World of Warcraft

[Overmind One]

Strange how WoW doesn't outsource their IT jobs when Dell, IBM, and HP have no problem doing that for more essential IT services.

In all fairness, its only helpdesk they outsource, and all they need to pay is minimum wage to a foreigner in another country and allow them access to the vast knowledgebase. IT guys in the US make AT LEAST twice the minimum wage, and most make several times that. All three of those companies you mentioned employ US technicians on Level II and Level II support, as well as enterprise support.

As far as the $15.00/month, Im not certain I want to get into that. That would be twice what I pay for Netflix, 6 gallons of gas, a dinner for one at Captain Kidds at the marina, a decent bottle of chardonnay....

But I have the starter edition and its good to level 20.

 

[Joelist]

Dell actually is a bit strange - their "consumer" desktop support comes from India (and is laughed at) while the business (and XPS) desktop support comes from the US and is respected.

What is even funnier is that Lenovo (a very interesting company in its own right - it started out as a Hong Kong firm but is now Dutch with an American CEO) bases its ThinkPad support in the US - and that support is widely considered best of breed.

 

[SciphonicStranger]

In all fairness, its only helpdesk they outsource, and all they need to pay is minimum wage to a foreigner in another country and allow them access to the vast knowledgebase. IT guys in the US make AT LEAST twice the minimum wage, and most make several times that. All three of those companies you mentioned employ US technicians on Level II and Level II support, as well as enterprise support.

As far as the $15.00/month, Im not certain I want to get into that. That would be twice what I pay for Netflix, 6 gallons of gas, a dinner for one at Captain Kidds at the marina, a decent bottle of chardonnay....

But I have the starter edition and its good to level 20.

I wish was true but I've worked for a big IT company for 20+ years and we have been outsourcing production support programming and new development jobs for years now.

It is a shame really as the US economy was really booming when IT demand was at its peak during Y2K the Dot Com years. The truth is that US IT workers are really an aging and dying breed, destined to be mostly replaced by foreigners in 20 years or so.

 

[Overmind One]

I wish was true but I've worked for a big IT company for 20+ years and we have been outsourcing production support programming and new development jobs for years now.

It is a shame really as the US economy was really booming when IT demand was at its peak during Y2K the Dot Com years. The truth is that US IT workers are really an aging and dying breed, destined to be mostly replaced by foreigners in 20 years or so.

Yep, most do now. Even Intuit (Quickbooks, Quicken, Easy Accounting) outsources all their support. They dont even have stateside support anymore. But Dell, HP and IBM (Lenovo) still have US-based Level II and Level III support. For the past 5 years or so, the successful IT guys are independent contractors attached to companies through maintenance contracts (thats how Im making it). Working on staff will not give you anywhere near what you can make as an independent. Plus, you can make your own hours (within the contract), and fire difficult clients. Its very empowering!

 

[Overmind One]

Dell actually is a bit strange - their "consumer" desktop support comes from India (and is laughed at) while the business (and XPS) desktop support comes from the US and is respected.

What is even funnier is that Lenovo (a very interesting company in its own right - it started out as a Hong Kong firm but is now Dutch with an American CEO) bases its ThinkPad support in the US - and that support is widely considered best of breed.

That IS strange, and also logical. The average Dell buyer is not going to be asking questions about driver compatibility and registry changes. They will get India. But for a Dell Poweredge server loaded with expensive software, they had BETTER have proficient engineers working those phones and remote support sessions!

 

[Joelist]

That IS strange, and also logical. The average Dell buyer is not going to be asking questions about driver compatibility and registry changes. They will get India. But for a Dell Poweredge server loaded with expensive software, they had BETTER have proficient engineers working those phones and remote support sessions!

It is actually a main reason why, if you are buying a Dell "consumer" laptop, to buy an XPS - you get business support. But realistically I advise that if you are in the laptop market and are not into Apple (and the "Apple Tax"), Lenovo is the way to go. Their laptops are built like tanks usually, especially the ThinkPads and the support techs know their business. And with HP exiting the personal computer space I think Lenovo is the one poised to grow the most.

