53 replies to this topic

[Zero V85]

So I want to start off by thanking the developers for bringing this game out in the first place I personally think its fun and very addictive despite the fact that I am about to rip this game a new one. ( remember I criticizes because I care)

Now whats wrong, setting aside some of the balance issues that are inherent to any online multiplayer game. I am here to draw attention to the fact that the pricing model for this game is completely mental. Lets break a few things down :

Mech coins 180MC= $1.00 (US)

mech bay - $1.70 (not bad that I can deal with)
Paint color - $2.80 (not baid but could be better LOL charges $5 for a skin)
Paint Job single - $0.70 (love it but... +$8.50 for the correct color now it's a bit much )
Paint job unlock - $7.00 (again not bad but then +$8.50 for the color and thats too much)
cockpit items - $1.40-$4.20(a novelty item that just looks interesting meh to each his own)

Hero mechs -$10.00-$41.70 ($10 for a mech thats a bit much but wtf $40+ is insane)

Now for the the insane stuff lets start where it all started the "founders package"
$30 Veteran Founder's Package:
• $40 of in-game MC,One-month premium account, Founder's Tag, beta access
$60 Elite Founder's Package:
• One Founder's BattleMech,$80 of MC, Two-month premium, Founder's Tag, beta access
$120 Legendary Founder's Package:
• All 4 Founder's BattleMechs, $80 of MC, Three-month premium, Founder's Tag, name in credits, Early access

Ok so if I want to prove my love of mechwarrior and I want all 4 mechs thats $120 for the game. You know what I have spent less then that on collector editions of some of my favorite games so ok I will support the devs and buy the game as long as this is a one time deal...... oh wait.

Project phoenix launch of the game & 2nd add on.
$20
3 mechs a badge and
$40
6 mechs a badge and a medallion for faction (not implemented yet)
$60
9 mechs a badge and 2 medallions for a faction (not implemented yet) 30 day premium time.
$80
12 mechs a badge and 4 medallions for a faction (not implemented yet) 90 day premium time.

OK so lets say I have spent $30-$120 on my founders stuff bought a couple of Hero mechs and now put $20-$80 for the Phoenix stuff i am any were between $50-$400 into this game. Now we have the clan expansion and I can spend as little as $30-$500 on this one expansion that at this time is 6 months away.

I cant help but feel the devs have missed the point of the freemium price model. The idea behind freemium is you sell alot of in-game stuff that can enrich the expierence for a resonable trinket size price, and to be fair the mech bays and paint jobs are about right price wise, to use LOL (league of Legends) most ot the toons can be bought for as little as $3-$5 at full price thay are $10 but to counter that there is always a sale on a batch of them going on at any one time. Not to mention they rotate the free to play toons all the time so you get to see who you like. If I time it right I could buy all the heros in that game for about $300 thats alot but I get 117 different dudes to play as and it's no where near what I would spend if I tried that in this game. Now I dont care for LOL but they make a killing on that game and if the devs for MWO want to try and bring there priceing model more inline with LOL I really think this game would start to make them alot more money.

For now they are in my opinion they are trying to soak there current players to make up for the developing cost of the game and to there credit for all the money talk they have never made the game pay to win and all the weapons are in game money only and for that I am very thankfull. There just has to be another way of makeing money other than tring to sell me a gold skin for an in game mech for $500.

[Kermut]

I was one of the $120 founders and I seriously regret it.

MWO had a good premise but the money grabbing by Piranha would make a drug dealer blush. They've added pretty much zero functionality to the game post beta, added features that make no sense/people hate, and exclusively run specials that require real money be spent. Not to mention they screwed over the founders by immediately releasing better premium mechs to try and force founder's to buy them

Piranha mistook the communities enthusiasm for MechWarrior to be enthusiasm for Piranha, and I won't be sad when they go bankrupt.

Edited by Kermut, 14 December 2013 - 01:03 PM.

[DrXitomatl]

[Durant Carlyle]

Best rate for MC is the $100 package and that's 250 MC per dollar. If you don't buy the best-deal package, that's not their fault. Every one of the item prices you quoted is cheaper at the best rate. Wait for an MC sale like the 20% off we had just recently, and the rates are even better.

