Concerns About Cash Shop Pricing

i repeat this company is using a risky and crappy marketing strategy...maybe hire any economical expert..you cant increase product price for gain more money, increasing product price when you are not in monopolio(when only you in the world make a product) is a big failure, people will move for get cheaper service(same service).

decreasing CS price this company will gain way more money because therere will be more high demand...if a person has a budget of 60 dollars will buy 60 dollars of CS doesnt matter if 1 hiero cost 5 dollars or 1 dollar he always will spend max 60 dollars because this is his budget so increasing cash shop price only will do unhappy this person...

how much this company spend for make cash item??NOTHING they are virtual item...so why you dont want to sell more high ammount of cash item for lower price and make happy community??if 10 people buy 1 virtual shirt for 30 dollars u gain 300 dollars if 50 people buy same virtual shirt for 10 dollars(1/3) you gain 500 dollars...so now this company rather to earn 300 dollars or 500 dollars????your marketing strategy totally fail so i suggest of decrease fast cash item price.....

Well I logged out hoping to see a new post on forums saying there was a solution for pricing, instead there is this, tbh it seems like the main point of the players has been completely ignored.

More players who buy cheap item = more money for you. So why must we be convinced to pay these high prices still?

This issue has significantly reduced my will to play this game, it's in the back of my head when I play and it's annoying, so I was hoping it would be resolved quickly, to something like a 50% cut on everything, making everyone happy.

Instead I'm starting to lose faith, at this point it feels it's gonna take a while to resolve, and the company seem greedy, I bet it will take like a week to for a 50 cents reduction here and there. Don't really feel like logging back in the game atm, I like to use cash shop 50$ here and there when I can, but im not gonna be investing hundreds of dollars each months in a game when I can log in a p2p game for 15$, and have access to everything.

F2P are becoming ridiculous, hey guy pay 30$ for an inventory (normal game feature), hey guy pay us 50$ for costumes so you dont look like a cheap clone of everyone else, hey well reduce exp to unplayable so you buy tons of exp bonus, well charge you 30$ to reset your stats (free in the best p2p MMO i wont name).

I know you need to make money but it feels more and more like abuse, and just spending money on normal features that are just taken out of the game as hostage to be bought back trough cash shop.

daveee wrote: »

Honesly, I would've bought many items on the cash shop, along with my friend, but seeing the prices, both of us will not be able to buy anything. I'm reiterating for everyone, but PWE seriously needs to lower the prices. Many valuable customers will not pay a cent with the ridiculous prices.

Exactially, many of us including myself had our wallets out and ready to spread some support for the company via the cash shop but when we realized how little we can get with our money we had to earn one way or another, we decided to not spend any at all. Instead of spending $100.00 for some random fun to be wasted in a week or two, I spent $00.00 and kept my $100.00 to spend supporting a different company.

what puzzles me is what the heck makes them think that someone will actually play this version (or to be more precise - buy their VIRTUAL! gold)?
With like 8 other versions already out and another international coming in no more than a few weeks, ALL of them with lower prices than this one... it really makes me wonder which one will people choose... :eek:

And for gods sake stop using freaking GPD as your main argument. ITS VIRTUAL property youre
trying to sell to us. YOU HAVE NO REAL COSTS MAKING IT, ditto.

If it was a house youre trying to sell, well - fine. If its worth 100.000 in MY its probably 300.000 in US. But you are 'trying' to sell something that does not require ANY effort or money to make and it simply does not make any sense to bring GPD into this discussion.

Yes, you do have to pay your employers. And no, you wont be able to pay them with current gold-$ ratio.
Simple maths, which none of you obviously considered, as it looks like there are only two things which influenced CS prices - GPD and umm... GPD.
10x 50$ < 100x 10$

cheers, and please dont try to start your own business. I can already see it coming -

some random poor guy
"Hi, can i have a #%."
uberbusinessman, wont name him here
"of course, here is your #% - 2$ please."
rich guy standing aside, after its his turn to buy absolutely the same darn thing
"Hi, can i have 1 #% too, please"
uberbussinesman
"sure thing, here it is. 6$ please"

I thought America's unemployment rate has been the highest it's been since Regan. Did you guys even bother checking the percentage of unemployed/employed Americans?

xarfox you and your companies rationalization for the prices sounds like a cash shop scam to me.

