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C-Store improvements and Loyalty Rewards: Increasing Silver Appreciation
zypheit
Posts: 2 Arc User
Basically, I think Cryptic could do a better job of encouraging players to buy features from the C-Store than they do now. CO has been Free-to-Play for 2 years now but to me it still seems that the developers, or at least those in charge of marketing, wish everyone would just subscribe instead. Silver players can be seen as a little neglected. Yes, I know games are made to make money so they can't just give us everything for free. But they can also make us making purchases more rewarding.
The bottom line is, Cryptic wants people to utilize Zen. If items were cheaper, more people would buy them. They may buy the Zen themselves, or obtain it through the Earn Zen feature, or through the Questionite exchange but any way is more revenue for the game. More people spending Zen would cause one negative consequence for players, and that would be less favorable prices for Q sellers buying Z, but this would also mean a more favorable market for those buying Zen to exchange for Questionite, and the people buying the Zen are the ones supporting the game so I see this as fair. Also with lower prices in the C-Store, the inflation of Q wouldn't hurt as much.
So how should prices be adjusted? The least expensive items can probably remain as they are. Keys, account-wide costume slots, shared bank slots, rename tokens, etc... The exception would be items that are only applied to one individual character and affect gameplay. These are really only single character costume slots and bag slots, as retcon and retrain tokens are really too expensive to be grouped in. These could be priced much lower or sold in heavily discounted bundles to make buying them for every character a Silver player has more practical. $2.50 for one bag slot for one character I will not buy. $5-10 for 10 bag slots to split among my characters as I see fit, I would be tempted. I see it as more value for my money, and the price for each bag slot is diminished, but it's the difference between making a sale and not making a sale.
Medium priced items, let's say anything between $10 and $20 currently, would need to be looked at based on how much use a single purchase gets the player. Archetypes, which are unlocked permanently and can be used an unlimited number of times, provided there's enough available character slots, may be fine as they're priced now. However, having one random archetype go on sale on a frequent basis or discounting those that have been released for a long time definitely would improve sales. Character slots are sold two in a pack, so they fall in this range. I don't think they should though, as they are of limited use. You buy two, you only get two. You want more, you have to buy more. They're currently at $7 a piece. They could be dropped to half of that price and I'm sure Silver players would be grabbing them up. That would make them no longer a medium purchase item. Another service that probably should not be a medium price are the recon and retrain tokens. Retrain do more than retcon, so they should be higher, but both need to be priced as to say, "Oh, you changed your mind? No problem. Just give us a few bucks and we'll take care of that," instead of the current, "Oh, you changed your mind. Well, I've got some bad news." Retcon tokens should not cost more than a lunch.
Now, high priced items. They shouldn't exist. The C-Store is for micro transactions. If you exceed a $20 price tag you really can't call it 'micro' anymore. There's only two items I can see that fit in this anyway, and that's Catalyst packs which come across as 'pay-to-win' a detestable marketing approach in the eyes of many, and the Free Form slot at a whopping $50 for one. Comparatively, buying a lifetime membership nets you 16 Free Form slots for $300, ignoring all of the other perks that come with being a gold member AND vanguard. That $300 would go to 6 Free Form slots for someone looking to stay Silver. It's the biggest thing that makes me feel Cryptic is failing to fully embrace the Free to Play model, because they're failing to embrace their Free to Play players.
Just as a thought experiment, I'm going to build the closest version of one Gold account character slot that I can. Keep in mind that this character slot would lack the additional perks that Gold players experience currently, such as power customization and a free additional slot and retcon at max level.
1 Free Form slot: 5000 Zen.
2 costume slots: 175 Zen * 2.
3 bag slots: 250 Zen * 3.
90 additional Market slots: 250 Zen * 9.
Total: 8350 Zen, or $83.50. To construct a Lifetime membership account out of this kind of character, you'd need to pay over four times the value of the Lifetime membership price.
So let's build a more ideal Faux-Gold slot. We'll take all the same components and adjust the prices.
1 Free Form slot: 2000 Zen.
2 costume slots: 100 Zen * 2.
3 bag slots: 75 Zen * 3.
90 additional Market slots: 100 Zen * 9.
Total: 3325 Zen or $33.25. Still fails to be as good of a deal as Lifetime, but Lifetime should be a hell of a deal regardless.
Now to those that will point it out, yes, I know there's account wide costume slots that can be purchased so the deal could be slightly more in favor for the hypothetical Faux-Gold than I presented. It won't change things that much.
So that's the changes in pricing, but what else could be done? It still doesn't really feel 'rewarding' to spend Zen on the game. Well, I hinted at one option already. Sales. Another two are an alteration to the lockboxes and a Silver Loyalty rewards program.
