There is, actually, Melody. There are Federal Laws, California State Laws, European Union Laws and English Law. They were linked in this thread by other members but moved to The Can, so I am not going to post them again.
And nothing in any EULA or TOS can override the Law of any country where a digital transaction takes place, anymore than I can get you to agree to a contract to pay you £20,000 for one of your kidneys. It is simply not a binding contract in English Law as selling human organs is a criminal offence. I cannot even sell you one of my kidneys.
EULA and TOS case law has been tested in Europe far more than it has in the States.
I think a 25% refund is an excessive recompense to hope for; but if, as a gesture of good faith, they credited me with the Zen I lost by paying the equivalent of 8600 Zen for a 7500 Zen product, that would go a long way to restoring a small part of the trust they have destroyed. I would never have bought it at all if I had known it was going to be available on the Zen Market for less than the pre-release, so-called Sale price.
~.~
Also, lets say we ignore all this legal stuff. Even if we did that and PWE has the ability to randomly change prices on their customers, does that mean they -should-? Even errors made in innocence are still errors. It seems to me that the number of angry people here is a pretty good indication that decisions were made of...let say questionable quality
It seems to me that the number of angry people here is a pretty good indication that decisions were made of...let say questionable quality
What numbers? A few posters in the forum? Compared to all buyers of the pack or the entire playerbase? Most of them remain ignorant of this or simply don't care because they have their shiny.
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zombieelvisMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 9Arc User
There is, actually, Melody. There are Federal Laws, California State Laws, European Union Laws and English Law. They were linked in this thread by other members but moved to The Can, so I am not going to post them again.
And nothing in any EULA or TOS can override the Law of any country where a digital transaction takes place, anymore than I can get you to agree to a contract to pay you £20,000 for one of your kidneys. It is simply not a binding contract in English Law as selling human organs is a criminal offence. I cannot even sell you one of my kidneys.
EULA and TOS case law has been tested in Europe far more than it has in the States.
I think a 25% refund is an excessive recompense to hope for; but if, as a gesture of good faith, they credited me with the Zen I lost by paying the equivalent of 8600 Zen for a 7500 Zen product, that would go a long way to restoring a small part of the trust they have destroyed. I would never have bought it at all if I had known it was going to be available on the Zen Market for less than the pre-release, so-called Sale price.
~.~
This.
I've tried to cite legal references, so people know the difference between fact and opinion, but was told that is not allowed.
I've tried to cite legal references, so people know the difference between fact and opinion, but was told that is not allowed.
there are no lawyers and law experts to answer these statements. it doesn't matter if you are a lawyer in real life, this is the internet and anyone can claim to be anything but there is no way to validate your claim here.
and when you're getting down to actual accusations of law violations, that exceeds the scope of a forum discussion. PWE may make a formal statement about the cost of the dragonborn pack but no company is going to get into a forum discussion about litigation. you start talking litigation and violations, then they're going to refer you to their lawyers.
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xianclinnMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited August 2014
Or; They could make this all go away, with some scope of Zen store credit for people who bought the pack.
This would go a long way to politically mend fences, which would make the players happier, which gets your company more money in the end. You lose nothing by making your paying customers happy. You are giving away pixels.
This reminds me of the Ebook war, going on with Amazon. Another company is fighting increase the cost of Ebooks. By close to five dollars.
However the problem is, it is proven to be more profitable to sell ebooks cheaper. Much more, because, more of the product sells itself.
Yet everything in the Zen store is high priced. I would bet my account, where I have spent over or close to 400 dollars, Cryptic would make more money selling stuff cheaper and reasonable.
Why is Cryptic trading 50% of a watermelon for 95% of a grape? The bigger number is not always the most profitable.
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xianclinnMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Wow 16 pages of anger. 16 pages of PAYING CUSTOMERS who paid more than a AAA game at retail for a new race and some extra goodies who thought they were getting a special deal, and now believe it to have been a raw deal. 16 pages of folks who will very definitely think twice the next time an offer like this is made.
I do believe it is time for our friends at PWE to step to the plate and discuss this situation, stop the bleeding and attempt to make amends in some manner. Customers remember stuff like this, and coming on the heels of the massive exploitation of the game which gave many players a full boat free ride to the top of the charts and a mere slap on the wrist for doing it, they need to act now.
