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RE: The INCREASE in costume prices
itsakurataigiere
Posts: 36 Arc User
http://co-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=303871
Apparently CRYPTIC doesn't understand the concept of MICROtransactions.
Okay, so... MICRO is an adjective that means "EXTREMELY SMALL" (true story, look it up).
Want a good example of "microtransactions" in real life? Look at MP3 online stores or dollar menus at fast food restaurants. A micro transaction should be less than $5 for an item. So, what does the increase in costume prices mean in CO?
Well, right now, you can buy 1000 Zen for $10.00. Tomorrow (3/5/2015), the prices of 7 costumes are going to 1000 Zen. And the prices of 21 costumes are going to 750 Zen. So CRYPTIC is saying that their 28 best costume sets on the Zen market place are worth $227.50 total...
So, CRYPTIC, what you're telling your player base is that you honestly think your costumes (the sets that aren't terrible) are worth $10.00 or $7.50 a pop... Or more than a month's subscription is probably worth (comparing gameplay quality to the MMORPG industry leader)... When we can buy full games for $10.00? Compare apples to apples and look at DCUO, and you can buy costumes for $4.00 or less.
Seriously? :eek:
To open all of the lockboxes I have in my combined 53 characters' inventories, at $1.00 per key (or $9.00 for 10), would cost me between $900.00 to $1000.00, at the current prices for Cosmic Keys. So, basically, you're trying to soak $100 a month from "free to play" customers and $110 a month from monthly subscribers, and $95 a month from lifers, after already receiving $300 from us.
Here's another term for you: "death spiral"
http://www.accountingcoach.com/terms/D/death-spiral
I love you, CRYPTIC, but you done lost your minds...
SUGGESTION
Either reduce the prices of these sets to a level that fits the concept of a microtransaction or increase the amount of Zen buyers receive per purchase.
And Cosmic Keys should cost no more than $0.25, the same as an arcade game.
If you're going to do the MICROtransaction business model, then you need to do the MICRO part of that business model. $10.00 doesn't go very far in this game. I don't know what your actual financials are on your Zen market place are. They are either really really bad or insanely fantastic good. I don't know how many of your F2P customers are buying these items vs the Lifers, but seriously...
Apparently CRYPTIC doesn't understand the concept of MICROtransactions.
Okay, so... MICRO is an adjective that means "EXTREMELY SMALL" (true story, look it up).
Want a good example of "microtransactions" in real life? Look at MP3 online stores or dollar menus at fast food restaurants. A micro transaction should be less than $5 for an item. So, what does the increase in costume prices mean in CO?
Well, right now, you can buy 1000 Zen for $10.00. Tomorrow (3/5/2015), the prices of 7 costumes are going to 1000 Zen. And the prices of 21 costumes are going to 750 Zen. So CRYPTIC is saying that their 28 best costume sets on the Zen market place are worth $227.50 total...
So, CRYPTIC, what you're telling your player base is that you honestly think your costumes (the sets that aren't terrible) are worth $10.00 or $7.50 a pop... Or more than a month's subscription is probably worth (comparing gameplay quality to the MMORPG industry leader)... When we can buy full games for $10.00? Compare apples to apples and look at DCUO, and you can buy costumes for $4.00 or less.
Seriously? :eek:
To open all of the lockboxes I have in my combined 53 characters' inventories, at $1.00 per key (or $9.00 for 10), would cost me between $900.00 to $1000.00, at the current prices for Cosmic Keys. So, basically, you're trying to soak $100 a month from "free to play" customers and $110 a month from monthly subscribers, and $95 a month from lifers, after already receiving $300 from us.
Here's another term for you: "death spiral"
http://www.accountingcoach.com/terms/D/death-spiral
I love you, CRYPTIC, but you done lost your minds...
SUGGESTION
Either reduce the prices of these sets to a level that fits the concept of a microtransaction or increase the amount of Zen buyers receive per purchase.