Regular, reoccurring sales may require a bit of infrastructure to be put in place but I think they would be very much worth it in the end. Things that could go on sale are just about every item in the store, and the selection could change each sale. First one is three different Archetypes. The next one is five kinds of hideouts. Third is character slots. Forth is three Archetypes that weren't in the first sale. etc...
Lockboxes may not be the most popular item with some people. There's accusations of promoting gambling. But there isn't really a chance to lose with lockboxes, there just isn't a guarantee of winning the jackpot. It's just a question of, 'does the customer feel they're getting the price of unlocking the lockbox in rewards for opening it?' This is paramount to the success and general acceptance of the feature. And then, to really get people excited about them, add in AMAZING prizes at really low odds. People suck at probability. If each lockbox had a chance to not only hold drifter salvage, vehicle mods, and a motorcycle, to use the current ones as an example, but also some of the cooler prizes from previous lockboxes or items from the C-Store, any item, that'd be exciting.
Finally, a loyalty program for everyone. The veteran rewards is already in place for Gold members, and honestly, they should keep it for Golds only. But a similar loyalty reward system should be in place for everyone. Instead of time subscribed the tally would be in Zen spent on Champions Online, with rewards specifically made to appeal to Silver players more than Golds. For example the first milestone in the loyalty program could be an increase to the maximum resource cap for all characters by 250 Gs. The next tier could be a free hideout. Third could be unique costume pieces, distinct from the Veteran rewards costumes. Somewhere on there could be a Free Form slot (normal character slot for Golds). The last one would be really big for Silvers, but also something for Golds. A costume piece, most likely. Maybe a title as well. And then the real bait to get all of us Silver players hooked, power color and emanation customization regardless of account status.
That's my suggestion to make Silvers feel a little more welcome and appreciated, while still catering to Golds as well. After all, they could benefit from most of what I've suggested here as well, and they are a more special customer than the ones that aren't willing to put anything upfront. But the Silvers that spend money on the game are customers, and they deserve some love too.
The bottom line is, Cryptic wants people to utilize Zen. If items were cheaper, more people would buy them. They may buy the Zen themselves, or obtain it through the Earn Zen feature, or through the Questionite exchange but any way is more revenue for the game. More people spending Zen would cause one negative consequence for players, and that would be less favorable prices for Q sellers buying Z, but this would also mean a more favorable market for those buying Zen to exchange for Questionite, and the people buying the Zen are the ones supporting the game so I see this as fair. Also with lower prices in the C-Store, the inflation of Q wouldn't hurt as much.
So how should prices be adjusted? The least expensive items can probably remain as they are. Keys, account-wide costume slots, shared bank slots, rename tokens, etc... The exception would be items that are only applied to one individual character and affect gameplay. These are really only single character costume slots and bag slots, as retcon and retrain tokens are really too expensive to be grouped in. These could be priced much lower or sold in heavily discounted bundles to make buying them for every character a Silver player has more practical. $2.50 for one bag slot for one character I will not buy. $5-10 for 10 bag slots to split among my characters as I see fit, I would be tempted. I see it as more value for my money, and the price for each bag slot is diminished, but it's the difference between making a sale and not making a sale.
Medium priced items, let's say anything between $10 and $20 currently, would need to be looked at based on how much use a single purchase gets the player. Archetypes, which are unlocked permanently and can be used an unlimited number of times, provided there's enough available character slots, may be fine as they're priced now. However, having one random archetype go on sale on a frequent basis or discounting those that have been released for a long time definitely would improve sales. Character slots are sold two in a pack, so they fall in this range. I don't think they should though, as they are of limited use. You buy two, you only get two. You want more, you have to buy more. They're currently at $7 a piece. They could be dropped to half of that price and I'm sure Silver players would be grabbing them up. That would make them no longer a medium purchase item. Another service that probably should not be a medium price are the recon and retrain tokens. Retrain do more than retcon, so they should be higher, but both need to be priced as to say, "Oh, you changed your mind? No problem. Just give us a few bucks and we'll take care of that," instead of the current, "Oh, you changed your mind. Well, I've got some bad news." Retcon tokens should not cost more than a lunch.
Now, high priced items. They shouldn't exist. The C-Store is for micro transactions. If you exceed a $20 price tag you really can't call it 'micro' anymore. There's only two items I can see that fit in this anyway, and that's Catalyst packs which come across as 'pay-to-win' a detestable marketing approach in the eyes of many, and the Free Form slot at a whopping $50 for one. Comparatively, buying a lifetime membership nets you 16 Free Form slots for $300, ignoring all of the other perks that come with being a gold member AND vanguard. That $300 would go to 6 Free Form slots for someone looking to stay Silver. It's the biggest thing that makes me feel Cryptic is failing to fully embrace the Free to Play model, because they're failing to embrace their Free to Play players.
