Concerns About Cash Shop Pricing

i want the GMs or Admins to open a live chat and allow people that feel strongly on to be able to talk to GMs or they going to just make decision and not tell us about it, and that would probably lead to more people leaving.

well we have 111 would have been paying customers who have said that the prices are too high so far. You can see this for yourself (as I can't find the link elsewhere) here:

For those who haven't added themselves to the list : http://www.petitiononline.com/g345a165/petition.html

For the mods to see the numbers: http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?g345a165

Well, a lot has been said, but i won't give up on my 2 cents after reading through the whole 16 pages of this.

I agree with most of the arguments stated, and would only like to add the following: f2p games are obviously "free" in the literal meaning, but the section of the community that buys little or no item mall items cannot be overlooked. Why? Because they are a channel of conversion of in-game money to real-money.

I have not played the PW-MY version, as i only found about this game before the CB, but i am pretty sure a lot of players in that version sell cash shop items in-game to get in-game money.

In this particular way, the in-game economy is heavily influenced by the cash shop prices. Let's consider hierograms, for instance, without which gameplay and leveling is severely impaired (specially in a western market, where players are more prone to soloing compared to asian players). To a lesser extent, orbs, mounts, teleport stones, and flying items. These are all things that even players that want the game as free as it comes would like to get their hands on. If they can't they will probably abandon the game altogether. And i wonder what price hierograms for instance will be sold in-game.

Practical example to illustrate my point: long ago, i played kalonline. At a given point, a large group of people from a country with virtually no law regarding online payments was massively doing credit card fraud to sell cash shop items ingame dirt cheap. As a result, honest buyers could not compete with such prices and most stopped buying altogether. Dealing with a crisis, INIXsoft had to totally restructure their payment system to keep these CCF'ers at bay. By then, the in-game economy was totally transfigured and "freeloaders" mostly refused to buy items at prices equivalent to the ones practiced before the mass CCF'ers sellout, so honest consumers were still hesitant to buy. It took a lot of time and revamps and new stuff for the game to stay alive.

My point? Beyond the obvious "consumers will buy less", the in-game economy will be harsher for both consumers and freeloaders, with many abandoning the game in favor of other options (the whole comparison with the abundant p2p games in the market for an average 15$ a month comes into play here, as well as f2p games with a friendlier economy). This leads to less consumers, thus less income, and less freeloaders, thus less buying from consumers for selling to freeloaders, and less freeloader eventually becoming consumers, and overall less income.

I will not point fingers and insult and demand lower prices... There are many available games in the market... The loss is yours alone, so good luck

ruve wrote: »

dagny..
Did you seriously just belt out numbers to me without a link to prove it?
ROFL
You're creepy.
I never watch T.V. news, I read news groups.

I'm creepy/ You're insane... yeah I made up all those unemployment numbers

http://www.nidataplus.com/lfeus1.htm

happy?

Want to see creepy, try a mirror and not making up data you don't know and then find yourself unable to respond to being proven wrong by attacking someone else.... just sad.

jingjing wrote: »

I buy a single player game, I will spend around $30-$60 initially. The game will probably last me several months (some longer than others) before it gets stale. So, if I spend the same amount of money on PWI's cash shop, I expect my money to keep me entertained for that long too.

As it stands right now, the prices are a bit too high for what I am willing to spend.

My two cent.

My thoughts exactly. I bought $50 in Zen initially because that's what I would have spent for a boxed game. I figured I'd spent another $15 per month because I would have anyway. Whether or not I'll do that depends on what $15 buys me. The more it buys me, the better chance I will spend even more. The less it buys me, the more likely I will treat this as a "free to play" game.

I know I've posted it before in the other two threads but I feel like posting it again to see how many are with / against it or can offer a better option.

Increase the amount of zen per $1 to 300 instead of 100, that effectively makes the current hiero/ charm cost to about 83 cents. And since at later levels some classes will be using 3 - 5 of these easily in a day I think that is a completely reasonable price. The $10 shirt everyone keeps pointing out then becomes $3.33 thus a lot of people are more willing to buy one. And they don't have to make a patch for the game just to change item costs (not sure if they have to now, but so far changes have only occurred after a patch)

Then on occasion have a sale on items, or double bonus zen weekends or something like that, everyone loves a sale, half the time i buy stuff i see on sale when i didn't even need it .

All in all the prices should balance out, if not compare with pw-my / pw-eu (when it releases pricing) and find prices similiar to theres, they can be slightly higher, but not 2 1/2 - 3x higher.

mojin wrote: »

I know I've posted it before in the other two threads but I feel like posting it again to see how many are with / against it or can offer a better option.

