Dear Cryptic and PWE - Lower your prices and they will come

laurelas · October 2013

If you lower your pricing overall, permanently, you would be assured of many more purchases. The pricing structure as well as the fact that you have to purchase 99% of this content PER character instead of per account just makes me really resentful. Look at Rift and all you can get for a fraction of the pricing!

mctankypants · October 2013

This has been discussed in length in many other threads. It's a valid argument but I don't recall ever reading a Cryptic employee commenting on it.

cribstaxxx · October 2013

I imagine that is because cryptic is still making plenty of money with prices as is and will only drop them when their sales are stagnant.

zolimos · October 2013

laurelas wrote: »

If you lower your pricing overall, permanently, you would be assured of many more purchases. The pricing structure as well as the fact that you have to purchase 99% of this content PER character instead of per account just makes me really resentful. Look at Rift and all you can get for a fraction of the pricing!

I have no doubt that you are correct. There is definitely an opportunity for a great deal more income. Most folks (I'm assuming, as this group includes everyone I know) are waiting for the light to come on at Cryptic and see realistic pricing before jumping into the market place with cash. prices are just too far out of touch with reality.

Example:
I really want that Neverwinter Red Rider BB gun, but it costs $2500. I know that I can buy an (insert game name here) AR-15 for $800. There is no way I'm paying that much for that cool Red Rider.
If the Red Rider was $400, I would buy one for each of my 10 characters, a $4000 purchase. You would think that Cryptic would rather have $4000 for multiple virtual goods than $zero for overly inflated, near zero cost items. It boggles my mind...

cribstaxxx · October 2013

zolimos wrote: »

I have no doubt that you are correct. There is definitely an opportunity for a great deal more income. Most folks (I'm assuming, as this group includes everyone I know) are waiting for the light to come on at Cryptic and see realistic pricing before jumping into the market place with cash. prices are just too far out of touch with reality.

Example:
I really want that Neverwinter Red Rider BB gun, but it costs $2500. I know that I can buy an (insert game name here) AR-15 for $800. There is no way I'm paying that much for that cool Red Rider.
If the Red Rider was $400, I would buy one for each of my 10 characters, a $4000 purchase. You would think that Cryptic would rather have $4000 for multiple virtual goods than $zero for overly inflated, near zero cost items. It boggles my mind...

They have weekly sales that accomplish just that, the yeth hound is 33% off right now. The most expensive fashion clothes are 50% off. If you can't afford current prices just wait until what you want goes on sale.

sternerr · October 2013

Totally agree, either cut zen market prices 2 times or make items account-wide.

Problem with current situation, I simply don't really see incentive to spend money on neverwinter, everything is either free already or not worth it. I already have mount, some outfits from events, a healer to save me the gold on pots. 40$ mount? I can live without one, I can buy games worth month of playtime on steam with this money! Now if I could level an alt for each class knowing that each one has access to unicorn and honey badger, that would be another story.

sasheria · October 2013

well. It sounds nice, but also think about this. Why would they cut prices if they are making money?

Lets say a mount cost $50 and 1000 people bought them (1000 people is a MADE UP number) that is $50,000.

If they drop the price to $30, they would have to see at LEAST 1666 of them to make the SAME money (give or take) so more people will have the item but the MONEY will remain the same. It is great for the customer, but sucky for the Cryptic.

Since this is virtual good, there is no stocking fee or "storage space" or "expiration date" like physical goods. This is why physical goods usually do bulk sales and sometime lower prices. To move product before it goes bad. Virtual good doesn't have that.

Also if they keep prices high, they can create a "virtual demand" when prices are on sale to test to see how much they are selling.

