Concerns About Cash Shop Pricing

xauss

parshath wrote: »

Pay attention. People claim that if PW-US do not heed their demands they will go and play PW-MY. Therefore, according to that logic, PW-US and PW-MY are competing. This logic is flawed beyond belief. Since PW exist officially in the US now, PW-MY is not supposed to allow players from the US into their servers. But seeing how poorly they manage there already, they will, of course, fail to implement this policy. Meaning if this policy is ever implemented, all US players would be blocked from all other versions beside the US version. It doesn't mater where the money goes to, basically PW-US has a monopoly in the US on all things PW. The same is true for the EU version, the China version, the Mars version, etc. Going to play a different version will not hurt them because they're not supposed to be available to you. Going to play a different game, most definitely will hurt. I fail to see how this simple concept is so complicated to understand.

i see you are still posting this nonsense despite being continually corrected on it by various others. so i will try one last time...

PW-MY (Eng) does not have an IP block for US / Euro / Austrslasian territories. When their international servers were set-up, it was done specifically so they attract western devils (i mean gamers). Despite the shortcommings of the hosting company (cubizone) their success hastened the spawning of Western-based servers

PWE (?International) does and will not IP block territories except those with current servers hosted. Europe, when their servers go 'live' will not be blocked. I believe initially PWE were not going to block anybody, but due to overwhelming support of the players registered on these forums, decided to block regions with current servers to alleviate some of the goldfarming / botting / exploiting that the community feared if they did not IP ban those regions

PW-Europe will not IP ban the US, and unless they changed it, infact will not IP ban anyone.

this is not difficult to undersatand, so why do you continually fail to grasp this simple fact that so many have tried (and failed) to enlighten you to.

thus PWE is in competetion with PW-MY and PW-Europe, and players will make judgements on price, community, customer service, ping, etc as to which one they will play...

or whether they chose to spend their cash on other MMOs, non-MMOs, going to the cinema, buying some new clothes, or a million-and-one other things that they could spend their money on instead.

raxcal

The funny thing is, with these high prices, I still see people getting wed ingame!
I mean $60 wth? That will pay for 4 months subscription on any other p2p game. Even if the bride and groom cover their own cost, it's still $30, for a one time use feature.

Either some people don't realize the extreme prices, or they just don't care. But as long as they continue spending, I doubt there will be a change in the cash shop prices.

mystearica

I understand what the GM is saying - but I think the pricing is a tad bit to much... it's more than double and those are basic items too - image how much Seraph wings would cost - on Malaysia server it's around 30 bucks.... so what we're looking at 80 here or something around that price - might as well play a P2P or subscribe to WOW to something

I personally spend a well over 30 US dollars on MY server and was gonna spend more until news of this server came out... people will buy item shop stuff but if the pricing were lower there would be much more demand for them

djtav0

change 1000 zen = 1 gold

to

300 zen = 1 gold

and we are done

ragingwind

Parshath, from what you have posted, it seems evident that you are out of your league in this debate. People have talked about this issue for as long as PW-MY existed. This is simply the next step in the talks about Cubinet's relationship with PW-Beijing. We have already learned a lot of facts based on what GMs from Cubinet have said.

What matters is where the money goes. PW-Beijing loses money to Cubinet because they must also make an income off of the game. PWE, however, is part of PW-Beijing, so there is virtually no money loss. It's not about IP blocks simply because versions with no blocks exist (PW-MY). As long as people from PWI can freely go to PW-MY, there is competition and PW-Beijing loses money. In short, PW-Beijing want people to play on PWI because they get more money that way. What is strange is that the way PWE is handling PWI suggests that they don't realize this at all. They block IPs from other versions, charge us a high price tag for the cash shop, and don't listen to the good advice from gamers about their mistakes (names). They are doing a lot to drive us away from this version. It's funny: PWI's competition would not be a problem at all if PWE simply knew how to run this game. PW-MY is so full of problems that people want an alternative. PWI was supposed to be that, but it isn't happening because of problems. *Sigh* It all goes back to my signature. PW has been endless frustration for me.

jingjing

I am very suprised that there is still no official word from PWI about the pricing. Well they don't call this a beta for nothing I guess. I have said it before in this thread, I will NOT put ANY real money in this game until the price is lowered.