If this had been planned all along, it's a truly sad state of affairs. Did no one on the marketing team expect this would be the reaction to this sleight of hand tactic? Please Cryptic, you work hard on this game and I know these decisions are out of your hands. You read these forums and see the vitriol this situation has caused. Talk to PWE and see what can be done about making it right.
But of course, they also never paid anything for the game to begin with.
So it is more like, "16 pages of PAYING CUSTOMERS who paid more than a AAA game at retail (while never buying neverwinter to begin with) for a new race and some extra goodies who thought they were getting a special deal, and now believe it to have been a raw deal (yet ending up paying close to the same for a full game itself, balancing out)"
If people spent more beyond this pack? That is there choice. Maybe they do not play many other games, and the money invested in this game, is the same amount many others spend on a bunch of full games throughout the year. Ends up being the same.
I agree this was poorly done by Cryptic and they do owe customers a credit (I'd give all of you 7500 zen for free if it was me). However, people lose sight of the fact, you do not have to pay a dime to play this game. Unlike games like Guild Wars 2. Where there is a box price.
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obumbrataMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 7Arc User
What numbers? A few posters in the forum? Compared to all buyers of the pack or the entire playerbase? Most of them remain ignorant of this or simply don't care because they have their shiny.
I see nineteen pages of (mostly) upset players here. But just because people aren't posting here about any problems they have about this doesn't mean they don't know or don't care about it. This thread is for calm, critical discussion about the problem. Most people aren't going to rage on the threads rather than calling Customer Support to solve their issues. But the fact that there's a thread discussing this problem indicates that a fair number of people believe it -is- a problem. And in my experience, as admittedly inexpert as it may be, when the customers of a business think there is a problem, there is a problem.
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obumbrataMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 7Arc User
But of course, they also never paid anything for the game to begin with.
So it is more like, "16 pages of PAYING CUSTOMERS who paid more than a AAA game at retail (while never buying neverwinter to begin with)
True enough, but if something like this had happened with a box price, and they didn't do something to make amends, would the game have done well enough to even get to module 4?
But of course, they also never paid anything for the game to begin with.
So it is more like, "16 pages of PAYING CUSTOMERS who paid more than a AAA game at retail (while never buying neverwinter to begin with) for a new race and some extra goodies who thought they were getting a special deal, and now believe it to have been a raw deal (yet ending up paying close to the same for a full game itself, balancing out)"
You missed my point. What has happened is that buyers used their disposable income for something as trivial as a race/goodie bag, and paid a premium price for that privilege. These are the customers one would think that PWE would prize most highly and want to treat well to encourage further purchases. The appearance and activity of this thread indicates that these prized customers feel they have been slighted. In the world of sales, appearance can be everything and customer is king. A game such as Neverwinter is paid for by repeat buyers of items not required to play the game to balance out all those who are simply along for the free ride. When these buyers dry up for whatever reason, so does the game. It then behooves those behind the game to keep these buyers spending and take reasonable measures to keep them happy.
I see nineteen pages of (mostly) upset players here. But just because people aren't posting here about any problems they have about this doesn't mean they don't know or don't care about it. This thread is for calm, critical discussion about the problem. Most people aren't going to rage on the threads rather than calling Customer Support to solve their issues. But the fact that there's a thread discussing this problem indicates that a fair number of people believe it -is- a problem. And in my experience, as admittedly inexpert as it may be, when the customers of a business think there is a problem, there is a problem.
Actually in every general and guild channel I belong to there have been people complaining about how they felt taken advantage by these actions, and an awfully high percentage were making it clear that they are likely to never buy anything from Cryptic or PWE ever again...
I'd imagine the future losses from potential sales for PWE are going to be far, far exceed any extra money Cryptic will make from this situation.
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obumbrataMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 7Arc User
Actually in every general and guild channel I belong to there have been people complaining about how they felt taken advantage by these actions, and an awfully high percentage were making it clear that they are likely to never buy anything from Cryptic or PWE ever again...
I'd imagine the future losses from potential sales for PWE are going to be far, far exceed any extra money Cryptic will make from this situation.
I've only looked at this one thread (no computer at work), so thank you for sharing. It helps make my point, the number of upset people you see on a particular thread is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how many people are actually unhappy about this.