It confuses me how a f2p game can and will cost more then 15 bucks a month to play.
Aka if you want to make it to 50 by this weekend, you will need cash shop items I am sure. I'm 20 already and meditating sucks. So I see the reasoning for buying the goodies from the CS to stay competitive with leveling. But when you people buy from it no matter the pricing your supporting this company to abuse you, your money, and everyone else that plays this game. So if you truly care about this games well being and want to keep a fairly large and diverse community then stop driving us away by supporting them by buying their overpriced CS items.

Currently World of Warcraft is cheaper then this game. Which I find funny as hell because at least with WoW I can customize my key bindings.

All insults aside I like the newness this game has for me. It's fun so far, but who knows? I won't be purchasing any CS stuff as long as it's this high. It's completely silly and you guys are being greedy.

I understand the feelings of the mayority here.
A new PW publisher is coming out and they will be based in the States. Less lag and better translation was expected. Ppl fed up of the lag and the support of Cubizone ditched their char and waited anxiously for CB.
Wow even a PVE server is coming up, this publisher is the best!!! Wot??? Publisher is linked with the makers of the game. Now we expect real cheap prices. And due to the IP block we don't have to face those damn asians. Yeah a game for us Westerners, I didn't understand why they had to play the MY-EN version but now
we finally have our own version.
Wow they said they have a business strategy where PVE is profitable.... This publisher is the best!!!
What??? 4 servers are cming out. Man this communbity rocks. No buggy game anymore and let's start topics to predict the Cubi prices. I'd say they will be cheaper than MY. Why else I sold my lvl100 WR.
WTF WR is blademaster? But I plan to make a fist blademaster......
Dumb translation but who cares. This publisher rocks, all those nice admins here promising us the world.
OOhh CB is out. WTF!!!!!!!
No PVE server.... Damn those bas tards. Uuuhh what? When CB almost closed we hear a price is rewarded for ppl reaching lvl40.....
Fu ck that. I created different classes to determine if I should continue with fist blademaster or switch to other class..... Wut??? Zhen is freaking expensive. Slver Hiero cost me 3 box??? Hell no let's complain.
Oohhh luckily the admins reassure us these prices are not fixed yet. But how about their business model?? Oohhh who cares prices will be cheaper when OB goes live.
OOh man OB is finally live... Where is my promised Zhen??? What Silver Hiero cost 2.5 dollars.........
??? Only 2 servers instead of 4...

Mmmhhh looks like it was too good to be true afterall.......
Or were my expectations too high??

russel wrote: »

I understand the feelings of the mayority here.
A new PW publisher is coming out and they will be based in the States. Less lag and better translation was expected. Ppl fed up of the lag and the support of Cubizone ditched their char and waited anxiously for CB.
Wow even a PVE server is coming up, this publisher is the best!!! Wot??? Publisher is linked with the makers of the game. Now we expect real cheap prices. And due to the IP block we don't have to face those damn asians. Yeah a game for us Westerners, I didn't understand why they had to play the MY-EN version but now
we finally have our own version.
Wow they said they have a business strategy where PVE is profitable.... This publisher is the best!!!
What??? 4 servers are cming out. Man this communbity rocks. No buggy game anymore and let's start topics to predict the Cubi prices. I'd say they will be cheaper than MY. Why else I sold my lvl100 WR.
WTF WR is blademaster? But I plan to make a fist blademaster......
Dumb translation but who cares. This publisher rocks, all those nice admins here promising us the world.
OOhh CB is out. WTF!!!!!!!
No PVE server.... Damn those bas tards. Uuuhh what? When CB almost closed we hear a price is rewarded for ppl reaching lvl40.....
Fu ck that. I created different classes to determine if I should continue with fist blademaster or switch to other class..... Wut??? Zhen is freaking expensive. Slver Hiero cost me 3 box??? Hell no let's complain.
Oohhh luckily the admins reassure us these prices are not fixed yet. But how about their business model?? Oohhh who cares prices will be cheaper when OB goes live.
OOh man OB is finally live... Where is my promised Zhen??? What Silver Hiero cost 2.5 dollars.........
??? Only 2 servers instead of 4...

