11 replies to this topic

[Grimlox]

As someone who has spent $500+ on several FTP games including this one I wanted to share my thoughts on the way PGI handles their bundles and early adopter benefits.

I'm sure there is some logic to creating a sense of urgency in people to spend money on bundles 5 or 6 months before they are released and the early adopter benefits certainly does that. What annoys me is that I, like many gamers, bounce between games and can easily take 6 month breaks from MWO. This is the nature of FTP non-subscription based games.

When I recently started playing MWO again I saw some ads for the Origins IIC bundles available and I was really intrigued to pick them up. However when I read about all the early adopter benefits that were only available until July I now feel like I am not getting a decent value if I purchase the pack today. I could understand if some minor incentives were put in place like cosmetic items to encourage people to buy packs early but when I miss out on significant cbills/unique mech variants/mech bays/modules/premium time and other such items I have a really hard time making myself drop the money on the bundles.

You walk a really fine line on value when you charge $80-$120USD for 4 sets of mechs but I've played along on numerous bundles in the past because I could justify the value where most logical people would shake their head. BUT when you take value away from the bundle by not buying it 6 months in advance and advertise those valuable things I can no longer get in the bundle I have to draw the line.

Here are some suggestions in order of preference to prevent people like me from closing my wallet.

1) Keep the early adopter rewards until the mechs are actually released. Then remove the early adopter benefits from the package ad so those that want to buy the packs after release aren't discouraged by what they missed out on and can never get.

2) Limit the early adopter benefits to cosmetic items only. If I could still get the 4th variant and premium time now I would still drop the $80 and not care about the cosmetics.

3) At least remove the early adopter benefits that are no longer available once it has expired. Leaving them up does nothing but dissuade current potential buyers. You can't gain anything from it anymore, you can only lose sales. Ever seen a major retailer advertise in July how you could have bought the PS4 bundle and got free games on boxing day but they are offering you just the PS4 for the same price 6 months later??? No because that would be stupid....

As is stands I am not willing to pay the same price and miss out on 4 extra mechs/mech bays and 30 days premium time because I took a break from the game when the early adopter was running. I still have plenty of mechs I bought in other packs to play but the chances of me getting bored again and taking another break go up when I don't have shiny new mechs to play and if I miss out on early adopter bonuses (other than cosmetic) again then the cycle will repeat itself and this whale will continue to spend money on other games instead.

TLDR: Leave early adopter bonuses to cosmetic only or allow them to be included right up to release then remove the mention of the bonus as soon as they expire. Otherwise you are flat out losing out on potential sales from myself and other like me that I know personally who have spent a lot of money on the game already.

Sorry for the rant, I just can't imagine PGI thinking the current model is doing anything other than losing out on significant amounts of sales on the hopes they might have convinced a few people to buy earlier that still would have bought anyways....

[Nightshade24]

Well the idea of the early purchase rewards is typically to buy the product without even knowing how they look, how they will perform, etc. People who do not want to wait those months till it is released. It also is a good early purchase bonus- and with the power of mathmatics, most of these recent packages are much more better at value than founders or phoenix packages (even when looking at Phoenix early purchase bonus) (Founders however has some priceless things like actually having the game live today and credits and closed beta all sorts of other stuff).

However I do agree it hurts sales, for instance I couldn't get the money to get the Rifleman package before it's early bonus expires, now I am sitting there feeling like I will leave that for later or just get the c-bill one...
Removing early bonus purchases will not help but leaving them in for a long time will hurt PGI. (I should note most of the time it is cosmetic items besides 4th variants, modules, c-bill, etc).
Maybe make the early purchase bonus a something you ahve to pay extra for after say release of the package?

Ie pay 2 or 5 more dollars for all these extras (minus some stuff... ie say an exclusive cockpit item or what ever) and get the 'extras' with the tier package you purchased.

[Wildstreak]

I think they should do all releases from now on like the recent 3 Iconic ones, instead of 4 Mechs in Tiers, just one at a time. Early rewards are done different too.

[JeGGoR]

OP is soo right.

I didn't buy the Marauder pack because I started playing a few days after the end of the presale, and it was pretty awful to think about what I'd miss by buying it "too late".

Same thing for the Origin IIC. I was browsing the packs today, but missing one variant + mechbay for each mech... even when the mechs are not released. That's hard to go through.


Like Grimlox said, I think these bonus should stay until the release of the mechs.
And then, any mention of early bonuses should disappear. It's obvious that this can hurt sales indeed.

And for bonuses, comestic and cbills are good. Bigger stuff like "more variants" should be for a small added price (but why double the price from an Unseen standard pack to a collector one? that's insane!!)

Edited by JeGGoR, 05 December 2015 - 09:34 AM.

[B L O O D W I T C H]

This was voiced several times before. Sadly, it voice isn't that loud.
I hope PGI is making enough (well, at least as much as they hoped for) money with their sale concepts.

For myself i can say this.

I bought 2 clanmechs a la carte (55€ each), timberwolf and hellbringer. And i certainly do regret the purchase (i do like the mechs, tho) given how much i paid.

I bought a tier 3 clanpack for 90€, i also regret doing that since i only found out later that i "did not purchased in time" and was missing out on literally 1/4 of the mechs. I literally paid the very same priece and got 25% less content.

