57 replies to this topic

[Sam Slade]

Most efficient measure in impulse buying is the Cola Test: can you spend the same amount of money as it costs to get a can/bottle of cola and feel like you have something of value? If the answer is yes then your customers have entered a purchase cycle and will usually upgrade their purchase after one or two more micro-transactions.

As it stands MWO is sitting outside of that purchase cycle feeder bracket; adding a second tier of 'monthly sales' that netted enough MC for a reduced price colour or enouigh for a single mech bay or a Davion Weekend which saw the in cockpit hologram reduced to the MC equivelant of $1.99 or something would be ideal. Smmall bites just make us more hungry

[-Natural Selection-]

Agreed Sam, spending a dollar a day seems like nothing. But spending 30, 50 or 80 in a clump makes you sit and think about how much do you really need it..

[EyeDie I]

the only money i have spent so far is $50 for a joystick.i come from a subscription game $10-$15 a month for 14 years.i will eventually buy mech bays (i have 1 left)i bought basic colors for my mechs with cbills.i would phraken and premium color my mechs but laugh at their prices 125 per mech but 1250 for 3 chassis?(i read its only per chassis type not every mech but could be wrong) im sure its more 'they charge more for shinies to not be pay to win'.i will eventually buy stuff from pgi like a misery,when the game is more balanced and goes live and has more joystick support.i would have bought the presale phoenix but they didnt post links to the variants and hardpoints on them.so i couldnt make an informed decision.im not used to the ftp model but will pony up eventually.

[Krenski]

I think there is a game where we can make an almost direct comparison. Star Trek online. It has many more "vehicles" than MWO but they are just much further along than PGI is. Battletech has just as many mech models to choose from as Star Trek has ships. There might be an argument to be made for the fact that while the mech count is still low the prices are higher and when there are 3x as many to choose from then the cost will drop (right!).

ST online ships are $5 to $25 max. There are many at 10 to 15 dollars. There is just no way I am going to pay $30 for just one mech variant! It would be a value if you got 3 variants for that price. I play a lot of FTP online games with microtransactions, this one at least feels the most expensive, and that's not good for the long term.

[MrJolly]

EyeDie I, on 30 July 2013 - 11:27 AM, said:

i would phraken and premium color my mechs but laugh at their prices 125 per mech but 1250 for 3 chassis?(i read its only per chassis type not every mech but could be wrong) im sure its more 'they charge more for shinies to not be pay to win'.

Jungle Rhino, on 27 July 2013 - 04:23 PM, said:

But they won't get another cent from me unless they seriously re-evaltuate their pricing scheme. I'm no F2P marketting guru so maybe milking the whales is the way to make $$$ on a F2P model? But it just seems odd to me as I see a lot of green mechs running about, and I don't see all that many cockpit statues in game

My guess is that colors, and maybe camo (but that's less likely), will get somewhat reduced prices once CW has rolled in. Most people don't buy lots of paint, but lots of users would likely plunk down for a color or two to be able to have the camo of their mech unit. If you can get, say, 20-30% of the regular player base to buy one or two colors and camo for a mech or two at full price, that's not a small amount of MC.

Dozier, on 30 July 2013 - 06:00 AM, said:

I cant see spending money for premium time at all, not sure what the point of it is (not to offend).

For me it feels like it moves the needle enough for it not to feel like a grind to get the next mech. It's not instant gratification in any way, so it still feels like I have to work for the C-Bills. (But I've gotten about 30M C-Bills out of my 30 day premium time so far, so the value compared to buying mechs is pretty good. ) Also, GXP comes a little faster which is nice.

