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Pricing reality check
covenanter
Member Posts: 35 Arc User
C Store /Zen Store pricing
What's your demographic for your clients ?
25% Pocket money/Allowance ?
50% Student/Early Career ?
25% Established ?
I'm older , I'd toss 400-1200 zen at a ship for account wide unlock, but frankly the new pricing appears way to high.
Last year I was in a lovely top notch hotel , at lunch the cheapest non house wine was ?35 about $55, I look round the 80 odd adults lunching there, no wine bottles on the tables very very unusual in that sort of place in the UK. Called the manager over identified myself* and said perhaps if you adjusted your pricing you'd sell a lot more , the chap said we like to maintain a 60% margin, I pointed out 60% of nothing is nothing, 10 minutes later I also told his boss and he agreed that perhaps a 'popular wine selection' was needed. Now they have bottles from ?22 and I'd say last visit about a 1/3 had bottles on the table at lunch.
Perhaps if you dropped the prices to what is a no thought affordable purchase price you might sell a lot more and make a lot more money.
I'd certainly drop money for a several hundred zen without thinking about it whereas a couple of thousand is a bottle of nice wine out the super market !
All the best
* TSI carries wieght you know
What's your demographic for your clients ?
25% Pocket money/Allowance ?
50% Student/Early Career ?
25% Established ?
I'm older , I'd toss 400-1200 zen at a ship for account wide unlock, but frankly the new pricing appears way to high.
Last year I was in a lovely top notch hotel , at lunch the cheapest non house wine was ?35 about $55, I look round the 80 odd adults lunching there, no wine bottles on the tables very very unusual in that sort of place in the UK. Called the manager over identified myself* and said perhaps if you adjusted your pricing you'd sell a lot more , the chap said we like to maintain a 60% margin, I pointed out 60% of nothing is nothing, 10 minutes later I also told his boss and he agreed that perhaps a 'popular wine selection' was needed. Now they have bottles from ?22 and I'd say last visit about a 1/3 had bottles on the table at lunch.
Perhaps if you dropped the prices to what is a no thought affordable purchase price you might sell a lot more and make a lot more money.
I'd certainly drop money for a several hundred zen without thinking about it whereas a couple of thousand is a bottle of nice wine out the super market !
All the best
* TSI carries wieght you know
[SIGPIC]http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/image.php?type=sigpic&userid=91882713000&dateline=1367507471[/SIGPIC]
Fed Random-Sci Monte-Eng Monte Banks-Tac
Klingon Warfarin-Sci Gamble-Tac
Fed Random-Sci Monte-Eng Monte Banks-Tac
Klingon Warfarin-Sci Gamble-Tac
Post edited by covenanter on
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I've been playing STO for a little over a month now and been watching / listening to conversations happening online in STO, and done a little looking around here as well.
From what I have seen and heard, about what is going on, I'm become more and more inclined in NOT spending any money on this game.
I've seen some Roster and Steer scams in net games , but what is going on here, definitely rates in the Top 3 for snow jobs.
A per character horse that does nothing is 25 dollars in LoTRo for example. One that is account wide sells for 25 dollars in WoW.
A factor that may influence the pricing may be were if they were to slash their prices (which may attract people to buy - even character only unlocks) - that other games in the f2p genre could follow suit. Larger, more established games. Resulting in them attracting back the customers STO wooed. Those games would be more resiliant to selling at lower prices for longer than perhaps STO would be. Resulting in STO not being able to sell enough goods over the long term and the goods they do sell, not bringing in enough money.
(Assuming there is a finite amount of people who have money to spend in f2p games - which some believe is true)
Overall the revenue would be most likely the same, but one option has positive PR (customers feels valued) the other has negative PR (customers feel the company wants to rip-off them).
Customers will always say 'We want to pay less for this same merchandise.'
That doesn't mean lowering prices makes a good business model or that the revenue would be the same. Based on that theory, every product in the world should cost a penny or less, or at most cost plus one penny.
That's not true. Because when you produce physical goods, you have limited supply, thus it meets the demand at acceptable price. But here you create one thing, lets say a new suit, which you can sell unlimited number of times (theoretically). And there lies the difference. At least for me.
I have no problem to buy account-wide ship unlock, with new model/console. But I wont buy character-only item that is usable in a single zone which I rarely visit.
I was one of its recurring customers before and after (and 90% of "paying" customers are recurring there).
While working there I learned a lot about people and how they spend money.
Since its important to have demos to sell tabletops successfully, you have tons of "possible customers", trying it out, saying they had fun, never to see them again.
(you spend time/money, get nothing)
Now once in a while you attract someone to start the game, give ya 150 bucks to start and continues to spend a lot over the years.
