WoW free to play will destroy the game somehow. To that, I really have no comment. I don't know about those people, but spending constant money on a game isn't exactly part of the gameplay for me.

So yeah, that was my pointless rant that tries in vain to shut up the blowhards and the babycries that seem to dominate the player base these days. Say what you want about what you miss from WoW's old days, but what I truly miss is how nobody whined so much about things a they do now.