64 replies to this topic

[Scromboid]

Jason Parker, on 27 September 2013 - 04:03 AM, said:

I found a solution to that problem:

I don't buy MC anymore, ignore anything that is MC exclusive and just act like it would not exist so I don't have to complain about it.

I almost liked your post. Actually I did, then I took it away.

You are not seeing the bigger picture, which is the solvency of this game. They do need to make a profit to continue. The problem is that they are pricing themselves outside what people like you and I would consider a 'good value'. I imagine that this is 90% of the folks who play this game.

I care because I want the game to succeed. The inept helmsman of PGIGP is letting this ship drift into the ice fields and laughing the whole time because he is rolling in a bed of money. Well, when the ship goes down, it takes all the money with it, and I believe this is what is happening to MWO.

They cannot see the forest for the green.

[Chrithu]

Scromboid, on 27 September 2013 - 04:12 AM, said:

I almost liked your post. Actually I did, then I took it away.

You are not seeing the bigger picture, which is the solvency of this game. They do need to make a profit to continue. The problem is that they are pricing themselves outside what people like you and I would consider a 'good value'. I imagine that this is 90% of the folks who play this game.

I care because I want the game to succeed. The inept helmsman of PGIGP is letting this ship drift into the ice fields and laughing the whole time because he is rolling in a bed of money. Well, when the ship goes down, it takes all the money with it, and I believe this is what is happening to MWO.

They cannot see the forest for the green.

I am long past the point of caring for the well being of PGIGP (or that of any dev/publisher for this matter, if you fail to deliver a good product it's your fault not that of the customers). If this game dies. So what? I can allways go back to playing MW 4 which from a certain point of view is more fun anyways since I can play some serious missions there and stuff (read: It offers a far more complete package) or MW:LL. And apart from Mechwarrior I will be plaiyng ESO soon and Star Citizen in a while.

MW:O hardly is the only available source for entertainment.

Edited by Jason Parker, 27 September 2013 - 04:43 AM.

[Sandpit]

Jason Parker, on 27 September 2013 - 04:03 AM, said:

I found a solution to that problem:

I don't buy MC anymore, ignore anything that is MC exclusive and just act like it would not exist so I don't have to complain about it.

Scromboid, on 27 September 2013 - 04:12 AM, said:

I almost liked your post. Actually I did, then I took it away.

You are not seeing the bigger picture, which is the solvency of this game. They do need to make a profit to continue. The problem is that they are pricing themselves outside what people like you and I would consider a 'good value'. I imagine that this is 90% of the folks who play this game.

I care because I want the game to succeed. The inept helmsman of PGIGP is letting this ship drift into the ice fields and laughing the whole time because he is rolling in a bed of money. Well, when the ship goes down, it takes all the money with it, and I believe this is what is happening to MWO.

They cannot see the forest for the green.

This is about the only way to get them to lower prices though. Speak with your wallets to companies. If they are making money at current prices they have no reason to lower prices and I can't really blame them.

[DaZur]

What I find most amusing is the logic leveled by those who find the cost offensive...

MW:O is a "free" game... We have access to virtually all aspects of the game save premium content that is not required to make progress in the game.

What you are paying for is convenience... You can spend "X" hours grinding for the products you want or you can pay money for it and have it now. It's that simple...

Knowing that... question is what is the value of your time and and the associated time and frustration?

We used to have a steak restaurant near where I live that for moderate fee, you could select and cook your own steak OR you could pay more and someone would cook it for you... Know what? Very few people cooked their own steak...

You'd think paying $20 less for a steak would be a a no-brainer? Nope... we are lazy by nature. The value of sitting with your party and having someone do the heavy lifting offered the right value-to-cost ratio for the consumer.

While the business was always busy... it closed its doors a little over a year after opening. Why? Not enough profit to cover operation costs. The owner assumed folks would want to save the money and cook the steaks themselves and did not build enough profit into the "have it cooked for me" option and when he raised the cost of that service to cover operational costs ($40) people simply chose to go elsewhere...

Problem with this community is:

a.) No one likes nor wants to grind to achieve their end-goals.
b.) Most everyone believes MC and or premium content cost is too high.
c.) Most everyone has no frame of reference thus no context as to the operational costs to provide the MW:O product.

The end result is the present conundrum where MW:O has a product that is free, can be played at no cost to the consumer... but we have a playerbase that does not want to be bothered with the trivialities of grinding but at the same time cannot rationalize the cost of convenience... Which is further compounded when they try to equate MW:O to "other" F2P offerings out of context.

Edited by DaZur, 27 September 2013 - 07:36 AM.

[Xeno Phalcon]

We (The Vocal Minority) have been telling them the prices are too high pretty much sense late into closed beta, I can only suggest a strict low-budget approach and impatiently waiting for relevant sales.

[Sandpit]

DaZur, on 27 September 2013 - 07:34 AM, said:

What I find most amusing is the logic leveled by those who find the cost offensive...

