Mike Ybarra (co-leader of Blizzard) selling WoW raid boost runs for gold with his guild

[Gemüsepizza]

Didn't find a thread, just saw this:




Not a good sign for people hoping for WoW improvements, when the co-leader of Blizzard sells WoW raid boost runs for gold with his guild, and streams them on Twitch.

I found a thread on the WoW forums where his guild ( link to his character ) mentions prices like 300,000 gold for a SoD HC run, with 75,000 gold extra per loot funnel. Current WoW token value is ~200,000 for $20. So for $40 you could get one HC boost run with personal loot and one extra item, and for $60 you could get one HC boost run with PL and 4 extra items. Literally pay to win.

Current WoW design also makes it very hard to impossible for casual/solo players to get very good gear, unlike last expansion (which had "visions" instances that could be soloed for almost Mythic level gear). Earning gold is also something that is constantly being nerfed. If you have money you can of course just buy WoW tokens and buy boost runs to get that good gear. Probably pretty lucrative for Blizzard...



Blizzard is also currently facing lawsuits because of sexual harassement:

Everything That Has Happened Since The Activision Blizzard Lawsuit Was Filed

The studios behind World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Overwatch are being sued over sexual harassment

kotaku.com

 

[Jag]

That is really fucked up.

 

[wellpapp]

Scumbag Blizzard hey ho

 

[NinjaScooter]

Doesn't he have, like, anything better to do?

 

[Lashley]

State of WoW

 

[Bonefish]

Wonder how much of that gold his guild made was paid for by tokens.

what a fucking joke lmao.

 

[Klyka]

What are you saying? This is clearly exactly what the game needs right now!
A higher up from Blizzard communicating directly with payers and helping payers to get through tough content is awesome!
People keep hyping up the FFXIV devs as "close to the community" but what could be closer then directly interacting with your payers and also getting paid for it? Nothing!

 

[AImalexia]

What's the big problem tho

Guy plays the game and does what every top guild has been doing since 2003, there's bigger issues to be angry at in blizzard.

 

[Pancho]

I don't even know what to say

 

[Conkerkid11]

Oh wow, so I guess they do play their own game. That's surprising.

What are you saying? This is clearly exactly what the game needs right now!
A higher up from Blizzard communicating directly with payers and helping payers to get through tough content is awesome!
People keep hyping up the FFXIV devs as "close to the community" but what could be closer then directly interacting with your payers and also getting paid for it? Nothing!

Click to shrink...

lol

 

[gdt]

This is fucking bizzare.

 

[Instant Vintage]

What are you saying? This is clearly exactly what the game needs right now!
A higher up from Blizzard communicating directly with payers and helping payers to get through tough content is awesome!
People keep hyping up the FFXIV devs as "close to the community" but what could be closer then directly interacting with your payers and also getting paid for it? Nothing!

Click to shrink...

This is correct! Mike is the one holding all the Ls from the players, turning them into payers.

 

[...]

This is Blizzard everyone..... ouch

 

[Gure]

Hahahahaha

 

[Allietraa]

ppl been selling runs for as long as you could do them w/o the max number of geared/skilled players. Dont really get the problem here

 

[Serrato]

Selling your skills as services for in-game money is nothing new in WoW, people were doing that in Vanilla.

The whole RMT aspect of it however, is the disgusting part.

 

[elenarie]

I have slightly higher than normal ilvl gear without ever stepping into a raid, so I don't know if your premise is correct on that.

But yea, a bit weird. Should have been a giveaway rather than a sale.

 

[MouldyK]

What are you saying? This is clearly exactly what the game needs right now!
A higher up from Blizzard communicating directly with payers and helping payers to get through tough content is awesome!
People keep hyping up the FFXIV devs as "close to the community" but what could be closer then directly interacting with your payers and also getting paid for it? Nothing!

Click to shrink...

Amazingly I saw this in the morning:

 

[Grahf]

Can someone explain simply WHY he would do that ?
If the guy is still a big shot at Blizzard I fail to see how or why he would need virtual money.
Unless he finds enjoyment in boosting / repeating the same dungeons over and over but I really doubt it.

 

[Finaj]

Boost selling has been in the game from the very beginning.

 

[Niceguydan8]

Not a WoW player but some of this pushback seems to be kind of just dogpiling on Blizzard.

As I understand it, selling runs for gold has been happening for years, even when WoW was in it's most dominant phase.