The trouble is, as long as there are people buying, I don't think PWI will lower their prices at all. It is such a shame. This game is awsome otherwise. However, lucky for me, PWI isn't the only game that exists. The fall line-up is shaping up to be very excited.

PS: BTW, I am from Canada, living in one of the world's most expensive cities. As far as I am concerned, the US GDP don't mean **** to me.

matanglawin

well i will be interested too if PWI come out with their sale for a month. If I see support despite the prices then the market is able to accomodate these prices. I would be inclined to buy cash shop items albeit at reduced frequency because it still too expensive for me but at least I can buy trumpets.

odin

FAQs:

1. Why would PWI set these prices?
Answer: (Speculation) Because the price setters haven't played a character, in this game, to a high level, and don't know the cause and effect of their pricing. (they are going by other country's pricing and increasing prices relative to USA incomes.)

2. What is so expensive with this pricing?
Answer: (Fact) A good example is the mp and hp heiros that sell for $2.50. It is not unusual to use 2 a day, at a 70+ level. ($5 X 30=$150 per month)

3. Why would you use 2 heiros a day instead of buying npc potions with "in-game" money?
Answer: (Fact) Because it is possible to get 2 levels a day by using them.

4. Why does getting 2 levels a day matter?
Answer: (Fact) Because the Faction that has the strongest members, wins and keeps the territories.

5. Why does territory ownership matter?
Answer: (Opinion) The number of territories owned by one Faction defines who wins.

6. What is the poster's conclusion?
Answer: Pricing is set for people that will spend well over $150 dollars per month on a mmorpg.

7. Why does that matter to the poster?
Answer: I don't think the value of my stock in this company will increase, under the current circumstances, and I feel foolish buying zen at the current prices, when lower priced alternatives exist, for playing this game.

di4bhal

Its plenty of good P2P mmorpgs around, and i played (and payed) for them for a long time. I have no problem on spending some money on games i like, but with those prices I dont think I could afford anything from the cash shop, sad but true

vigor

raxcal wrote: »

The funny thing is, with these high prices, I still see people getting wed ingame!
I mean $60 wth? That will pay for 4 months subscription on any other p2p game. Even if the bride and groom cover their own cost, it's still $30, for a one time use feature.

Either some people don't realize the extreme prices, or they just don't care. But as long as they continue spending, I doubt there will be a change in the cash shop prices.

Yeah there will always be idiots paying anything. As long as there are those kind of people it makes me feel they won't change prices at all...

dagny

vigor wrote: »

Yeah there will always be idiots paying anything. As long as there are those kind of people it makes me feel they won't change prices at all...

I agree that prices are too high, but why is anyone who doesn't do things your way an idiot? I think the company will realize by the small number of buyers that prices are too high. I doubt they will be happy with a few marriages.

You can make your point without insulting people who don't agree with you.

xarfox

I just posted this in another thread and I wanted to relay the same message here.

We are in-fact, discussing the cash shop pricing issue intently and looking at ways of providing you guys with more "bang for your buck".

Please keep providing productive feedback and we will continue to read this thread.

vigor

xarfox wrote: »

I just posted this in another thread and I wanted to relay the same message here.

We are in-fact, discussing the cash shop pricing issue intently and looking at ways of providing you guys with more "bang for your buck".

Please keep providing productive feedback and we will continue to read this thread.

Thank you for the news

l0ki

In My Opinion,

If you guys lower down the prices. You might earn 2x or 4x as much as your earning right now or later on if the normal price continues.

"Remember~ A lot of players want to use zen. Kids, Adults, Teens, and Everyone who loves this game will spend money for Zen.

"Cheap MMORPG players *like me* plays F2P games because it's FREE so.. why would I or WE play a F2P game if you have to spend money on it?" BUT! hey! If it's affordable, I wouldn't regret spending 50$ on Zen just to make my Character leet.