Just as a thought experiment, I'm going to build the closest version of one Gold account character slot that I can. Keep in mind that this character slot would lack the additional perks that Gold players experience currently, such as power customization and a free additional slot and retcon at max level.
1 Free Form slot: 5000 Zen.
2 costume slots: 175 Zen * 2.
3 bag slots: 250 Zen * 3.
90 additional Market slots: 250 Zen * 9.
Total: 8350 Zen, or $83.50. To construct a Lifetime membership account out of this kind of character, you'd need to pay over four times the value of the Lifetime membership price.
So let's build a more ideal Faux-Gold slot. We'll take all the same components and adjust the prices.
1 Free Form slot: 2000 Zen.
2 costume slots: 100 Zen * 2.
3 bag slots: 75 Zen * 3.
90 additional Market slots: 100 Zen * 9.
Total: 3325 Zen or $33.25. Still fails to be as good of a deal as Lifetime, but Lifetime should be a hell of a deal regardless.
Now to those that will point it out, yes, I know there's account wide costume slots that can be purchased so the deal could be slightly more in favor for the hypothetical Faux-Gold than I presented. It won't change things that much.
So that's the changes in pricing, but what else could be done? It still doesn't really feel 'rewarding' to spend Zen on the game. Well, I hinted at one option already. Sales. Another two are an alteration to the lockboxes and a Silver Loyalty rewards program.
Regular, reoccurring sales may require a bit of infrastructure to be put in place but I think they would be very much worth it in the end. Things that could go on sale are just about every item in the store, and the selection could change each sale. First one is three different Archetypes. The next one is five kinds of hideouts. Third is character slots. Forth is three Archetypes that weren't in the first sale. etc...
Lockboxes may not be the most popular item with some people. There's accusations of promoting gambling. But there isn't really a chance to lose with lockboxes, there just isn't a guarantee of winning the jackpot. It's just a question of, 'does the customer feel they're getting the price of unlocking the lockbox in rewards for opening it?' This is paramount to the success and general acceptance of the feature. And then, to really get people excited about them, add in AMAZING prizes at really low odds. People suck at probability. If each lockbox had a chance to not only hold drifter salvage, vehicle mods, and a motorcycle, to use the current ones as an example, but also some of the cooler prizes from previous lockboxes or items from the C-Store, any item, that'd be exciting.
Finally, a loyalty program for everyone. The veteran rewards is already in place for Gold members, and honestly, they should keep it for Golds only. But a similar loyalty reward system should be in place for everyone. Instead of time subscribed the tally would be in Zen spent on Champions Online, with rewards specifically made to appeal to Silver players more than Golds. For example the first milestone in the loyalty program could be an increase to the maximum resource cap for all characters by 250 Gs. The next tier could be a free hideout. Third could be unique costume pieces, distinct from the Veteran rewards costumes. Somewhere on there could be a Free Form slot (normal character slot for Golds). The last one would be really big for Silvers, but also something for Golds. A costume piece, most likely. Maybe a title as well. And then the real bait to get all of us Silver players hooked, power color and emanation customization regardless of account status.
That's my suggestion to make Silvers feel a little more welcome and appreciated, while still catering to Golds as well. After all, they could benefit from most of what I've suggested here as well, and they are a more special customer than the ones that aren't willing to put anything upfront. But the Silvers that spend money on the game are customers, and they deserve some love too.
Post edited by zypheit on
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Comments
Overall I agree with most of what you said but do want to point out that I think you have it backwards in this paragraph (unless I am misreading or misunderstanding).
More people buying Zen would mean an increase in total Zen on the market. This reduces the value of Zen compared to Questionite. This would mean that Q sellers would get MORE Zen for their Q, not less.
Or do you mean people would be spending their Zen rather than trading it for Q ? If so I think that, at least in the short term, you would see enough of an uptick in Zen purchases to affect the exchange market even if people were spending much of it.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
There's more things people want to purchase with Zen.
Some more people buy Zen directly and spend it on C-Store items, meaning no Zen is added to the exchange.
Some people would rather sell Questionite to obtain the Zen, meaning there is an increased demand for Zen.
It'd then be up to the people looking to purchase Questionite off the exchange to meet that demand, giving them control over the pricing. So it'll probably be higher.
Kind of like how when the Grav-cycle lockboxes came out the conversion rate spiked ~8-10 more Questionite for 1 Zen, because more people were wanting to buy Zen so the cheaper priced stuff was getting grabbed up. It's all conjecture based on my limited understanding of economics from one class in high school anyway, and digital economies tend to throw certain things out the window anyway in that regard.