Argentinian fans of World of Warcraft are sounding the alarm over Blizzard’s decision to change both the cost of subscription to the MMORPG and the currency it will take, with fans from the country pointing out the unfair treatment they’re receiving as a result of specific taxes and massive inflation in the country.
On January 23rd, Blizzard announced that the price of WoW subs in Argentine Pesos would be rising and that purchases would be converted to US dollars on Battle.net. That latter part is a big deal, as Argentinians would have to pay a 60% currency tax in order to buy subscription time with credit cards, effectively forcing players to foot the bill for currency exchange fluctuations. To further contextualize all of this, that’s a 2,967% increase in cost while the average minimum wage is 118,000 ARS or $141.87 US.
Naturally this has incensed many WoW players in the country, with one player offering a graph and detailed explanation while another says “WoW in Argentina is dead.” The price change could have several knock-on effects as well, primarily the potential proliferation of botting as players may engage in RMT transactions in order to get gold for WoW tokens, or the potential for the cost of a WoW sub to only get higher if Argentina’s financial crisis worsens