And Cosmic Keys should cost no more than $0.25, the same as an arcade game.
If you're going to do the MICROtransaction business model, then you need to do the MICRO part of that business model. $10.00 doesn't go very far in this game. I don't know what your actual financials are on your Zen market place are. They are either really really bad or insanely fantastic good. I don't know how many of your F2P customers are buying these items vs the Lifers, but seriously...
Post edited by itsakurataigiere on
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Welcome to the forum.
LOL Been here. Thanks for the link. Notice the suggestion at the end of my post? Yes... that's serious.
Not to mention the people who dump hundreds of dollars into premium currency in PC and mobile games on their first day playing... those are microtransactions also.
I'm not defending the price hike, but, yeah, microtransactions don't have to be five bucks or less.
Uhm, sort of.
Let me say this. The prices on the Zen market place? Are insane.
1) The prices were pretty much high since the game launched. Why? Because the game was a premium pay to play model.
2) When the game went F2P, the prices on the Zen market place didn't go down. In a lot of cases, then went up. I will contend that this is part of why the F2P launch failed MISERABLY.
3) I will assert, again, that microtransactions are, in fact, $5 or less. Pointing at CRYPTIC's failed F2P launch as evidence, I think a lot of people came on, played the game, saw the ridiculous prices, and said "to hell with this", and went to DCUO. (In fact, compare the prices for microtransactions in DCUO. $10.00 buys you an entire expansion, and their costume sets are $4.00 per.)
Basically, the main draw of this game is new characters, right? So why is the price of new characters $14.00 a month. No, seriously. $14.00 a month... so... over 90% of the price of a monthly subscription.
CRYPTIC doesn't understand the concept of MICROtransactions. If they are going to do the F2P model, then they should have made it that F2P players could achieve much the same quality of play as gold members if they spent about as much as a Gold member on a monthly basis.
Right now, that's not the case. MICRO means small. Micro is how F2P works. Another two character slots shouldn't be $14.00. It should be $5. And the additional character slots drives demand for everything else. Costume pieces, Archetypes, Freeform slots, Aura slots, etc.
Does that make sense?
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
That's an opinion, sure. I paid those prices for years without thinking they were insane. That's another opinion. Who's right? It's hard to say when it's all based on opinion, unless you think your opinion is fact. Then it's a clear cut!
By which standards were they high? Some things may have been overpriced, some underpriced, but do we have an authority to say what's what in this arena, or are we just going on your arbitrary opinions?
You do understand that the game did better once it went free-to-play, right? There was a terribly low population before the game went free. The game became self-sustaining after it became free. Explain how that means it "failed MISERABLY." To me, it shows that the game did better and attracted a better revenue. It may not have been a stellar and unmatched success that made billions of dollars overnight, but a game that kept on going for years is hardly a failure, by definition.
Failed? Arbitrary. $5.00? Arbitrary.
And comparing to DC? Come on. First off, not even touching on the virtues of both of these games, it's almost apples and oranges. You give high praise for DCUO selling content for only ten bucks when in Champions, you get all content for free. Should we compare character customization also? You get way less options as a paid DCUO player than you do as a free Champions player. You have three options in travel powers in DCUO, but you get what, a dozen free and varied options in Champions?
It's going to be a sweet mess if you want to go point-for-point on these two games.
Can you earn new character slots in DCUO for free? I'm not getting where this argument is coming from. Both games, you have to pay for new character slots. Whether you're opening up new slots by leveling to 40 or buying slots off the store... What's the point here?
For all your talk about DCUO, I'd like you to know that I played it for about a month, and many times while I did, when I tried to do something new, I got hit with a "Nope, you gotta pay before you can do that!" message.
Micro and small are two words that aren't immediately quantifiable and are, once again, arbitrary. When people are happily paying for $100 microtransactions in other games every day, who are you to say that they're no longer microtransactions? Unless you're the bureau of microtransactions and their profound meaning and worth, I don't think you're qualified to say what's right and what isn't, and let the market itself decide. Vote with your bucks, and all that.
