World of Warcraft’s playerbase, despite shrinking over the last few years, remains gargantuan. But with the citizens of Azeroth being spread out all over the world, there’s not a typical player. Some are hooked on PvP, others are obsessed with the story and lore, and there are those who just enjoy the social experience of playing with a bunch of buds. And there are regional differences too.
Blizzard has experimented with things like premium XP boosts for World of Warcraft’s Eastern audience; things that would be a lot less likely to be welcomed in the West. If the thought of Blizzard selling such stuff in Europe or North America makes you nauseous, then don’t worry – lead designer Tom Chilton says that it’s not likely we’ll see them any time soon.
“No, not very likely,” Chilton says when we ask if they’ll make their way over here. “Not with the examples we have right now at the very least. We don’t have a plan to do that. It’s been a while since we put those in, we don’t really feel compelled to put them in. If the western audience were clamoring for it, we certainly would, but they aren’t.”
While it would be easy to write off their inclusion in the game as money-grubbing, Chilton explains that there was a demand for them – and they haven’t actually been all that successful.
“They certainly do get purchased. They don’t get purchased at a crazy rate that would make us feel like “Oh my God! This is an insane, awesome business thing that we have to do!”. It was more that we felt like in the east that there was demand for it. People wanted it.”