My english is decent at best so bare with my typos and bad phrases. And despite what it may look like, it is not a rant.
$25 for a ship, roughly the same price as most MMO's change for a fully fledged expansion pack that's been taking a year or more to make.
How can you justify a price like that for
one measly item that really doesn't add anything to the gaming experience. It's just a different looking ship that does exactly the same thing as any other ship when you press spacebar.
Is the amount of subscribers in this game really
that low that you cant keep the game running without charging stupid amounts of money for your "extras"?
How long does it take to make a ship like the Siege destroyer or the Galaxy-X (whose only difference from the original galaxy is an extra engine and a immovable turret at the top of the saucer) from start to finish, a week or two? Maybe a month or two for the Siege destroyer?
Again, how does that justify a pricetag of $25?
And you can not even get them with emblems, and Cryptic PROMISED us that NOTHING they added to the C-store would be C-store exclusive. That ALL items they added to it would be available through normal gameplay.
When did this change?
I can understand your prices for extra character or ship slots, respecs etc etc.
But fluff items for anywhere between $10 and up to $25?
Personally i really doubt that anyone that's playing this game is so desperate for any of the items on the C-store that they couldn't wait for them to be added in a season update for free.
The excuse you use that you have to change because its a "priority item" is just bullsh*t.
I have to congratulate you tho, no other MMO company i know of have managed to stupe so many of their subscribers into giving you even more money for something they are already paying you for with said subscription.
I mean, chances are pretty high up there that Cryptic would add all that stuff anyway, so why on earth should we pay for them when we already pay a subscription?
Ok i'm working myself up now so i'm gonna stop before i make a total mess out of it.
And again, my english is far from perfect so my phrasing probably have alot to wish for, so please read it the way i mean, not the way it sounds...
Comments
This isn't a big "moneymaker" item despite the huge mark-up. You need to be a Klingon player and you need to be high level and you need to be interested in purchasing it. Cryptic is hardly worried about making huge dividends. They would've allowed more people to purchase it (and purchase it earlier too). Instead, it's priced high and marketed toward a very small portion of the population.
It's an item appealing to the smallest of small minorities in the STO community: 1) KDF players, 2) High-level KDF players, 3) High level KDF players with cash lying around to toss at $25 ships.
The price is set that way not because Cryptic "needs" it to make money (they're already making plenty off Fed-side sparkle ponies) but because they want to maintain that exclusivity that the referral Reward will offer.
EDIT: sorry I typed "veteran" when I meant referral.
Again if this was F2P that'd be different.
And the argument that we've been getting all these great updates over the past year for free will only be valid IMHO when the game is actualy a fully finished game. Klingons up to par with Feds/revamped exploration sectors/ fixed ground combat/complete fdc mission set.
All the amazing things that the devs have done over the past year is super super awesome. Don't get me wrong. I bow to them and thier efforts. Everyone deserves a pat on the back. But in reality as awesome as these things are these are simply things that are "finishing the game". Things, as awesome as they are, that should never be considered "extra free perks". We've been paying for an unfinished game since launch. I feel it is owed to us that they continue to finish the game. After that is done. I'll gladly pay $15-$25 bucks a season for future "content". But I'd still not pay $25 for one ship. Unless it's goes F2P.
I paid $50 for the game last year. So aprently I might have only received 2 ship models for my purchase. $25 and up is what I'd expect to pay for an expansion(on a finished game). For actualy content. Whole sectors with missions and stuff. Not for one ship. No matter how awesome it is.
Example: The Foundry is something more then I'd have expected at launch. I'd pay or the foundry. The foundry something I could see not only being in the c-store but belonging there. The Garumba, Galaxy X, or any other ship should never be there.
I think it changed about 5 seconds after Atari heard about that promise. More likely, it was always going to be this way, but cryptic either promised something they knew they couldn't deliver (unlikely) or they didn't know that they wouldn't be able to deliver.
p.s.
Your English is better than some native speakers I know.
Okay, read what you wrote and then ask yourself... "Why am I upset?"
I was about to reply to that too. If it doesn't add anything, why do you want it so badly?
HInt: He was downplaying the value of the good as a rhetorical device to persuade Cryptic to downgrade its pricing. People do it all the time.
Darren, I am running out of cookies for you. Keep pumping the grey matter muscle and I will have to start giving you erasers or something.
That doesn't change the fact it's a stupid argument. He either wants the siege destroyer, which means it must add something to the experience, or he doesn't want it. in which case his whole post is irrelevant as he wouldn't pay any price for it anyway. He doesn't even want them to downgrade the pricing, he wants it available free ingame.
He downplayed his/her interest to snag the desired good/service for less. People do this in markets, with day laborers, and with people they date.
It's argumentation: it's not about convincing or deontology, it's about achieving an ends.
(=| A scene from "Thank You for Smoking" explaining this concept |=)
Lukily the one who makes these decisions seems not to know much about what makes a ship effective (just look at Galaxy X).
