"Absolutely ridiculous, and completely unjustifiable": World of Warcraft causes a stir — new cosmetic 'houses' cost as much as an entire expansion

World of Warcraft offers another wave of controversy this week, but for a shiny, new, and different reason.

I've written recently about how World of Warcraft: Midnight has taken the storied franchise in a frustrating direction. My 7/10 review hailed World of Warcraft's rich endgame, which is arguably more fun than ever (albeit not perfect), alongside its incredible art treatment. But, there's a lot of flaws to speak of right now.

The World of Warcraft's writing has become incredibly saccharine, the Horde and Alliance are losing their identity, and the game has more bugs and polish issues than ever, potentially. But World of Warcraft fans found themselves irritated for a new reason today.

Revealed today, Blizzard showed off a new Cozy Treehouse Retreat bundle, which includes two housing exterior styles, and a bunch of decorative items for interior designs.

World of Warcraft's housing system is a truly fantastic feature overall, and represents a pretty significant technological investment on Blizzard's part. They have effectively handed players their own level editor, allowing users to create homes in painstaking detail, using hundreds of in-game objects, furnishings, and other items.

The vast vast majority of items for housing can be earned in game. Some are incredibly rare and are tied to difficult in-game achievements and accomplishments. Others are tied to pre-order bonuses and collector's editions. Indeed, I have a shiny Horadric Cube from Diablo 4's Collector's Edition in my house.

Increasingly, though, World of Warcraft is drawing the ire of the community with its paid cosmetics store. Indeed, the housing exteriors alone are $40 each. The bundle all together, which includes two housing exteriors and a range of interior items costs $75, or 7,500 Hearthsteel, which can be earned via WoW Token trades in exchange for in-game gold earnings, but it's not exactly easy to acquire that much currency in-game for most.

Needless to say, the community definitely has thoughts about this.

Most opinions seem to revolve around a common theme: that Blizzard hasn't exactly earned the right to charge these types of prices as of late. Given the state of the game, the lore, the bugs, and beyond, it all comes off in bad taste, to some degree.

Housing PAY-TO-WIN?!

World of Warcraft player housing is entirely cosmetic, and doesn't offer players power in any way, shape, or form. But, I'd argue Blizzard is really pushing the community with some of this stuff, particularly given the state of the game as of late. World of Warcraft expansions cost money, in-game services like race changes cost money, and there's a monthly subscription fee on top — which just got a price bump in the UK, by the way. I know "line goes up," but ...

These new housing exteriors are far, far more detailed than what is offered in game for "free", and in addition, aren't subjected to the same item limit. You could create a similar exterior in-game yourself using the items therein, but you'd easily hit the item cap before finishing it off. If housing had any form of "pay to win" this might be getting concerningly close to it.

But aye, it's "just cosmetic" right? You could argue none of it matters, and people can spend their money however they want (and you should!) But, I think it's fair to acknowledge that it could be a slippery slope ... accept a $40 house here or a $100 mount there, who's to say the subscription fee won't also eventually go up by $5 here or there?

I think the pushback is important to remind Blizzard that people are cognizant of value with regards to WoW. I would argue that WoW does offer great value for money for what it is. They just announced another 1 boss raid for this season on top of everything Midnight has offered in its endgame so far. But, the quality in other areas of the game doesn't exactly reflect the notion that Blizzard is reinvesting the money its extracting from its user base in raw quality.

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