So World of Warcraft has a problem with its server populations and how they’re managed. This is not inherently designed. There was never an intent to make certain servers completely devoid of players or devoid of players of a certain faction. But now Blizzard is going to fix that problem by selling you bulk character discounts. Forget server connections or free transfers or more robust cross-faction play; why would you do any of that when you could pay Blizzard a bunch of money before transferring your characters?! It’s only really gross!
This sticks in my craw. It bothers me when a company is willing to sell you a solution to a problem, especially a very fundamental one. I also don’t think it’s the most egregious example out there; after all, there are MMOs that deliberately create the problem that the studio will later charge you to fix, and that’s far worse. But it still bothers me, whether the studio created the problem deliberately and then sold the solution or whether the problem emerged organically and the solution got sold. So what’s the most egregious example you can think of an MMO studio selling the solution to a problem?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