During a special Sale month we gave 25% on all starter products for several tabletop games, and it hardly changed anything about how many copies you've sold.
So instead of selling more, we just sold the same at a lesser price.
From an economic point, that is not good.
So you continue "milking" your recurring customers, playing demos to find one in hundreds to start the game etc.
The same is true for F2P:
You attract tons of players for a "demo", and if you're lucky, once in a while someone gets attracted enough to pay for something.
And once he starts paying, he usually recurrs doing so. The price hardly matters, they are willingly paying it, because they want it (for whatever reason).
Thats normal for a thing, which isn't a "common thing".
After all we all are not only playing an MMO, its a Star Trek MMO.
We're the nerdies of the nerdcrowd, accept it or not.
Just like customizeable card games ... everyone said you're a nerd for doing this.
Maybe you've played magic, Aliens Predator (or present day: Pokemon, YuGiOh etc.), but(!) if you were into Star Trek, you were not only a cardgamenerd, you were also a Trekkie, a nerdy nerd.
So, long story short:
If you have a niche market, you start to attract anyone interested. Then you filter out those, who are willing to spend something on it, and start milking them as long as you can. It doesn't matter if there are unhappy customers. As long as the revenue works, you're fine. And if not, you just close it.
This is your problem right there. The chats are always full of whiners, they would be even if the game was completely free. I'm not saying that prices aren't wrong, but that source of info is bad. I'm sure there is a proper term for it, but the effect is well documented. People who have something to complain about are always the loudest while happy customers just go about their business without speaking up about it.
However you hit the nail on the head.
Wow / Lotro that 25 bucks opens up across all chars , However here its only 1 faction. I mean the difference here in the uk is the ******** mounts cost ?10/?15 while the ships cost ?20.
and thats very much the difference and possibly why people moan , I mean it wouldn't be so bad if subscribers got a discount.
i.e after you have been subbing for 3 months you get a 50% off "Voucher" good for 1 item. type of thing
However it appears many games now have cash shops even monthly sub ones , and even they have daft prices.
The changes I have seen have all been driven towards C-Store content. One could even argue the fleet starbase is geared towards the C-Store with the fleet ships etc. costing.
I do not like the way the game is going and I haven't like it for sometime.
I got the klink carrier from the C-Store, the 7 of 9 pack and a few doff packs when they first came out. If I knew than what I know now I wouldn't have bothered.
The only thing to do end game is grind, I don't have time to sit in front of my pc doing the same few missions over and over, month after month after month.
I got the lifetime, I spent some cash on C-Store points. I'm done with throwing money at a game which is just going to cost me more and more money the more I play.
So I buy a fleet ship that costs me zen. I lose that in combat because of a glitch, server lag or a play to win player. I wouldn't be happy. it would create tension between players, I can even see people being harassed in this situation.
I don't mind having a C-Store for cosmetic things only. For a reasonable price I might purchase stuff from it. (as I have already) as it stands I beycot the C-Store and everything people are selling from it, same goes for the lockboxes. I'm not here to gamble, don't try and force me to with your marketing tactics.
The in your face selling tactics of spamming messages about others recieving these gifts is vulgar and intrusive. I get less spam from other free 2 play games that use ingame advertising to generate revenue.
I shouldn't have to turn off notifications just to stop the games developers spamming me every few seconds.
I started adding the names i see that have received these lock box ships to my ignore list. If i see a lock box ship in space, right click and ignore player for me.
I spent hundreds of ??? on this game when it was launched, now someone can come along dump ?50 in the C-Store and they're a more effective player than me... disgusting!
LOL.
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$30 for some 2000zen and what does that get me?
certiantly not a ship., Ill be lucky to aford them
why do we even need a zen/c store , why not just pay via Dilithium
and still pay $15 pm and then they can hopefully build a better game?
make the items a bit more accessable for those who dont want to use there credit cards all the time on the net or low money incomers like myself
any way enough of my ranting..
i still love the game
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I have to ask, why?
This $20 "limit" you are suggesting is something completely arbitrary that was made up by greedy mega-corps like Blizzard. There are businesses out there that make profit selling $20 PHYSICAL items! So how could a game company not make money selling data for less than $20?
The data is copied to your hard-drive. They don't lose anything when they sell it to you. It's not a physical object that existed in the first place. Think about that... There isn't any reason they can't sell in-game items for much cheaper!
So why can't they sell ZEN store items for less? The only "limit" that would pertain to the sale of electronic data is that they make more money than they spent paying their programmers. If more people are willing to buy the data at a lower price, don't you think they should drop the price?
If I buy a phsyical object or a service of some sort, I have consumer rights
In STO you're paying for a license to use a piece of software in accordance with the terms and conditions. You don't have the same consumer rights, you don't own anything, it's a license to use something.
