Are Z-Store ships expensive? Sure. But I wouldn't be surprised if they're priced in such a way to cover costs, and have only a few bucks profit left over. Sure, they *could* sell them cheaper...and make no profit. And if a business isn't making profit, they're not gonna stay open. It's called the free market. Perhaps people should study it a little before they talk about costs.
Oh really,
People estimate this game has between 25,000 and 100,000 players. Personally I'm going to go with a conservative estimate of say 40,000.... now lets say 1/5th of the player base buy the 3 pack... that's $400,000.
How much time in 3D max do you think it takes to build a ship like the Vesta? How much money in electricity costs do you think it is to make it?
Seriously...:rolleyes:
I reckon at best it cost them no more than $40,000 to build the Vesta, based on these very dodgy calculations. (remember a good designer is probably on $80,000 per year at most so I really don't think it took more than 3 months and two designers to do, do you??
People estimate this game has between 25,000 and 100,000 players. Personally I'm going to go with a conservative estimate of say 40,000.... now lets say 1/5th of the player base buy the 3 pack... that's $400,000.
How much time in 3D max do you think it takes to build a ship like the Vesta? How much money in electricity costs do you think it is to make it?
Seriously...:rolleyes:
I reckon at best it cost them no more than $40,000 to build the Vesta, based on these very dodgy calculations. (remember a good designer is probably on $80,000 per year at most so I really don't think it took more than 3 months and two designers to do, do you??
It's a F2P game. They have all the fixed costs of servers, designers for each new season, etc. That $400k has to cover all that as well.
People estimate this game has between 25,000 and 100,000 players. Personally I'm going to go with a conservative estimate of say 40,000.... now lets say 1/5th of the player base buy the 3 pack... that's $400,000.
How much time in 3D max do you think it takes to build a ship like the Vesta? How much money in electricity costs do you think it is to make it?
Seriously...:rolleyes:
I reckon at best it cost them no more than $40,000 to build the Vesta, based on these very dodgy calculations. (remember a good designer is probably on $80,000 per year at most so I really don't think it took more than 3 months and two designers to do, do you??
I dunno.
And you know what? You don't know either. You're making **** up. Seriously, "between 25K and 100K"? What kind of numbers are those? And 1/5 of the player base buying it...an estimate based on what? The pure wishes of a photonic fairy?
Seriously, trying to figure out if PWE is making fat lewt or a fair profit off of any particular Z-Store sale is pointless if you don't have the actual numbers to argue from. Find those, *then* you can start arguing how they're ripping you off. Until then, I'll go with the theory that they're making a decent enough profit, but probably aren't ripping us off by selling a product we don't actually need to play the game.
With something as unique as the Vesta, I think Cryptic should have priced it lower (and sold it individually) and I think they'd have gotten much more sales - one at least from me anyway.
If they believed they'd earn more money by selling the ships as singular units, they would have. They've sold enough ships at this point that their metrics have no doubt found these $50 packs to be their biggest way of increasing their margins.
PW bought Cryptic Studios and it's games for $50 Million Dollars. Up to the 2nd Qtr this year PW made $24 Million dollars in net profit...
They have shareholders and staff to pay, they have projects that aren't retail yet requiring expenditure (Neverwinter)
and most of all they have fat bonus' to pay themselves.
People who think that the money they spend goes back to Cryptic to improve the game are so completely ignorant of how business works that it's not even funny. Heck all you have to do is look at the game it's a half assed bug filled mess at the moment that needs some serious TLC.
It's half correct, because anyone who thinks you don't invest in a profitable endeavor to increase returns is so completely ignorant to how business works its not even funny,
Bottom line, if STO is turning a good profit, PWE will invest to expand that profit. Especially in their flagship title in the western market. Cryptic is hiring, do this isn't a difficult concept to grasp.
There seems to be a lot of people wailing about anything in this game that costs money, from Play to Win to Cryptic 'gouging' them. - How long do you think this game would be around if there wasn't some sort of revenue stream?
What will $50 buy?
- 2 cases of beer
- 3 months of WoW, Eve, Rift etc
- Take out dinner for 2, night at he movies
- Et Cetera.
Point being, $50 dollars isn't a whole lot to drop on a leisure activity.
STO is free to play. The effective cost to play, not counting time and internet bills or other stuff, is $0. For an F2P game, STO is surprisingly generous, and PVP aside, is quite well-balanced. Case in point: the prison-grade restrictions imposed on free players in The Old Republic (INCLUDING artificially slowed XP gain). So there's that.
If YOU owned your own MMO or Star Trek singleplayer game (which would make your cost-to-play $0), one that had as much content as STO does now, ask yourself how much it would cost YOU to hire a programmers, artists, and other developers to design, model, program, and implement a 3 versions of the Vesta in your game.
Sure as hell it would cost MORE than fifty dollars (or 25 dollars).
From that perspective, it's practically a steal!
Plus, compared to the Odyssey pack you get a lot more value, with effectively 3 ship skins, and TWO set bonuses if you have all 3 consoles equipped.