I was thinking about whether or not to buy a IIC pack (i'd gone for the t4 highlander package), but the unclear general direction of MWO (quirkmess) keeped me waiting. Ultimately, i passed the date for the 25% "extra" content and therefor i will not buy that package either.

This whole sale concept actually keeps me away from buying the marauder and warhammer package as well, while i do have the money and i do like both mechs very much.

Visiting the store page for both mechs, it actually tells me what i DO NOT get, which is extremely discouraging, even if it's only a couple of modules, c-bills, cockpit bling and a camo unlock.

TL;DR: I hope the current sale module is appealing to a lot customers, because i know for a fact (like i myself who spend several hunderts on mwo) that it is unappealing to the point of "not buying" for quite a lot other, previously loyal and "happy spending" customers.

[Giving Em The Business]

I agree completely.
I didn't start playing until July 30.
This was one day before the deadline.
Simply not enough time to make a decision like that especially since it was so far off in the future at that time.
Had I seen the ad though it would have made no sense because there was no way I was playing trial mechs for 5 months until my new shiny stompy robots rolled off the presses.
I have about 250 in packs so far but I just can't buy more because of what I am missing.
4 Mechs is a huge deal on the IIc package imo.
I have choices, buy more wave 1 packs at 30 for 3, or buy IIc mechs for 80 and while a better value than wave 1, you get to stare at the 4 special mechs, 4 mech bays, and cockpit items, etc that you cannot even buy because.
I understand there are rules etc, but if you want me to continue to Give You The Business, Protip: Don't make me feel like you are Giving Me The Business when I read your advert.

Edited by Giving Em The Business, 06 December 2015 - 06:06 PM.

[Ano]

Grimlox, on 03 December 2015 - 10:57 AM, said:

3) At least remove the early adopter benefits that are no longer available once it has expired. Leaving them up does nothing but dissuade current potential buyers. You can't gain anything from it anymore, you can only lose sales. Ever seen a major retailer advertise in July how you could have bought the PS4 bundle and got free games on boxing day but they are offering you just the PS4 for the same price 6 months later???

I could see PGIs argument for the current structure of the early adopter rewards, but if they're going to keep the current setup then it probably makes sense to edit the sale page a bit after the deadline has passed to make 'this is what you could have won' a bit less in your face.

Probably the most sensible way to do this would be to effectively sell them as two packs, say the 'Limited edition' pack (which has the preorder goodies) and the 'standard pack'. Once the deadline for the Ltd pack has passed, it's removed and replaced by the std.

[Anachronda]

I think it is fine to have preorder packs have extra stuff with them as there's no reason to preorder otherwise. I do think they need to be more forgiving, though, on the time. I forget what pack it was, but in at least one case 6 months from release was "too late" to get anything. That's kind of insane given the pack hadn't even been available very long. Paying for packs doesn't make a lot of sense when you don't get things you couldn't get without real money.

Which brings me to clan packs. It boggles that you can't buy any mastery packs with MC for clans. Buying individual mechs for MC or real money is kind of a ripoff, really. Especially since you don't even get mechbays. Mechbays for mechs you are buying, premium time, cockpit items, mechs you might not be able to get without real money - these are incentives for spending real money on packs and such.

The "this is what you could have won" thing has definitely stopped me from buying packs. The one I am thinking of was the most egregious since I had actually been looking forward to it being available but missed it. In any case, looking at stuff where there's no early adoption available as a thing there is not a lot of point in "real money" packs. Mastery packs for MC are always a good deal.

Edited by Anachronda, 19 December 2015 - 10:10 AM.

[Dugra Dugrasson]

Variants should be included in the base package. Cosmetics and premium time should be included as part of the "early adopter window."

I'd pick up Resistance 2 if I could snag that fourth variant.

[MadLibrarian]

I agree, and the Ala Carte shadiness bugs me too. You gotta pay extra to just get the mech you want, why isn't that enough to get rewards? Want to increase the pack sales instead of A la Carte? Add to the packs rather than taking away from single chassis purchases.

Also, allowing people to ala carte the first mech in the pack for more than lowest pack while also not getting the rewards is even more shady.

Edited by MadLibrarian, 20 December 2015 - 08:57 AM.

[Mister Tuggles]

I am rather new to the game, and I agree 100% with this. I WANT to give the company money, but I refuse to purchase packs when I am getting significantly less out of each dollar I spend when past the "early adopter" period.

They should keep the early adopter packages available until one week prior to the release. After that, tough luck. Then they should do "throw back" periods where they release a package with the early adopter rewards.

As it stands, they are missing out on literally hundreds of dollars I was planning on throwing into the packs before I realized the "early adopter" thing.

[aaykeem]

Frankly, the packs seem way overpriced. The pre-order bonuses raise the value, but the pre-order period ends too quickly, imho (and I actually find the whole concept of pre-ordering in-game items horrible and not in the consumer's interest, but that's a different topic).

The last 4 packs (Rifleman, Marauder, etc.) are a step towards a more consumer-friendly way of doing business. I want to pick and choose what mechs I buy and a-la-carte doesn't bring enough value. I'm also not going to buy a pack for the assault that I want to try and get 3 more mechs that I'll probably never run.