You might be happy to spend ?25 on a small bit of code that runs inside STO that gives you a pretty ship. whether or not you are, this is all you're doing.
You don't own the software, you don't own that shiny ship, it's not you're property, you just own a license to use the code that makes it appear in the STO game.
If I wrote some code, that became popular. Why shouldn't I charge people what I like to use it?
Sorry just playing devils advocate, but the difference needed to be pointed out.
The example of the LotRO mounts a pretty common, and everytime i see it is just plain wrong.
To compare a Store Horse with a Ship for example is in no way valid because both are not equal in what benefits they bring to the Player.
A LotRO Horse is just a travel speed increase it has no combat value. It does not unlock new possibilitys it has beyond it's traveling speed just a special appearance.
And in addition you get equal Horses in travelspeed for unlocking ingame deeds.
So the 25$ or rather more 20$ charachter unlock for a LotRO Horse are totaly arbitray it is just personal cosmetic taste you spend it or not no advantage no unique combat playstyles no additional gear attached like consols to further increase your combat strenght.
If you take a look at the LotRO Store for pricing that effects the game you will see they charge from less then 1$ up to 5$ but later would be a stack of items that holds several hours and again these things are not Store unique.
Taking LotRO to justify the STO pricing is the most wrong thing you could have done play LotRO and you see they are closer to real micro transactions then STO will ever be.
But putting consumables into the LOBi Store was one of the most dumb thing ever boost and buff consumables should be C/ZEN-Store items a fair flat micro price and not for a gambeling currency like the LOBi crystals.
Cryptic shoul adjust all it's charachter unlocks to atleast 25% of what they are charging now to be true to a micro transaction model and still be competative. Because that is what the contenders are charging for equal value.
The OP made a very good point about inflexible margins and the detriment they present to successful marketing. I wouldn't suggest to anyone providing a service they offer the same at ridiculously low prices. I would however suggest the need to be cognizant of the "sweet spot" on the bell curve. The trick is to find the range granting you the best combination of per transaction payment and volume of sale. Introducing a house wine to the wine list doesn't imply the establishment lowballed and started selling nickle glasses of mouthwash.
On the other hand the qualitiy and costs of vintages aren't so much the issue here. Depending on a plethora of criteria different commodities cost different amounts. The actual value of of a tier 6 space ship as opposed to a tin of field rations is only relative to the development time required to produce it. A pixel is a pixel regardless of form or purpose.
I find it disheartening that season 6 has brought with it a rash of products that are marketed with restrictive conditions that suggest I need buy more. Of greater disappointment is the understanding that most of these new items are repurposed resources with subtle alterations that did not involve a great deal of development time; That was a cost I could both recognize and respect.
Thank you for making the post I was getting ready to compose after reading the first page of this thread.
I'm not even sure the horses are a big money maker for Turbine -- they are a reach for the whales -- but it's clear the model is based on the "don't think twice about it" nature of all the true micro-transactions, right down to cosmetics costing a buck or so. Almost everything in the Turbine Store is convenience or cosmetic, with very little falling into P2W category or somehow "better" than what can be earned in-game through effort.
IMHO, Turbine is the model for the industry to look to for implementing F2P and micro-trans correctly. Of course, the difference is Turbine had a mountain of content to offer.... maybe that's the problem when you don't have content to offer, you have to resort to shiny toy after toy to get your base to spend money.
Well good on you. I hope that copying and pasting a post you had on some other thread gave you the, "Immediate Gratification" of feeling as though you have accomplished something meaningful.
Next time you feel that burning desire to share your opinion (we are all entitled to one) why don't you go that extra mile and write a response relevant to the the topic you are responding to otherwise it doesn't amount to much more than throwing empty bottles off your deserted island.
Yes, this was a snide response but when I made my post on this thread I didn't cry that the game was "ruined" or that I was looking for some means of circumventing the system so that I wouldn't have to pay for things in game. When and if I make a purchase I have an expectation that I am receiving value my for investment balanced against the producer of said services being compensated for their efforts.
If you had troubled yourself with reading it you might have figured that out.
Setting prices reasonably to prevent sticker shock....Pwe / Zen have left a bad taste in the communities mouth.... Then add the forums, lock boxes and all the other community condemned changes that have fallen on deaf ears? Are you suprised we are having this conversation?
At some point the c-store is going to be an unclaimed island of virtual misfit toys, if you can not take care of
the community. The c-store will be known as the boycott store.
It is time take care of those who pay your pay check. Charging for feature and content updates have always been assured by dstahl to be free to community.....until ship modules hit the c-store for season six: fleet star ships......I have not seen dan comment on this at all.....severely disappointed.