Mmmhhh looks like it was too good to be true afterall.......
Or were my expectations too high??

Sounds like Rohan with less asians!

ren wrote: »

Sounds like Rohan with less asians!

That game is dead now, 30 ~ 70 people online thats it

severan wrote: »

Okay listen up,
I thought this was Perfect World International version not PW America. Take note that people from Africa will also be playing this game. in which case how do you expect their economy to bolt up to your prices. Africa's GDP is like down the scale...

When you decided to brand your version as INTERNATIONAL you should have seen this coming. I don't want to go deep into the GDP stuff, that's just lame excuse. Those guys are not your customers, we are... and if you wish to make anything called a "profit" i deeply suggest you start bending towards us and not make us dance to your tune, we can assure you that only the music will be playing.
The goal of your job is to satisfy us not your organisation, by management principles it's never possible ^^

With games like Aion, Diablo 3 about to launch soon, most people who decide to play PWI would just play without using the cash shop and switch over to the new game which never had hidden values about their prices. Right now your only competition is PW-MY, soon you'll have PW-Europe and then a year later Aion and Diablo 3, which means you'll loose EU players in the short run and American players in the long run. Asians will just stick to MY and other countries have their own.

so much for Global rates ^^ I'll play PWI without the cash shop till D3 is launched if this is the final decision on your rates

Its like this, if your rates are lesser than MY version you'll have more people playing in the future. If you have the same rates as MY version... you'll have the current population and may gain a few customers in the future, if your rates are heigher than MY version... you'll just loose all the people here to MY, EU and new games in the future.

Very true regarding GDP growth. According to the US White House, we have had a 0.2% contraction of the GDP in the fourth quarter of 2007, follow by 0.9% expansion in the first quarter of 2008, and 1.9% in the second quarter of 2008.
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/commerce-dept-concedes-us-economy/story.aspx?guid={B40570D2-40FB-45BD-8920-FEC19E1A1F26}

According to the CPI, our unadjusted 12 months inflation for all urban consumers was 5.6%. Inflation of Energy alone was 29.3 percent for the past 12 months.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm

From NBER.org, which defines US recession:
"The NBER does not define a recession in terms of two consecutive quarters of decline in real GDP. Rather, a recession is a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales."

Some may argue that we are in a "technical recession", because GDP growth is below inflation. The Fed chief and former chief, and NBER, have been careful in saying that we are facing recession, or a verge of recession, or slipping into a recession, but not actually confirming that we are in a recession.

On the more personal level, the GDP slowdown coupled with inflation have been very hard on many of us. Some of us, very personally, by the collapse of Bearn Stearns, or Indy Mac, having deposits of over $100,000, and millions others who have become unemployed, or have had their house foreclosed, and either face large debt, or have filed bankruptcy. Inflation, has also changed the way many of us lived, and have caused us to have tighter management of our disposable income.

Justifying setting high zen prices based on our GDP and our rate of inflation, is logical, but missing factors of alternatives and substitution that will influence the supply and demand of zen and the equilibrium market price. Don't forget, that we are in a global economy. If US residents could only buy cars from US auto makers, then GM and Ford would not be cutting back jobs and reporting losses. Just like there are alternatives from Japan and Korea for automobiles, there are and will be alternatives for Perfect World in Malaysia and Europe, both which provide English translation and are not IP blocking US citizens. In addition, Perfect World "International", is attempting to capture an international market, not just one of US residents.

Marketing should also be a consideration. Take for example, Walmart. When they had setup a new store in a rural town, they would often set prices below market value in order to drive the competing mom and pop businesses into the ground. Their business practices, while not "nice," and the municipal government often also at fault, has helped them garner according to 2008 Fortune Global 500, the title of being the world's largest public corporation by revenue.

