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putting pressure on dili/zen exchange wont stimulate real money purchases - why?
davideight
Member Posts: 458 Arc User
lets make an example of how I funded my puchases in this game and why.
i, so far, have always been able to have around 2k zen whenever a ship came out - because i wanted it the time it came out - i spent 10 realmoney to get the rest zen.
due to recent upgradesystem dili sink and upcoming reward changes and difficulty raises in stfs and dili-rewarding missions, my zen stay around zero.
now, a ship comes out, will i buy a SHIP for 30 now? i can say. i wont. cause thats 30 thats basically woth 2months of subscription based games we wont name here. a ship never lasts THIS LONG.
basically all cstore prices were justified by the fact, that we were able to "sub-fund" it via playing the game. so a ship turned out to cost around 10 (some managed to buy them completely, others may bought it fullprice)
so in the end, no pressure you will put upon the game rewards, it wont ever stimulate purchases.
the game is just not:
lasting enough (so a ship i buy for 30 isnt even fun one week until the next is released!)
and GOOD enough in quality.
basically this financing model is gonna fail if you keep that way.
going down that road will reveal one thing to you pw:
the store prices will be MUCH TO HIGH for the fact we have to completely fund it withrealmoney.
cut prices 1/4 of now, and everything will be fine again.
cause you know: having no purchases of 30 is worse than having 100k purchases of 10 for a ship ,-)
i, so far, have always been able to have around 2k zen whenever a ship came out - because i wanted it the time it came out - i spent 10 realmoney to get the rest zen.
due to recent upgradesystem dili sink and upcoming reward changes and difficulty raises in stfs and dili-rewarding missions, my zen stay around zero.
now, a ship comes out, will i buy a SHIP for 30 now? i can say. i wont. cause thats 30 thats basically woth 2months of subscription based games we wont name here. a ship never lasts THIS LONG.
basically all cstore prices were justified by the fact, that we were able to "sub-fund" it via playing the game. so a ship turned out to cost around 10 (some managed to buy them completely, others may bought it fullprice)
so in the end, no pressure you will put upon the game rewards, it wont ever stimulate purchases.
the game is just not:
lasting enough (so a ship i buy for 30 isnt even fun one week until the next is released!)
and GOOD enough in quality.
basically this financing model is gonna fail if you keep that way.
going down that road will reveal one thing to you pw:
the store prices will be MUCH TO HIGH for the fact we have to completely fund it withrealmoney.
cut prices 1/4 of now, and everything will be fine again.
cause you know: having no purchases of 30 is worse than having 100k purchases of 10 for a ship ,-)
Post edited by davideight on
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if i can have 100kthousand times 10 sales or nearly none for 30 i would choose the first. especially if i sel la virtual ware, that has only ONE TIME production costs. selling to many many for few euros is better than selling to VERY few for the triple price.
thats why i dont get cryptics logic.
if i only have a product thats "real" and i only have one, id certainly sell as high as possible- like i dont know, virginity ^^
but in a virtual world this logic doesnt relate.
the product is virtual, is produced one time and can be sold UNLIMITED TIMES (or here: once per account) and doesnt raise costs this way. so i dont get it.
before i sell some of the products to lets say 10k people for 30 or selling it to 100k people for 10, id say math is clear whats the better option.
thats what i dont get at pw ...
why is sellign a virtual product with one time only costs to very few for 30 better than selling it to everyone for 10 ...
im no buisnessman, but i just dont get it. its totally a-economic or how i could name that. its more irrational than i ever thought "capitalism" could be.
basically i cannot see anyone willing to spend 2 months of subscription money to ONE DAMN ITEM.
