Kalibri.5861 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @PopeUrban.2578 said: > > @Ohoni.6057 said: > > > @Kalibri.5861 said: > > > > @Ohoni.6057 said: > > > > > @Ellisande.5218 said: > > > > > I don't find the living world content to be worth the cost of having content lacking paid expansions and having all the visual content be in the cash shop. > > > > > > > > > > I'd much rather just have content rich paid expansions and no living world, especially since imo the living world content is poor and using the money from the paid expansions to also fund the living world content guarantees that the paid expansions are always going to be poor. > > > > > > > > It's not an "either/or" situation. The teams working on Living World would not be working on making armor skins for drops. I'm much rather have living world than having more Outfits I'd never use available as drops. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I maintain that ArenaNet needs to communicate with their players much better than they currently do regarding the gem shop. They could streamline their efforts so much and very likely make more money if they'd create designs, get feedback, and produce things players actually want. > > > > I can definitely agree on that. Rather than just making whatever and throwing it up at whatever price and just accepting the result, they could get a lot more out of a two-way conversation, giving players options to help decide what gets more attention, what methods of distribution we want. Instead of "not apologizing," they could ASK FIRST. > > > > "Do you want us to release 30 mount skins in a gamble box?" > > "No thank you." > > "Ok, we can do something better then." > > > > That is SO much easier than issuing refunds. > > If the goal was to offer things aimed at the majority of the community, they would be focusing on increasing the value of the base packages that all players have access to my making their content and rewards diverse enough to hit a wide range of player desires. > > The goal is not to do that. The goal is to create a massive number of diverse options at a lower individual customer value to more effectively monetize people with more money to spend and create a system of cosmetic haves and have nots that turn those that buy them in to marketing tools for those that do not. That's how microtransactions work. You withhold things you think players want so that they have to buy them rather than allowing the entire player base to earn them with equal effort, skill, or time, through gameplay even though they all have an identical financial investment. if you're really good at it you create a conversion market for player labor to microtransaction dollars so that people buying tradable microtransactions with ingame effort are actually generating even more money by effectively making those items cost the total user base more by taxing the gold/gems conversion both ways. > > Then you call it a "player choice" even though the only players that actually have a choice to make are those willing to pull out a credit card, or spend time farming gold to pay another player who doesn't have to put up with the same grind because their credit card dollars are worth more than your fun. The only player choice is either to pull out a credit card or suffer a grind that the customers they're actually targeting don't have to. > > Either pay more, or get less for your time, skill, or effort, that's the goal of microtransactions. > > They're there to make the game more fun for people that pay more, and less fun for people that pay less, to encourage them to pay more. Pope, I personally feel like microtransactions generally are fine. If they continue to support a game we love, and the people who make it, then great. But what matters is the quality of the product, and in this particular case, the method of delivering it. If you make a crappy product and force it down people's throats via a gambling system, then you're going to get backlash and unhappy players both based on the product that they got (which wasn't what they wanted) and also the fact that they feel cheated. Do microtransactions! Support the game! But price them reasonably in an equitable, honest system, and produce quality content which you know people want. You may not make as much money as you would by cheating your customers, because some of those customers have mental and emotional tendencies to addiction beyond reason, but in the end you'll be wasting less, you'll have (in many ways) a healthier and more satisfied community, and you'll probably still be raking in the dough. Edit: Just to be clear, I understood your post to be a description of the fundamentals of microtransactions, but my point is that we can have a microtransaction system that incorporates the will of the community (or at least popular feedback) and produce gem store content that is backed by market research so that ArenaNet doesn't waste development time on things which may not sell, and so players don't have to wait for content they enjoy to come along. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tekoneiric.6817 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @Kalibri.5861 said: > Pope, I personally feel like microtransactions generally are fine. If they continue to support a game we love, and the people who make it, then great. But what matters is the quality of the product, and in this particular case, the method of delivering it. If you make a crappy product and force it down people's throats via a gambling system, then you're going to get backlash and unhappy players both based on the product that they got (which wasn't what they wanted) and also the fact that they feel cheated. > > Do microtransactions! Support the game! But price them reasonably in an equitable, honest system, and produce quality content which you know people want. You may not make as much money as you would by cheating your customers, because some of those customers have mental and emotional tendencies to addiction beyond reason, but in the end you'll be wasting less, you'll have (in many ways) a healthier and more satisfied community, and you'll probably still be raking in the dough. Define micro-transactions? Is filling up your vehicle with gas a micro-transaction? How about the cost of going out to eat or the cost of a new HDMI monitor? That is about how much those skins are in real world money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalibri.5861 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @Tekoneiric.6817 said: > > @Kalibri.5861 said: > > > Pope, I personally feel like microtransactions generally are fine. If they continue to support a game we love, and the people who make it, then great. But what matters is the quality of the product, and in this particular case, the method of delivering it. If you make a crappy product and force it down people's throats via a gambling system, then you're going to get backlash and unhappy players both based on the product that they got (which wasn't what they wanted) and also the fact that they feel cheated. > > > > Do microtransactions! Support the game! But price them reasonably in an equitable, honest system, and produce quality content which you know people want. You may not make as much money as you would by cheating your customers, because some of those customers have mental and emotional tendencies to addiction beyond reason, but in the end you'll be wasting less, you'll have (in many ways) a healthier and more satisfied community, and you'll probably still be raking in the dough. > > Define micro-transactions? Is filling up your vehicle with gas a micro-transaction? How about the cost of going out to eat or the cost of a new HDMI monitor? That is about how much those skins are in real world money. > Sorry, I don't understand your point. Microtransactions are related to video game production. PopeUrban described them fairly well. What are you getting at? Edit: Oh, I think I get it. Because they're not cheap enough to be 'micro'? Sure, but they could be micro if they were reasonably priced, which I did say. If we didn't have to deal with the gambling system which I'm fundamentally against and you could purchase only the content you want for 400-800 gems, then it would be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tekoneiric.6817 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @Kalibri.5861 said: > > @Tekoneiric.6817 said: > > Define micro-transactions? Is filling up your vehicle with gas a micro-transaction? How about the cost of going out to eat or the cost of a new HDMI monitor? That is about how much those skins are in real world money. > > > > Sorry, I don't understand your point. Microtransactions are related to video game production. PopeUrban described them fairly well. What are you getting at? The point is that the term micro-transaction is a way of glossing over