Also~

I learned that Zen is really needed for PW and it's not gonna be easy for a player to play PW w/o using ZEN. In short "it's in demand" you don't have to think about supplies cuz.. you know.. it's just data...

~~~~~

~ If Zen is cheap, A lot of people would buy them "that solves your budget problems" (Players that spend large amounts of money for cash items are your friend so don't let them down)

~ If Zen is expensive, only a few people would buy them. " that doesn't do anything good in your part"

~
OR ~a Big OR~

Lower the cost of Items In cash shop

~ It doesn't matter if the price is high as long as we can buy a lot of things using the zen that we bought.

That's all~

esux

xarfox wrote: »

I just posted this in another thread and I wanted to relay the same message here.

We are in-fact, discussing the cash shop pricing issue intently and looking at ways of providing you guys with more "bang for your buck".

Please keep providing productive feedback and we will continue to read this thread.

You want to know the easy way to make most people happy? Change it to $1 for 2 gold.

severan

xarfox wrote: »

I just posted this in another thread and I wanted to relay the same message here.

We are in-fact, discussing the cash shop pricing issue intently and looking at ways of providing you guys with more "bang for your buck".

Please keep providing productive feedback and we will continue to read this thread.

Said it all in that P.M. nothing more or less...
Kawabanga!

vaelissa

I read through the first nine pages of this thread and skimmed through the rest. Here are my thoughts.

The cash shop is a good idea for free to play MMOs, it provides a valueable service while giving those who have more to spend special items/rights. It helps pay the staff, the bandwidth and for the servers the game itself are on. This is something everyone no doubt already knows, but it is good to mention anything since many do not consider what it takes to offer such a stable, reliable service.

I have personally purchased a bit and spent it on bank space, materials and pet cages so I can have several types of turtles . My reasoning for doing so is that I can either A.) spend many hours looking for and farming items, which distracts from what I want to do, or B.) work in the real world to pay for them, since in less time than it would take to even farm 1/4th of what I needed for one of the things above, I could earn enough money to buy it all. It all comes down to time vs money for me. That said, 60 silver for a stack of 20 materials that I wont have to have again for a long while, or 2/3 gold for a cage/bank space (which lasts forever, very important) seems pretty reasonable.

The clothes prices for some pieces however, did seem steep, and since you don't even get to choose the color it isn't as good of a deal, especially when you can try on, choose a color and buy a real shirt for only a bit more, or sometimes less depending on what it is. We could also use more options, but I understand that these will come eventually. Setting yourself apart from the masses is always a plus.

The wedding package also seems steep and you are not given a clear idea of all you will get from it.

Taking this from the wiki:

Both players will have an online notice, have a wife/husband title, have 2 special marriage-related skills, lover's clothes, and driving pets. Marriage requires an item from the Cash Shop which is worth around 30$ in Perfect World item shop currency (Cubi-Gold)

The wife/husband title explains itself, listing what exactly the skills did would be nice, I have heard anything from an exp bonus to being able to teleport to your partner, but nothing confirmed anywhere. The clothes part is easy enough to understand but the pet is a mystery.

I would be very hesitant to spend $30 on something that I wasn't sure of. However, if it said "Each person will get a title, the ability to teleport to their partner, wedding clothes and a permanently usable mount ", then I would be perfectly willing to spend, as that seems like a much better deal than "you get some stuff, but you won't know all until you buy". Even making a forum sticky that lists the full details of certain cash shop items would be a great start!

Some ridable mounts are a bit pricey at first glance, but since they are faster than things found in-game and you only have to buy them one time, it's not so bad. You can spend that $35 for a mount and not have to ever buy anything else from the cash shop if you don't want to and still be able to play the game. Cheaper would be neat, but this is a price I might willing to spend so long as the benefits are worth it.

mojin

Ok, Take your projected income now then, lower your prices at the same or slightly higher than the Malaysian version(MY), then multiply the projected income by the amount of posts here saying "lower prices". Cause all of those people will buy massive amount of zen, the people currently buying zen will buy even more cause they can do more with it, the people watching this thread will come back and start spending money, people that have friends here but left to play on the MY version may come back and start playing and buying zen again.