If any of these good intentions are true, then a 5 minutes blog post from the senior member who signed off on the decision would have been easier to swallow. It is a decision that has a financial impact on the firm - i.e, increasing sales by lowering (aka not raising the price to $100 as earlier indicated). So there have to have been several calls that last longer than 5 minutes. The larger the company, the more meetings there are. I know. So being at a conference and therefore not having time is a little weak as an excuse. Further, if they truly have a change of heart - did a study by shifting through the complaints of the $100 price - what's wrong with communicating that? It indicates a company that listens to its constituents and try to accommodate. Some will gripe and demand a 25% discount for early purchase (they are doing that now anyway) and others may care less as they appreciate a listening and accommodative company. But it is an understandable position while people may or may not agree with.
I believe that company needs to make money. No money equals no good contents. How many of us are willing to work for free? And it is also not fair to compare how much one game cost vs another. Because $1 per person from 1 billion people is $1bn while $5 from 1 million people is only $5 million. But there are probably a fix cost to creating a good quality game.
But there is not even (a) an acknowledgement of what they did - that they are extending the sales price as a regular price, (b) that they realize this is contrary to what they originally indicated for the pack, and (c) that they are (or are not) having a discussion internally to provide an response to the disadvantaged community. All of these takes less than 5 minutes to write. Tho they may need their legal guy to review and approve the wordings which should not take more than a couple of hours or a day at most. Right now all we have is a "too bad, we reneged and you don't need to know why." This is how they lose me as a supporting customer. Tho I will still be playing the game with one hand while holding onto my wallet with the other.
we're talking about a company that runs multiple games, one that we're aware of that's dropping a new module and one CM is out of the office at a convention... we don't know the internal workings of PWE or what or how they run.
some people think that fast food restaurants are irresponsible. but some of them do a lot of things for the community and make donations to charities that you'd never know about unless you looked into it. but even though they do things like that, there are still internal workings and decisions that are not public knowledge.
if they had an announcement to make last week, then i'm sure they would have made it. if the extension and the zen shop decision was made at the last minute, how could it have been announced last week?
it seems to me that this thread exists because more people want to believe that PWE began with the intent to trick people into buying into their pre-sale by waving a fake price around
I'm more than willing to grant that Hanlon's Razor applies and this is just a massive SNAFU.
That is, however, an explanation, not an excuse. This affair has damaged relations with the community in general and the advance purchasers of the Dragonborn Legend pack in particular (myself one of them). The company needs to make amends. That does not necessarily mean refunds or other forms of monetary compensation but at the very least official lines of communication need to be opened.
@Venture-1@Venture from City of Heroes if you remember that far back. Yes, *that* Venture. Yes, I probably trashed your MA arc. For me it was Tuesday.
I didn't actually have the money to buy the pack, but it was on sale and I didn't want to miss out on the discount, so I went into my bank accounts over draft to buy it. Thinking, I'm saving money in the long run.
now a month later... mod for goes live, and I find out that there actually was no sale, I didn't get any discount.. infact, I payed more money than what I'd have payed if I waited till after mod 4's launch.
As someone who has always believed in supporting this game with a bit mof cash, that's a serious kick in the teeth.. I'm actually upset and hurt.
Most probably don't know because you can't see it in the zen store if you already have the pack.
As an update without going into too much detail they said they can't refund me but said they gave me a small amount of zen (that I've not yet received). I messaged them back hoping that I can get 25% of 7500 zen at least. I was promised 25% sale when offering. I want my 25% ):. We'll see how it goes...
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zombieelvisMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 9Arc User
there are no lawyers and law experts to answer these statements. it doesn't matter if you are a lawyer in real life, this is the internet and anyone can claim to be anything but there is no way to validate your claim here.
and when you're getting down to actual accusations of law violations, that exceeds the scope of a forum discussion. PWE may make a formal statement about the cost of the dragonborn pack but no company is going to get into a forum discussion about litigation. you start talking litigation and violations, then they're going to refer you to their lawyers.
I think there is a misunderstanding here.
I never claimed to be a lawyer or law expert. I was simply trying to provide information regarding U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rulings, as they related to this topic. That isn't something that I just made up, since "this is the internet and anyone can claim to be anything". It's real and can easily be verified on their .gov website.