paying a lot of money for something that holds little real value. I'm all for supporting the game but $25 for a skin is way overpriced. Forcing players to spend $120 for a years worth of skins so they don't have to gamble that they might get the skin they want is way overpriced. $5 for a skin is fine and $10 for a high quality skin is fine. Of course that depends on the player being able to choose what they purchase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalibri.5861 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 Completely agreed, Teko. =) Just saying there's a better way to get there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devata.6589 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @Tekoneiric.6817 said: > > @Kalibri.5861 said: > > > Pope, I personally feel like microtransactions generally are fine. If they continue to support a game we love, and the people who make it, then great. But what matters is the quality of the product, and in this particular case, the method of delivering it. If you make a crappy product and force it down people's throats via a gambling system, then you're going to get backlash and unhappy players both based on the product that they got (which wasn't what they wanted) and also the fact that they feel cheated. > > > > Do microtransactions! Support the game! But price them reasonably in an equitable, honest system, and produce quality content which you know people want. You may not make as much money as you would by cheating your customers, because some of those customers have mental and emotional tendencies to addiction beyond reason, but in the end you'll be wasting less, you'll have (in many ways) a healthier and more satisfied community, and you'll probably still be raking in the dough. > > Define micro-transactions? Is filling up your vehicle with gas a micro-transaction? How about the cost of going out to eat or the cost of a new HDMI monitor? That is about how much those skins are in real world money. > While I am against micro-transaction in general (with the exception of a few services like additional characters) even if it cost 1 cent. I am also always surprised about the prices and how people justify those to them-self. I have my own ideas about that but will keep that to myself. Anyway, you do a great job at putting these prices into perspective. The 2000 gems for one mount is about 30 Euro / Dollar. I have had really nice dinners for that money. And the complete pack cost 120 Euro / Dollar what will indeed buy you a average HDMI monitor. The story of course is always that the artist put a lot of work into it, but even with then the value is really low because onces it's created you can copy it as much as you like. Compare that to the money of the monitor that is gone from the company that sold it to you, all the materials used for it are gone. If you would want to put a 'true' value to a skin it really are cents. This is also why investors love cash-shops. It reduces the overall risk. When the product / game would be failing, you could just keep a few artist who would put out some skins and still get some good money out of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohoni.6057 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 I think it would do ANet some good to try and "budget" their games a bit. Make up some "virtual players," one F2P, whole whale, and one C2P. Make a player with a budget somewhere under $100 per year, and plan out their releases with the idea in mind "can this player achieve a reasonable amount of gem-store goals within a given year?" In 2017, they would have failed that test. $100 would not be enough to get both Path of Fire AND guarantee the mount skin a player might reasonably want. That would cost $150 or more. They can put plenty in for the whales, but they also need to give reasonable options for players wiling to invest in their product, but unwilling to whale-out. They failed that this time. They can do better, and need to do better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devata.6589 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @"Zoltar MacRoth.7146" said: > Personally, I'm intrigued by the discussions that must have gone into this marketing tactic before it was implemented. Of course, we'll never know what they are. But I can't help wondering, how more/less profitable would it have been if they instead released individual skins at 700 AND an rng pack for each mount where the skins are 500 each AND the 30-pack where the skins are 400 each? That would provide for those who want to buy specific, those who wants specific kind of mount but don't mind a gamble to save some money and those that love a big gamble, all at the same time. OR... if they had released five skins each week, one for each mount type, over a period of six weeks to maintain the interest? There are any number of marketing strategies that COULD have been used. I'm just curious how they arrived at this one, and whether it will pan out as they expected. But of course, there are some mysteries that we'll never know the answers to. The exact discussion we will never know, but the overall trend is clear. The game got released, cash-shop was there but compared to now minimal. Income dropped because in-between expansion. So they decided to put some more stuff into the cash-shop (drop the idea of expansions) because the introduction of the cash-shop in GW1 also made for a nice surge in income. The game always gets a negative effect of it, so people and so income drops overtime after the initial surge. So they decide to implement yet another thing (items or tactic) to the cash-shop to get more money. and again it works, it generates another spike of income but a decline over-time. This circle repeats and repeats. With the releases of PoF they figured they could add "Pieces of Unidentified Gear." to generate more money. Then income out of PoF was possible also worse then they hoped for so again they needed a new way to get another income-spike and this idea came up. And again with success, they managed to get another spike (while many people complain, it made them some good money). Meanwhile more people left, so income after the spike will decreases even more meaning that eventually they will try to do a similar (new) cash-shop-trick again. Now this thing did blow up a little more then they hoped, so the next time whatever they do will likely be a little more sneaky. Meanwhile they try to minimize the damage with this statement as if they did it because it basically is what we asked for "You’ve requested variety, and this is a way to support variety.". Personally I asked specifically to get them in the game https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/167063#Comment_167063 "Mounts that I can catch in the open world, or breed, or create with a craft." before they ever came with those boxes. In fact I mentioned this long before there was ever talk about mounts. So it's cherry picking in a way to do some damage-control as if they did it for us, but they did it to create another surge in gem-sales. not more not less. Making a long story short. They likely talked about how to create more money after having seen income drop. And they have likely had similar talks many times before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopeUrban.2578 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @Ohoni.6057 said: > I think it would do ANet some good to try and "budget" their games a bit. Make up some "virtual players," one F2P, whole whale, and one C2P. Make a player with a budget somewhere under $100 per year, and plan out their releases with the idea in mind "can this player achieve a reasonable amount of gem-store goals within a given year?" > > In 2017, they would have failed that test. $100 would not be enough to get both Path of Fire AND guarantee the mount skin a player might reasonably want. That would cost $150 or more. They can put plenty in for the whales, but they also need to give reasonable options for players wiling to invest in their product, but unwilling to whale-out. They failed that this time. They can do better, and need to do better. It is my personal opinion that Anet's original business model, with less frequent free updates, a very substantial core game package, and a very small number of microtransactions that were largely convenience and QOL is an objectively more customer friendly model. Bank tabs, inventory slots, character slots, additional transmutes and the like are just a better way to run a microtransaction shop because they do not inherently devalue the core experience. I would prefer to buy expansions more often that utilized the art budget and staff currently being used to pump out gem store items with alarming frequency (which is its own team, that works separately from all content teams as far as I know) to add value to those expansions. The