Anyway, I do appreciate the attempt to lower prices by setting the cost of silver hierograms to $2.50, which is below the price in Perfect World Japan and Korea (even though it's not completely comparable, because unlike us, they have no licensed competitors which provide localization into Korean and Japanese, whereas we have alternatives for Perfect World translated into English.)

At least thank you for hearing us, and for the responses Xarfox!

June

Hey can you have an alternative way to buy ZEN.
I live in Singapore & its harder to purchase ZEN from here , so im wondering if you guys could sell zen in cards like what 9 dragons / Maplestory does which contains something like 10,000 zen each.
I really wish that could happen:)

Bravo, I'm surprised that these people hadn't figure it out yet...
This is an US based operation.

Open your eyes; nobody wants these prices and only the whoriest of cash shop whores will deal with it.

Drop a dollar or a dollar 50 off of the heirograms or you guys might as well stop hosting the game now and cut your losses. Honestly.

Look at the responses. This is ridiculous. I've managed to get a TON of MY-EN players to move here using my reputation, but they're going to jump right back to MY-EN at this rate. And I don't blame them in the least.

Please do not nip this server in the bud. It has so much potential.

Bearing in mind, folks.. just looking at some of the cash shop item prices.. they're a whole lot cheaper than in PW-MY. Silka Deer for instance costs 20 gold here.. over there it was 44, if I recall correctly. Jag is 10 gold. Over there is was something like 22. Hieros are also slightly cheaper. Mounts are about as cost effective here as anywhere else. Whole most other things are worse, but not as bad as it might seem.

Having said that though...

Ehh.. the whole "non-corrupt GMs" part in bold makes it pretty clear that they've been looking at PW-MY in an effort to avoid making the same mistakes. But these substantially higher prices are making PW-INT run the risk of alienating a large number of paying customers. And can pretty much forget about attracting any players from outside the US.

I don't think the higher overall prices will pay off.

Everyone understands the 'need' for them. But everyone is also after the best deal for themselves. The only possible reason to play PW-INT over any other version is less lag and better service. Not sure if that's worth the extra cost.

Oh yeah, and I think the playerbase will be quite a bit smaller than was expected. One more reason people will be less likely to choose PW-INT.

But whatever.. I'm not a paying customer. I'm just planning on going where more people are.

fuzzles wrote: »

Bearing in mind, folks.. just looking at some of the cash shop item prices.. they're a whole lot cheaper than in PW-MY. Silka Deer for instance costs 20 gold here.. over there it was 44, if I recall correctly. Jag is 10 gold. Over there is was something like 22. Hieros are also slightly cheaper. Mounts are about as cost effective here as anywhere else. Whole most other things are worse, but not as bad as it might seem.

You're not very bright, are you? Gold here is 1 gold for $1. That's like 3x the price of MY-EN.

severan wrote: »

Okay listen up,
I thought this was Perfect World International version not PW America.

destruction said it best:

destruction wrote: »

Bravo, I'm surprised that these people hadn't figure it out yet...
This is an US based operation.

The only versions of PW that can be called "International" are PW-MY-EN and the soon-to-enter-CB PW-EU.
PW-US calling itself "International" is a joke considering they are blocking so many countries. "International" means everyone is able to play, no matter where one is connecting from.

esux wrote: »

Then why is PW-EU going to be so cheap then? It's going to even cheaper than PW-MY. Nice try though. I will be keeping my money safely in my bank account unless the prices drop significantly.

Uh, where did you get the info PW-EU prices will be cheaper than PW-MY? Last thing i heard was, they were planning to set their prices around MY ones.

When the EU-GMs were asked the question what they think about the US prices and if they plan to set theirs to a similar level, this was the answer:

Luco wrote: »

Nein, wir sind selbst erstaunt.

Yes, it's in german cause the question was posted in the german subsection. It translates roughly to: "No, we're surprised at their prices"

PWE's decision was a great gift to the EU company, if they are really planning to set their prices lower than PWE.