I have just started playing this game but honestly the actions of Arc are surprising. I forked out the money to buy this pack to find out people who have cheated can practically get it for free. I will be a lot more careful about how I spend my money from now on.
Most probably don't know because you can't see it in the zen store if you already have the pack.
As an update without going into too much detail they said they can't refund me but said they gave me a small amount of zen (that I've not yet received). I messaged them back hoping that I can get 25% of 7500 zen at least. I was promised 25% sale when offering. I want my 25% ):. We'll see how it goes...
An interesting opening offer. If they want to actually honor their 25% discount for early purchasers the credit should of course be 1875 zen, which I think most folks would think would be fair.
I never claimed to be a lawyer or law expert. I was simply trying to provide information regarding U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rulings, as they related to this topic. That isn't something that I just made up, since "this is the internet and anyone can claim to be anything". It's real and can easily be verified on their .gov website.
Nonetheless, arguments of law are outside the scope of this forum, which was the gist of his statement. Bottom line.
ROLL TIDE ROLL
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So €44.99 + €27.99 = €72.97 for 8600 Zen. That’s as near as dam it to €71.24 as makes no difference.
I could have bought my usual, occasional amount of 21,500 Zen and got the pack on Day One for 1,100 Zen less than I paid for an exclusive item at a so-called special discount of 25%.
I paid MORE, because I was offered a false enticement under the guise of a sale that turned out to not exist.
If this were an honest mistake by the vendor, there are only two reasonable remedies:
1. A full refund returning us both back to the position we were in before I was enticed into the contract by accepting a deal which was actually misrepresented to me;
2. damages and compensation, such as being credited with 2150 Zen to restore to me the 25% discount I was promised, as I would never have entered into that contract had they not misrepresented the deal to me, however innocent, inadvertent and without malice aforethought their actions may have been.
If it were not an honest mistake, but was in fact a deliberate scam, then it is criminal fraud.
I was about to make a purchase at €179.99 and not bother with the DB pack when they changed the pack to make the bags account-wide and improve the artifacts. So I thought I’d buy the pack instead.
Had I simply purchased the Zen, as I originally intended, I could have got the "exclusive, time-limited, pre-release Sale Price" on Day One of release for 1,100 fewer Zen AND bought the Warlock Booster Pack AS WELL.
And STILL have 10,500 Zen left!
Had they not pulled this stunt, followed by despicably shabby treatment, I would likely have bought 21,500 Zen this week anyway, in addition to the pack. But not now.
Of course, I will not be spending another penny in future until this is resolved and we have some official response from senior management.
This is not a threat, demand or ultimatum; it is a simple statement of fact.
I'm not a legal expert by any means, but I know enough business law to be reasonably sure this falls under "deceptive pricing." BUT, I doubt anybody has the time and money just lying around to sue Cryptic over this.
Unless there is official justification for this, however, I'm almost certain this marks a sharp drop in consumer relations. People feel cheated by the advertising, especially since many of them had to debate whether or not they wanted to dig out $75 for the pack in the first place. I guarantee a huge factor for those who did was the "sale $25 off" thing.
Next time there's a pack coming out, I think Cryptic will notice something about its numbers. That's basically my thoughts.
The €71.24 price I paid for the pack is equivalent to 8600 Zen.
So a 25% discount would be 2150 Zen
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It varies from location. I personally used usd since that's what I paid in and didn't take into account the bonus zen. Though I am from the UK myself, but I was charged in usd. Both usd and euros are both foreign currency to me. I could have included the bonus zen but I thought I'd mail with them with my ideal of fairness. Having a different idea of fairness is justified. I just didn't want to push it personally. Who knows if I'll even get the work around of the advertised offer though.
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zankardMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited August 2014
Wow, Just wow. I never bought this pack, but man I'd feel screwed over. Reminds me of that time when I paid money to get that stone, then realized I could have just waited few days and I could get it for free.. This is even worse. People who bought it just got screwed over big time. There are no words. Exploiters are going to have it for free, everyone else is going to have it cheaper (or just without paying any real money at all) and it's only those who were the first to give them cash that will be at the bad end of the deal. Amazing. Great way to say thank you for those that support the game. Really, I don't know what else to say, and I didn't even buy this myself... no words really.