 

[Overmind One]

It is actually a main reason why, if you are buying a Dell "consumer" laptop, to buy an XPS - you get business support. But realistically I advise that if you are in the laptop market and are not into Apple (and the "Apple Tax"), Lenovo is the way to go. Their laptops are built like tanks usually, especially the ThinkPads and the support techs know their business. And with HP exiting the personal computer space I think Lenovo is the one poised to grow the most.

I am impressed with the XPS machines. And yes, two of my clients have XPS laptops (14" screens) and they get business support. Also, all 6 of my primary clients use Dell Poweredge servers with a mix of Windows Server 2003 and 2008.

On the consumer appeal side, XPS notebooks make EXCELLENT mobile gaming computers. I understand WoW has come/is coming to Android!

LOL! I started the "install" which is really a disguised download manager, and this "starter edition" is a whopping 10gb of space. That's right...TEN GIGABYTES. Are they putting a virtual server farm on my computer?

 

[Joelist]

Yes. XPS are good. Basically my thinking is that if you can't get a ThinkPad then get an XPS.

It will be interesting to see what happens when HP executes its pullout from the PC sector. I am still thinking Lenovo will be the big winner as a lot of HP's business laptop clients will be choosing between Dell and Lenovo (no one else really has credible business laptop offerings). Server wise nothing changes as HP stays in that game.

It's actually kind of funny how we can get a form of tunnel vision - although not a lot of Americans know about Lenovo it is the #3 PC manufacturer in the world and less than a million shipped units behind Dell to become #2.

 

[OMNI]

Topic people... as youve kind of hijacked the thread as is! shame on you!

 

[Joelist]

We're topic jackers and proud of it!!!! Seriously, if you think it good to move posts to a separate topic it's cool by me.

 

[Graybrew1]

Okay, well it was my Wow thread, so let me just add this before we take it back to Wow. I had Dish network for years, I used to love them. I had some many problems whenever I tried to talk to somebody there that I got rid of them. Every time I have called Verizon, so far, I have not been dealing with the outsourcing situation again. I pay more for Verizon, but it was worth it to me.

It is, to get back OT, good to hear that any problems that I might incur with Wow will be handled properly and not outsourced. It will be even better not to need any support and to have Wow work without any glitches.

 

[OMNI]

We're topic jackers and proud of it!!!! Seriously, if you think it good to move posts to a separate topic it's cool by me.

if i did i wouldnt need your permission.,

 

[Graybrew1]

if i did i wouldnt need your permission.,

I think I brought the posts all back close enough to topic?

 

[Stonelesscutter]

They have to pay their developers, their customer service folks, their game masters, support staff, etc.

That $15 a month helps to pay for that, as when I worked there several years ago, they were paying $12 an hour to their Game Masters. Do the math. A Game Master makes per hour just about what a single player pays for their month's service. And they have several hundred Game Masters at work -- and they hire people to work at their own facility. They don't outsource. I like that I'm helping Americans to have jobs.

Seriously.

I've hear that there are millions of WoW players around the world. When I do the math, I get the following.
Millions times 15 bucks times 12 equals at least 360 million bucks income per year. Ofcourse that's before taxes and other expenditures.
There are a lot of game developers that spend a lot of money while developing games, though their products are on shelves for a FIXED price.
You spend money on a game and you can play it as much as you like. Asking a monthly fee for a product that's been made years ago is just ridiculous to me, at least in the amounts that they ask for it, even if the game is upgraded. That they need to have gamemasters to be able to maintain the game is a flaw on their end.

 

[Illiterati]

I've hear that there are millions of WoW players around the world. When I do the math, I get the following.
Millions times 15 bucks times 12 equals at least 360 million bucks income per year. Ofcourse that's before taxes and other expenditures.
There are a lot of game developers that spend a lot of money while developing games, though their products are on shelves for a FIXED price.
You spend money on a game and you can play it as much as you like. Asking a monthly fee for a product that's been made years ago is just ridiculous to me, at least in the amounts that they ask for it, even if the game is upgraded. That they need to have gamemasters to be able to maintain the game is a flaw on their end.

