Why Paid Addons Would Make WoW Better

My three biggest takeaways from Blizzcon were, in reverse order of interest :

3) Gnome Priests Will Be In Cataclysm (the class I wanted at launch)
2) The leaked, hinted rebirth of Gnomeregan went unmentioned (but became mentioned recently)
1) Starcraft 2 map creators will be able to sell their maps on the revamped Battle.net

Now, I'm way too lazy to find a liveblog or video or notes from that presentation on the sellable SC2 maps, but they also mentioned WoW, and that paid addons for WoW seemed unlikely. Which is too bad.

People on the internet are always rather loud about their dislike of paying for in-game or out-of-game extras. Of course, internet loudness has an inversely proportional relationship with employment, so maybe that's why. I personally almost never feel that way. I'd pay for a new Blizzard game every month if they made them, and was delighted when they pre-announced Starcraft 2 and two expansions. I would have loved to plunk down money for another Diablo II expansion (or expansions for a dozen other games). I'd love to pay a subscription fee for FPS games if they could instantly get me on a skill-matched almost-full low-latency server. And on and on.

And I'd also gladly pay for better WoW addons. A good addon makes playing the game more fun, and I spend most of my free (non-family) time playing WoW, so good addons would be a wise investment in the bang-for-the-buck sense.

I think many people would think of paid addons and think "Hey, wait, I don't want to pay for all the addons I use!" but that's not how it really works out. Injecting money into the addon equation would mean more (and much better addons).

I'd personally attest to this. I did an addon for a while but it just became a burden. People liked it, which was great, but it just consumed a lot of time. Instead of a WoW player that dabbled in addons, I became an addon author that dabbled in WoW.

But making money on the addon probably would have changed my mind. I always have romantic notions of making some spending money from my hobbies that never works out in real life. And I don't feel like I'd need to make a lot of money to justify working on the addon -- if I could squeeze a new computer part out of it every year I'd be pretty happy. So I'd get a new video card, a bunch of players would get a mod (for a buck) that wouldn't exist otherwise, Blizzard and the IRS would get a small cut too, and we'd all be happier.

Maybe Blizzard will come around some day on the WoW mods. I certainly hope they come around with the next MMO.