idea that a box sale game needs to be monetized to stay live for years is true, but the idea that we need to sell microtransactions, have free content updates AND sell the user boxed expansions is just a system that creates a lower value product all around. You're devaluing the expansions because of the free updates. You're increasing the price point of the gem store to pay for those free updates at the cost of player satisfaction. In the end the player isn't getting a better deal at all. Even the player that literally never buys or trades for a single gem store item is getting an intentionally compromised experience. its not an accident that PoF released with no mount skins, or that hoT released with no glider skins. It was intentional and done specifically to drive gem store sales under the dubious logic that it is necessary to pay for free updates. This reasoning, even taken at face value, falls short. You're already expecting the player to buy things to continue to get new content as part of the buy to play model. Why is it necessary to trim down expansions, make enough microtransaction nonsense to have new things up twice a month, and push scheduled free updates? Why is it necessary to intentionally make short lived content with limited reward value so that you can keep a rapid development schedule for free updates every other month? I don't want a series of $40 expansions that feel like they're worth $40 and to spend an additional 20 dollars on a single skin because the skin is optional. I'd like to buy a $60 expansion that feels like its worth $60 and not be advertised at every two weeks with new items that I can not earn without pulling out my wallet or paying someone else to pull out theirs by playing repetitive content specifically to earn currency. Currently Arenanet isn't focused on making the best game possible. Their primary business is not making and selling a game and content for that game. Their primary business is making and selling skins while making the minimum amount of content required to drive logins. Charge us more, and charge us more frequently if you need more money, but charge us for a video game and not bits and pieces of a video game devoid of context and set at completely arbitrary price points so high most of us couldn't afford everything we wanted even if we were willing to pay your for it. This isn't a moral judgement. It's simple a statement of what I, as a consumer of your product, would consider a better value for my money. I don't log in and repeat your content because there's no intrinsic reward model for doing so. There are precious few long term goals that don't in some way involve your gem store. You've made an MMO with bad, boring loot, bad, boring quest rewards, and in so doing have created a game in a genre designed around replayability that is scarcely replayable. I don't want to buy most of your skins because I question what I would do with them once I have them. How long would I enjoy my purchase when there's so little to keep me actually playing the game? Why would I spend 20 dollars for a mount skin when I'm only going to find the game fun when I'm earning other stuff, and there's so little to earn? Why would I want to opt in to becoming a paid laborer for your officially sanctioned gold farming service so you can effectively monetize me as a gold farmer for another player? The gold farming is less fun simply because you've sold me less game to farm in specifically so you can sell the guy I'm farming for things. You didn't make the game for me, the guy playing the game. You made it for him, the guy avoiding playing the game by whipping out a credit card. Initially I supported Anet's microtransaction, but what it has become over time has caused me to rethink that support. The initial plan of buy once play forever was tossed aside, but the monetization scheme that was supposed to support that plan was not only left in place, it was accelerated and laid ON TOP of a paid expansion model. My honest assessment of Anet, at this point, is a company that I feel used to place the player first and creatively figure out how to monetize while doing so back in the GW1 and GW2 release era has become a company that places monetization first and creatively tries to figure out how to make the players tolerate ever more agressive monetization. Selling good games just don't seem to be Arenanet's priority any more, and that makes me sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohoni.6057 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @PopeUrban.2578 said: > It is my personal opinion that Anet's original business model, with less frequent free updates, a very substantial core game package, and a very small number of microtransactions that were largely convenience and QOL is an objectively more customer friendly model. Bank tabs, inventory slots, character slots, additional transmutes and the like are just a better way to run a microtransaction shop because they do not inherently devalue the core experience. In theory, but it's inherently short term. Players need more bank tabs, until they don't. Players need more character slots, until they don't. There will always be extreme outliers who have dozens of characters and hoard everything in massive stacks (I'm a bit of a hoarder myself, but nowhere near what I've seen from time to time), but the average player will end up needing more than what the game offers for free, but not an infinite amount of any of these things. I imagine most players are fine with fewer than two character slots per class, or with less than the max number of bank slots. Most players will just get "just enough," and then be at a settled state. If you build your game on providing these staple services, and they are each a one-time, permanent purchase, then this is a resource that will max out relatively quickly, and at most trickle after that. Skins and the such are at least slightly better, in that a new skin will catch attention and players will replace the old with the new. I'm fairly contented with what I have, so it now takes me a much nicer looking item to pique my interests, but it still happens from time to time. I would have gotten one of those brooms if it din't have the cat on it, even though I'm not gliding as much now that I've got a Griffon, and when I do I already have several quite nice gliders. Even that system has significant diminishing returns. Mounts being the new frontier, the thing nobody had yet, so nobody had "settled in" with a favorite yet. >I would prefer to buy expansions more often that utilized the art budget and staff currently being used to pump out gem store items with alarming frequency (which is its own team, that works separately from all content teams as far as I know) to add value to those expansions. I don't believe that this is viable. I can't speak for the talent that they have, but it's likely that to some degree they specialize, that the ones making armor skins are best suited to that task, character-based modelling. They might be ill-suited to things like terrain, or even more likely to enemies, story, etc. It's possible they could fire or retrain people to reduce staff in skin-production and raise it in environmental/story/animation/combat/etc. areas, but that would be a rather significant shift. Without that, I doubt they could produce significantly more maps, story missions, unique enemies, etc. than they already do, so if they were pressured to pump them out then they would likely be lackluster re-purposed content, just cobbled together from generic bits, like the Griffon library mission. I doubt they really could keep up a pace of paid expansions that would be sufficient, so it'd be more likely that they would just have to charge more for the content they do release, like charging once for PoF and a second time to access LWs4 content, rather than bundling the two. You might get more unique drops, if they shifted the people making Gem Store skins to making dropped skins, but it would be in the same amount of content and you'd be paying for it. And of course the more frequent the updates, the more you split the community, because there are F2P people, and people who could afford a $50 purchase every couple years, but less if it's annual, or semi-annual. People would be more likely to skip updates if they don't seem as compelling, which means that the populations in these new maps would be lower, making them less fun for everyone who is playing them. >its not an accident that PoF released with no mount skins, or that hoT released with no glider skins. It was intentional and done specifically to drive gem store sales under the dubious logic that it is necessary to pay for free updates. Yeah, but I was fine with that, up to a point. I was fine with having gliders in the gem store. I do think it was a little weak that the so-called "Legendary" gliders are a bit