Increase the amount of zen per $1 to 300 instead of 100, that effectively makes the current hiero/ charm cost to about 83 cents. And since at later levels some classes will be using 3 - 5 of these easily in a day I think that is a completely reasonable price. The $10 shirt everyone keeps pointing out then becomes $3.33 thus a lot of people are more willing to buy one. And they don't have to make a patch for the game just to change item costs (not sure if they have to now, but so far changes have only occurred after a patch)

Then on occasion have a sale on items, or double bonus zen weekends or something like that, everyone loves a sale, half the time i buy stuff i see on sale when i didn't even need it .

All in all the prices should balance out, if not compare with pw-my / pw-eu (when it releases pricing) and find prices similiar to theres, they can be slightly higher, but not 2 1/2 - 3x higher.

I'd do it. I'd even settle for doubling. But nobody is responding, nobody is listening. The only ones who care are us reading the forum.

They are reading these posts and they are discussing things, I was informed this after messaging an admin on the forums requesting an update. Just be patient and we will get a response soon enough.

As long as people are buying Zen, things wont change. If everyone stops buying until then we will see changes fast.

mojin wrote: »

Then they should at least have someone post something like "Thank you for all the feedback, we are discussing the subject now and will have an update for you soon" so we all know there at least listening.

I agree with this, that is what I recommended that Admin do, but since they didn't I leave it as there own decision and that's that.

buny wrote: »

I'm open minded! I'm willing to give them a few days to discuss it. I look for a response in a few days at the latest Monday. I don't think it would be wise to let this go over the weekend. But, I guess all we can do is give them time. I personally don't want to throw away this great game because they didn't get it right the first time. You can't please everyone.

The next big issue once the prices are changed is making the difference up to the people who already bought zen.

--
Jaded

I very much agree with you, and I already stated an easy way to make up the zen to the people who have already purchased some in a thread that was deleted, so I will post it again here.

The easiest logical way I can think of to increase the amount you get for your money would not be to change cash shop prices ingame, but increase the Zen per Dollar ratio, and with this you could "Credit" the players who have already purchased Zen the ammount they would be missing. Example : Player pays $50.00 Dollars for 5,000 Zen. The Zen to Dollar ratio is doubled so instead of 5,000 Zen for $50.00 Dollars you now get 10,000 Zen for $50.00 Dollars. Perfect World Entertainment adds 5,000 Zen to the account of the player who already payed $50.00 for 5,000 Zen so now they would have the amount they would get if they paid for the Zen now. Then everybody wins.

thatsme wrote: »

Newsflash. Most people with a fat wallet didn't get that way by throwing their money down the toilet.
Same applies to this game.

So you're saying that PWI is practicing Reganomics, AKA Trickle-Down-Theory? Guess that's not too far off.

poison wrote: »

So you're saying that PWI is practicing Reganomics, AKA Trickle-Down-Theory? Guess that's not too far off.

Why would you post something like that? You need to rea dup on "reaganomics"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics

being a liberal and not liking reagan is one thing, but misrepresenting is another. You actually can support your own ideology without tearing another down through misrepresentation. A country can be united with differing opinions through respect.

bonghit wrote: »

hrmphh..........call me nuts but somehow i am just not pictuing a Bushman in the Khalahari playing this game on a T3 connection in the middle of the Savannah. If you meant the owner of a diamond mine in south aftrica then maybe i give you more props ok?

I'm not an owner of a diamond mine, i'm not a citizen of africa, but i spend 3 months of each year there doing some work (which is none of your business) *around egypt*. I've seen people use a PC and get decent internet connection. I myself have used a wifi there. Just because it's not known don't assume they're in the dark ages, you'd be surprised @ the evolution of their technologies.

FYI
There's a player here on PWI who is playing from Egypt.... he posted his intro a month ago. He is a customer.
I'm in South East Asia atm, I'll be around U.S.A in Jan and move back to Europe next July and some other part of the world 4 months later.

kinetikop wrote: »

Sure it may not be likely, but you can't say it is impossible for someone from Africa to be playing this game, maybe not on T3, but it is possible. From the way you post you seem to like the prices and want the game to fail. Why not give constructive criticism instead of trying to tear down the other people in the community?

maybe he hates the term Africa. I was just having a global view since the title says INTERNATIONAL


@Topic
3$ per heiro is nothing to me, what i question is value for money. If you change your product's name to PWA (Perfect World America) I'll use the cash shop at the current rates otherwise if you want to keep it as PWI (perfect world international) make your rates the same as MY version *minimum* and I'll use the cash shop. I'll continue to play as a free loader till then

Errrr wow I was just about to buy a Kirin mount came here and read this thread and was like ennn no way Im gonna spend $35-45 on a mount for a company with an attitude like this.

What kinda argument is it that we make more than people in malaysia? You do realize the cost of living difference more than equates the balance right?

For what I make here I could live like a millionare in malaysia.

Grow a better argument then come back and talk to us again.