The Game Masters don't deal with programming issues, luv. They deal with the minutiae of player vs player crap in the game, plus when players do things like accidentally delete a necessary item, or want to have a previously deleted character restored. Blizzard has an entirely different department to deal with programming issues.

As for expansions, Blizzard has both paid expansions and "free" expansions that happen during the course of the game. The expansions give players new areas in which to quest and to raid. They also introduce new characters and new information to the game's lore. It's an evolving game, not something stale, like Diablo 2. There's an upcoming patch, 4.3, which adds a bunch of new stuff to the game. It will be available at no additional cost to the players.


Based on a mere 300 Game Masters making the minimum of $12.00 an hour (and they have far more than that, as Game Masters are available 24/7) that would be $6,912,000.00 a year in employee expenses, not including the half of social security that employers are supposed to pay (the employee pays the other half), as well as any portion of employee health insurance Blizzard has to pay out. Game Masters have the lowest pay rate in the company.

 

[Overmind One]

I've hear that there are millions of WoW players around the world. When I do the math, I get the following.
Millions times 15 bucks times 12 equals at least 360 million bucks income per year. Ofcourse that's before taxes and other expenditures.
There are a lot of game developers that spend a lot of money while developing games, though their products are on shelves for a FIXED price.
You spend money on a game and you can play it as much as you like. Asking a monthly fee for a product that's been made years ago is just ridiculous to me, at least in the amounts that they ask for it, even if the game is upgraded. That they need to have gamemasters to be able to maintain the game is a flaw on their end.

I agree with this. Why should anyone have to pay a monthly fee if they purchased the game? Running game servers might incur a small overhead, but not $15.00 a head. In the original Starcraft days, online play on Blizzard's Battle.net was FREE. But the real fun came from having LAN parties where players could use a VPN to join the network and there were several private servers you could play on. Warcraft changed all that, and created this new Pay as you play model. Enough players paid to make it a viable model, so there you have it. So, one never really "owns" the game, one is actually purchasing a game CLIENT. You can never own the game, AND they no longer allow LAN play which means you are now forced to play on Blizzard's servers or take a hike.

 

[Illiterati]

I agree with this. Why should anyone have to pay a monthly fee if they purchased the game? Running game servers might incur a small overhead, but not $15.00 a head. In the original Starcraft days, online play on Blizzard's Battle.net was FREE. But the real fun came from having LAN parties where players could use a VPN to join the network and there were several private servers you could play on. Warcraft changed all that, and created this new Pay as you play model. Enough players paid to make it a viable model, so there you have it. So, one never really "owns" the game, one is actually purchasing a game CLIENT. You can never own the game, AND they no longer allow LAN play which means you are now forced to play on Blizzard's servers or take a hike.

Uh, no, they didn't. I was playing Dark Age of Camelot for a couple years before WoW came out, and before that, people were paying monthly for games Asheron's Call, Everquest and others. DAoC was $14.99 a month when I stopped playing it (before WoW went live).

 

[Overmind One]

Uh, no, they didn't. I was playing Dark Age of Camelot for a couple years before WoW came out, and before that, people were paying monthly for games Asheron's Call, Everquest and others. DAoC was $14.99 a month when I stopped playing it (before WoW went live).

Youre most likely right...its just that only Blizzard games mand Novalogic and EA games interested me at the time. The pay model seemed bizarre. But now it seems to be the standard.

 

[OMNI]

I've hear that there are millions of WoW players around the world. When I do the math, I get the following.
Millions times 15 bucks times 12 equals at least 360 million bucks income per year. Ofcourse that's before taxes and other expenditures.
There are a lot of game developers that spend a lot of money while developing games, though their products are on shelves for a FIXED price.
You spend money on a game and you can play it as much as you like. Asking a monthly fee for a product that's been made years ago is just ridiculous to me, at least in the amounts that they ask for it, even if the game is upgraded. That they need to have gamemasters to be able to maintain the game is a flaw on their end.

+1

 

[Illiterati]

Everquest has been around and charging a monthly subscription fee since 1999, five years before WoW went live. They have a new expansion waiting in the wings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest

It was released the same year as Asheron's Call http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asheron's_Call and Ultima Online. All are subscription based games.