329 replies to this topic

[DaZur]

Okay...

While everyone is gleefully informing PGI they are out of their cotton-picking minds regarding their pricing scheme. Keep one thing in mind before you caste judgment...

While the price "right now" may seem exorbitant, PGI has to effectively determine what "we" the paying customers are willing to pay for these bits of bling. It's not like there is a handy-dandy cross reference chart for virtual Christmas lights to hang in ones virtual mech cockpit... Pricing has to start somewhere.

Rule of thumb with retail pricing is to determine what is a fair and equitable usual and customary price for a product:

• Product cost + operational cost = base item cost or effectively what one could sell something for and not net a profit or incur a net loss.
  
• Same-or similar pricing = What is the usual and customary pricing of a similar product.
  
• Supply & Demand = How difficult is it to find/obtain said product.

Net 40% is a typical unwritten minimum net profit over product cost. This proposed Manufacturer Suggested Retail (MSRP) is then compared to same-or-similar to determine if the pricing is competitive and what is the potential availability and will a consumer agree to this price-to-value ratio.

As a "for profit" entity PGI (Or should that be IPG?) they need to effectively see what we, the consumer will accept for these intangible items. When pricing for retail you never start too low of you risk selling a product for a lower price than the market will bare and loose out on potential profit. Too high as most of us beleive to be the case, you risk missing the price-to-value ratio and you customers will walk away from the sale because they cannot rationalize the cost.

Clearly the community has spoken and pricing needs to be adjusted... That said, they HAVE to test the market place and find that price-to-value quotient.

The funny thing about the price-to-value quotient is people may "complain" about a products retail cost... but if the product still sells and meets or exceeds what ever internal sales projection is in place, regardless of the grumbling and complaining, it's actually priced correctly...

While "we" may complain the pricing is out of whack... If enough people buy this stuff regardless, they ultimately priced it effectively.

Of this... only PGI / IGP will know the answer this is.

[JustPyro]

HighGround, on 04 December 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

I noticed the new hood ornaments in the Mechlab for this Christmas holiday season and noticed 4 ornaments in there, one called an "XMAS" tree and one called an "XMAS" elf, XMAS wreath and XMAS lights. Now the last time I checked, the only holiday in December that those could refer to is CHRISTMAS.

I am a Christian and am very offended when people "X" Christ out of Christmas. "But it's just an acronym" but no one ever writes it CHRISTX, always XMAS crossing out the most important name in the holiday word.

For those of you who need an education, Christmas is a religious holiday, where people all over the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, God's gift to mankind. I am a Christian, not an Xian, I celebrate Christmas, not Xmas. "CHRISTMAS" is the name of the holiday that falls on Dec. 25th, not "XMAS." It's like taking the "THANKS" out of Thanksgiving or the "NEW" out of New Years. "Xgiving" "Xyears" etc.

The name of the holiday or "holy day" is Christmas, and we need to use the proper name.

First, I haven't seen the prices yet. I will comment later.

But this is a private company. I respect your freedom to practice however you wish. I too get annoyed at so much politically correct discussion. But this is a private company. It need not hold itself (and rightfully shouldn't) to any particular religious holidays. Many people who do not believe in Christ celebrate Christmas, each in their own way. It's a time of family, sharing, caring, and joy. But these feelings don't need to be restricted to Christians, and if people want to celebrate X-Mas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Turkey Day, Mech Legging day, or the beloved Festivus, they can.

Maybe PGI celebrates X-Mas, and it's not up to you to force your beliefs upon others. Here in my home country of the USA, there is a separation of Church and State. And while "Christmas" is a Federal holiday, it's a day to celebrate or not, as you please, NOT a Federally sanctioned Christian-exclusive holiday.

Be glad and rejoice that people all over the world, regardless of creed, race, gender, orientation, come together and celebrate with their loved ones.

[McGroober]

I would love to buy some of the fluff items.. but the prices need to be slashed pretty dramatically.

[Sulf]

Yeah I really do want some of these. Frankly I'd buy more than just the ones I really wanted just because it's limited time and I don't know if these will show up again next year (if this is even a game next year) but those prices really give me pause.

Don't you guys get the concept of a good deal? People buy something that's cheap even if they don't really want it. It's CHEAP. I'LL TAKE 20.

Seriously, fix your prices.

[MustrumRidcully]

I wonder if the reason why the pricing still is so ridicilous is because people already may have bought MC packages, and PGI/IGP are mostly tracking those MC packages. They will only see that people don't buy new packages after the holidays when people did't spend their money...

Though naturally, they should already track what people are buying now for MC, and figure out if it's working or not.

Considering this is Beta - maybe they are experimenting still, and want to see how high they can get first before they lower prices?

