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Your World of Warcraft sub to cost more from November

A bizarre solution to the problem of people leaving your MMO for greener pastures is, apparently, to increase its monthly subscription costs. That’s the impression Blizzard, the company behind World of Warcraft (WoW), is giving with its latest announcement that UK players will be paying more for WoW when the latest expansion pack, Warlords of Draenor, drops in November.

The price increases was first spotted on the Battle.net forums, where user Taepsilum posted the details. They wrote:

“We regularly look at our pricing around the world and from time to time we make changes in light of local and regional market conditions. As such, we want to give everyone a heads-up that we will shortly be adjusting the pound sterling subscription price of World of Warcraft.

“The new price for recurring subscriptions will be £9.99 for 30 days, £28.17 for 90 days, and £52.14 for 180 days. The suggested retail price of the 60-day prepaid time card will be £20.99.” In rands, that’s R177.25, R499.52, R924.56 and R372 respectively at today’s exchange rate.

Eurogamer reports that current subscription prices are £8.99 (R159.50) for 30 days, £25.17 (446.45) for 90 days and £46.14 (R818.40) for 180 days in-game.

Blizzard’s latest earnings report revealed that player numbers are down by 800 000 subscribers for the period April to June, 2014, something Blizzard says is “seasonal” and similar to the decline that happened before the 2012 release of the last expansion, Mists of Pandaria. Players on the Battle.net forums disagree, citing nothing new added to the game in the last 14 months as a more likely reason.

In Blizzard’s defense, this is the first-ever price increase in the UK, which for a ten-year-old game is pretty good. As forum poster Dafyddo pointed out, £8.99 from 2004 is actually worth £12.40 in today’s money, making the price increase a little easier to understand, although user Duggles wondered why prices haven’t been raised elsewhere if the reason is related to inflation. It’s a good point.

The price hike makes sense as a way for Blizzard to make the most of any returning players keen to see the new stuff that Warlords of Draenor will add. Gamespot says the expansion has, after all, racked up 1.5 million pre-orders so there’s clearly quite a bit of interest in it.

Taepsilum tried to put a positive spin on it by saying people who have automatically renewing subscription plans will have their monthly costs locked in for two years at their current levels (as long as those plans aren’t changed, that is), but of course forum users weren’t impressed.

Instead, the overwhelming sentiment expressed was “A price increase is how you boost your declining player numbers? GG, Blizzard.”

On the other hand, if you play on the EU or US servers your subscription costs remain unchanged. For now, anyway.

[Source – Battle.net Forums, Image – MMOchampions.net]

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