74 replies to this topic

[Greyhart]

I know that this has probably been discussed to death somewhere but i can't find it.
Anyway I can't help but think that the charging rate for MWO is all the wrong and they must be loosing potential sales.

Yes you may hate me for this.

premium time

At the moment this is straight buy a month or a day and it runs without stopping even when off line.

This is all fine for people who can play hard-core and know that they are going to spend hours on the game (it might be said that these are the people who don't need premium time).

However for casual players who may have an hour or two a week it appears to be a waste of money because you're paying for 24 hours when in really you only get 2 hours.

Therefore they would probably get more sales of premium time if it was buy and hour and it runs only when logged into MechWarrior. I think this would result in more sales as it would appeal to the casual audience more and not really effect the hardcore too much.

MC cost for mechs and Mech bays.

the current system is nice but I can't help but think they have it the wrong way round.

Mechs should be cheap for MC but Mech Bays should costs more to account for it. So there is really no change in the price (except of course if you buy by Cbills you pay more for the Mech bay). This seems the better commercial decision (although people will be annoyed at it).

Price of MC

Currently the price of MC reduces the more you pay. Whilst this might appear to encourage a larger spend I would suggest that actually it discourages a large number of smaller spends.

If the price was constant i.e. 150 MC for $1 no matter how much you buy then people will be encouraged to get $5 worth every week (or every couple of days) rather than feel they have to fork out $100 to get their monies worth

Skills Mech and pilot

If the pilot skill tree was to specialise in a specific area (like a character class) there would be an opportunity to sell extra pilot slots or sell a reset of the skills for MC therefore adding additional depth to the game and an another avenue for money generation.

If the mech skills were again specing a specific chassis variant for a job, like scout, LRM boat or brawler. then there would be a reason for people to own multiple copies of the same variant and again more money made by selling a reset by MC and mechbays as people have 3 different specs for the Stalker 4N.

Now these things are obviously going to be unpopular as it is nickel and diming the player base, but then it is F2P game and that is what they are supposed to do.

On the other hand they would IMO encourage the causal gamers to pay a little to the game and that would mean overall things could be cheaper.

[Flagrant]

Please support the game. Even of it's just $5 worth of MC. It all helps.

[Shae Starfyre]

I always think about it in terms of long term perspectives.

What is the best deal for the buck over a long period of time? Packs.

You get the following:

Mech Bays.
Mechs
Premium Time
C-Bill Bonus Mech
Add-on stuff.

and when you break it down financially, it is all for less money then buying them individually.

Of course, this all depends on your outlook and other gaming aspects (costs therein).

I feel that if I am not buying other games, I can drop 30-60 a month on this game. Some months I do not as I am engrossed in another game, but come back regularly and have plenty of mechs to play with because of it.

If you are nickle and diming your way through this game, you will get less for the money, frustrated, and feel cheated.

That's my take on it.

[Agent 0 Fortune]

Economics 101.

There is an intersection between the price of a product and how many people are willing to purchase that product. That intersection represents the optimal price of the product.

PGI has determined (right or wrong) that their price point per purchases maximizes their profit based on the MWO population. If they lowered the price and sold more, they would make less money than they do now. Same is true if they raised prices and sold fewer.

Of course the market changes, so when they release on STEAM, the influx of new players may drive the price down, but for now the population and demand force a higher price.

[MeiSooHaityu]

I would never buy premium time, I'm just not on enough to make it worth it. That is why I always had bought C-Bill boosted mechs. I receive C-Bill boosts when I need it.

That said, I purchased both Resistance packs and the Urbie pack. I knew they came with some premium time. I checked and....holy crap I had 160 Days of premium time banked lol. Well, I'm using premium time now anyway.

So I guess if you don't want to buy premium time due to casual play, but want boosters, buy mech packs with booster mechs and get premium time anyway lol.

[Speedy Plysitkos]

F2P. no P2W here, so whats the problem here ?

[El Bandito]

Flagrant, on 21 July 2015 - 08:33 AM, said:

Please support the game. Even of it's just $5 worth of MC. It all helps.

I want to and did, from 2012-2013, but when a single color still costs 6 USD, I shut my wallet tight. This is not how one does micro transaction. It is just a single plain virtual color palette FFS, not a mech.