Well, better hope it doesn't bite them in the ***. I for one will not buy any customization or Christmas items for now.

[Col Forbin]

HighGround, on 04 December 2012 - 06:21 PM, said:

I noticed the new hood ornaments in the Mechlab for this Christmas holiday season and noticed 4 ornaments in there, one called an "XMAS" tree and one called an "XMAS" elf, XMAS wreath and XMAS lights. Now the last time I checked, the only holiday in December that those could refer to is CHRISTMAS.

I am a Christian and am very offended when people "X" Christ out of Christmas. "But it's just an acronym" but no one ever writes it CHRISTX, always XMAS crossing out the most important name in the holiday word.

For those of you who need an education, Christmas is a religious holiday, where people all over the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, God's gift to mankind. I am a Christian, not an Xian, I celebrate Christmas, not Xmas. "CHRISTMAS" is the name of the holiday that falls on Dec. 25th, not "XMAS." It's like taking the "THANKS" out of Thanksgiving or the "NEW" out of New Years. "Xgiving" "Xyears" etc.

The name of the holiday or "holy day" is Christmas, and we need to use the proper name.

Jiminy H Christ! Get off your holier than thou high horse. Most people who say happy holidays or the like, do it out of respect for the fact that many of the people you are saying it to celebrate other non-christian holidays over the season.

Oh and by the way.... Christmas is a stolen pagan holiday, and many of it's "traditions" derive from it's pagan origins... You know, things like trees, wreaths, santa claus, etc.

I think it's you who need an education, and many of us are sick of "christians" shoving their lunatic, fairy-tale beliefs on everyone else.

[Sinluien]

yea every game ive ever played i always recieved a free something for christmas, usually useless, but none the less a thing. i bet 90% of us would have purchased an item had it been 250... btw thx for thinking of us mercs for those banners... absolutely dumbfounded. everything is waay overpriced. seriously i understand the games free, however its as simple as people wont be 6 bucks for lights because 6 bucks is a lot of money, its the darn principle. even my wife said, ill go buy u some damn lights and paint a darn santa bobble head to look like that for you for 5 bucks... and you do the dishes. all the prices are off the wall and this single mech crap has to stop.

you want money? figure your hours into making said item, a little markup, so... how many things in game would u have to sell at a buck to make a profit? i see how not being able to move them between mechs and repainting u thought u would make money in the future, but im fairly certain u were wrong. i mean i would buy everything at a dollar. since your continuing to add content, keep on keepin on and ill keep giving you singles like your a stripper. perhaps add a gift system.

[RainbowToh]

PGI seriously needs to get a new marketing person or something. Or they need to go out shopping more to how ppl do sales for low price vs high price items

[Zeus X]

If there was a package deal to get all the Christmas items for 500MC, I would buy it.

But no way am I paying these prices, Mechs and Premium time are two different things, but these banners, and bobble heads that only I see and my teammates see when they are dead is overpriced.

Like DrnkJawa said on this thread, these prices remind me of EvE Online trying to sell a monacle for 50 bucks.

Don't be EvE or APB reloaded, bring those prices down 10 fold.

[Sir]

It has been said already plenty but i'd like to stress it one more time:
Customization options atm are too expensive.
They are fun and well designed but way above the border where i consider buying items just for the style / look / fun.

The same goes for camo customization options sadly. I think around 2$ is my upper limit regarding a fully painted and maybe 2$ more a fully internally customized mech.

And i agree to the gents before me that cutting the price to 10% might add more than 10 times more buys and therefore pay off for you (as a company) and us (as fans with not limitless purses) - please reconsider!

[Jiiri]

I would have thought that Christmas is a happy event, an event about love and gifts and freely giving away to show one's appreciation... so I foolishly expected to get a little Christmas gift - like a free costume, etc. in WoW as a comparison.

I am a bit surprised about the prices - I know a company must also get some income, but other similar games like world of tanks are also doing more than fine with their income. So I think it is the wrong way.

If I would be in charge, I would have given some items for free as an appreciation to the player base. But I would made it so, that there are several spots (left and right) - and if you like to go for an all festive decoration (Lightbulbs and a mistle toe above, left a snowman, right hand an elf, some gifts stuffed behind, a wreast on the wall...) you pay a little something... not to greedy, maybe 1-2€ worth each. Compare it to an app you download for your Iphone: you will likely spend there a Euro or maybe two, but not much more.

I am also a person who likes the friendly manner: give something for free, and then politely ask: support us, if you like the game: spend a little something and we reward you with even more deco stuff. And if you want to support us even more: make a gift voucher, so you can buy mech chassis / decos for your friends.