It varies from location. I personally used usd since that's what I paid in and didn't take into account the bonus zen. Though I am from the UK myself, but I was charged in usd.
I am in the UK as well, but the Perfect World web site charges in Euro for me.
But whichever way we cut it, we paid more than people who decided it was not worth the cash price, even at the alleged, so-called, exclusive, limited-time, discounted Sale Price.
So those of us who have supported the game and the developers with cash money, and therefore enabled F2P people to continue to play for nothing, have been kicked in the balls and spat in the face.
While those who choose not to buy the pack and who:
have spare Zen,
or are grinding for AD to get Zen,
or are AD Exploiters who escaped judgement
can get the pack for absolutely nothing at all.
And WE could have got it cheaper by buying Zen as normal and getting the pack from the Zen Market. PWE would have got MORE cash as I would have bought 21,500 Zen, but the pack on Day One of release would have been better value for me by using my Zen rather than spending the cash on the pack.
Very poor business decision, and an even worse decision would be to do nothing about it and to refuse to recompense us.
So, at a new Full Price of:
$75.00
€71.24
£55.99
the discount we should receive is Either:
$18.75
€17.41
£14.00
or the equivalent in Zen.
And what is the equivalent in Zen?
€18.99 = 2,090 + 110 = 2,200 Zen
Fairly close to €17.41, and fairly close to the 2150 Zen which is 25% of 8600.
Personally, an offer to credit my account with 2150 Zen would go a very long way to restoring the trust they have completely destroyed with this debacle.
Personally, an offer to credit my account with 2150 Zen would go a very long way to restoring the trust they have completely destroyed with this debacle.
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It could actually be considerably worse than your calculation shows.
If we had bought ZEN then in addition to the bonus ZEN by selling items such as wards etc from the ZEN store on the AH you can make a ~60% profit in days. Spend this on putting an order in for ZEN and you would have got 7800*1.6 = 12500 ZEN in a couple of weeks if you have a little patience.
So if you are prepared to wait a little while you an get the same deal at an equivalent of a 40% discount over the so-called 'discounted' and 'exclusive' pre-order offer price. And even if you don't have that much patience you will still get it cheaper, albeit by only ~5% or so.
So a 2150 ZEN refund while welcome, would still leave a lot of people who pre-ordered worse off than they would have been otherwise.
I think its a good thing they decided to permanently reduce the price to $75 in response to people saying the pack wasn't worth what they were charging. This is in addition to the artifact and bag changes, and it really makes the pack shine a lot brighter now.
Why can't people just be happy that Crytpic listened to the customers? Just goes to prove you can't please everyone no matter what you do.
I guarantee that if the price did jump to $100 like it was originally going to this thread would be about how its too expensive instead of deceptive pricing.
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I think its a good thing they decided to permanently reduce the price to $75 in response to people saying the pack wasn't worth what they were charging. This is in addition to the artifact and bag changes, and it really makes the pack shine a lot brighter now.
Why can't people just be happy that Crytpic listened to the customers? Just goes to prove you can't please everyone no matter what you do.
I guarantee that if the price did jump to $100 like it was originally going to this thread would be about how its too expensive instead of deceptive pricing.
Because no-one likes to be (even if only apparently) played for a fool.
And even if you honestly believe that somehow Cryptic did have a very last-minute change of heart between the couple of minutes gap between when the 'discounted' pre-order offer ended and when it was replaced with a normal pack at the new 'non-discounted' price that was, by sheer coincidence I am sure, exactly the same as the pre-order price, then they should honour the promised 25% discount on the new 'standard' rate and refund the appropriate amount of money.
I think its a good thing they decided to permanently reduce the price to $75 in response to people saying the pack wasn't worth what they were charging. This is in addition to the artifact and bag changes, and it really makes the pack shine a lot brighter now.
Why can't people just be happy that Crytpic listened to the customers? Just goes to prove you can't please everyone no matter what you do.
I guarantee that if the price did jump to $100 like it was originally going to this thread would be about how its too expensive instead of deceptive pricing.