Also the fact that MWO's premium time only boosts 50% instead of 100% like most other popular F2P games, is quite laughable. Why should I spend money for PT if I still cannot avoid the grind?

Aphoticus, on 21 July 2015 - 08:41 AM, said:

I always think about it in terms of long term perspectives.

What is the best deal for the buck over a long period of time? Packs.

You get the following:

Mech Bays.
Mechs
Premium Time
C-Bill Bonus Mech
Add-on stuff.

and when you break it down financially, it is all for less money then buying them individually.

Of course, this all depends on your outlook and other gaming aspects (costs therein).

I feel that if I am not buying other games, I can drop 30-60 a month on this game. Some months I do not as I am engrossed in another game, but come back regularly and have plenty of mechs to play with because of it.

If you are nickle and diming your way through this game, you will get less for the money, frustrated, and feel cheated.

That's my take on it.

Packs are not my cup of tea, as I am only interested in certain mechs, not others. There is a-la-carte but the price to package ratio means the savings are severely reduced. I have 50-100 USD worth of cash per month to devote to my personal hobbies, but no way in hell I am going to buy an a-la-carte for 55 USD, when I can buy Crusader Kings II + The Horselords expansion, for half the price.


Now if PGI had allowed me to choose my own mechs for a pack, then it can be another story.

Edited by El Bandito, 21 July 2015 - 10:06 AM.

[ilikerice]

Greyhart, on 21 July 2015 - 08:28 AM, said:

Price of MC

Currently the price of MC reduces the more you pay. Whilst this might appear to encourage a larger spend I would suggest that actually it discourages a large number of smaller spends.

If the price was constant i.e. 150 MC for $1 no matter how much you buy then people will be encouraged to get $5 worth every week (or every couple of days) rather than feel they have to fork out $100 to get their monies worth

.

You know that this is the way it works with everything sold everywhere. You buy in bulk you get a discount.

Go play an mmo, how do you save money, by paying for months at a time or yearly?

Go down to 7 11 do you save more money when you buy 2 rock stars or 1?

[zagibu]

Agent 0 Fortune, on 21 July 2015 - 08:45 AM, said:

Economics 101.

There is an intersection between the price of a product and how many people are willing to purchase that product. That intersection represents the optimal price of the product.

PGI has determined (right or wrong) that their price point per purchases maximizes their profit based on the MWO population. If they lowered the price and sold more, they would make less money than they do now. Same is true if they raised prices and sold fewer.

Of course the market changes, so when they release on STEAM, the influx of new players may drive the price down, but for now the population and demand force a higher price.

While your theory of optimal price is of course correct, I'm still wondering how the heck PGI determined the current prices to be the optimal ones.

[Kristov Kerensky]

While I may not agree with the pricing that PGI does, I do have to ask why people think you can buy premium time and it only works when you are logged in, since I've not seen any game that does that myself.

El Bandito, F2P games, you don't BUY the game, as your comparison game must be purchased to play it at all, unlike MWO where you don't have to spend a dime to play the game and have access to just about everything in the game. You spend real money on extras, colors, camos, Hero/Champion Mechs, stuff that you don't NEED to play the game or that give you an advantage over anyone else in the game, except for how many cbills you make or how much xp you get, that's it.

Pricing for MWO is taken directly from the pricing for WoT, Russ has explained that before, they simply give you more ingame goodies for the money spent than WoT does.

[El Bandito]

Kristov Kerensky, on 21 July 2015 - 10:13 AM, said:

El Bandito, F2P games, you don't BUY the game, as your comparison game must be purchased to play it at all, unlike MWO where you don't have to spend a dime to play the game and have access to just about everything in the game. You spend real money on extras, colors, camos, Hero/Champion Mechs, stuff that you don't NEED to play the game or that give you an advantage over anyone else in the game, except for how many cbills you make or how much xp you get, that's it.

Even if I do not buy the game, I can still buy the contents of the game. And I believe many of the the contents are overpriced to the point that I do not wish to continue to support the system PGI had set up. I am a devout BT fan, but that does not mean I can be suckered in like the others. That time was 2012.