Sam Slade, on 30 July 2013 - 07:03 AM, said:

As it stands MWO is sitting outside of that purchase cycle feeder bracket; adding a second tier of 'monthly sales' that netted enough MC for a reduced price colour or enouigh for a single mech bay or a Davion Weekend which saw the in cockpit hologram reduced to the MC equivelant of $1.99 or something would be ideal. Smmall bites just make us more hungry

A snack to get people started could indeed be a good idea for them. Like a really subsidized small MC package - say 750 MC at a rock bottom price of $2.49 or $1.99. That would get people a couple of mech bays and some XP conversion, or a mech bay and that extra color they've longed for (conveniently rebated just that weekend, of course), plus perhaps a single camo on a single mech. This package should be once only per user, so it wouldn't impact bigger sales much but it would get lots of users to input their payment data for future use.

[Robot Legs]

100% agree. The mechs sell for like what? 30 bucks?! lol I dont even know, because as soon as I looked, I new I would NEVER buy one. I didnt have to sit and ponder on that one.

I admit, I'm tempted to buy some mechbays, but in all truth, it would be forced. They would be cashing in not on this game, but my lack of interest in anything else currently. (wtb eso)

I am not in the F2P bussiness myself, but it seems like a scandle. I honestly wonder if F2P games, sold crap WAYYY cheaper, if they would not make alot more money. Who knows, maybe gouging peoples eyes out actually works better........

[yashmack]

MC cost is just fine, I think the bigger mechs are a bit too expensive though, heavies and assaults cost too much
I have purchased a Yen Lo Wang and a Pretty Baby and will be purchasing another in the future, so its not prohibitively expensive
If they were to drop the prices by 5 to 10 dollars for the assaults an heavies I would be inclined to buy them more frequently...

Edited by yashmack, 01 August 2013 - 09:19 PM.

[Sean von Steinike]

It is over priced for what you get. Sales on items makes it stretch further but I am reluctant to buy MC with it priced as it is. Of course, even more reluctant with the implementation and waste of resources called 3rd person view.

[xRatas]

Doesn't seem too expensive to me. Paints are crazy priced, sure, but everything else seems to be ok. Hero mechs are bit expensive too, but that keeps them from overpopulating servers.

I'm happy driving my old BMW, and can easily drive by a Ferrari sale without the feeling of unfairness. Same here, some kids have all the toys, some don't.

[M0rpHeu5]

Everything but mechbays is a ripoff but since people buy they'll stay as is.

[Onmyoudo]

I bought MC at the sale last Christmas, and after a number of months with nothing to spend it on (I haven't liked many of the mechs released this year, have plenty of mechbays and lol colours) I bought myself a Muromets. Didn't regret it, but wouldn't have paid MC to buy the mech specifically. Most heroes, though are way too expensive. All the prices could do with being cut, especially after release. Maybe after 3 months on the market they could drop the MC price or something.

[Wieland]

Jungle Rhino, on 27 July 2013 - 04:23 PM, said:

Just like the title says - MC is ridiculously expensive IMO. I refuse to purchase any more out of principal because it really is ludicrous.

Many moons ago when I played WoW I ponyed up my $10 a month because it was pretty reasonable. You got a good service and the game was fun and $10 a month was a fair price for a bit of distraction. For 10$ in MWO I can buy 2 mechbays, and paint the mechs. That's about it really. Maybe after I've spent close to $100 unlocking colours (read that sentence again and elt it sink in) then I'd be able to afford 4 mechbays and paint my mechs.

If PGI cut the price by about half then I might think about it. Heck I might even look at premium time (which is what I was always planning to do until I saw the ludicrous prices)

Now I totally understand that PGI needs to make money and that if people see the value they will pay for it etc. etc. BUT - they currently make no money from me - they sold me on their Foudners program - then spent all that money making MW:Tactics which cheesed me off quite a bit. I also purchased another 3000MC because I badly needed some more mechbays - and I did once convert some GXP because I couldn't bear the though of another 37 rounds in a SDR-5K to master it...

So they have made what, $45 off me. Which I figure is about fair - you pay $45 for a game these days.

But they won't get another cent from me unless they seriously re-evaltuate their pricing scheme. I'm no F2P marketting guru so maybe milking the whales is the way to make $$$ on a F2P model? But it just seems odd to me as I see a lot of green mechs running about, and I don't see all that many cockpit statues in game, nor many 'consumables'.