*** the gift vouchers is a good idea, I think. In our chapter we would like to do tournments or our own achievements, and we would love to give a gift voucher as a prize. (everyone spends a dollar, and at the end of a day, whoever got the most kills / etc will get the reward). Think about it.

[Pr8Dator]

Seriously, too expensive. I bought the Ilya Muromets but I still found the cockpit items too expensive.

[Lamont]

When I saw that the christmas vanity stuff was out, I thought "oh cool, maybe I'll pick up some stuff for my mechs." Then I saw the prices... holy cow, are you kidding me? I agree with a lot of the people here that say a zero needs to come off all these vanity prices. There is no way in hell im going to be spending 5 or 6 bucks on one little vanity item, especially being it will probably be only available for the christmas season and be gone soon after.

Overall, your MC prices are way too high. The camo and paint mc cost should be reduced by half. Spending 250 for camo pattern and 125 for each color that costs MCs X3 (dazzle is 2 colors, so that's only x2, but still), that's 625 MCs. What? A little over 3 bucks? doesn't sound that bad, but then consider painting up 4 or 5 mechs and it starts getting ridculous. On top of that if you change your paint scheme, your changes are lost and paying it all over again. 750 MCs for Phranken pattern? Really? Not going to buy that at that price, ever. Lets look at the new hero mech, 5,250 MCs. Buying MCs at the 3000 for $14.95 bundle is what I'm going by for baseline MC cost because that's the bundle I would actually buy each time I needed MCs. So roughly 200 MCs per dollar. That makes the new hero mech $26.25.... yet again...are you kidding me? That is ludicrous.

I can understand the poster above saying how you start by pricing high and work your way down so you don't price the product below the market value, but I disagree in this scenario. In the retail world where customers are buying physical items, that concept makes sense. In a F2P setting where the items are just a series of bits that have no real value other than time spent by the designer creating the item, the fluff that we are buying should not be set at a high price. It's not like you have to manufacture each item we are buying, all your probably doing is changing a setting in our account, "flagging" the account to show we bought the fluff item. My two cents on microtransations is it should be really cheap. If your charging 50 cents or a buck for some kind of fluff, I'll probably buy whatever catches my fancy and in multiples because of having multiple mechs. The price is really low and I'm not really paying much attention to how much I'm actually spending, but you price fluff at 5 & 6 bucks, then I'm conciously doing the tally in my head how much it is actually costing me. Microtransactions should be just that, micro.

[Darvaza]

the items are too expensive for me to purchase. i will wait.

[Zinitiate]

Not only that, but where's our black friday cockpit swag discount?

[Lyrik]

The prices for the hero mechs and the vanity items are to high for me so I don't buy them.

BUT if PGI doesn't reduce them doesn't mean that they are greedy. It just means that the prices are ok for a lot of buyers ;-)

And the prices are roughly the same for STO. A new top of the line there ship costs 20 to 25dollar. A new costume ~5dollar.

[StandingCow]

Even though I did purchase the holiday items... yes I agree, way too high in price. If I had to do it again I probably wouldn't.

[LtPoncho]

They're paying someone on the PGI payroll to design, test and implement these features/trinkets. Hmmm ok.

He's hoping community warefare, new maps, new game modes and new mechs will get the same level of attention to detail and priority. Those parts will likely *not* cost MC thus I believe I have answered my concerns and curiosity. Christmas is the season of giving; that is giving your money to commercial operations. Christmas cheer? Eat ****.

Manage your expectations accordingly. Just because the game has the potential to be so much more doesn't mean it will be. I made that mistake back in 2001 with EA's MPBT:3025.

Edited by LtPoncho, 05 December 2012 - 03:16 AM.

[Mike McSullivan]

I think the prices are too high!

Heres the solution:
Dear devs, how about adding premium time to the Xmasitems? With a ~50% Bonus?
The normal pricing for a month is 2500MC, 7 Days cost 1250. The Atlassanta/elf costs 1000. so raise its cost to 1250 and let it have a Month Premiumtime bonus! The items for 250 a 7 Day premiumtime. (as examples)

...

Edited by Mike McSullivan, 05 December 2012 - 03:15 AM.

[LtPoncho]

Col Forbin, on 04 December 2012 - 11:35 PM, said:

Jiminy H Christ! Get off your holier than thou high horse. Most people who say happy holidays or the like, do it out of respect for the fact that many of the people you are saying it to celebrate other non-christian holidays over the season.

Oh and by the way.... Christmas is a stolen pagan holiday, and many of it's "traditions" derive from it's pagan origins... You know, things like trees, wreaths, santa claus, etc.

I think it's you who need an education, and many of us are sick of "christians" shoving their lunatic, fairy-tale beliefs on everyone else.

The guy's name was 'HighGround' - sort of goes with the territory.

Merry Xmas.