Boar's Head is most expensive Hero 'Mech -- 7,500 MC = $30. No Hero 'Mech will ever be more expensive than that, as it is based on tonnage. 100 tons is maximum x 75 MC per ton for a Hero = 7,500. WoT has $50+ tanks. Not a direct comparison, but it's the best one we have.

I know people personally who have spent a hell of a lot more than $400 on each MMO they play. The numbers you are citing aren't all that unusual.

You forgot the other option:

Pay NOTHING and still have access to every non-Founder/Champion/Hero/Sarah/Prime 'Mech, and all but a few modules. Those 'Mechs are in no way overpowered or required, and neither are the MC-only modules.

By the way, they aren't selling the Gold 'Mech skins. They are offering fans the opportunity to donate more to the development of their favorite IP, and are offering something limited-edition in return. There are a lot of people who wouldn't ever consider doing that, but then they aren't really fans. The real fans are those who don't want to see this project fail, because if it does it'll be longer than ten years before somebody else tries again.

Kermut:
Sorry to hear that you want the game to fail. Nobody else is going to make another official MechWarrior game any time soon if that happens.

Also ... why would they run specials on the C-Bill cost? There's an inexhaustible supply of that -- all you need is time.

Xitomatl:
That's exactly right. People donating the $500 will help with getting all of those things. It'll even make the island bigger to hold more people. The fact that a Gold Skin is included is just a bonus.

[Sable Dove]

Durant Carlyle, on 14 December 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

Xitomatl:
That's exactly right. People donating the $500 will help with getting all of those things. It'll even make the island bigger to hold more people. The fact that a Gold Skin is included is just a bonus.

Someone's out of touch. People donating the 500$ will just signal PGI to put all of their effort into gold mech skins that they can sell for 500$ a piece. It will delay all of those things, because they are less profitable than churning out overpriced mechs/skins at the expense of everything else.

They're not going to put effort into improving the game when they make so much more money selling new models and skins. Why the hell would they make the game better when it doesn't get them nearly as much money?

[Gigaflop]

I agree with Durant!
The monetization model is perfect to me
You can (buy) but don't have to!!!
and what I like is that you CAN give $500 to your favourite franchise and not be overwhelmed with {Scrap} you don't want.
who can afford the time and effort to put 24 mechs through mech college!!! LOL

Cheers
PGI,keep it up

[Durant Carlyle]

Sable Dove, on 14 December 2013 - 03:49 PM, said:

Someone's out of touch. People donating the 500$ will just signal PGI to put all of their effort into gold mech skins that they can sell for 500$ a piece. It will delay all of those things, because they are less profitable than churning out overpriced mechs/skins at the expense of everything else.

They're not going to put effort into improving the game when they make so much more money selling new models and skins. Why the hell would they make the game better when it doesn't get them nearly as much money?

Incorrect.

They've had the base Clan 'Mech art done for a while now. Putting a gold skin on isn't that much work. Besides, they know that the base Clan packages will be the REAL money-maker here. The $500 donation option won't be used anywhere near as often.

Any money we give them right now will help keep the development going long enough to get the real content of the game delivered, at which point people will come back and start spending money again, which will help keep the development going for even more content. That's how the cycle goes.

You are free to be paranoid and believe PGI/IGP are out to get you. While I am disappointed in some of the design decisions they have made, I still choose to support them. Not as enthusiastically as when I first started playing though.

[Sable Dove]

Durant Carlyle, on 14 December 2013 - 04:38 PM, said:

Incorrect.

They've had the base Clan 'Mech art done for a while now. Putting a gold skin on isn't that much work. Besides, they know that the base Clan packages will be the REAL money-maker here. The $500 donation option won't be used anywhere near as often.

Any money we give them right now will help keep the development going long enough to get the real content of the game delivered, at which point people will come back and start spending money again, which will help keep the development going for even more content. That's how the cycle goes.

You are free to be paranoid and believe PGI/IGP are out to get you. While I am disappointed in some of the design decisions they have made, I still choose to support them. Not as enthusiastically as when I first started playing though.