Because when you put something up for sale that instantly gets more people to buy it for that reason. If that sale doesn't actually exist then they've manipulated the situation for personal gain and that just isn't on. The ones who preordered need to be compensated in some way. I think it's good to have it in the zen store and permanently reduce the price, but the fact that they deceived the ones that support them isn't on. It doesn't matter if it was their intention to lie or not, it happened and we are entitled to the offer we were promised and bought into.
I paid $75 for the pack because I don't have enough AD at the moment. I don't care if those people that had Zen got a discount. They got a good deal. I don't get mad when others get a deal. Everyone gets a deal sometimes; maybe my turn will be next. If Cryptic wants to give us "cash" customers a discount - cool. If not, I'll still be using the pack contents.
Comments
Also, lets say we ignore all this legal stuff. Even if we did that and PWE has the ability to randomly change prices on their customers, does that mean they -should-? Even errors made in innocence are still errors. It seems to me that the number of angry people here is a pretty good indication that decisions were made of...let say questionable quality
What numbers? A few posters in the forum? Compared to all buyers of the pack or the entire playerbase? Most of them remain ignorant of this or simply don't care because they have their shiny.
This.
I've tried to cite legal references, so people know the difference between fact and opinion, but was told that is not allowed.
@headlesshorseman
there are no lawyers and law experts to answer these statements. it doesn't matter if you are a lawyer in real life, this is the internet and anyone can claim to be anything but there is no way to validate your claim here.
and when you're getting down to actual accusations of law violations, that exceeds the scope of a forum discussion. PWE may make a formal statement about the cost of the dragonborn pack but no company is going to get into a forum discussion about litigation. you start talking litigation and violations, then they're going to refer you to their lawyers.
This would go a long way to politically mend fences, which would make the players happier, which gets your company more money in the end. You lose nothing by making your paying customers happy. You are giving away pixels.
This reminds me of the Ebook war, going on with Amazon. Another company is fighting increase the cost of Ebooks. By close to five dollars.
However the problem is, it is proven to be more profitable to sell ebooks cheaper. Much more, because, more of the product sells itself.
Yet everything in the Zen store is high priced. I would bet my account, where I have spent over or close to 400 dollars, Cryptic would make more money selling stuff cheaper and reasonable.
Why is Cryptic trading 50% of a watermelon for 95% of a grape? The bigger number is not always the most profitable.
But of course, they also never paid anything for the game to begin with.
So it is more like, "16 pages of PAYING CUSTOMERS who paid more than a AAA game at retail (while never buying neverwinter to begin with) for a new race and some extra goodies who thought they were getting a special deal, and now believe it to have been a raw deal (yet ending up paying close to the same for a full game itself, balancing out)"
If people spent more beyond this pack? That is there choice. Maybe they do not play many other games, and the money invested in this game, is the same amount many others spend on a bunch of full games throughout the year. Ends up being the same.
I agree this was poorly done by Cryptic and they do owe customers a credit (I'd give all of you 7500 zen for free if it was me). However, people lose sight of the fact, you do not have to pay a dime to play this game. Unlike games like Guild Wars 2. Where there is a box price.
I see nineteen pages of (mostly) upset players here. But just because people aren't posting here about any problems they have about this doesn't mean they don't know or don't care about it. This thread is for calm, critical discussion about the problem. Most people aren't going to rage on the threads rather than calling Customer Support to solve their issues. But the fact that there's a thread discussing this problem indicates that a fair number of people believe it -is- a problem. And in my experience, as admittedly inexpert as it may be, when the customers of a business think there is a problem, there is a problem.
True enough, but if something like this had happened with a box price, and they didn't do something to make amends, would the game have done well enough to even get to module 4?
You missed my point. What has happened is that buyers used their disposable income for something as trivial as a race/goodie bag, and paid a premium price for that privilege. These are the customers one would think that PWE would prize most highly and want to treat well to encourage further purchases. The appearance and activity of this thread indicates that these prized customers feel they have been slighted. In the world of sales, appearance can be everything and customer is king. A game such as Neverwinter is paid for by repeat buyers of items not required to play the game to balance out all those who are simply along for the free ride. When these buyers dry up for whatever reason, so does the game. It then behooves those behind the game to keep these buyers spending and take reasonable measures to keep them happy.
Actually in every general and guild channel I belong to there have been people complaining about how they felt taken advantage by these actions, and an awfully high percentage were making it clear that they are likely to never buy anything from Cryptic or PWE ever again...