pale in comparision to the gem store options, I think they could stand to jazz them up a bit, and I expect there to be at least some mount skins released in content over the next year or so, just not at launch, and certainly not a massive variety. But I was fine with them just giving the functionality of the mounts themselves, and would have been totally fine with them dumping these thirty skins on the gem store too, I would have bought a half dozen or so, IF they were fairly priced and available as direct purchases. I was fully expecting them to have mounts like the "basic" type ones, but I expected them at a 100-250 pricepoint, a near-"giveaway" just to tempt people to open their wallets who might balk at a higher priced option. Then the rest that we've seen at more of a 600-800 range, which I think would be fair for what we get there. But the gamblebox mechanism was completely unnecessary and unforgivable. >This reasoning, even taken at face value, falls short. You're already expecting the player to buy things to continue to get new content as part of the buy to play model. Why is it necessary to trim down expansions, make enough microtransaction nonsense to have new things up twice a month, and push scheduled free updates? It relies on unequal distribution. Check my thread about how players interact with the gem store. Some seem to be massive whales, some guppies. Fair enough, that's how it works. It's based on people with plenty of money (or time to earn gold) to be able to get a lot of stuff, while still allowing poor (or time-poor) players to PLAY the game. So long as it's running in balance, I believe it works out for the majority of players better than any system that *requires* them to pay to keep up with new content. The new system just had a poor balance to it. >Currently Arenanet isn't focused on making the best game possible. Their primary business is not making and selling a game and content for that game. Their primary business is making and selling skins while making the minimum amount of content required to drive logins. Cynical as I am, I don't believe this is true. At least not at the ground level. I believe that the team is making the best game content that they can. I think that the mounts are great, the new maps are great, the new specs are. . . in there. I think the story was a ton of fun and didn't expect more than it offered, and I expect LWs4 to be good too. They pack a lot into the game, and I feel that I got my money's worth (well, if I'd bought the standard edition, I got the delux and that was a bit of a rip-off from a practical standpoint). >Initially I supported Anet's microtransaction, but what it has become over time has caused me to rethink that support. The initial plan of buy once play forever was tossed aside, but the monetization scheme that was supposed to support that plan was not only left in place, it was accelerated and laid ON TOP of a paid expansion model. Still, "buy once and play for three years" is still a damned fine deal, and better than most games feasibly offer. Then with the expansions "keep playing what you've got, or buy again and get another two years of solid content." It's still a bargain compared to most products out there. >My honest assessment of Anet, at this point, is a company that I feel used to place the player first and creatively figure out how to monetize while doing so back in the GW1 and GW2 release era has become a company that places monetization first and creatively tries to figure out how to make the players tolerate ever more agressive monetization. >Selling good games just don't seem to be Arenanet's priority any more, and that makes me sad. Well, I still have faith that they will make this right. I have faith that they will figure out a way to distribute these thirty skins in a non-RNG manner.If that turns out to not be the case, if you turn out to be right, then so be it, there are plenty of other games I haven't had the time to pursue. But I have faith that they haven't given up on us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopeUrban.2578 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 I'm not talking about retasking character artists to do environment. I'm saying i would have happily paid 60 dollars for PoF, with exactly as much playable area, events, etc. for 60 bucks if all the work that was put in to gem store weapons and outfits was in stead put in to weapons and outfits sourced to the player by playing that content. E.G. unique drops for the new bounty system, karma buys for mount skins at the heart vendors, more collections utilizing the existing content, etc. Anet used to be very good about this in GW1, retasking content for multiple purposes in terms of title tracks, unique boss drops, area-specific drops, etc. that created replay value in all the content on offer because of the diversity of rewards. And they still sold the occasional outfit as a microtransaction, its just that those items were a minority of content. While player patterns are different, I think most of us can agree that the point of rewards in PvE in GW2 for players in a second expansion revolve around "what new skins can I get and what content must I play to get them?" and that's the problem. The vast majority of what players are meant to value as rewards are sourced from the gem store, and the game itself is devalued both literally and figuratively as a result. So too are there avenues to create repeat incentive to purchase qol microtransactions without devaluing gameplay. For instance, you could remove transmutation charges as an earnable reward, in stead making them gem store only. This retains the nature of earning both the item and skin you want to transmute together, gives you a clear incentive to spend gems in order to get the transmutes, but does so without holding the thing players desire most, the skin itself, behind a pay wall. Other stuff like additional crafting licenses (if you keep adding crafting discs, you keep increasing the need to buy them) and similar qol features could work in harmony with, rather than to the detriment of the core reward systems. Players obviously value these rewards. That's why they sell them. I'm saying adding that value to the single price product and distributing the cost of developing it, even at the price of selling the LS as a "season pass" DLC with similarly increased unique rewards would be preferable to reward-anemic expansions and reward-anemic LS updates because the entire player base would be on even footing and they could STILL toss a few particle laden mount skins on the cash shop at 800 gems a pop. The difference would be that the majority of rewards would be had from playing the game, rather than the gem store, and thus it would make sense as a value proposition to charge more for the game itself. That's not currently what they're doing. They are disproportionately monetizing the player base to an extreme degree and creating a lesser value product for the majority of the player base as a result. That makes them more money almost certainly, but it doesn't make a better game, and I seriously doubt funding actual development work on this game is the driver of this perceived need for additional profit at a business plan level. I'm not saying Anet doesn't care about making a quality game. I'm saying that it seems that over time it has dropped to #2 on their list of priorities, behind monetizing the player base, where at one time in history it seemed to be at the top of that list. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohoni.6057 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @PopeUrban.2578 said: > I'm saying i would have happily paid 60 dollars for PoF, with exactly as much playable area, events, etc. for 60 bucks if all the work that was put in to gem store weapons and outfits was in stead put in to weapons and outfits sourced to the player by playing that content. E.G. unique drops for the new bounty system, karma buys for mount skins at the heart vendors, more collections utilizing the existing content, etc. I don't think that a $60 box would have covered any of that stuff. They had a $60 box. I bought that, and more. What do you get for that? A garbage Outfit, access to the Lily of Elon (which is mainly useful for ferrying characters over to PoF slightly faster than other available methods), a spare character slot (which I still haven't filled), and a few gem store trinkets. Certainly no dozens of Gem Store skins and mount skins. I do not believe that an additional $30 per customer would justify all the content they put out on the gem store. I'm not sure that $90 per customer would, and that's assuming the same number of customers, which would not happen. The more they charged, the fewer people would buy it, which means not only diminishing returns on revenues, but also less people in the new content, making it less fun for