So if they are selling 1000 mounts a month and making $50,000, slashing the price to $30 and sold only 1700 (again, all made up numbers but the math is all there)

sternerr · October 2013

If they drop mount price to 25$, people who would buy one will buy two for variety or alt, and people who don't consider spending 50$ on pixels may consider buying one too. I hope recent sales were actually testing for price elasticity,

sasheria · October 2013

sternerr wrote: »

If they drop mount price to 25$, people who would buy one will buy two for variety or alt, and people who don't consider spending 50$ on pixels may consider buying one too. I hope recent sales were actually testing for price elasticity,

so far the high prices are mounts, but those are account wide!!

torskaldr · October 2013

I agree with you op. If they want more money out of me, lower your prices.

However, enough people must be paying the higher prices because they've not lowered them dramatically. I was participating in a thread on MMORPG.com about how fanboism is bad for development. At one point we discussed how some MT store prices are really high (Cryptic was the whipping boy in this one). He pointed out that while he also sees some store prices as too high, if a pub/dev doesn't lower them it's probably because enough people are paying the higher price.

It's a disappointing really, but your only real choice is to provide the sort of feedback you are, and be consistent in not spending money on overpriced stuff.

The next time I can possibly see myself spending money here is if/when a new class is released and another package deal presented. The $60 founder pack was a reasonable deal imo. I might do one of those again, maybe.

jarlsburg · October 2013

I agree with the OP. At least we have weekly sales now, which is a step in the right direction. I still think the prices are a bit too high even with the sale. Unfortunately the AD exchange makes it hard to lower prices to a reasonable level because if they go too far many players would be able to buy what they want from the Zen store and never spend a dime. I know there are many who can now and I don't think they want this number to increase too much. It would be nice if there was a separation of cash and Zen, but then it would make people scream P2W.

I will say the lower prices have gotten me to purchase items from the Zen store again. Unfortunately, as I said, the prices are still too high and right now I will only use AD from the game to make these purchases. It has been a few months since I gave any money to PWE. I have supported the game quite heavily in the past and I wouldn't mind supporting it again in the future but they just haven't made quite enough changes to make me crack open my wallet again. Then need lower prices and they really need fix companions. Make companions account bound, make them all epic (I am not paying that stupid price to upgrade them. That was like a slap in the face to many players), and drop the price to about $10. If they did that I would buy every companion that peaks my interest. Also, if fashion items and dyes were cheaper I would probably purchase some of these. Of course the fashion items need a bit of work because they look pretty silly right now.

Mounts are a different story. They should add a discount if you already purchased a rank 3 mount from the store and charge you a LOT less when you buy more. Only people with a lot of money are going to buy more than one mount because they are not useful in any way if you already have one. If I could collect mount skins (that's really all they are) at $5 a piece I would buy more. I will not pay $25 - $40 to ride a different mount. Make the first mount purchase cost around $25 and then sell additional mounts (skins) for $5 and you will make a fortune.

spyke2009 · October 2013

simple answer?

Play Rift?

bioshrike · October 2013

I forget who wrote about it, but there's this concept of "whales" - people who have lots of money and *will* spend it on the new shinnies, even if they are excessively priced. The devs (or their PWE bosses) may adhere to this methodology, reasoning that they can always put the items on sale at a later date. Somewhere down the like, if sales take a dip, they put some sought-after items on a 75% off sale and recoup some of those losses. If these items were initially at a lower price point, they might miss out on some of those big ticket sales...

spyke2009 · October 2013

bioshrike wrote: »

I forget who wrote about it, but there's this concept of "whales" - people who have lots of money and *will* spend it on the new shinnies, even if they are excessively priced. The devs (or their PWE bosses) may adhere to this methodology, reasoning that they can always put the items on sale at a later date. Somewhere down the like, if sales take a dip, they put some sought-after items on a 75% off sale and recoup some of those losses. If these items were initially at a lower price point, they might miss out on some of those big ticket sales...

It's been written by plenty of developers and critics. The subject first came to the fore with ZT Online but this conversation will inevitably lead to the mentioning of the dreaded and forbidden "p2w" discussion, so it's best to not bother with it.

Dear Cryptic and PWE - Lower your prices and they will come

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