I still drop money on other F2P games such as League of Legends, because I find their price modeling to be fair, in my view.

So unless I equally find PGI's pricing model to be fair, I ain't supporting it.

Edited by El Bandito, 21 July 2015 - 10:37 AM.

[Chuck Jager]

In Oregon minimum wage is almost close to $10/hour so 1.5 hours of work is almost equal to double income for a month. Many climbing gyms are $30 bucks a month with a regular gym being $14.

I buy good mechs and use builds that make money especially when equipped with seismic and derp. This game has a few things I don't need that seem a bit hefty in price but that is easily offset by the mech bay prices. Premium time is priced about the same as other games, but is is not as make or break mandatory. So I am pretty happy with the economy.

Okay I live in the west coast and have a used car, but ride my bike to work. My fishing license is actually paid for with the number of river trout I catch. So my life may not be a good comparison to the rest of disposable Murica.

[WarHippy]

Greyhart, on 21 July 2015 - 08:28 AM, said:

premium time

At the moment this is straight buy a month or a day and it runs without stopping even when off line.

This is all fine for people who can play hard-core and know that they are going to spend hours on the game (it might be said that these are the people who don't need premium time).

However for casual players who may have an hour or two a week it appears to be a waste of money because you're paying for 24 hours when in really you only get 2 hours.

Therefore they would probably get more sales of premium time if it was buy and hour and it runs only when logged into MechWarrior. I think this would result in more sales as it would appeal to the casual audience more and not really effect the hardcore too much.

This has been talked about before, and it sounds great and all, but the ramifications are important to consider. Most games do it the way MWO does it. If you want it to be the way you described then prepare for the price on premium time to go up drastically. Just think of it like a subscription to a game that you can either take advantage of, or not.

Greyhart, on 21 July 2015 - 08:28 AM, said:

MC cost for mechs and Mech bays.

the current system is nice but I can't help but think they have it the wrong way round.

Mechs should be cheap for MC but Mech Bays should costs more to account for it. So there is really no change in the price (except of course if you buy by Cbills you pay more for the Mech bay). This seems the better commercial decision (although people will be annoyed at it).

Absolutely not. This is just a terrible idea.

Greyhart, on 21 July 2015 - 08:28 AM, said:

Price of MC

Currently the price of MC reduces the more you pay. Whilst this might appear to encourage a larger spend I would suggest that actually it discourages a large number of smaller spends.

If the price was constant i.e. 150 MC for $1 no matter how much you buy then people will be encouraged to get $5 worth every week (or every couple of days) rather than feel they have to fork out $100 to get their monies worth

The way they are doing it is normal for most games, or just about anything really. The more you buy the bigger the value and discount you can get. It is fine as is.

Greyhart, on 21 July 2015 - 08:28 AM, said:

Skills Mech and pilot

If the pilot skill tree was to specialise in a specific area (like a character class) there would be an opportunity to sell extra pilot slots or sell a reset of the skills for MC therefore adding additional depth to the game and an another avenue for money generation.

If the mech skills were again specing a specific chassis variant for a job, like scout, LRM boat or brawler. then there would be a reason for people to own multiple copies of the same variant and again more money made by selling a reset by MC and mechbays as people have 3 different specs for the Stalker 4N.

While I like the idea of reworking the skill trees so you can spec into a more specific role the idea of having to pay for respecs is a really crappy idea. Just no.

Kristov Kerensky, on 21 July 2015 - 10:13 AM, said:

While I may not agree with the pricing that PGI does, I do have to ask why people think you can buy premium time and it only works when you are logged in, since I've not seen any game that does that myself.

That is how it works in Marvel Heroes, and it only counts down while actively playing and doesn't count down in hub areas either. That being said I'm not sure on the price comparison, but I would say off the top of my head it is a lot pricier for that benefit.

[Lugh]

We are desperomechuals like desperorsexuals only with mechs.

[TLBFestus]

The premium time suggestion, I'm on board with;

TLBFestus, on 07 September 2014 - 09:22 AM, said:

Yeah, no way that they would sell premium time in it's current form as an "only active when online" function. As someone pointed out that is 168 hours of game time for a week, and about 700 hours per month. Buy one month and you've got 700 hours to burn.