They're not out to get me. They're out to get money. And as long as people will shell out tons of money for mechs and skins, that's where their focus will be. Unfortunately, this means that things like Community Warfare, UI 2.0, weapon/mech balance, new game modes, and numerous other things that would improve the game, will be delayed or cut down in favour of new models and new skins, since those are the actual money-makers.

It's been months since there even was a minor balance change for weapons. And if you try to say that weapons are balanced as they are, I'd like to know what game you're playing.

[Wildstreak]

Durant Carlyle, on 14 December 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

Best rate for MC is the $100 package and that's 250 MC per dollar. If you don't buy the best-deal package, that's not their fault. Every one of the item prices you quoted is cheaper at the best rate. Wait for an MC sale like the 20% off we had just recently, and the rates are even better.

Boar's Head is most expensive Hero 'Mech -- 7,500 MC = $30. No Hero 'Mech will ever be more expensive than that, as it is based on tonnage. 100 tons is maximum x 75 MC per ton for a Hero = 7,500. WoT has $50+ tanks. Not a direct comparison, but it's the best one we have.

6500 MC = $30. You may have confused the special Black Friday sale for the regular MC cost. The Boars Head, regular price, is more around $35-$40.

Edited by Merchant, 14 December 2013 - 05:29 PM.

[Ironwithin]

What are you people moaning about ? A company trying to earn money? OHMYGAWD someone call the cops!

Seriously ...who is forcing you to BUY anything ? Get a grip and use your impulse control.

[Durant Carlyle]

Merchant, on 14 December 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

6500 MC = $30. You may have confused the special Black Friday sale for the regular MC cost. The Boars Head, regular price, is more around $35-$40.

The best regular deal is the $100 package gives you 25,000 MC. 25,000 MC divided by 100 equals 250 MC per dollar. The less-expensive MC packages give you less MC per dollar, in case you hadn't figured that out yet.

You people min-max your 'Mech builds until they scream for mercy, yet you don't min-max your MC purchases by saving until you can afford the $100 package to get the best deal? Tsk-tsk.

The Boar's Head is 7,500 MC. 7,500 divided by 250 equals 30. That's $30 worth of MC to purchase the Boar's Head, if you bought the $100 MC package. And you'd still have 17,500 MC to spend on other stuff.

The Black Friday sale would have given a rate of 300 MC per dollar, which would have made The Boar's Head $25 worth of MC if you bought the $100 MC package while it was on sale.

Please review your figures before you accuse someone of being wrong.

Edited by Durant Carlyle, 14 December 2013 - 09:04 PM.

[JimboFBX]

I don't think this is freemium done wrong... at least from a business standpoint.

I am curious though if things are actually working or if they are mostly surviving off of founders dollars. I argued that paint jobs were too expensive and my opinion hasn't really changed.

Maybe if they sold physical items that represented the digital content, like Skylanders / Disney Infinity, people would complain less about the costs of mechs, but essentially that's what everything is, except you will shortly get a mech for free after its release if you buy with c-bills, so there isn't a lot of motivation to spend real money.

Honestly though, they really need to freshen up the game and increase variety. A lot of game companies have employees who have to put in 12 hour days to meet crunch time. I'm pretty certain Piranha employees have a pretty sweet gig where there is no such sense of urgency.

Edited by JimboFBX, 14 December 2013 - 10:18 PM.

[Saber1]

All these people claiming this money supports the game's development, I ask you this:

How many titles were built with less?

Think about that. As someone who's forked over founders and phoenix I'm seriously alarmed at the other titles out there that have built content with far less support from their community. So many issues exist in this game still, the meta is ugly, the balancing is ugly, the grind (without premium) is BEYOND ugly… I mean seriously, there's a reason I left World of Tanks.

Still no Archer, Marauder, Rifleman, Urbanmech, or Warhammer.

Dafuq is the command module. Still waiting for it to be useful.

Waiting on loyalty points. Still.

Or just further involvement with the lore/factions in general.

All the things in that picture, especially VOIP...

Still waiting on new maps, fun game modes (king of the hill and capture the flag are pretty classic thanks to Mechwarrior 4).

And now the Clans are already invading.

...

...

...

...

All you ************* thinking you're supporting development of a game must be ******* high. Or delusional. Or just don't have a ****'s worth of common sense…

Edited by Saber1, 15 December 2013 - 12:53 AM.