MW:O is a "free" game... We have access to virtually all aspects of the game save premium content that is not required to make progress in the game.

What you are paying for is convenience... You can spend "X" hours grinding for the products you want or you can pay money for it and have it now. It's that simple...

Knowing that... question is what is the value of your time and and the associated time and frustration?

We used to have a steak restaurant near where I live that for moderate fee, you could select and cook your own steak OR you could pay more and someone would cook it for you... Know what? Very few people cooked their own steak...

You'd think paying $20 less for a steak would be a a no-brainer? Nope... we are lazy by nature. The value of sitting with your party and having someone do the heavy lifting offered the right value-to-cost ratio for the consumer.

While the business was always busy... it closed its doors a little over a year after opening. Why? Not enough profit to cover operation costs. The owner assumed folks would want to save the money and cook the steaks themselves and did not build enough profit into the "have it cooked for me" option and when he raised the cost of that service to cover operational costs ($40) people simply chose to go elsewhere...

Problem with this community is:

a.) No one likes nor wants to grind to achieve their end-goals.
b.) Most everyone believes MC and or premium content cost is too high.
c.) Most everyone has no frame of reference thus no context as to the operational costs to provide the MW:O product.

The end result is the present conundrum where MW:O has a product that is free, can be played at no cost to the consumer... but we have a playerbase that does not want to be bothered with the trivialities of grinding but at the same time cannot rationalize the cost of convenience... Which is further compounded when they try to equate MW:O to "other" F2P offerings out of context.

You are misrepresenting a lot of the points that are being discussed....
MWO = F2P
This means that they must have ways to make money. I agree with every item they sell. I don't agree with the price of said items. I personally think they need to think outside the box and offer MORE ways to get players to buy MC or content. That's not a bad thing. They simply need to decrease the price on some of their items.
It is hard to justify to anyone paying $40 for a single mech in a game that offers nothing more to do with that mech than run around and shoot other mechs just to grind out more money for yet another mech. I hope you see the difference in what I am saying and what you are saying.
MC = GOOD THING
MC > $$ Value = BAD THING

[DaZur]

Here's the thing...

Most all other F2P offerings that can best be related to MW:O have a expansive store to offset cost. Fact is MW:O does not have the purchasable inventory of baubles to make up in volume what is lost by reducing global pricing. This causes inflation and the devaluation of the c-bill dollar. Until MW:O has a deeper bauble-pool, operational costs + development costs + contractual profit margins = The present MC value.

The argument of cutting pricing to stimulate sales is a broad assumption that is is largely dependant upon price elasticity. Yes, cutting pricing can net more profit through sales volume but the formulary to predict the optimum cut-to-volume ratio will produce a cut that is nowhere near the acceptable cut that the thrifty MW:O customer is suggestion (It's around 3% to 7% + or -) Too little and it fails to incentify more sales and MW:O loses potential profit through a failed sale stimulus. Too much and the price cut fails to generate enough net profit through volume sales...

Edited by DaZur, 27 September 2013 - 10:45 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Atlas Mini is $14.75 How much will the Up coming Hero Atlas cost? We have many many more players than TT so why would a bunch of 0s &1s cost more than a product made out of metal?

[DaZur]

Joseph Mallan, on 27 September 2013 - 10:38 AM, said:

Atlas Mini is $14.75 How much will the Up coming Hero Atlas cost? We have many many more players than TT so why would a bunch of 0s &1s cost more than a product made out of metal?

Would you be offended if I said paying for either iteration is represented by differing levels of niche target demographic nuttery? I find paying $15.00 for a lead, pewter or plastic figurine oops.. "miniature". As rich in questionable judgment as plunking down dosh for the digital likeness...

As to why it's more expensive... In short, believe it or not the operational / development expenses of creating those 0s and 1s is exponentially more expensive than that of it's lead equivalent... Even before opening the discussion of what the break-even cost amounts to and what profit after meeting said break-even is used for.

[IC Rafe]

Jason Parker, on 27 September 2013 - 04:38 AM, said:

I am long past the point of caring for the well being of PGIGP (or that of any dev/publisher for this matter, if you fail to deliver a good product it's your fault not that of the customers). If this game dies. So what? I can allways go back to playing MW 4 which from a certain point of view is more fun anyways since I can play some serious missions there and stuff (read: It offers a far more complete package) or MW:LL. And apart from Mechwarrior I will be plaiyng ESO soon and Star Citizen in a while.

MW:O hardly is the only available source for entertainment.

Partially agreed. The developers usually dont have much impact over what they have to work on. Their boss tells them what to do and they either do it or get fired. The developers (programmers) themselves have done a good job overall, but the rest of the game is mismanaged terribly imo.

[Chupacabralted]

I never bought a single MC, and still have plenty of fun. Sometimes having limits and being aware of it it's better than paying for further options or mechlab folders.
I remembered once checking the price to exchange the 220,000 experience points of my Jenner. I laughed loudly, and then enjoyed another match.