Anybody agree/disagree? Am I just a tight-arse?

Now guess why Titan will not have a monthly fee. Blizzard finally realized that f2p makes more money.

[Kyynele]

Jungle Rhino, on 27 July 2013 - 04:23 PM, said:

But they won't get another cent from me unless they seriously re-evaltuate their pricing scheme. I'm no F2P marketting guru so maybe milking the whales is the way to make $$$ on a F2P model? But it just seems odd to me as I see a lot of green mechs running about, and I don't see all that many cockpit statues in game, nor many 'consumables'.

Well, I rarely see matches that don't have at least 1 hero mech in it. And those usually are heavy/assault, and thus way more expensive than paints or cockpit items. I also have yet to see a match where everyone would've been basic green. Considering that a F2P game by nature will always have people who will not pay anything for any reason no matter how cheap it is, my bet would be that the game is doing pretty well.

Yeah, it is annoying for a consumer that it is far more profitable for the company to keep prices relatively high to get as much money as they can from the whales.

I don't consider myself a whale, yet I buy premium time and about one hero mech per month. If they'd halve the prices, I wouldn't buy much more. They'd get probably about 60% of the money they're getting from me now. I claim that it would be pushing it for the non-paying guys in this thread to make up for even that 40% monthly from me.

Fact is that by lowering prices, they would get less money from most of the people who are buying stuff now, so the increased profit would have to come from the people who aren't paying anything yet. Those people are also likely willing to spend considerably less money than the ones who are paying now, so the amount of new buyers would have to be massive to compensate for the losses. They have statistics. If their conversion rate is already anywhere near 30% or better, there's just no way they could make more money by for example halving prices.

TLDR; Sorry, but even if most players would consider a F2P title rather expensive, businesswise it can be priced just right.

Edited by Kyynele, 02 August 2013 - 05:49 AM.

[Kattspya]

Belorion, on 27 July 2013 - 04:53 PM, said:

They must be priced about right given the numbers of hero mechs running around.

Or the game population is shrinking and all that are left are those who like to throw good money after bad.

[Winterclaw]

Let me put it this way, when I saw how little $10 would get me, I had no interest in it at all.

[DegeneratePervert]

Nothing is overpriced. For example, in Star Trek Online (quite large F2P MMO) a maximum level ship costs $25. Recently I purchased all 3 quickdraw variants for $30. Seems fair.

[Lostdragon]

DegeneratePervert, on 02 August 2013 - 10:24 AM, said:

Nothing is overpriced. For example, in Star Trek Online (quite large F2P MMO) a maximum level ship costs $25. Recently I purchased all 3 quickdraw variants for $30. Seems fair.

Were they on sale? If not that does not add up. 60 ton mechs would be 4500 MC, 3 would be 13,500. If you bought the $99.99 MC package that is $54 on those 3 mechs.

[Tauwolf]

Gonna have to say I agree that MC is waaaaaaaaay overpriced (or you could say the MC costs of colors/mechs/etc is overpriced). $30 doesn't get you very far at all.

I think colors/camos/trinkets are among the most ridiculously overpriced microtransactions I've ever seen. Horse armor anyone?

They want to make money, I get it. But at the prices they have set, it's a non-starter for me. And I'm exactly the kind of player with plenty of money that they target. If they halved the prices, I'd buy 4x as much due to perceived value. But at the current prices, I won't buy at all due to perceived price gouging.

Edited by Tauwolf, 02 August 2013 - 04:17 PM.

[Capt Jester]

Except that MC sells very well, as does Premium Time. I feel the same way, and have only bought Premium Time on the 3-day sale once as well as the 30 day early bird bonus on Project Phoenix; it's simply too expensive for how much you get out of it. Some can justify the expense, others can't.

[Thunder Lips Express]

wow requires you to pay to play...in mwo you can play for free, i think the bang for the buck is hands down in favour of mwo