Like I get it, it's a bad look, but realistically I think it's pretty much the norm in WoW.

 

[Axon]

What's the big problem tho

Guy plays the game and does what every top guild has been doing since 2003, there's bigger issues to be angry at in blizzard.

Click to shrink...

Yeah I dont see the issue here. Like fuck Blizzard but there is nothing wrong with a dev playing their game like everyone else does.

 

[RedRum]

ESO does this. I suspect every MMO that has veteran endgame content does this. There is no queue for ESO trials so you either join a guild to take you through 12 man raids or you pay people to take you through them. Either way, ESO is moving towards the decade mark and if people want to pay to get end content PvE gear then I don't see the issue with it.

 

[Noppie]

Very common in the game since way back when, most topguilds do it. Literally nothing wrong with it, if real money is not involved.

 

[Rokam]

Can someone explain simply WHY he would do that ?
If the guy is still a big shot at Blizzard I fail to see how or why he would need virtual money.
Unless he finds enjoyment in boosting / repeating the same dungeons over and over but I really doubt it.

Click to shrink...

Guilds spend a crap load of gold during Raid progress and they use this to recoup their losses and use it for future progress. This is literally a nothing story.

 

[Magneto]

ppl been selling runs for as long as you could do them w/o the max number of geared/skilled players. Dont really get the problem here

Click to shrink...

Same.

There is plenty of reasons to be mad at Blizzard these days. This is not one of these reasons.

 

[Spiderman]

I've seen this in various MMO's though. Why is this bad?

He basically offers an in-game service for in-game gold right? I've done this a dozen times on Guild Wars 2 dungeons.

I'm doing this with New World too. Crafting items and selling them.

 

[Absoludacrous]

Can someone explain simply WHY he would do that ?
If the guy is still a big shot at Blizzard I fail to see how or why he would need virtual money.
Unless he finds enjoyment in boosting / repeating the same dungeons over and over but I really doubt it.

Click to shrink...

Guilds need tons of gold to keep up with repair costs. So it's win/win for him, since his guild gets to rake in money while also pushing people to spend more in the game he directly profits from.

I've seen this in various MMO's though. Why is this bad?

He basically offers an in-game service for in-game gold right? I've done this a dozen times on Guild Wars 2 dungeons.

I'm doing this with New World too. Crafting items and selling them.

Click to shrink...

Yea, but you also didn't make money on the back end when people used real money to convert into GW2 money so they could pay you in game.

It's sleazy, especially from a game-design perspective.

 

[Foffy]

Amazingly I saw this in the morning:

Click to shrink...

Guess what this is what that Twitter meme was in reference to?

 

[Qvoth]

what in the fuck

 

[Bonefish]

Boost selling has been in the game from the very beginning.

Click to shrink...

Yeah. Except where do you think that gold is coming from these days :)

it's just a perfect snapshot of what a joke of a game WoW has become along with blizzard.

 

[Omnipotent]

What's the big problem tho

Guy plays the game and does what every top guild has been doing since 2003, there's bigger issues to be angry at in blizzard.

Click to shrink...

Boost selling has been in the game from the very beginning.

Click to shrink...

Not a WoW player but some of this pushback seems to be kind of just dogpiling on Blizzard.

As I understand it, selling runs for gold has been happening for years, even when WoW was in it's most dominant phase.

Like I get it, it's a bad look, but realistically I think it's pretty much the norm in WoW.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much, don't understand the overreactions here. Every guild does this and has been doing this forever.

 

[Brick]

Like, it's not a big deal and not worth getting upset over, but also this is a perfect summary on the current state of WoW.

 

[Salamando]

Can someone explain simply WHY he would do that ?
If the guy is still a big shot at Blizzard I fail to see how or why he would need virtual money.
Unless he finds enjoyment in boosting / repeating the same dungeons over and over but I really doubt it.

Click to shrink...

He's playing the game as any normal player would, without any special powers. Raiding at the highest tier levels is insanely expensive, with all the consumables and gear you need to buy/repair. Boosting is a way for these high end guilds to fund their raids.

 

[B-Dubs]

I have slightly higher than normal ilvl gear without ever stepping into a raid, so I don't know if your premise is correct on that.

But yea, a bit weird. Should have been a giveaway rather than a sale.

Click to shrink...

A lot of the top end guilds spend hundreds of thousands, at times millions, of gold chasing a world's first mythic clear. This is basically how they've always recouped that gold: selling runs to players with more gold than skill.