[Zero V85]

I think some of you missed my point in essence what I was trying to get across is that it is easier for someone to spend $5.00 5 different times then it is to get someone to spend $25.00 all at once that is why LOL ( league of Legends) is freemium done right they get you to spend that $5 over and over again because it is seen as reasonable. If the new mechs that where coming out where $5 each they would sell like gangbusters. They would have my $5 and an additional $2 for the new mech bay I would need to house it instead the new mechs cost usually around $25-$30 when you know you spend $60 on a new game from steam that seems to have a lot more content then one mech in one game it just makes that purchase harder to rationalize.

Not to mention that this is putting aside the very real fact that the devs/ suits for this game do seem to be keen on releasing new mechs one after the other instead of putting that time and effort into new maps, U.I. updates/fixes, weapons, factions etc etc.
I want to support them and I want this game to do well. I just want to it without feeling like I am being taking advantage of. Lastly $500 for a bunch of gold plated mechs is not a donation it's an over the top collectors edition kind of scheme to test the waters and see if they can get away whit that ludicrous price in the future so when the next expansion hits they can sell it for $250-$300 and try to sell you on the fact that its a deal. If this idea came form any member of the dev team this game is already too far gone but I have a sneaking suspicion that the corporate suits are more at fault here, you can trust successful business to do 2 things grow rapidly and test its boundaries this is not to say they are bad people but just need a reality check from there consumer base every now and again to keep them grounded. I hope thats what this discussion does.

Edited by Zero V85, 15 December 2013 - 08:24 AM.

[kuangmk11]

Durant Carlyle, on 14 December 2013 - 03:34 PM, said:

Boar's Head is most expensive Hero 'Mech -- 7,500 MC = $30. No Hero 'Mech will ever be more expensive than that, as it is based on tonnage. 100 tons is maximum x 75 MC per ton for a Hero = 7,500. WoT has $50+ tanks. Not a direct comparison, but it's the best one we have.

So far. Hero clan mechs may very well be 125 or 150MC per ton to reflect their significantly higher c-bill cost.

[drinniol]

Lordy lordy lordy. What are you smoking, OP? Let's compare to, say, Path of Exile. Weapon effects go for as much as $28 or as little as $2.50, there's a $110 pet and a $2.50 pet.

If you're looking to spend $5 at a time buy a week of premium time and use the extra CBills. If you like the game and want to support the devs pay more. QED.

[Bront]

Prices could be cheaper for MC stuff, but some parts of it aren't super bad. Would be nice to have a few more cbill basic colors (a yellow, black/dark grey, and white/light grey would be nice), and Hero mechs and general mechs are a bit too expensive (hense why an MC Sale + a mech sale are the only way I'd grab one).

But what does this have to do with the latest patch?

[Thermidor]

I just love how the greedy peckerheads at PGI made the timberwolf the 2nd most expensive pack knowing how badly the hardcore fans wanted this mech since the beginning.

Ironwithin, on 14 December 2013 - 06:04 PM, said:

What are you people moaning about ? A company trying to earn money? OHMYGAWD someone call the cops!

Seriously ...who is forcing you to BUY anything ? Get a grip and use your impulse control.

sucking PGI's sack wont get you free mechs. stop trying so hard

Edited by Thermidor, 15 December 2013 - 03:09 PM.

[Grey Black]

To the mods: can we get this thread moved? This has nothing to do with the latest patch.

To the OP: This isn't about any of the cash grabs. Yes, they're bad, but completely unrelated to our concern. My concern is that the devs are prioritizing getting money over gameplay and expanding the potential audience. At some point the well runs dry so you need new blood. Where does it come from? Keeping gameplay fresh and relevant in some way rather than stagnant. We need more content that isn't in-game avatars. Maps, community warfare, merc corps implementation, anything. We have enough mechs for now. Now give us some more game to give us a reason to buy mechs.

[Iqfish]

To be fair, the monetarization and the graphics and artworks are the only thing PGI has done right.

There are way bigger problems, the pricing model is really fair. I have buddies, that only paid for mechbays and they have 50+ mechs and are enjoying this game every day.