:::
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I know for a fact that I maxed out the number of buyable character slots you can buy. That was an interesting point to discover.
character slots I think they are referring to. not costume slots. but I only ever use my free ones these days.
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Oh really?? Wow.
Did not realize that.
Yeah, though one thing to note is that the character slots are seperate from the free form slots. So they both have their own individual caps.
As people have stated, you put the price tag in there. You could look at how PayPal defines it ($12) or Visa ($20). In GTA they made tons of money using this model and one of their higher items was $22.
Reduce prices or increase Zen a player gets...isn't that essentially the same thing mathematically?
In the 80's, right? Haven't seen an arcade game that cheap in forever. LOL! You can't even by a gumball or a sticker from a machine for $0.25.
Anyway, if it helps make money and keep the game around...I'll support it. A trip to McD's costs me $10 (or two startbucks runs) so I'd pay that for a costume.
I agree with the overall hope that if this is to set the new quality of future costume sets, then the bugs should be to a minimum. I think that the bugs that haven't been addressed with existing costume sets also need to be handled to improve player experience. Customization the single most redeeming feature in the game, and it's not ideal to have to explain to new players all the little tricks to work around bugs in the tailor let alone the actual costume parts themselves.
At the end of the day, speaking with your wallet is really the best way to handle a situation like this, and it's worked for me this whole time... I'll purchase the sets I want, and if I don't feel it's something I like then I'll not get it. No one has ever forced me to get anything I didn't personally want in the game, no matter it's cost.
@Aleatha1011 in CO | Keeper of the Cheesecake since Nov. 2011| Bunni BOT is on PRIMUS! | Come check out my deviantart page!
2) how do we determine market price? Well, that's actually kind of easy. You compare the prices of competitors in the same industry.
3) what prices are competitors in the industry charging? $4.00 per costume set. Whether or not you think DCU is competitive is irrelevant. They have more players. It is an MMO. It's a comic book based MMO. It is F2P. It has costumes for sale. It is literally as close to a one to one, apples to apples comparison as you're ever going to get in market analysis.
4) the prices for Champions Online material was ALREADY priced at a premium. $4.75 vs $4.00. Now they are going to bump the prices of most of the costume sets to $6.00 and $7.50, far over the market price. Even as high as $10.00 for their best sets.
Why? Because they are strapped for cash. This is a gouge move. Now, either it's a gouge move based on really REALLY good sales from their F2P customers. Possible. Unlikely, but possible. Do you have information that I don't have about their F2P market financials? Now, that's possible, and if they are going gangbusters, then it makes sense, at least, sort of. It's rude, but they need the money, I guess.
Fact, the cost of producing a costume is a fixed cost. There is literally zero marginal cost for each costume, so there's no justification at all for a price increase, at least from the standpoint of increasing costs. If the goal is to increase revenue, then they could have left the prices the same and just increased the Zen to cash ratio, so there's more of an incentive to spend money to buy Zen.
Economically speaking, the only reason the price for a good should increase is if supply is decreasing or demand is increasing. I literally can't possibly see any feasible way that demand is increasing, given the current population... If you know something I don't know, then fine... but demand is literally the only variable in this equation.
Honestly, though, the only way this price change makes sense is if they are making tons of money from their F2P customers. I doubt that highly. So, this is literally the classic "death spiral" pricing. You think $22 is fine? Wonderful. You're probably a Gold, so you're forking over $10 a month, and $5 for Zen anyhow.
I personally don't plan on giving another dime to Cryptic. And, if I'm not mistaken, I don't think many of the F2P people are doing very much buying of Zen either, given the gross inflation of Q to Zen transactions. Looks to me that there's a big problem with money coming in, and the F2P thing has kind of blown up in their faces.
You forget that you can buy Zen with Questionite in the Questionite exchange, which is a great idea...
