As noted by MMORPG.com, World of Warcraft: Forever is coming with a peculiar economic proposition: Most of the new fork of the MMO is included in your normal WoW subscription (rad), but the new Skyborne Elf race (and its corresponding starter zone experience) is gated behind a separate, $30 purchase (sad).
While “$30 elf” might be a somewhat uncharitable characterization, there’s not much else that really lights my fire in the $29.99 “Skyborne Hero Pack.” In addition to the titular elves, it comes with a mount, cosmetics, housing decorations, and early name reservation.
Compared to the bleeding edge of Overwatch, League of Legends, and Diablo premium cosmetic pricing, this is just keeping pace. But with many of the best new games on Steam coming in at $20 or less, I’m feeling sticker shock.
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$30, for my money, is the cost of an expansion pack under normal economic conditions, though WoW’s most recent retailed for $50 MSRP. Speaking to my WoW consultant and on-the-ground BlizzCon contact, PCG contributor Tyler Colp, he wagered that any new classes coming down the line in Forever will likely be similarly monetized, and argued that this sort of monetization is less in the spirit of classic WoW than the rest of the Forever project.
Looking at it from the outside, getting so much of the rest of Forever with a normal WoW subscription strikes me as an excellent bargain, but it only throws the $30 elf into even sharper relief as a consequence. Personally, I’d be more amenable to a $15 elf as a matter of principle, but I’ve been out of the MMO/live service game for some time. Do you think this is a fair market value for an elf? Sound off in the comments.