I'd imagine the future losses from potential sales for PWE are going to be far, far exceed any extra money Cryptic will make from this situation.
I've only looked at this one thread (no computer at work), so thank you for sharing. It helps make my point, the number of upset people you see on a particular thread is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how many people are actually unhappy about this.
I believe that company needs to make money. No money equals no good contents. How many of us are willing to work for free? And it is also not fair to compare how much one game cost vs another. Because $1 per person from 1 billion people is $1bn while $5 from 1 million people is only $5 million. But there are probably a fix cost to creating a good quality game.
But there is not even (a) an acknowledgement of what they did - that they are extending the sales price as a regular price, (b) that they realize this is contrary to what they originally indicated for the pack, and (c) that they are (or are not) having a discussion internally to provide an response to the disadvantaged community. All of these takes less than 5 minutes to write. Tho they may need their legal guy to review and approve the wordings which should not take more than a couple of hours or a day at most. Right now all we have is a "too bad, we reneged and you don't need to know why." This is how they lose me as a supporting customer. Tho I will still be playing the game with one hand while holding onto my wallet with the other.
I'm more than willing to grant that Hanlon's Razor applies and this is just a massive SNAFU.
That is, however, an explanation, not an excuse. This affair has damaged relations with the community in general and the advance purchasers of the Dragonborn Legend pack in particular (myself one of them). The company needs to make amends. That does not necessarily mean refunds or other forms of monetary compensation but at the very least official lines of communication need to be opened.
I didn't actually have the money to buy the pack, but it was on sale and I didn't want to miss out on the discount, so I went into my bank accounts over draft to buy it. Thinking, I'm saving money in the long run.
now a month later... mod for goes live, and I find out that there actually was no sale, I didn't get any discount.. infact, I payed more money than what I'd have payed if I waited till after mod 4's launch.
As someone who has always believed in supporting this game with a bit mof cash, that's a serious kick in the teeth.. I'm actually upset and hurt.
As an update without going into too much detail they said they can't refund me but said they gave me a small amount of zen (that I've not yet received). I messaged them back hoping that I can get 25% of 7500 zen at least. I was promised 25% sale when offering. I want my 25% ):. We'll see how it goes...
I think there is a misunderstanding here.
I never claimed to be a lawyer or law expert. I was simply trying to provide information regarding U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rulings, as they related to this topic. That isn't something that I just made up, since "this is the internet and anyone can claim to be anything". It's real and can easily be verified on their .gov website.
@headlesshorseman
An interesting opening offer. If they want to actually honor their 25% discount for early purchasers the credit should of course be 1875 zen, which I think most folks would think would be fair.
Nonetheless, arguments of law are outside the scope of this forum, which was the gist of his statement. Bottom line.
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No, actually.
The €71.24 price I paid for the pack is equivalent to 8600 Zen.
So a 25% discount would be 2150 Zen
The prices for Zen in Europe are the following:
So €44.99 + €27.99 = €72.97 for 8600 Zen. That’s as near as dam it to €71.24 as makes no difference.
I could have bought my usual, occasional amount of 21,500 Zen and got the pack on Day One for 1,100 Zen less than I paid for an exclusive item at a so-called special discount of 25%.
I paid MORE, because I was offered a false enticement under the guise of a sale that turned out to not exist.
If this were an honest mistake by the vendor, there are only two reasonable remedies:
1. A full refund returning us both back to the position we were in before I was enticed into the contract by accepting a deal which was actually misrepresented to me;
2. damages and compensation, such as being credited with 2150 Zen to restore to me the 25% discount I was promised, as I would never have entered into that contract had they not misrepresented the deal to me, however innocent, inadvertent and without malice aforethought their actions may have been.
If it were not an honest mistake, but was in fact a deliberate scam, then it is criminal fraud.
I was about to make a purchase at €179.99 and not bother with the DB pack when they changed the pack to make the bags account-wide and improve the artifacts. So I thought I’d buy the pack instead.
Had I simply purchased the Zen, as I originally intended, I could have got the "exclusive, time-limited, pre-release Sale Price" on Day One of release for 1,100 fewer Zen AND bought the Warlock Booster Pack AS WELL.
And STILL have 10,500 Zen left!
