Blizz posts overpriced ringtones, wallpapers

by Eliah Hecht Aug 27th 2008 at 8:00PM

It's not an iPhone Armory app, but Blizzard did release some official content for your mobile phones. They've set up a mobile.blizzard.com site, at which you can buy wallpapers and ringtones from WoW and the other Blizz franchises. At this point, you're probably asking yourself one question: can I get a murloc gurgle ringtone? The answer, thankfully, is yes. Yes you can. (Though I can't guarantee it's a good idea.)

There is a big catch: the ringtones are priced at $2.99 each. Yikes. I know ringtones are big business, and I know Blizz is all about the tie-ins, but this is foolishness. Who would pay this over recording an MP3 and sending it to their phone? The wallpapers are $1.99, which is equally dumb for something I could just as easily screenshot off Blizz's concept art pages and email to my phone. Also I can't find the USA or Canada on the list of countries; it seems, at least at the moment, that these are not available here.

It's a shame that these are so oddly expensive, and that they're not even available in the US, because some of them are pretty well-done. It would be awesome to play the WoW intro theme when my guildies text me to go raid. I guess I'll just have to make my own ringtone for it.

Tags: cell-phone, cell-phones, merchandies, mobile, mobile-phone, official, ringtones, rip-off, tie-in, tie-ins, wallpapers

Filed under: Blizzard

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)

Pzychotix Aug 27th 2008 8:24PM

Would be nice if you actually compared them to other ringtones/wallpaper services.

Most ringtone services charged up to $5, and as low as $2. $3 a ringtone is average.

Wallpapers are mostly free on the internet, I'll give you that.

alex.rushing Aug 27th 2008 8:26PM

Quite. The standard individual ringtone in the US costs between $0.99 - $2.99. Those prices are definitely more expensive than free, but they are hardly out of line of what people pay.

I'm waiting for the premium SMS charge to let you know when your server is available on Tuesdays...:D

MidLevel Aug 27th 2008 8:30PM

$2.99 isn't that much at all, really. I pay 4 bucks for a ringtone in Canada. And plenty of people wouldn't have the ingenuity to figure out a way to record the Stormwind music, edit it into a ringtone, transfer it over to the phone and make that foreign mp3 work. Granted, most people who play WoW are fairly competent with computers, at least enough to download patches and addons. But that's still a reasonable price for a ringtone, I'd say.

Chris Anthony Aug 27th 2008 9:09PM

"Record"? Download MyWarcraftStudio and Audacity; the music is all there in the data files. I have, among other things, the murloc noise for one co-worker, and the Brewfest intro for a beer-loving friend.

Jay Aug 28th 2008 6:06AM

My Sony Ericsson can have MP3's as the ringtone. Either way I'd never pay for a ringtone or a wallpaper.

Jay Aug 28th 2008 6:12AM

Oops, forgot to write:

If I wanted to have any ringtone on my phone I just pop out the MemoryStickDuo card from the top, put it in my multi card media reader, open up the memory card (by going to My Computer), then just drag and drop into the "Music" folder. For the wallpapers, take an image, crop it into the dimensions of my mobiles screen resolution (240 x 320 pixels), save it as a jpg or whatever, drag and drop it. Easymode :D

PeeWee Aug 28th 2008 12:01PM

@Jay

Wow, you really need to jump through a ton of hoops. I just pick the files up from my laptop over the wLAN. Crop the images? Nah, with 16 GB of memory it doesn't matter if the images are 60kB or 5MB.

ScorchHellfire Aug 28th 2008 3:46PM

i own the two soundtrack cds so i just transfered the music straight from them to my phone...

crsh Aug 27th 2008 8:30PM

Apparently you haven't seen most mobile gizmo (ringtones/wallpapers/screensavers/mini-games) sites in the past couple of years.. God knows there was a mobile market before the iPhone came out (heh).

Anyway, those are pretty standard prices. Yeah it is expensive for a couple of pixels, but you'd be surprised how well these sell; kids will buy anything these days.

BigRedPimp Aug 27th 2008 8:46PM

Or, I don't know... learn how to make your own and avoid paying the bloated prices. I've had a murloc as my text message tone going on 2 years now. It's really not that hard provided people put enough effort into learning how to make them and how their phone works. I understand that not everyone can be a tech-head like myself but if you're going to buy a piece of hardware, you should at least spend the time learning how to take advantage of it rather than paying someone an ungodly amount of money for something simple.

Whoa, I soapboxed there. My apologies.

Finnicks Aug 27th 2008 10:50PM

^this^

I specifically got a phone that would let me use my own mp3s and pictures and transfer them via USB cable because I want the 25 seconds of song I want, not the 25 seconds of the song Blizzard things is the best for a ringtone. It's also free that way.

SgtBaker Aug 28th 2008 12:56AM

People really pay for ringtones? Really?
The thought has never even crossed my mind - I've almost assumed that everyone made their own tones, like you suggest.

Colour me surprised.

theRaptor Aug 28th 2008 1:35AM

Some people have jobs which are high paying enough that it isn't worth their time to do minor things like that.

So it depends if your time is worth more than your money.

Wibblymat Aug 28th 2008 4:06AM

What TheRaptor said. I'm a technically competent type who also wouldn't dream of having a ring tone that didn't sound like a phone ringing. However... if it costs $3 to buy a ringtone and 15 minutes messing around installing software to rip out the data file, edit it, convert it, send it across... then you are working for a rate of $12/hour. Since my salary comes out to about $30/hour I could spend that extra 15 minutes doing over time at work and get 2.5 ringtones instead.

Merah Aug 27th 2008 8:48PM

-No Blizzcon'08 stream + pet for Eu watchers
-No ringtones and wallpapers for US peoples

/me cast "Revive pet" on Morhaime's corps

Matazuma Aug 27th 2008 8:53PM

Apparently even the blues didn't know about this
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=9336454226&pageNo=1&sid=1#6

Joe P Aug 27th 2008 9:01PM

Speaking as someone who makes their own ringtones and wallpapers: Ha ha Blizzard. Ha ha.

sharkeater75 Aug 27th 2008 9:01PM

sounds like the sales phlebs figured it would be a nice way to make a buck. sorta like RAF.

highly unimpressed by the prices, and the ease it is to find the shit for free online/make your own.

Rob Aug 27th 2008 9:19PM

Personally, $3.00 is what it costs for a 600ml coke here, so I don't consider it expensive for a bit of fun. However, the service doesn't work - i've tried it! Also, the help link your supposed to click if you can't get it to work doesn't work - error 404.

Feeling a little ripped off right now.....

Jamie Aug 27th 2008 9:19PM

Just to spite them, here is a free Murloc MP3, sourced from WoWWiki.

http://www.owlboy.com/wowwiki/mMurlocAggroB.mp3

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