Long story short: YES, it's expensive but NO, it's not "overpriced".
Stop making sense. It confuses people, and makes them hostile. :P
Decided to go by my local Ferrari dealer today to take a look at the new F458 which has a sticker price of $289,825.
I asked the sales manager if he thought everybody was loaded with lots of money, advised him that we are not and told him to lower the price in order to make it more affordable.
Approximately 45 seconds later the security guard threw me off the lot, I wonder why that happened?
My only complaint about the vesta is that it's got the blue rainbow on the saucer and there's nothing you can do except make it other shades of blue.
If you change the Material to something other than the "Vesta" option you can get the standard colors, though you'll lose the custom saucer/hull pattern (which is what you want anyway if I read you correctly, so it shouldn't matter).
ships aren't too expensive ...
I bought the Armitage, the Thunderchild and the Escort Refit with the Dilithium Exchange only.
in this game unlike the others, you can have evertything without spending money, even if it is more challenging.
This, essentially. If you haven't got the money, odds are you've got the time to invest instead, since jobs you know... give you money? Then it's just down to how much you're willing to part with to enhance your fun time.
It's pretty awesome that there's almost nothing in this game that can't be had for free, vet rewards not withstanding.
All games older than about a year or two costs 50 $ or less ! STO is from 2010...
If each ship is worth 25 $ how much should the game cost if we say 3 ships x 4 tiers x 2 factions ?
24 x 25 dollars ?
Hats off to you if you feel paying the price of a full game for one pity little item is you making a bargin
Your example is not realistic. You can't compare a boxed game from 2010. The STO from 2010 to now, are two completely different games and the available content like Christmas events and the like still cost money to produce and make. It's like me saying freelancer
only cost me x dollars but two years down the track it's the same game. Unlike Sto with new episodes, new content, new items, new ships. Do you not think this comes from no where?
Comments
Oh really,
People estimate this game has between 25,000 and 100,000 players. Personally I'm going to go with a conservative estimate of say 40,000.... now lets say 1/5th of the player base buy the 3 pack... that's $400,000.
How much time in 3D max do you think it takes to build a ship like the Vesta? How much money in electricity costs do you think it is to make it?
Seriously...:rolleyes:
I reckon at best it cost them no more than $40,000 to build the Vesta, based on these very dodgy calculations. (remember a good designer is probably on $80,000 per year at most so I really don't think it took more than 3 months and two designers to do, do you??
#2311#2700#2316#2500
It's a F2P game. They have all the fixed costs of servers, designers for each new season, etc. That $400k has to cover all that as well.
I dunno.
And you know what? You don't know either. You're making **** up. Seriously, "between 25K and 100K"? What kind of numbers are those? And 1/5 of the player base buying it...an estimate based on what? The pure wishes of a photonic fairy?
Seriously, trying to figure out if PWE is making fat lewt or a fair profit off of any particular Z-Store sale is pointless if you don't have the actual numbers to argue from. Find those, *then* you can start arguing how they're ripping you off. Until then, I'll go with the theory that they're making a decent enough profit, but probably aren't ripping us off by selling a product we don't actually need to play the game.
If they believed they'd earn more money by selling the ships as singular units, they would have. They've sold enough ships at this point that their metrics have no doubt found these $50 packs to be their biggest way of increasing their margins.
It's half correct, because anyone who thinks you don't invest in a profitable endeavor to increase returns is so completely ignorant to how business works its not even funny,
Bottom line, if STO is turning a good profit, PWE will invest to expand that profit. Especially in their flagship title in the western market. Cryptic is hiring, do this isn't a difficult concept to grasp.
What will $50 buy?
- 2 cases of beer
- 3 months of WoW, Eve, Rift etc
- Take out dinner for 2, night at he movies
- Et Cetera.
Point being, $50 dollars isn't a whole lot to drop on a leisure activity.
Stop making sense. It confuses people, and makes them hostile. :P
I asked the sales manager if he thought everybody was loaded with lots of money, advised him that we are not and told him to lower the price in order to make it more affordable.
Approximately 45 seconds later the security guard threw me off the lot, I wonder why that happened?
And what is this data based on?
I bought the Armitage, the Thunderchild and the Escort Refit with the Dilithium Exchange only.
in this game unlike the others, you can have evertything without spending money, even if it is more challenging.
If you change the Material to something other than the "Vesta" option you can get the standard colors, though you'll lose the custom saucer/hull pattern (which is what you want anyway if I read you correctly, so it shouldn't matter).
This, essentially. If you haven't got the money, odds are you've got the time to invest instead, since jobs you know... give you money? Then it's just down to how much you're willing to part with to enhance your fun time.
It's pretty awesome that there's almost nothing in this game that can't be had for free, vet rewards not withstanding.
Your example is not realistic. You can't compare a boxed game from 2010. The STO from 2010 to now, are two completely different games and the available content like Christmas events and the like still cost money to produce and make. It's like me saying freelancer
only cost me x dollars but two years down the track it's the same game. Unlike Sto with new episodes, new content, new items, new ships. Do you not think this comes from no where?