[Tekadept]

Every review to date has commented on the price of hero mechs etc..wonder if IGP will take that on board.

[Carcearion]

The title of this thread says everything, MC costs are too damn high. We get no value for our money, vote with your wallet people. Thats what im doing.

[Losobal]

Oh come on, 35 bucks for a hero atlas is totally worth it...right.....guys?

[MechBFP]

Oh ya, i will totally spend $35 on that atlas hero mech...... in about 200 years from now.

[stinkypuppy]

i think one thing they could do to make costs for hero mechs seem more reasonable is when you buy a hero mech you also unlock the colours of it for uses on other mechs. so when you buy the protector you also get the red, black, and yellow color that the mech comes with so you can use it on your other mechs. i think this would make hero mechs seem more reasonable. paying 35 dollars for a boars head as well as the paints that come with it makes things seem a little lighter on the wallet.

[ShotgunWillie]

Jess Hazen, on 20 September 2013 - 11:25 PM, said:

many players are not so inclined to spend three dollars per mechbay but those same customers would jump at the chance to pick up a bunch of mechbays at $1.50 if they could get them on sale. the marketing teams failure in this scenario alone is greatly hindering sales.

I've seen this a couple of times now. Where/when/why/how did people get the impression that a mech bay costs $3.00? It does not and, as far as I know, never has. A mech bay costs 300 MC. The most expensive way to buy MC (oddly, the cheapest MC package) makes a mech bay $1.67. The least expensive way to buy MC (not surprisingly, the most expensive MC package) makes a mech bay cost $1.20. I've already broken down the actual math in a couple of other threads, so I'm not going to do it again here, but feel free to find those, or, better yet, verify the math on your own. Either way, a mech bay is already around $1.50, and is probably the most reasonably priced MC purchasable item in the game.

When people discuss the "MC Cost", there are two things to consider. The first is "How many MC do my dollars buy?" (cost). The second is "How many MC do I need to buy the item that I want, and is it worth that to me?" (value). The cheapest you can get 1 MC is $0.004 (actually 0.003998, that's a hair shy of 4/10ths of a cent) and the most expensive you can get 1 MC for is $0.006 (actually .00556, which is a hair over half a cent). The actual dollar cost of the MC themselves seems fine to me. Now whether the amount of MC needed to buy items in the game is high or low is in the eye of the beholder, and that's where you start to talk about "value".

Price is assigned by the seller. Value is assigned by the buyer. When a seller sets a price, each buyer decides if the price of the item matches the value that the item has to them. If the value of the item equals or exceeds the price of the item, the buyer will buy the item. If the value of the item is lower than the price of the item, then the buyer will not buy it. If the seller is unable to sell their item to anyone, or at least to enough people, then they have to decide if they want to keep the price high in hopes of finding that one rare person who values the item at what the seller is selling it at, or if they want to lower the price of the item in order to get more people to buy it. A frugal buyer will wait for an item to go on sale for 30%, 50%, or more off of the initial price, at which point, the value of the item, which has not changed, may exceed the price of the item, which has changed.

[IC Rafe]

ShotgunWillie, on 04 October 2013 - 09:42 AM, said:

The most expensive way to buy MC (oddly, the cheapest MC package) makes a mech bay $1.67.

This isn't odd, all businesses price it like this, since it encourages people to buy more to get more bang for their buck.

[Throe]

Syllogy, on 20 September 2013 - 08:00 AM, said:

On top of that, someone who doesn't drop a dime on this game can still compete on the same level playing field as someone that spends $100+.

For my part, it's entirely possible I won't spend money on this game as it stands. CW I'm willing to wait for to decide if it's worth my money or not. I have $50 ear marked as it stands to spend on MWO, but it won't happen with the current pricing structure, so maybe not ever.

I'm grateful for the fact that I can play it, and I have not had to spend a dime on it as of yet. I'm infuriated by the fact that they've sacrificed quality game play in order to make the free to play marketing structure work.

I think I would much rather it used a pay to play subscription structure.

[Bagheera]

Cost to buy a normal skin for a single mech: 75MC
Cost to buy a normal skin for all variants of a single chassis: 750MC

Number of mechs with more than 10 variants: 0

Cost to buy a normal skin for each of your 3 variants of a single chassis, purchased individually: 225MC

Pricing is wacky, no way around it. Why would anyone pay the 750MC unlock price, ever? I think at the moment the most variants of a single chassis are 5 - which is still half the number of mechs to make the 750 pricing a "break-even" proposition.

750 and up should be the price to unlock a skin for your entire garage. Price to unlock for a single chassis should be less than half that. Frankly, it should be less than 225MC, since that is the price to buy it individually for 3 mechs.

Edited by Bagheera, 01 November 2013 - 09:55 AM.