Blizzard announces a new expansion to World of Warcraft: Warlods of Draenor. The expansion will take the game from level 90 to level 100. In order to get people up to speed, expansion will give everyone one free character at level 90. This isn't unprecedented, as previous promotions, such as the Scroll of Ressurection "refer a friend back" promo also gave a quick level up to 80 so players could enjoy Cataclysm and Pandaria.
What is unprecedented is that Blizzard will also sell additional level 90 boosts for $60 each. Pay a bit of cash and skip through the original game and four expansions worth of content. I guess Blizzard wants to compete with illicit real-money leveling services, though arguably those offer the better value of giving you a max level character rather than doing just 9/10ths of the job.
Not entirely unexpectedly, people are outraged (aren't they always? about everything?), generally about two things: that the service exists at all, or that the price is so high. If the expansion is $40 (the four prior ones were, but Blizzard hasn't announced WoD's price) and includes a level 90, why should subsequent ones be 50% more expensive?
Blizzard's response: they don't want to devalue leveling by making it too cheap. This despite the fact that Ars Technica's Kyle Orland has already pointed out that leveling is devalued because you get a free 90 when you buy the expansion. So it's really every additional insta-90 that's somehow more valuable than the first?