Nils, despite his funny European currency, is not wrong when he points out that this is a bad "bet" if you look at it as a pre-order of Diablo III coupled with a longterm subscription at whatever is left over divided by twelve months. Based on my past gaming habits, I would probably have paid for 2-4 months of WoW time - at a cost of $30-60 - between now and November 2012, had I not taken this "deal". If the sole goal is to pay as little as possible, I may well "lose" somewhere in the neighborhood of $36-66.
What $66 will buy you
That said, I also think I'm getting more, as a result of being able to log in during the 8-10 months when I otherwise would not have been able to play for lack of a subscription. A few examples:
- This evening I am exploring the updates to WoW's Halloween event. I would not have paid $15 to resubscribe for a month just for this project. The Lunar Festival supposedly has similar updates. Some of my "lost" $66 can cover access to world events.
- My mage has yet to finish the regular heroic dungeons. Once he's through these, it will be on to the two Zandalar instances. Then there will be a third tier with the new zones in patch 4.3. Finally, there will be the EZ-mode Deathwing encounter tuned for PUG's. I would like to see all of this stuff at least once. Could I have done that in a single month, by paying $15, clearing off my calendar, and spending every single night in randomly generated WoW dungeon groups? Probably, yes. Am I happy to spend some of the $66 so I can spread that experience out over a more leisurely pace? Yes.
- I have no intention of leveling a Monk to the new level cap during the Pandaria beta, as I did with a DK during the Wrath beta. Nowadays, my time is limited enough that I'm going to invest it on characters I actually get to keep. That said, I expect that I will get some entertainment value out of being able to sign and preview mechanics changes, learn where flight masters are, etc.
- There's also a mount involved, which I'm assuming will be usable as a ground-capable flying mount. Currently, both of my level 85's spend most of their time on the Horseman's mount, because I can't be bothered to write a macro or devote an extra hotbar spot to a second mount for locations that do not allow flight. If the new horse is a substitute, at least I will have a bit more variety. I would not have paid anything for this, but I will probably use it once I receive it.
(And yes, incidentally, this entire analysis assumes that Pandaria will not arrive prior to November 2012. If the expansion arrives in August or something - earlier than expected, but the expansion definitely looked further along than past expansions at their Blizzcon debuts - suddenly I'm likely to be satisfying my "commitment" with time I would have purchased anyway. Like the perks, I consider this possibility of actually "winning" the bet to be an extra, rather than part of the math.)