30 for one ship is and always WAS to much. it was only justified because we could fund 20 via dili/zen.
unless america is full of 500mio dollar year income people playing startrek. i really doubt that. i think pw ignores "breakpoints" to when a purchase is just to high in numbers to be even considered!
i predict that people will stop playing and switch over playin 2 months of wow for those 30 ,-)
also you and pw assume: that people have unlimited money to spend. if thing get harder to get, people wont spend more, cause they dont HAVE MORE, they just buy less items for the same money.
also the overall gameplay becomes so pressured, noone enjoys gaming anymore - which leads to less players and less purchases.
sry but your and pw logic is wrong because its shortcutting parts of the reality.
no they dont spend 50dolalrs. they spend 10 dollars and 4k zen they played for. thats the point.
cryptic only sees that those things are getting purchased, not "how".
in the future people will tend to buy the single variants, because they have to pay the full amount rather than having 4k ready zen and 1k zen of real money. thats the whole point!
you will see that pw is totally wrong how people buy things.
there may be a minority of players willign to spend 200 and more. but those actually dont fund the game. the games funding lies in the many purchases of the masses.
many that pay 10 to get to that 3k or 5k bundle. if they are pressured into paying 30 or 50 they will maybe buy it. but overall they wont spend more per year, cause they will just buy LESS ships for 30 than before when they bought 3 ships for 3x10 +6k spare zen.
thats the whole point you are missing.
going the way that many puchase many items for less is clearly more economic, esp in virtual selling environments.
thats basically what captialism is: selling much for few price to many. the only thing in reallife thats countering that is raw materials are limited in real goods. in vuirtual goods capitalism actually can work:
produce as much as possible, lower price per item, sell as much items as possible.
heck where did you learn economics?
Remember - that Zen? The Zen you exchanged your Dil for? Someone had to buy it. Which means every zen you spend, whether it came from your dollars or your playing, is money for Cryptic.
...ok, yes, some portion of the zen is from Lifers' stipend. But are there really so many Lifers that it would account for most of the zen in the exchange? (And anyway - Lifers spent money as well, so that zen still represents cash for Cryptic.)
The truth is we do not know how many people buy Bundles compared to opening Lockboxes. If I were to hazard a guess I would say there are probably far more people spending $50.00 on Lockboxes rather then Bundles, though. People will not think twice about dropping $10.00 a week on Keys because they do not really register that as $40.00 - $50.00 per month in their minds. And that is the same in a lot of games. Between myself and my children I know I spent close to $100.00 on Shadow Acolyte Packs in SWTOR this month.
At the end of the day whether you grind Zen or buy Zen 99% of it comes from someone buying it. You are lucky if it is not you, but if you buy 1,000 Zen and use 4,000 of someone else's Cryptic still made the $50.00 from the players.
Faulty Logic here... If C-Store items could be sold like hotcakes, then the above assumptions would be true. However, nearly all of the C-Store items are not consumables, but instead, are one-time account bound purchases. Because of this, dropping the price of C-Store items will not result in a long term increase in sales, as once a item is purchased for an account, there is no longer any need for further purchases...
(That is, unless your proposing that all C-Store purchases become character bound instead of Account bound, which would generate increased demand for C-Store items...)
You forgot about $0. $0 is a possible outcome if you drive away customers.
I was Klingon before Klingon was cool.
You and I belive that becouse that is how we manage our acounts. We can not be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that it is true though. What we see gives us reason to believe it is so. The release of the equipment up-grade system back in August is one example. It came just in time to keep the dil/zen conversion from getting too high for some farmers. It is most probable to us that crypric wanted to save the whale-farmer dynamic, but it could be something else we did not think of. Point is we realy don't do for sure.
I was Klingon before Klingon was cool.
Just because I have over 70,000 Zen does not mean someone did not pay for it. It was just not me who paid for it. The grinders need to understand that it is not free Zen. It is simply free to them. Someone paid for most of it. If the people who buy Zen stop doing so then the people who grind for Zen will not have any available to trade. It is a symbiotic system that needs spenders and grinders to both be involved, otherwise it does not work.
Cryptic's job is to make money each month. They do that by making some people want to buy Zen. What they do with the Zen beyond that is their own business.
Where in the world did you figure U.S. capitalism works in this fashion?
Supply and demand is our motto, meaning the more you want, the more I will demand for supplying it.
In other words, capitalistic goal, is to achieve as much money quickly, while demand remains high/steady, than only than shall you reduce prices to increase/steady lowering demands, once demands are steadied/increased, so too must the cost of demanded product.
This has always been a greed filled motto IMO but, it seems to be what certain people prefer and, what people are willing to abide by even if they are brainwashed into believing this is what's best.
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I'd rather earn $10x4 than $30x1.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
Not at all. Since you are talking economics, don't forget the elasticity of demand. I'd be very interested in seeing Cryptic's EoD for various items.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
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