Saturday, October 22, 2011

At Blizzard HQ

Employee #1: Hi guys! You know what? We will probably finish the last Diablo 3 talent tree within the next three months!

Employee #2: That's great! I heard Kotick grew a bit nervous already.

Employee #3: I don't know. What if the players stop playing WoW then?

Manager: Ah, that's not a problem! I got a consultant for a special price of just $1800 the hour. He and his company have been thinking on this issue for the last year.

Consultant: Good morning gentlemen.

Employee #1: Do you always wear a tie at work?

Consultant: [Ignoring the employee]. We have been hard at work for the last year to analyze 423 marketing strategies for your upcoming social game.

Employee #2: You mean Diablo III?

Consultat: [Ignoring the employee]. After accessing our vast network of industry insiders we came to the conclusion that you should offer this social game for free to everybody who subscribes for twelve months to that other game. The one with the orcs.

Employee #3: Are you crazy? Nobody subscribes to WoW for one year! We only offer content for at most a month right now - every four months or so.

Consultat: That's exactly my point.

Manager: You mean, we wouldn't have to create more content for WoW? I'd hate to see the costs rise in view of uncertain revenue predictions!

Consultat: Your costs have been our prime concern. Your Return on Investment is certain to rise, because the costs stay low.

Manager: Sounds great! [scribbles that sentence on a piece of paper]. That's what I'm going to tell the board should there be questions!

Employee #2: Wait a second! Reading that small print on your presentation, the twelve months seem to be treated like 12 times one month. That is 12x12.99= 155.88 Euros. But if the players ordered two six months periods they would only have to pay 2x65.94= 131.94 Euros!

Consultant: Apparently the payment model isn't obscure enough. I will have a word with that junior consultant later on. Thanks!

Employee #2: No, well. I mean. Look. We are going to sell Diablo for 58 Euros. Your payment model means that players who would have bought Diablo III and played WoW for twelve months anyway, save 58 Euros!

Manager: DAMN! You are right! That means that WoW players get to play WoW for a monthly fee of just 8.16 Euros! Are you telling me that without this payment model subscriber numbers would drop by 1 - 8.16/12.99 = 37.2% ?

Consultant: In fact, this is the best case scenario.

Manager: But we just added Pandas !!

Consultant: Yeah, I know we told you to add Pandas four years ago. But you did realize that was a joke, did you?

[Silence]

Employees: [look at each other]

4 comments:

  1. I still odnt understand where people get "Chinese don't like slaughter of pandas in video games." from. As there are chineese MMOs made and played in China where you can play and slaughter pandas.

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  2. link

    [..]
    So it looks like both posters are correct. There is no specific, Chinese law banning killing pandas in video games. In the future there may be some official legislation that limits the use of panda imagery in video games in the Sichuan province of China. Does that necessarily mean that Panderns are completely out of the question?

    Baluki suggested that Panderens could be added to the game but disabled in Chinese copies of the game. Currently in Chinese copies of the game the Undead models do not have exposed bones.
    [..]

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  3. Employee #2: Wait a second! Reading that small print on your presentation, the twelve months seem to be treated like 12 times one month. That is 12x12.99 Euros. That is 155.88 Euros. But if the players ordered two six months periods they would only have to pay 2x65.94 which is 131.94 Euros!

    ...is actually wrong. The only thing the annual pass requires you to have is any (!) recurring subscription on your WoW on which you make a comittment to keep paying until 12 months are over.

    Any remaining playtime when you accept the Annual Pass counts against the 12 months commitment (so if you just bought a six month gamecode from the shop last week, and now get the Annual Pass, you only have (about) 6 months left to pay). And these 6 months can be paid in any way you like - monthly sub, 2monthly gamecards, 6 month gamecode from the Blizz shop.

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  4. Thanks for the clarification, Scrosh, but my point was that this is a really hard to understand payment model.

    ReplyDelete