All in all you can only benefit from this because it costs you maybe a little bit of a paycheck for them to increase the amount of zen per $1 / lower costs, but if your on salaries your getting that already anyways. After the change it will cause us to waste all our extra money to get all the expansion slots, and load up on charms. I don't see how lowering prices can hurt you at all because so many more people will buy zen, and then tell there friends, then those friends tell there friends, and so on. Next thing you know you'll HAVE to put those other two servers up because there are so many people

faytless

1 : 3.3 ratio period. simple as that

youll make more as opposed to 1 : 1 or 1 : 2 now tell me which is more appropriate?

you need reassurance? heres a 30$ and over time - another 30$ for ya and heres 30,000$ from other people, (you so ballin now G) once its 1 : 3.3
dont be stubborn and realize it before its too late to fix the mistakes

either way its cool, its a f2p game and i dont have to pay for anything but its practically a game where you need to spend money on. no worries though, imma check forum once in a while to see the changes, in the mean time wait on PW-EU and their sexy prices that rival PW-MY

even if reside in NA ill be lagging slightly to nothing in PW-EU
goodgame~

odin

(Post removed, please keep responses appropriate and productive)

ragingwind

Awesome, Odin. Brilliant. You've nailed it down. Way too many companies have ended up in exactly that kind of situation. They wait so long to change anything slightly that no one cares once it does. I hope they suck in their pride and listen.

celes

I personally still plan on playing this game as long as my guild sticks around.

But the game was a let-down with the Rohan-esque style. Get as much money as you can before the game crashes.

If the GMs listened, gave out the price per gold during Closed Beta so the community could talk about it.

Or if they even listened to our feedback asking for the same prices as MY-EN. By making the cash shop cost twice, if not more, than MY-EN on necessary items (such as hierograms), they drove away a good amount of player base. Hype for the game was up. We were expecting MY-EN with American servers, but we only got half that. With PWi releasing, MY-EN should not have even been competition with their blatant cheating GMs and huge server lag. But it remains competitve because of the ridiculous price difference.

I'm tired of "We're talking about it" or "We consider all your opinions" answers. I'd like a straight answer. Those answers are made to stall for time, we all know it. I'd like to know exactly where the discussion is. What's being talked about, etc.

Hieros, a necessity item in this game, need to be reduced by a dollar at the very least. Half would be nice, and down to 1 gold/dollar would be optimal. Changing the entire cash shop to reflect MY-EN would be ideal.

soukyuu

thumbs up for odin, i wholeheartedly agree.

I decided to not play this version until i see how the EU-Intl one will be as i doubt PWE will change the prices to something reasonable anytime soon.
When the EU-Intl version launches, i will compare the 2 versions and just pick the lesser of the evils.

kamao

Odin is right on.

My 2 cents is why even price it high and suffer the negative publicity?

Look you are selling pixels. Unlike cars and other hardware, there is production cost, transportation cost and insurance cost. These manufacturers get it, mass production, sell more volume for less and make profit on bulk rather than per item.

You have a good product it will sell itself if price right but you chose to be defensive in your pricing securing now than projecting future. Grow your player base and then increase the price if you are struggling.

I myself is planning on leveling all characters (6) which will have mounts both flying and ground. Will use heiros definitely and trumpets. If you have reasonable prices, I would not hesitate to do that but with current prices it gives me pause.

It has been 5 days since OB and what I see in game is fantastic. Better than my experience in PW-MY. I would stay and play here but I would only shell out money if I am secured that you will be in business for longer than six months.

hyosuke

As you can see from my post count, im fairly new to this game and mostly I dont post....I prefer to be aware of my surroundings before I even decide to add my 2cents on this but here goes.

I have to agree with Odin on this one, this "we are discussing / reading" is just delaying what is at the moment very obvious. Lowering the game items cost will benefit the parent company the most as so far we've seen that there are many willingly spenders that love this game and would provide a good "monthly" income for the company IF the prices are low.

Its plain logistic, lower prices bring more customers which on the other hand increase 2x or even 3x your "monthly" income than having the prices as they are at the moment but as we've have seen also is that there is no point on repeating the same thing over and over.

On a side note I'm 27, I work on a Telecomunication Cellular / Broadband Company im my company (Portugal) and I have a house to pay, fixed expenses and per year I barely make 10k. By comparing GDT or whatever you are doing a roughly estimate of what a person gains based on 2 countrys alone and stating it as a standard pricing for everyone but as someone said already there are several people from several countrys playing this (myself included).