But certain items like the Excelsior retrofit or the red matter capacitor certainly show a "pay to win" tendency, which is qustionable for a MMORPG with subscription fee.
you could get it for free by referring 4 (maybe it was 5) friends to the game. it was meant to be a super premium reward for referrals, but after they found out people were going out an buying 4 copies of the game just to get the ship, they added it to the C-store to keep people from blowing at the time close to $200 on just one ship.
now from a business standpoint if people were already willing to drop 2 bills then $25 is a bargin. also, when you consider that the Galaxy-X is maybe the most prevalent of all C-Store ships in the game currently, where is the incentive to lower the price?
I swore I remember disenfranchised players crying foul for no Referral Reward for their KDF mains. Looks like it's eventually coming but I doubt this was the intended result (similarly, they were arguing for general parity, not necessarily another C-Store/Referral fiasco).
The mere fact that there are so many threads about this point to it being a bad decision.
Rather, that there are so many threads about this points out how we have a bunch of people unhappy with the decision. It being a bad decision is predicated on it being unprofitable, and we'll never see those numbers.
or maybe it just points to the fact that you also made a thread about this.
Just bustin' your chops
Correct me if I'm wrong but last we heard StormShade was only trying to accomplish this. And it was not part of the plan. This is something one employee has tried to achieve after seeing the reaction that people on the boards have had, and was in fact flying the face of the company plan. And again, last I heard he was still just attempting to have this happen.
Or maybe he wants to ensure that the next five or six ships released (that he may want) aren't also C-Store exclusive and overpriced. It could entirely be that he's objecting to the event because it's precedent (and not the first).
Also, just because something doesn't do much doesn't mean you don't want it. A pack of chewing gum isn't a multi-functional tool of infinite usefulness and adaptability but that doesn't mean that I don't want to occasionally chem some gum, nor that I think ten bucks for a pack is reasonable and I can (rightfully) object to that pricing.
And as far as it being a bad argument, well Hell...
Source
StormShade's already been downplaying the Garumba as an excuse for why it can be in the C-Store, does that Cryptic doesn't want you to buy it? No, but it shows him using the exact same tactic. There's a saying about geese and ganders that ultimately boils down to turnabout being fair play (which is also a saying, and it is for a reason).
And of course StormShade's argument also (particularly the bolded part) seems to suggest that as long as you have basic functionality and nothing in the C-Store that can absolutely WTF curbstomp then it's all fine and we needn't expect anything else for our subscriptions. And that right there seems like an excellent reason to start objecting now in the hopes that they get the message and do less of this TRIBBLE later.
The more abuse you're willing to take, the more people are apt to give you.
I am gonna tell you a secret. Don't tell anyone ok:)
I am a photographer. I have had a studio going on over 10 years. Now here is a secret;). My average wedding package is 3350.00. It cost me $$ about 350.00 to make it. As in album, prints frame. I do about 30 of those packages a year. Why do I charge so much? Because of rent, mall displays, trade shows, 3 kids "one that I only went to 3 of his soccer games because of the weddings on Saturday!". But really I charge so much because I can! I can charge 3350 for a wedding! I can charge 650 for a high school senior package! Why? Because people buy it. If less did then I would have to rethink the price. I like money! I am on my way to Florida now with my family to spend new years bc of my prices.
There are a lot of Galaxy x"s out there. I have seen them. So people are buying them. Who are you to tell cryptic that they should not sale them. Oh wait you can tell them! By not buying it. If people did not then it would go lower Look I don't want to sound like a.. Word for donkey is TRIBBLE but it really burns me when I hear people say this sucks and since I don't like it no one else should & it should disappear faster than Q.
Crptic has a lot more overhead than me. That $25 is not as much as you think it is. With all the business I do all I can afford to drive is my 5 year old Honda;). No cadies for me. But I do have a galaxy x in the dock as well;)
*nudge* Nobody rich drives a 'caddy' anymore. Failsauce with a dragging bumper package.
*flail* Bimmer! or at least Mercades, something from Bavaria.
Well whatever they have as a SUV I can't afford. I drive pilot;)
I think you make very valid points. I would suggest holding fast to your feelings on this issue and voting with your pocketbook. Refuse to buy anything from the C-Store. Also, I would strongly suggest that while this is still on your mind and fresh, that you hop to gaming review sites and share you views with others, so they can be made aware.
Best wishes.
Not because its a bad argument or anything. Just because its been stated. Over and over again. People will still buy it at $22 a pop so it isn't going to change. Both camps in this debate have equally good arguments and no one is willing to change their positions based on the other sides argument. That is the recipe for what will slowly devolve into a flame war.
Luckily, some of us like fire.
Fire and apples.......
<
holds hands close to monitor in order to be ready to warm them when the flamin starts......
ooh marshmellows!