Failing in game economy (why Cash Shopping makes no sense)

tomegemcity

I've noticed that PWI has been trying just about everything they can think of to boost sales revenue; ie rep sales, rank sales, charm sales. What they seem to have overlooked is that they have made the rare items, those that seperate a casual player from a hardcore cash shopper so absurdly rare (and therefore expensive) that spending money on the game no longer makes sense for the average player. Items like sky cover ring, Scroll of Tome, Diamonds of Tiger/Dragon, the things that you can use or upgrade to greatly improve your stats are well beyond the casual cash shopper that only has about $20 USD to throw into the game occasionally. There are currently 3 types of players now; those that have already cash shopped the gear they want and have no further need to spend more money on the game; those that have initially nvested money into the game and through manipulation of in-game economy now have turned enough profits that they no longer need to cash shop because they control the in game economy to a great degree, and everyone else. This last group comprises the majority of the Raging Tide server, and is unable to pay the prices that the first 2 groups set on high value, rare items that I previously mentioned. Throwing $20, 40 or even $100 real life dollars into the game isn't going to get you anything of significance in the game, aside from items that could easily be farmed. If the people running this game want to get revenues back up, I highly recommend that you adjust the values on what you get from packs. Having a pack sale isn't going to make you very much money if the only way you can get something of significant value is to spend $1000 on packs. Having 1 in 10,000 odds of getting Matchless Wings, or Scroll of Tome, or Sky Cover, it makes very little sense to buy just 50 or 100 packs. That's why no one is spending money on the game aside from a small group of hardcore players with very deep pockets. And eventually those players will have the gear they want, and that well will dry up too. Not to mention the fact that the power level of those hardcore cash shoppers merely serves to frustrate less wealthy players who realize they can never catch up to them, at which point they're likely to quit playing the game altogether. Short version, quit being greedy with rare items, no one wants to spend $20 for 50 packs when they only have a 1 in 100,000 chance of getting something worthwhile

WannaBM - Archosaur

Theres different marketing models for the developers.

In games that most players dont take too serious, like facebook games, you can see them trying to get lots of customers paying a little bit. Great if 100k+ people pay 2 dollars.

MMORPGs however draws players who really want to be the best and beat others. (not exclusively, surely it also draws players who just enjoy the scenery) Some will go to great lengths and dont care that they buy their victory with real money. So the developers aim at a small group of players paying large amounts of money.

Also, in MMORPGs, you spend your time with the purpose of getting better gear/skills/levels. That is the nature of the game. If it were too easy or cheap to get all the highest levels and gears, we would be done in a month and then get bored. End game stuff is supposed to be hard to get.

Before the whole p2p/p2w thing came around, people sold game items on ebay. The value of items sold seemed to translate to 0.50$ to 2$ per hour of farming. It took 100s of hours to farm an end game item. The ease and security of payment massively increased the spendings since those times and now your hour of farming is worth more in dollar terms. 2$-5$ per hour or so in PWI. It still takes a similar amount of farming for the non CSers like it has always done in MMORPGs. The CSer needs to pay more though than he used to do over ebay.

As for the hardcore SCers being done with CSing, they have quite a bit to go. If you are G16, you probably recognise the situation where you fight with 6 people against 1 in NW and you just cant seem to get him killed. As an R9 you will recognise that situation from the other side. You can do 1v6, they stun/silence etc the **** out of you, but you dont die. And every time you get a chance to do something, you one shot some of them. If anyone would be nuts enough to spend 50k or 100k now, he can get himself a SET of rebirthed and max leveled S cards. I am positively surprised noone has done it yet, because he who does will be against R9s what the R9s are against G16s.

LuckingFoco - Raging Tide

I cash shopped my r9rr and have most of it +10 now. Other than my ring and neck still needing to be upgraded, I don't need a scroll of tome or matchless wings, or even JoSD for PvE, though if I get lucky with packs when I buy them from the boutique and get one of those items I will be happy. It would be nice, but I'm not holding my breath for one. I only buy packs when I need tokens. When +10 orbs are on sale I buy a few from the boutique. Once all my gear is +10, I might consider +12 my weapon when the +11 and 12 orbs are available.

As for S cards, I have one, two A cards and rest B cards. I won't spend the money to get all S cards as I have no real need for them, and think r9rr was enough of an investment for fun in game since I don't PvP at all.

In NW I do decent enough and average 200 to 280 depending on how my nation does. I can one shot many and can be one shot myself. Normally it takes a few people to take me down.

Bhavyy - Raging Tide

WannaBM - Archosaur wrote: »

If anyone would be nuts enough to spend 50k or 100k now, he can get himself a SET of rebirthed and max leveled S cards. I am positively surprised noone has done it yet, because he who does will be against R9s what the R9s are against G16s.

Really? You're surprised that people who thought it was worthwhile dropping the GDP of Bangladesh don't think it's worth it anymore? You don't think this game has done anything to warrant their cash shoppers either not cash shopping anymore?

Why would someone max out their toon, only for the bar to be raised and told that to be at the same stage again you have to spend a few thousand $?

It's not so bad if you already had some of the stuff to begin with. But there aren't many new players joining the game - also not surprising when you look at how much it costs to own absolutely everyone in game from now compared to say a few years ago.

Player population had decreased so significantly - so has the number of people opening packs, hence why the good items are so expensive.

The only fix is to decrease the chance of ToL from packs but LOL good luck getting that done. They'll milk this game until it's dry and then delete all of our accounts when the game goes to shiit.b:laugh

WannaBM - Archosaur

I am of course not at all surprised that the majority of the population does not spend that kind of money. It also would not surprise me if overall cashshopping is going downwards.

People are crazy however, so i kinda thought probably 1 of them would be nuts enough to go for it b:chuckle