everyone else. On the one hand, you could offer something like "play PoF for $30, OR play with a "special drop buff active" for $60," which would allow you to receive special unique drops that only those people could get, but then you brush up against the "paying extra for actual game content" thing, which people tend to get offended by even more than the Gem Store. It's a sticky territory. I don't doubt that you want what you want, I'm just skeptical that they could afford to provide what you want for what you think it should cost, or that even if they could, the majority of players would be happy with that option. I was semi-sarcastic with my "Treat yo Self" proposal, but maybe it would have some sort of merit if handled the right way. For you specifically, what if you could give ANet $30, on top of PoF's cost, and select a "wishlist" of items you like on the Gem Store, and then those items would be put in a randomized queue of some sort, and then at various points along your "journey" through the game, as certain quest rewards, rare drops, etc., these items would drop into your inventory? Would that be interesting to you? I guarantee that this would not suit everyone, and alternatives should be available, but it might suit some people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devata.6589 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @PopeUrban.2578 said: > > @Ohoni.6057 said: > > I think it would do ANet some good to try and "budget" their games a bit. Make up some "virtual players," one F2P, whole whale, and one C2P. Make a player with a budget somewhere under $100 per year, and plan out their releases with the idea in mind "can this player achieve a reasonable amount of gem-store goals within a given year?" > > > > In 2017, they would have failed that test. $100 would not be enough to get both Path of Fire AND guarantee the mount skin a player might reasonably want. That would cost $150 or more. They can put plenty in for the whales, but they also need to give reasonable options for players wiling to invest in their product, but unwilling to whale-out. They failed that this time. They can do better, and need to do better. > > It is my personal opinion that Anet's original business model, with less frequent free updates, a very substantial core game package, and a very small number of microtransactions that were largely convenience and QOL is an objectively more customer friendly model. Bank tabs, inventory slots, character slots, additional transmutes and the like are just a better way to run a microtransaction shop because they do not inherently devalue the core experience. > > I would prefer to buy expansions more often that utilized the art budget and staff currently being used to pump out gem store items with alarming frequency (which is its own team, that works separately from all content teams as far as I know) to add value to those expansions. > > The idea that a box sale game needs to be monetized to stay live for years is true, but the idea that we need to sell microtransactions, have free content updates AND sell the user boxed expansions is just a system that creates a lower value product all around. You're devaluing the expansions because of the free updates. You're increasing the price point of the gem store to pay for those free updates at the cost of player satisfaction. In the end the player isn't getting a better deal at all. Even the player that literally never buys or trades for a single gem store item is getting an intentionally compromised experience. its not an accident that PoF released with no mount skins, or that hoT released with no glider skins. It was intentional and done specifically to drive gem store sales under the dubious logic that it is necessary to pay for free updates. > > This reasoning, even taken at face value, falls short. You're already expecting the player to buy things to continue to get new content as part of the buy to play model. Why is it necessary to trim down expansions, make enough microtransaction nonsense to have new things up twice a month, and push scheduled free updates? > > Why is it necessary to intentionally make short lived content with limited reward value so that you can keep a rapid development schedule for free updates every other month? > > I don't want a series of $40 expansions that feel like they're worth $40 and to spend an additional 20 dollars on a single skin because the skin is optional. I'd like to buy a $60 expansion that feels like its worth $60 and not be advertised at every two weeks with new items that I can not earn without pulling out my wallet or paying someone else to pull out theirs by playing repetitive content specifically to earn currency. > > Currently Arenanet isn't focused on making the best game possible. Their primary business is not making and selling a game and content for that game. Their primary business is making and selling skins while making the minimum amount of content required to drive logins. > > Charge us more, and charge us more frequently if you need more money, but charge us for a video game and not bits and pieces of a video game devoid of context and set at completely arbitrary price points so high most of us couldn't afford everything we wanted even if we were willing to pay your for it. This isn't a moral judgement. It's simple a statement of what I, as a consumer of your product, would consider a better value for my money. I don't log in and repeat your content because there's no intrinsic reward model for doing so. There are precious few long term goals that don't in some way involve your gem store. You've made an MMO with bad, boring loot, bad, boring quest rewards, and in so doing have created a game in a genre designed around replayability that is scarcely replayable. > > I don't want to buy most of your skins because I question what I would do with them once I have them. How long would I enjoy my purchase when there's so little to keep me actually playing the game? Why would I spend 20 dollars for a mount skin when I'm only going to find the game fun when I'm earning other stuff, and there's so little to earn? Why would I want to opt in to becoming a paid laborer for your officially sanctioned gold farming service so you can effectively monetize me as a gold farmer for another player? The gold farming is less fun simply because you've sold me less game to farm in specifically so you can sell the guy I'm farming for things. You didn't make the game for me, the guy playing the game. You made it for him, the guy avoiding playing the game by whipping out a credit card. > > Initially I supported Anet's microtransaction, but what it has become over time has caused me to rethink that support. The initial plan of buy once play forever was tossed aside, but the monetization scheme that was supposed to support that plan was not only left in place, it was accelerated and laid ON TOP of a paid expansion model. > > My honest assessment of Anet, at this point, is a company that I feel used to place the player first and creatively figure out how to monetize while doing so back in the GW1 and GW2 release era has become a company that places monetization first and creatively tries to figure out how to make the players tolerate ever more agressive monetization. > > Selling good games just don't seem to be Arenanet's priority any more, and that makes me sad. Completely agree and exactly what I have been saying for the past 5 years. Thing is, this model also does not work on the long-term (as we can see on the results over the last 5 years, it did not work) because of this "compromised experience". This is why you end up with less and less players. I must say that now (5,5 years later with the current stage), I would not suggest Anet to still make the switch to that true B2P model. Most players who are still active likely are fine with this model (and spend cash), and the many who left because of the "compromised experience" are not likely to come back. It's just to late (That is why I talked about this subject 5 years ago when it was not yet to late). However they should have used the true B2P model form the start. I am convinced GW2 would have been in a much, much, much better state now if they did. Over those years I of-course had to take a lot abuse, but basically the story always was that they (Anet, the industry) where the experts so they did know what they where doing, and I did not. Looking how earnings have been going down I can not proof the B2P model would have worked better, but we do know that the approach they did go for did not manage to make earnings grow or even keep them stable. They just went down over-time. Exactly as I predicted. And yes, that is sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohoni.6057 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @Devata.6589 said: > Over those years I of-course had to take a lot