Again all this "we are in-fact discussing" is just means to get people to keep playing until basically they are at mid-level and prolly feel bad about leaving since they gave so much effort to get there without CS in the first place. I'll be a freeloader for as long as I can and believe me I dont need or even want to worry about CS.

I play several games (not advertising), AQ2, 12-Sky, WoW and this one (not saying the other countless MMORPG's/Web Games etc...) mostly are F2P with similar ingame CS and I understand that its a way to make "some" money out of it but lets be realistic here for a second.

I play 12-Sky which has a similar ingame CS (item mall) which lets you get per $50 = 5750 AP and that alone allows you to get several important items ($10 = 1000 AP) while your doing ($10 = 1000 Zen = 10 Gold)...see the difference??

Now talking about another game such as WoW, with your $50 = 50Gold I can pay almost half a year subscription and most of the items we need are already inside the game as rewards while on yours we only get some items if we spent money on them and again as someone said earlier I'm not even going to spend $5 on this game just to tear it up in the first minute after I login (2 hieros).

So to resume this long post, your marketing strategy is lacking by a long shot you will loose more in a medium/long run than what you'll gain by the few players that actually spend their money with the current prices.

Want some advice in a constructive way? Some already said ways for both sides to win with this....so my advice is this: Get a chair, sit for a while and think about it...but really think about it.

palma

I do intend to buy Zen on a regular basis... but have no desire to buy anything until prices are settled. Can you blame me?

I played Archlord, and bought items impulsively because the prices were low and "one more little thing won't hurt my wallet". If the prices had been higher, I would have quickly put the brakes on... which would mean less money for Archlord.

I also played Hellgate, and only one person in our guild chose the optional subscription because of the lack of value to money spent. In short the players rebelled against Hellgate's poor pricing system and we all know what happened after that! Please don't let PWI fail for similar reasons!

I look forward to playing PWI.... your pricing structure will decide how much I impulsively spend every month.

karmelia

parshath wrote: »

Pay attention. People claim that if PW-US do not heed their demands they will go and play PW-MY. Therefore, according to that logic, PW-US and PW-MY are competing. This logic is flawed beyond belief. Since PW exist officially in the US now, PW-MY is not supposed to allow players from the US into their servers. But seeing how poorly they manage there already, they will, of course, fail to implement this policy. Meaning if this policy is ever implemented, all US players would be blocked from all other versions beside the US version. It doesn't mater where the money goes to, basically PW-US has a monopoly in the US on all things PW. The same is true for the EU version, the China version, the Mars version, etc. Going to play a different version will not hurt them because they're not supposed to be available to you. Going to play a different game, most definitely will hurt. I fail to see how this simple concept is so complicated to understand.

Your logic is flawed.

You have no basic knowledge of the kind of contract signed betweem Bejing PW Co. and Cubinet.

Cubinet was bright enough to have a clause added in their contract stating that they'll not be under obligation to ban any IP is they so decide.

Bejing PW Co acknowledged this clause in return for Cubinet to pay more for the licencing of the game than what they would have paid if they had to put a IP ban for players outside of Malaysia.

Here is the little history of Cubinet and Bejing PW Co agreement. Cubinet will never have to IP ban anyone from anywhere if they so desire, for the 5 years duration of the contract that bind them and Bejing PW Co.

vigor

Lol. Odins post was deleted. He didn't really wrote anything wrong though

nounours

You know what guys, stop posting in this thread, they wont change price, just accept it.
As to me I just hope they will add new cs items, i wont buy same items to higter price,
ill wait they add new items, new flying items..new clothes..ect
+glasses(if possible, would be cool)
I think ill use marrige stuff, well just double price than in pw-my, but well...

anjel

The Item Mall is there for you to purchase equipment and non-essential enhancements to make game play easier. The items that are offered there are not necessary for you to enjoy the game. They are an added benefit. If you can afford to buy them then kudos to you. If you can't then quit your griping. The game is offered to us FREE of charge. PWE has to make a profit from somewhere. Unfortunately the Item Mall is it. If you don't like it ... go back to PW MY ... If you want to play a game and let your skill speak for itself .. stay and enjoy the game ...