I'll admit, it's wild as hell seeing the president of the company doing this. But it's honestly a thing players who raid at a certain level do and have done for a long time. He's just doing what any normal world's first raider would be doing.

 

[BananasWithGuns]

Probably in the minority on this but I don't really see an issue. Maybe it's a bit weird but other than that, whatever.

 

[kurahador]

Blizzard loves to sabotage themselves. Gotta be on purpose now.

 

[JCizzle]

Can someone explain simply WHY he would do that ?
If the guy is still a big shot at Blizzard I fail to see how or why he would need virtual money.
Unless he finds enjoyment in boosting / repeating the same dungeons over and over but I really doubt it.

Click to shrink...

Progression raiding costs an obscene amount of in-game gold for these guilds. Hundreds of millions of gold per tier based on what I've read to buy pots, enchants, food, gear, etc. Guilds use these runs to refill their bank between raid releases. It's been going on as long as the game has existed and, because of that, I honestly think this is overblown. I say that as someone who is an incredibly casual player who normally hates this type of stuff.

My issue is with the leadership of the game basically catering to themselves as these cutting edge players in their design choices.

 

[Sargerus]

This has been around since Vanilla and other MMO's too, the only difference is that he's a Blizz dev.

 

[Dest]

There's nothing here. They're playing the game like a lot of other people are. Was doing this shit back in BC/Wrath when I was playing really heavily.

 

[Juraash]

I mean, this is super super common in WoW and has been for ages. I've been in several Blizzard guilds over the years and the Blizzard part is usually supposed to be kinda in the down low. So putting it out there like this is a little bizarre, but nothing about selling runs is.

What this says about the state of WoW broadly is a totally different discussion though.

 

[Ferrs]

The issue isn't selling these raids runs, after all, it also happens in FFXIV.

The issue is someone inside the dev/publisher doing it.

 

[Scottoest]

Guilds spend a crap load of gold during Raid progress and they use this to recoup their losses and use it for future progress. This is literally a nothing story.

Click to shrink...

It would be a nothing story if the WoW Token didn't exist, and these people weren't almost certainly paying for those runs with real money.

 

[elenarie]

Can someone explain simply WHY he would do that ?
If the guy is still a big shot at Blizzard I fail to see how or why he would need virtual money.
Unless he finds enjoyment in boosting / repeating the same dungeons over and over but I really doubt it.

Click to shrink...

For production accounts, we for example, have a policy to not give anyone in the company access / boosts / currency / items / unlocks / skips / whatever.
Everyone that works on a BF game needs to see the game as a proper end user in their personal production accounts.

This applies to random low rank employees or leaders of the company.

It is a very good approach to ensure that your employees see the game as regular players. :)

 

[wellpapp]

Selling ingame stuff for ingame currency is one thing, but being a head of Blizz and pursuing his own fans to cash out for his runs to fill his own pockets? And pushing for even more normalization of this kind of thing which is already plaguing Classic/Retail? This shit also makes it obvious that they don't mind the broken bots-infested reality that WoW is today.

 

[Gemüsepizza]

Boost selling has been in the game from the very beginning.

Click to shrink...

But $20 WoW tokens have not.

Pretty much, don't understand the overreactions here. Every guild does this and has been doing this forever.

Click to shrink...

"Thing has been wrong forever, why change it?" Boost runs suck for people who don't have gold/real money. And the advertising spam *everywhere* also sucks, it really has exploded with Shadowlands. All of this wouldn't be necessary if the game was designed in a way that average/casual gamers could get very good gear by themselves. It kinda feels like the game was designed in a way to encourage boost runs.

 

[Sain]

He is a Mythic Raider, this is how those guilds fund consumables for their players. I don't see anything wrong with this.

 

[Deleted member 2840]

it's okay guys, Blizzard removed a bunch of flirt lines and sexual innuendo from the game they're fine now it makes up for all the things they've done

 

[B-Dubs]

It would be a nothing story if the WoW Token didn't exist, and these people weren't almost certainly paying for those runs with real money.

Click to shrink...

You kidding? Anyone who played during Draenor would still have millions upon millions of gold. Gold fell from the sky during that expansion, all you had to do was use the mission table properly and you'd become a billionaire. It's why they put out all those million gold mounts: they're still trying to get that Draenor money out of the economy.

 

[Axon]

The issue is someone inside the dev/publisher doing it.

Click to shrink...

There´s nothing wrong with a dev/publisher doing it, though.