Had they not pulled this stunt, followed by despicably shabby treatment, I would likely have bought 21,500 Zen this week anyway, in addition to the pack. But not now.
Of course, I will not be spending another penny in future until this is resolved and we have some official response from senior management.
This is not a threat, demand or ultimatum; it is a simple statement of fact.
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I'm not a legal expert by any means, but I know enough business law to be reasonably sure this falls under "deceptive pricing." BUT, I doubt anybody has the time and money just lying around to sue Cryptic over this.
Unless there is official justification for this, however, I'm almost certain this marks a sharp drop in consumer relations. People feel cheated by the advertising, especially since many of them had to debate whether or not they wanted to dig out $75 for the pack in the first place. I guarantee a huge factor for those who did was the "sale $25 off" thing.
Next time there's a pack coming out, I think Cryptic will notice something about its numbers. That's basically my thoughts.
It varies from location. I personally used usd since that's what I paid in and didn't take into account the bonus zen. Though I am from the UK myself, but I was charged in usd. Both usd and euros are both foreign currency to me. I could have included the bonus zen but I thought I'd mail with them with my ideal of fairness. Having a different idea of fairness is justified. I just didn't want to push it personally. Who knows if I'll even get the work around of the advertised offer though.
I am in the UK as well, but the Perfect World web site charges in Euro for me.
But whichever way we cut it, we paid more than people who decided it was not worth the cash price, even at the alleged, so-called, exclusive, limited-time, discounted Sale Price.
So those of us who have supported the game and the developers with cash money, and therefore enabled F2P people to continue to play for nothing, have been kicked in the balls and spat in the face.
While those who choose not to buy the pack and who:
- have spare Zen,
- or are grinding for AD to get Zen,
- or are AD Exploiters who escaped judgement
can get the pack for absolutely nothing at all.And WE could have got it cheaper by buying Zen as normal and getting the pack from the Zen Market. PWE would have got MORE cash as I would have bought 21,500 Zen, but the pack on Day One of release would have been better value for me by using my Zen rather than spending the cash on the pack.
Very poor business decision, and an even worse decision would be to do nothing about it and to refuse to recompense us.
So, at a new Full Price of:
the discount we should receive is Either:
And what is the equivalent in Zen?
€18.99 = 2,090 + 110 = 2,200 Zen
Fairly close to €17.41, and fairly close to the 2150 Zen which is 25% of 8600.
Personally, an offer to credit my account with 2150 Zen would go a very long way to restoring the trust they have completely destroyed with this debacle.
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It could actually be considerably worse than your calculation shows.
If we had bought ZEN then in addition to the bonus ZEN by selling items such as wards etc from the ZEN store on the AH you can make a ~60% profit in days. Spend this on putting an order in for ZEN and you would have got 7800*1.6 = 12500 ZEN in a couple of weeks if you have a little patience.
So if you are prepared to wait a little while you an get the same deal at an equivalent of a 40% discount over the so-called 'discounted' and 'exclusive' pre-order offer price. And even if you don't have that much patience you will still get it cheaper, albeit by only ~5% or so.
So a 2150 ZEN refund while welcome, would still leave a lot of people who pre-ordered worse off than they would have been otherwise.
Why can't people just be happy that Crytpic listened to the customers? Just goes to prove you can't please everyone no matter what you do.
I guarantee that if the price did jump to $100 like it was originally going to this thread would be about how its too expensive instead of deceptive pricing.
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Because no-one likes to be (even if only apparently) played for a fool.
And even if you honestly believe that somehow Cryptic did have a very last-minute change of heart between the couple of minutes gap between when the 'discounted' pre-order offer ended and when it was replaced with a normal pack at the new 'non-discounted' price that was, by sheer coincidence I am sure, exactly the same as the pre-order price, then they should honour the promised 25% discount on the new 'standard' rate and refund the appropriate amount of money.
Because when you put something up for sale that instantly gets more people to buy it for that reason. If that sale doesn't actually exist then they've manipulated the situation for personal gain and that just isn't on. The ones who preordered need to be compensated in some way. I think it's good to have it in the zen store and permanently reduce the price, but the fact that they deceived the ones that support them isn't on. It doesn't matter if it was their intention to lie or not, it happened and we are entitled to the offer we were promised and bought into.