abuse, but basically the story always was that they (Anet, the industry) where the experts so they did know what they where doing, and I did not. Looking how earnings have been going down I can not proof the B2P model would have worked better, but we do know that the approach they did go for did not manage to make earnings grow or even keep them stable. They just went down over-time. Exactly as I predicted. And yes, that is sad. Well, if you like, it's pretty easy to figure out. Take one of those helpful bar charts someone made showing Anet's quarterly profits over time. Now find any of those bar representing the quarters of launch, and any months in which an expansion came out. Lower those bars by maybe 25%, based on reduced sales from a more expensive box, and from no immediate gem store purchases. Then find any quarter that was immediately before and after those, and lower them by about 10% for similar reasons. Then take any other quarters you see, and reduce them by about 95%, to represent the number of new box sales they would have made over those periods. And there you have it, what ANet's profit model would have been like if they'd forgone the gem store. Not too difficult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopeUrban.2578 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 Re: "Treat yo self" This still segregates the majority of rewards behind a paywall, which is my problem. Not that they sell microtransactions. Not that there are some skins that can only be had through the gem store. That 10% of all avaliable cosmetics are sourced exclusively from the gem store. Re: Distributed costs Currently the game works on a methodology that a small minority of players pay outlandish sums of money to subsidize those that pay less plus a massive profit that is then commuted to the publisher to distribute to new ventures, and shareholders. The assumption that adding 20 bucks to the cost of PoF would result in such a low turnaround fails to take in to account that under the current system, distributing the costs, by most analytics measurements in similar systems, earn as much as 80% of the revenue from as little as 5% of the player base. Now this will of course vary from game to game, and it is an absolute certainty that monetizing in this matter makes a ton more money, which is why the industry has trended in this direction. Without making a moral judgement, the idea that making an additional upfront cost mandatory for an invested, pre-installed user base will result in such depressed income rings false based simply on the performance record of GW1. A game that bucked the subscription trend by offering content rich full game sized content extensions at full game prices, and did so successfully enough to completely cancel an in-progress product and spend several years riding on its previous offerings and a smattering of high value microtransactions in its existing product to make an entirely new game. It works. Hosting servers is cheaper in adjusted dollars than it was then, as is the cost of paying a development team in adjusted dollars. What has changed is market expectations. EXPECTED profit is much higher specifically because of the success of the microtransaction model in driving more earning from lower actual costs. REQUIRED profit to continue development and pay substantial dividends to publishers and shareholders has not changed. I can't claim to have GW2's financials, but I can say that much of the innovation in GW1s design space was due to working within a business model intended to create the best value proposition for the most users possible because the focus of monetization was to get as many people to buy as many expansions as possible. That's where the majority of the money came from, and the microtransactions were supplemental and occasional offerings. The focus of monetization is no longer to get as many customers as possible to buy as many expansions as possible. The focus of GW2 today is to get as many customers to buy as many gems as possible, and the expansions are supplemental and occasional offerings. There are two paths. One makes more money, the other makes a better game. Both can sustain a development team. The question for the developer is whether they consider themselves artists or business people first, When your primary motivation becomes "get as much money out of my customers as possible" in stead of "get enough money out of my customers to fund more products they will enjoy" you've taken the second path, and you've chosen to compromise your art for more money rather than simply charging the price dictated by your needs and the desires of your audience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyWolf.8670 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @IndigoSundown.5419 said: > > @GreyWolf.8670 said: > > > @IndigoSundown.5419 said: > > > > @maddoctor.2738 said: > > > > > @Ohoni.6057 said: > > > > > Just a reminder, buying gems using gold is NOT punishing Anet. They make more money off that than if you could the gems using cash. If you want to boycott the game store, you have to boycott the gem store. > > > > > > > > Not only that, but indirectly you help with further gem sales, because if you buy gems with gold, the gem price will go up, which means more players might not have enough gold to buy what they want and instead use their credit cards. > > > > > > > > > > To build further, when the gold-into-gems ratio goes up, so does the gems-into-gold ratio. This means those buying gems to exchange for gold get a better deal. > > > > That is not how supply and demand works. The cost and profit does not go up and down in tandem. > > The exchange has a supply of both Gems and Gold. When you trade to the exchange you influence the supply of each. The exchange rate is relative to current supply of each. The price changes geometrically as one pool empties creating a better exchange rate for the low supplied currency. The supplies are contained entirely within the exchange. > > https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Currency_exchange You're not trading with ArenaNet. You're trading your gold for other players' gems they already bought. Gems are currency with a fixed real money value. I highly doubt the just create new ones for the exchange. It's just the exchange rate that's based on what's on hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyWolf.8670 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @Kalibri.5861 said: > > @Ohoni.6057 said: > > > @Ellisande.5218 said: > > > I don't find the living world content to be worth the cost of having content lacking paid expansions and having all the visual content be in the cash shop. > > > > > > I'd much rather just have content rich paid expansions and no living world, especially since imo the living world content is poor and using the money from the paid expansions to also fund the living world content guarantees that the paid expansions are always going to be poor. > > > > It's not an "either/or" situation. The teams working on Living World would not be working on making armor skins for drops. I'm much rather have living world than having more Outfits I'd never use available as drops. > > > > > > I maintain that ArenaNet needs to communicate with their players much better than they currently do regarding the gem shop. They could streamline their efforts so much and very likely make more money if they'd create designs, get feedback, and produce things players actually want. They need to communicate better about all of it. This is not a one-time purchase single player game. They rely on repeat purchases and if people aren't paying or they're pissed they don't buy anything. If it's too much to have at _least_ one person take an hour out of their day to do some public relations other than Gaile then maybe they're in the wrong business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ohoni.6057 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @PopeUrban.2578 said: > Re: "Treat yo self" > This still segregates the majority of rewards behind a paywall, which is my problem. Not that they sell microtransactions. Not that there are some skins that can only be had through the gem store. That 10% of all avaliable cosmetics are sourced exclusively from the gem store. But my point is, you've said you're willing to pay $60 for an expansion instead of $30. Well in the case of PoF, that would entitle you to maybe two Outfits and a Mount Skin more than the guy who just pays $30. But what if that guy doesn't want those two Outfits and a Mount Skin, he just wants to play PoF, and just wants to pay $30. Why are you telling him that $60 should be the basement level price? What if that prices him out of buying PoF at all? >A game that bucked the subscription trend by offering content rich full game sized content extensions at full game prices, and did so successfully enough to completely cancel an in-progress product and spend several years riding on its previous offerings and a smattering of high value microtransactions in its existing product to make an entirely new game. And yet, 1. GW1 released in a very different time, with very different market expectations. Development costs were lower, and $15 subscriptions were the norm. The same economics are very unlikely to remain true today as were in play at the time. 2. the people who made that game, who knew what were happening behind the scenes, like this system better. *Maaaaybe* they know what they're doing? >REQUIRED profit to continue development and pay substantial dividends to publishers and shareholders has not changed. Well, if you mean *profit,* then yeah, the only profit they need is costs + $1. But if you mean that the *costs* have not gone up, sorry, but no. The costs of developing a quality game in 2017 are higher than in 2005. A lot more detail is expected, as you can see by 2017 sales of GW1. That quality bump comes at a development cost. The same number of people working the same amount of time produce less volume of content, so to match the same volume of content you need more people spending more time, which equals more money (in dollars adjusted for inflation). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devata.6589 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @Ohoni.6057 said: > > @Devata.6589 said: > > Over those years I of-course had to take a lot abuse, but basically the story always was that they (Anet, the industry) where the experts so they did know what they where doing, and I did not. Looking how earnings have been going down I can not proof the B2P model would have worked better, but we do know that the approach they did go for did not manage to make earnings grow or even keep them stable. They just went down over-time. Exactly as I predicted. And yes, that is sad. > > Well, if you like, it's pretty easy to figure out. Take one of those helpful bar charts someone made showing Anet's quarterly profits over time. Now find any of those bar representing the quarters of launch, and any months in which an expansion came out. Lower those bars by maybe 25%, based on reduced sales from a more expensive box, and from no immediate gem store purchases. Then find any quarter that was immediately before and after those, and lower them by about 10% for similar reasons. Then take any other quarters you see, and reduce them by about 95%, to represent the number of new box sales they would have made over those periods. And there you have it, what ANet's profit model would have been like if they'd forgone the gem store. Not too difficult. Yeah nice try. But then you totally ignore the fact that if the game is better, people might not mind paying a higher price for an expansion. And you ignore that a more enjoyable game might help to increase the player-base or prevent it from shrinking the way we did see with GW2 what also increases sales. So it's a little more complicated as what you do. Anyway, I did try to do a calculation like that with an excel, bases on the NCsoft earnings, where I used GW1 (that used the B2P model) as a reference to get an idea how GW2 would doing if it managed to keep the same popularity (where initial sale is 100%). Have a look: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Having-a-look-at-GW2-long-term-results/first It did show promising numbers. [i used 4 different ways to calculate alternative results. One showed a little lower total result, the other 3 showed a much higher total result (from the start to Q3 2016)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Djinn.9245 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @PopeUrban.2578 said: > > @Ohoni.6057 said: > > > @Kalibri.5861 said: > > > > @Ohoni.6057 said: > > > > > @Ellisande.5218 said: > > > > > I don't find the living world content to be worth the cost of having content lacking paid expansions and having all the visual content be in the cash shop. > > > > > > > > > > I'd much rather just have content rich paid expansions and no living world, especially since imo the living world content is poor and using the money from the paid expansions to also fund the living world content guarantees that the paid expansions are always going to be poor. > > > > > > > > It's not an "either/or" situation. The teams working on Living World would not be working on making armor skins for drops. I'm much rather have living world than having more Outfits I'd never use available as drops. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I maintain that ArenaNet needs to communicate with their players much better than they currently do regarding the gem shop. They could streamline their efforts so much and very likely make more money if they'd create designs, get feedback, and produce things players actually want. > > > > I can definitely agree on that. Rather than just making whatever and throwing it up at whatever price and just accepting the result, they could get a lot more out of a two-way conversation, giving players options to help decide what gets more attention, what methods of distribution we want. Instead of "not apologizing," they could ASK FIRST. > > > > "Do you want us to release 30 mount skins in a gamble box?" > > "No thank you." > > "Ok, we can do something better then." > > > > That is SO much easier than issuing refunds. > > If the goal was to offer things aimed at the majority of the community, they would be focusing on increasing the value of the base packages that all players have access to my making their content and rewards diverse enough to hit a wide range of player desires. > > The goal is not to do that. The goal is to create a massive number of diverse options at a lower individual customer value to more effectively monetize people with more money to spend and create a system of cosmetic haves and have nots that turn those that buy them in to marketing tools for those that do not. That's how microtransactions work. You withhold things you think players want so that they have to buy them rather than allowing the entire player base to earn them with equal effort, skill, or time, through gameplay even though they all have an identical financial investment. if you're really good at it you create a conversion market for player labor to microtransaction dollars so that people buying tradable microtransactions with ingame effort are actually generating even more money by effectively making those items cost the total user base more by taxing the gold/gems conversion both ways. > > Then you call it a "player choice" even though the only players that actually have a choice to make are those willing to pull out a credit card, or spend time farming gold to pay another player who doesn't have to put up with the same grind because their credit card dollars are worth more than your fun. The only player choice is either to pull out a credit card or suffer a grind that the customers they're actually targeting don't have to. > > Either pay more, or get less for your time, skill, or effort, that's the goal of microtransactions. > > They're there to make the game more fun for people that pay more, and less fun for people that pay less, to encourage them to pay more. I agree that the goal is to make more money - Anet is a business. What I don't agree with is the use of gamble boxes to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalibri.5861 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @PopeUrban.2578 said: > _Teeeeeeeeeext_.... > Selling good games just don't seem to be Arenanet's priority any more, and that makes me sad. The Living World content is an extension of the expansion. So basically, when you buy an expansion, you're also buying Living World and its accompanying rewards. If you look at it this way, you're really getting a whole lot of game for a comparatively small amount of money. I feel like ArenaNet does make a good game, they just do it a little differently than has been done in the past. Re: microtransactions, again, they aren't bad so long as they're handled intelligently and respectfully (they weren't). If nobody develops stuff for the gem store, then the game will lack sustaining support. If they don't have that, then they have to bank everything on an expansion's success, and if it doesn't go over well the game could die. I love that ArenaNet has people working on this stuff, and I want to support the game, but I also want them to avoid gambling boxes and to produce better content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fizzypetal.7936 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @GreyWolf.8670 said: > > @Kalibri.5861 said: > > > @Ohoni.6057 said: > > > > @Ellisande.5218 said: > > > > I don't find the living world content to be worth the cost of having content lacking paid expansions and having all the visual content