If they did that they would have to step up "Mechs for Sale" production to ludicrous levels (This..is ...a ....joke)!


Now.....if they wanted to offer different Premium time Options it could look like this;

• Regular Premium time as it currently exists, continual run down to zero in blocks of 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, or 1 year
  
• "Online Only" Active Premium time which only runs when logged in. Naturally it would sell for the same price per block, but the hours you get would be drastically REDUCED.

Just for arguments sake, assume that the average player plays 2 hours a night, every night. That's 14 hours a week. On average there are 4.2 weeks in a month, which is 58.8 hours a month, or 705.6 hours a year.

Basing this on 25000 MC, for $100 (best deal) , meaning 250 MC per DOLLAR and then round everything to make it easy and they could sell "Online" Premium time for;

2 hours for 250 MC or $1 (equivalent to 1 day non-stop)

15 hours for 1850 MC or $7.50 (equivalent to 7 days non-stop)

60 hours for 7500 MC or $30 (equivalent to 1 month non-stop)

180 hours for 22,500 MC or $90 (equivalent to 3 months non-stop)

750 hours for 40,000 MC or $175 (equivalent to 1 year non-stop)

For the math geeks in the crowd, these are ROUGH figures based on 125 MC per Hour, based on 2 hours per day playing time, and then tweaked a little for "volume discount" effects.

I'm sure that these numbers would need some serious adjustment by someone with more math skills than I , but at least it puts things into some perspective and acts as a jumping off point for discussion.

Obviously I don't know if 2 hours per day is a good average or not, for some it will be too little and others too much, but therein lies the benefit of offering the option to buy it in the current "always active" blocks if you are a hardcore, live in your moms basement, wife divorces you and you don't even notice it kinda guy.

Assuming the numbers are tweaked correctly and they would need some good statistics, which I'm sure PGI has, to tweak them appropriately, they would not lose any money.

People would have MORE options, and PGI would likely have more income.

I'm sure they could do it along these lines if they wanted to. For some reason they do not. If they structure it properly, they don't lose any money by selling it by the hour.

[Viges]

Flagrant, on 21 July 2015 - 08:33 AM, said:

Please support the game. Even of it's just $500 worth of MC. It all helps.

FTFY

[Juodas Varnas]

I just want to buy different pilot skins,
I want my cooling vest and speedo with hairiest legs available!



I'm also sure there are people that'd want to play as female pilots. I'm not one of them.

Edited by Juodas Varnas, 21 July 2015 - 11:38 AM.

[Torric]

Flagrant, on 21 July 2015 - 08:33 AM, said:

Please support the game. Even of it's just $5 worth of MC. It all helps.

This is not charity, this is not an NGO, this is a business and a greedy one at that. It only "helps" filling the bank accounts of Russ & Co., going by the experience over the last three years it does not significantly help with anything but "MORE NEW MECHS (BEHIND ANOTHER PAYWALL OFC)".

Titannium, on 21 July 2015 - 09:34 AM, said:

F2P. no P2W here, so whats the problem here ?

I guess for some people P2W does not begin until they implement a button which costs money to click and instantly wins you the game.

[Davers]

MeiSooHaityu, on 21 July 2015 - 08:59 AM, said:

I would never buy premium time, I'm just not on enough to make it worth it. That is why I always had bought C-Bill boosted mechs. I receive C-Bill boosts when I need it.

That said, I purchased both Resistance packs and the Urbie pack. I knew they came with some premium time. I checked and....holy crap I had 160 Days of premium time banked lol. Well, I'm using premium time now anyway.

So I guess if you don't want to buy premium time due to casual play, but want boosters, buy mech packs with booster mechs and get premium time anyway lol.

If they did PT like LoL, with 2 options 1. a constantly running timer (like we have now) and a second option that just rewarded a boost on a set number of wins that didn't expire, would that be something that you think might sell?

[Johnny Z]

How should Mechwarrior Online be getting money from its players? QUALITY CONTENT. If I could make CONTENT larger page 2 of this topic would read C page 3 O, page 4 N, page 5 T, page 6 E, page 7 N, page 8 T.

Edited by Johnny Z, 21 July 2015 - 05:58 PM.