If they increase the amount of Zen that players get with each purchase, there's a point at which it becomes a lot cheaper time wise for a player to buy Zen directly than farming the Q-nite for Zen.
I don't know what bizarro reality it is you subscribe to to believe that game companies do their pricing primarily based what their competitors are using and ignore production costs vs returns, or strictly according to what consumers think the price should be to determine the price.
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There's no industry standard for these things. Just because one game does it differently doesn't mean every other game should. I mean, if you want to compare point-by-point all the differences in cash shop stuff in the two games, you're going to open up a huge can of worms.
You need to pay 400 points for changing your character's body time in DCUO. Do you think the character body sliders should be behind a paywall as well, or do you like just paying in Resources?
Do you want the Adventure Packs to be put back in to the C Store?
Should our Name Changes cost 10 bucks?
There is no industry standard here. Once again, I'm going to say that I don't agree with these price hikes at all, but I think your argument is flawed from the beginning since you're just basing it on what other games do.
No, I know as much as you do about their financial situation. I don't work for Cryptic so there's no way I would know these things.
How do you figure it's a fixed cost? If every set took only five hours to create, by one person, then sure, we could say it's a fixed cost. But creating art takes time, and it's not always good and sometimes you have to start over. This is all time that's being taken up by employees. First, concept art has to be made. This takes a variable amount of time. Then meshes have to be made (for some sets). Again, variable amount of time, based on model complexity and such. Then the textures have to be made. And once again, variable amount of time. Then once it's all done, it has to go through quality assurance. If there's bugs or errors (clipping, textures don't match up on seams, etc.) then the work goes back to the artist and they have to fix it. The amount of pieces and options each set has also varies, and we also have to take complexity of each piece into account.
This, to me, absolutely validates varying prices on costume sets moving forward. A set with, say, 3 tights patterns should cost less than a set with a full set of armor - head, shoulders, chest, back, hips, legs, boots, gloves, neck, cape, collar, etcetera, because a tights set is usually just texturing work, whereas a set of armor requires a lot more work, as outlined above.
If you could figure out a way to stick all that work into a set timeframe and have it look perfect, you'd be the world's best artist.
Again I'll say I don't like the price increase, but to be fair to Cryptic, if they're not making back what they put into the costume sets, and they're making more money on the sets that have less pieces and less work done to them, because one set took three weeks of work and is selling for 5 bucks, and another took three days of work and is selling for 5 bucks, it's going to take a LOT more time to break even and then make profit on the more complex set.
That said, I don't know if they're in the red on some sets and not on others... but I could imagine that they're making money hand over fist on them lockbox costumes.
Being a sports fan it totally cool. Being a MMO game fan is only for losers. Thanks for clearing that up.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
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Might be some other hidden agenda there, didn't really bother reading past post #1.
And then there is the "fanboi" word, so it just might be a some new breed of troll....
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
And that's not even touching some of the ludicrous prices people have paid for virtual items at auction.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
For now, yes... but if I remember right there's a Cryptic-set absolute cap of 500Q for 1Z; a price we are very nearly at.
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
No Jon. When we want to complain, we have to abandon all notions of any sort of perspective that makes our own situation that we want to complain about any less outrageous.
I can claim that me dropping my cupcake is the most devestating event taking place in the world so long as I completely ignore everything else.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
There are competitors who will allow me to buy costume sets that I can use in Champions Online? Please, do tell
If all they're selling is costumes that I can only use in their not-Champions Online game... then they can set the price at whatever they want... even free won't get me to buy them.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Too late for that.
...
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
That poor cupcake...
Please accept my condolences to your fallen dessert with a special batch of RIP cupcakes.
@Aleatha1011 in CO | Keeper of the Cheesecake since Nov. 2011| Bunni BOT is on PRIMUS! | Come check out my deviantart page!
They did that though o3o
Obviously not with the higher quality/value older packs.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.