Let the rumor die. Bashiok, the hungry tree, has made it official. An in-game store is coming to World of Warcraft sometime in the future. The rumor kicked off last week after a data mine by WoWHead discovered an item labeled for addition with the “5.4 In-Game Store”.
Initially, Zarhym explained that the company was simply “exploring the possibility” of introducing a feature that’s become a near universal trait of the genre. That’s no longer the party line.
Of course, when we’ll actually see the store in action remains to be seen. Bashiok noted that Blizzard is still “pretty early” in the process.
The reasoning behind the addition is sound. First off, the microtransactions available from the Battle.net store have been a hit, even if Sparkle Pony was a firestorm initially. Thus, an in-game store would be highly convenient for fans of the web-based store. Second, with pressure and expectations from the F2P market mounting, Blizzard is investigating adding new convenience-oriented items, such as the experience boosting Enduring Elixir of Wisdom, to appease a growing minority. These items will be tested in Asian markets before making the jump to Western audiences.
Seems Blizzard’s various increases in experience gains over the years weren’t enough.
It’s long been suspected that Wow would go f2p when Blizzard decided to stop expanding the game. Opening a microtransaction store makes sense at this time, since the upcoming expansion pack is either the last one or perhaps second-to-last one.
I highly doubt WoW will ever go truly F2P. They said time and time again, that as long as people are willing to pay $15, they’ll stick with it. So far, people are.
This is just a test to see how well it goes in Asian markets. If it does poorly there, then we can expect it to flop. You can expect it to flop even in Western markets if WoW stays subscription based.
The reason why everyone likes the web store for mounts and pets is that the $25 goes towards the ENTIRE account for LIFETIME. The Western market isn’t as willing to spend $1 for an 1 hour EXP boost (no matter how good) to ONE character if they’re already paying $15 a month.