Thank you.
The C-Store prices need to be slightly higher to offset the thousands of people using Zen to buy the items. The only people paying full price are those who can't control their Immediate Gratification impulse. IE, I see it now and want it now. It's like a thread I was in yesterday where someone wanted to buy the Borg STF gear because they didn't want to grind for it. Immediate Gratification at work.
I think the prices for the Vice Admiral retrofit ships is too much, so I won't pay for them. Recently, there was a 25% sale on ships. While I still thought it was too much, it was more within reason for me paying for it.
The only thing stopping me was that it was during that time of having to buy Zen and convert to CPoints. I'm no math wiz so I just said TRIBBLE it and didn't.
But then you look at costume packages. For the jupiter set, you get 5 tops, 5 pants, belt and boots VS some other sets with just 1 top, 1 pants and maybe a belt or boots. But they're closely priced. A costume set which has no effect on game play shouldn't be worth 1/4 the price of a ship. It should be more like a couple of bucks.
I think at like $2-$3, costume sets would sell more. They'd sell even more if we could equip the ship crew with them.
I agree that as LotRO already had a hughe experience of quests and massive gameworld to explore was indeed something you can't deny as advantage over STO.
Still instead of throwing all resources at Store shinnies Turbine did focus on further quest and world development even increasing the experience and the play value again and again further.
The bulk of Store Items beyond cosmetics and horses are just consumables that don't need the attention of a full staff to impliment they are just icons Ui-artist and systems DEV work.
That could be also one of the things why Cryptic is under such fire the overkill focus of DEV team on just that single thing called C/ZEN-Store.
Not always it makes sense to split your strenght but don't humans stand on two legs and not just one?
/ agreed
I have also decided I will never buy a fleet module, not in the C-Store or from the Exchange. I will only buy account unlocks and even then I will grind for them. You'll never stop people buying the TRIBBLE Cryptic makes so overpriced. Just today I looked on the exchange and the EVA suits are already on there. I was considering buying one only to make some EC then I say they were only 10 million. I make that in a day using free items from the game.
Sorry Cryptic, I will let my LTS pay for itself, you've lost a paying customer one of many I suspect. I may came when F2P first started but I have thrown larger amounts of money into this game and got very little in return. I know there are others out there who have done more. How do you replay us? By trying to rip us off. Hey it's your funeral, it's not like if this game fails we need to find a new job to keep the off over our heads.
I agree with the majority in this thread, lower your prices, keep it as account unlocks, develop the game. We didn't join this game to buy all the shiny items, but for the content, the missions. If you're having trouble making money, give gold members more options, like a free account bank that is like the fleet bank and ties all characters banks into one, able to get certain items for free, unique missions or STF's and so on to encourage more people to take out gold memberships. That would be a better option than trying to rip us off.
Both games (will) appeal to casual players, yet ANet has not budged on their principles, providing players with a very fair cosmetics and convenience-only cash shop. Also keep in mind that GW2 will not offer a subscription plan, so one wonders what ANet knows that PWE/Cryptic don't--or refuse to see. On top of all that, GW2 doesn't require you to grind currencies endlessly to be active in the currency exchange systems, lowering the gate of entry for people to get involved in the cash shop.
STO will simply not be able to compete. Once people realize they can play F2P games without having to be milked dry for a virtual costume, they'll get even more irate with companies like PWE who don't seem to get it.
Unfortunately, I'm not very hopeful that PWE will be paying attention--or cares to.
Have enough fleet credits and starbase upgrade to buy a shiny new fleet Qin raptor (not much of an upgrade to my current Qin) but looked at the shipyard price- 4 UPGRADE MODULES@ 500 Zen EACH ?
Are you INSANE PWE ???
Thats 2K zen !!!
I can buy the refit B'rel or Karfi or a Scourge and To'jud fighter shuttle for THAT ?
:eek::eek::eek:
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Guild Wars does not have an existing non-native IP to try to stay within, nor does it have related licensing fees to pay.
That likely changes the business model at least somewhat.
I dropped my sub because I got more bang for my buck putting the same amount of money into the C-Store every month.
The pricing trend is causing me to reconsider even that, since the bucks are no longer getting a lot of bang and neither is the amount of time I'm able to put in playing. I can enjoy myself in the limited time I have... or grind for Fleet Marks. Hm. Wonder which I'll pick?
The lockboxes are working now... but they won't when the big spenders run out of money and the rest of us realize that the odds are against getting the best rewards and stop trying.
I'd buy a C-Store ship account-wide unlock long before I'd ever consider buying per-character FSM's.
Link: How to PM - Twitter @STOMod_Bluegeek
It really is as simple as that.