World Of Warcraft: The most Expensive PC Game to Play

(UPDATE 2011 June 4th - World Of Warcraft: Still quite Expensive PC Game to Play (Updated pricing))

I started playing World of Warcraft(WoW) in 2006 and I have to admit I got addicted. The game was a lot of fun. Blizzard are known to release good titles with Diablo, Warcraft and StarCraft behind them. But now it is getting out of hand.
I've done some basic research. WoW is the most single expensive game for PC on the market right now.

Here are some stats for the prices around the net(2011 January 3rd):

Blizzard EU online store*		99.96 EUR
Blizzard EU online store*	79.96 GBP	93.01 EUR
Blizzard US online store*	129.96 USD	97.81 EUR
Amazon UK(physical copy)	56.41 GBP	65.93 EUR
Amazon US(physical copy)	108.23 USD	81.46 EUR
Amazon DE(physical copy)		76.58 EUR
Amazon FR(physical copy)		71.13 EUR

The prices above are based on the game being bought by a new player for the first time. One month of playtime included. Each successive month costs additionally in accordance with the region.
The prices are a sum of the prices of World Of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade, Wrath of The Lich King and Cataclysm expansion packs.

* - How do you like it, a non-physical copy of a game, that is a 0 cost to manufacture is more expensive than a physical box shipped to your door.

(Oh, why is the price of a 6 year old game 14.99?)

What is the result of above? World Of Warcraft is the most expensive single PC game on the market right now. In fact it's the most expensive consumer entertainment game software right now.

To put in mildly - Viacom, Activision and Blizzard are milking "this baby" to the limit.

As a result, I have stopped playing WoW at all. My 12.99 EUR** per month have dried up for Blizz.

So why am I so upset with the pricing?

Generally speaking the game was worth every cent spent on it if you upgraded and played it from the beginning. It's cost to value ration is better than movies or most other mildly passive entertainment options. The reason is that for those 12.99 EUR per month you could get over 100 hours of pure entertainment per month. No movie, theater, game can beat that. (Well, except the free games are mathematically more valuable)

But since the first introduction of the expansion packs, the value of the preceding versions has dropped. The expansions have introduced a lot of new features. Those features are not separated as strictly between expansion packs as players of different levels of experience and interest are. So you can't play the untarnished version of World of Warcraft anymore. You are forced to play Cataclysm, even if you don't own it. So when you buy World Of Warcraft(the original) you can't play the original game. Them you upgrade to The Burning Crusade, the content there is not as valuable in experience due to Wrath of The Lich King. And so on...
And then, there are a lot of items that are made so obsolete, that people don't even want to get them. "Epic" items of the original World Of Worcraft can't even compare with the basic items available in The Burning Crusade...

Because I expect Blizzard to be two heads above any other PC game company, there I am disappointed much more when they fail with pricing and content separation.
Up until Cataclysm I held them to be smarter than any other... They are still the best gaming company out there. The awesomeness of StarCraft 2 just adds more to that image.
But, if they don't come up with a better way to separate their value adding expansion packs, they are going to ruin a very good game for more people.

** - Here's a good financial point that they might have missed. Because I haven't played WoW for over 30 moths now(Jan 2011) they didn't receive additional 390 EUR. And that is because they would not lower the price of Wrath of the Lich King after one year...