be in the cash shop. > > > > > > > > I'd much rather just have content rich paid expansions and no living world, especially since imo the living world content is poor and using the money from the paid expansions to also fund the living world content guarantees that the paid expansions are always going to be poor. > > > > > > It's not an "either/or" situation. The teams working on Living World would not be working on making armor skins for drops. I'm much rather have living world than having more Outfits I'd never use available as drops. > > > > > > > > > > I maintain that ArenaNet needs to communicate with their players much better than they currently do regarding the gem shop. They could streamline their efforts so much and very likely make more money if they'd create designs, get feedback, and produce things players actually want. > > They need to communicate better about all of it. This is not a one-time purchase single player game. They rely on repeat purchases and if people aren't paying or they're pissed they don't buy anything. > > If it's too much to have at _least_ one person take an hour out of their day to do some public relations other than Gaile then maybe they're in the wrong business. I envisage the ArenaNet person doing the PR as having to suit up in heavy armor and requiring a hazard pay bonus before they address the angry mob that gathers following an unpopular decision. Maybe if players expressed themselves in a way that was actually conducive to open communication we'd have meaningful conversations with ArenaNet people on a more regular basis. I personally prefer ArenaNet make statements when they are ready to make and honour them. If it is a long pause in between communications, I'm good with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torolan.5816 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 PR department was never easy, and I pitty the poor people that often have to answer stupid, rude or simply sometimes unreasonable demands of customers. It should be one of the highest paid jobs in a company and include headache pills for free. Still it does not change the fact that bad PR is bad PR. In a good company, PR and accounting are partners and buddies. In other companies, PR has the thankless job to endure the bullying of decisions accounting has subjected them to and now they get thrown under the bus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Djinn.9245 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 > @PopeUrban.2578 said: > > @Ohoni.6057 said: > > I think it would do ANet some good to try and "budget" their games a bit. Make up some "virtual players," one F2P, whole whale, and one C2P. Make a player with a budget somewhere under $100 per year, and plan out their releases with the idea in mind "can this player achieve a reasonable amount of gem-store goals within a given year?" > > > > In 2017, they would have failed that test. $100 would not be enough to get both Path of Fire AND guarantee the mount skin a player might reasonably want. That would cost $150 or more. They can put plenty in for the whales, but they also need to give reasonable options for players wiling to invest in their product, but unwilling to whale-out. They failed that this time. They can do better, and need to do better. > > It is my personal opinion that Anet's original business model, with less frequent free updates, a very substantial core game package, and a very small number of microtransactions that were largely convenience and QOL is an objectively more customer friendly model. Bank tabs, inventory slots, character slots, additional transmutes and the like are just a better way to run a microtransaction shop because they do not inherently devalue the core experience. > > I would prefer to buy expansions more often that utilized the art budget and staff currently being used to pump out gem store items with alarming frequency (which is its own team, that works separately from all content teams as far as I know) to add value to those expansions. > > The idea that a box sale game needs to be monetized to stay live for years is true, but the idea that we need to sell microtransactions, have free content updates AND sell the user boxed expansions is just a system that creates a lower value product all around. You're devaluing the expansions because of the free updates. You're increasing the price point of the gem store to pay for those free updates at the cost of player satisfaction. GW2 started out with not having any expansions because the "expansion" of the content was introduced via the free updates (the Living World). As a concept, it was great but probably something more suited to a subscription game. Anet gave in and decided to add expansions - I imagine because they wanted a regular source of larger amounts of money. As for the gemstore, I completely agree with your point about the gemstore invalidating the world content. Many players don't want to wear the appearance of armor they get from world content because they can purchase cool armor skins or outfits from the gemstore. But that seems to be the trend in Free to Play (or Buy to Play, or whatever) MMOs these days. I play 2 other MMOs that do similar things with their cash shops. But I agree that the content that you play should have more value in terms of actually using the rewards you receive. That includes the most current content and mounts. Mounts were purposefully introduced as a vehicle for skins from the cash shop. Which would not have been as big a deal as it turned out being if those skins had been offered so that players could choose instead of being forced to gamble if they wanted a skin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopeUrban.2578 Posted November 16, 2017 Share Posted November 16, 2017 I agree, they know exactly what they're doing. What they're doing is making as little game as possible for as little money as possible to convince people that a skin has equal value to 1/3 of an entire expansion or 1/6 of a brand new game despite the actual costs involved in producing and distributing them. What they're doing is focusing a far greater portion of their art budget on these "optional luxury" items that sit at this intentionally inflated price point while cutting the budgeting for content in the base prodcut. It _has_ worked extremely well at providing the consumer less value at an increased cost and turning the gaming industry from a focus on making better games than the competition to outsell them. From a business standpoint it has been extremely successful and very generous to the business by cutting quality and gradually conning its user base in to believing it is being done for their own good. Don't believe me? Read MO's response to the outcry over the mount skin boxes. It states, quite clearly that what they regret most is the timing of an experiment in further increasing actual dollar costs on the consumer end by intentionally disappointing consumers and reminding them that the price of failing to get what they want is the opportunity to spend more money. It sent a clear message that their priority was to not invalidate the investment of those that fell for it because their happiness is more important than the happiness of people that looked at this ploy to increase costs even further than their already inflated price point and said no. It said that we were wrong and we didn't understand their intent although the intent was clear. It is a transparent effort to quiet the anger of the customer base by doing nothing, continuing to benefit from the thing they're upset about, and to tell them they should be less mad because their intentions were to make spending money more fun so you'd do it more. Actions speak louder than words, and tracking the progression of the gem store, the frequency of its offerings, and the number of things earnable by playing the game over time, from launch until now paints a very clear picture that is significantly at odds with Arenanet's stated intentions. They intend to capture the lost profits of a failing business model not by creating higher value transactions to bring in new customers, but by milking their existing ones right up until the point they leave in disgust and telling them they HAVE to do it to have a game at all, by creating artificial scarcity and manipulating human nature to pay more for less. This is not the behavior of a company that values the happiness of the majority of their player base. This is the behavior of a company that values the happiness of a small percentage that are willing to pay any amount to acquire skins because they happen to have either the disposable income or the lack of personal discipline to prevent them from paying gradually more and receiving gradually less for each dollar spent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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