169 replies to this topic

[Almeras]

(I did try looking for a thread with a similar nature but search only found very old threads)

Talk with others it seems I'm not alone in thinking MC's are over priced.

Stack them high and sell them cheap should be PGI's mantra. It costs them nothing to issue MC, much better to have 100 causal customers spending $5 than one die hard spending $25.

Diablo3 AH (loot breaking issue aside) is a good example of a player balanced economy. Unobtainium weapons can be had for the price of a mars bar or a billion hours of farming gold, guess which I felt was better value? And because I felt it was such great bang for buck I spent $40 on my alts, wife and friends characters.

MWO on the other hand I'd rather grind because MC doesn't buy much convenience at all. Add to that you need to by x3 of every chassis your looking at a serious amount of cash. In fact the amount there are asking makes my wallet snap shut.

I love MWO, I do use cash shops, I have a disposable income with pressure on my free time. I'm based in the UK which gives me a favourable exchange rate. I'm probably who you had in mind when talking about a cash shop. But other than the founders pack why aren't I spending?

Bottom line no one likes to feel short changed or over charged. This isn't an attack lots of businesses fall into the same pricing trap, it does take allot of guts to drop your prices and go the volume route.

Edited by Almeras, 12 December 2012 - 01:17 AM.

[Tennex]

wouldn't doubt it. its better to be generous to build trust, than to be greedy and lose trust. i dont like that we have to rebuy things, its very shady.

emotional decision is much faster than logical decision don't make it easy for your players to write your company off as greedy or untrustworthy

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Ilya Muromets $29.95 yeah.,... bit overpriced

[DoRkcHoPs]

I agree. I find it very hard to believe that casuals will spend 7 bucks on a cockpit item (especially if you cant have it equipped on all mechs all the time) or 22 bucks on a single hero mech. Not to mention patterns and premium colors... those prices are crazy insane.

If you want more money just charge the normal 50 bucks for the initial game purchase and include some complimentary MC.

Edited by DoRkcHoPs, 11 December 2012 - 04:47 PM.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

The paint thing is just crazy imo. I can see hard core players going that route but casuals? Yeah thats a losing proposition, especially in a beta

[ExplodedZombie]

They went the unfortunate path of trying to appeal to whales. Whales are those guys that will spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month to get what they want. However, that only works in pay-to-win games. A ~$25 mech is completely out there. I am REALLY interested in buying mechs for MC but NEVER will I spend more than $10-15 on a single mech. JK I probably will but only because they won't lower prices.

The sad fact is that it's likely they won't see much more than 10% of players monetize, at all (Open Beta going forward). This can cripple their revenue if they price low. It's not fair to those who don't have huge wallets, but it's business

Just stock up on MC when it's on sale. That is what most people do when the game sells credits for discount instead of items.

Edited by ExplodedZombie, 11 December 2012 - 04:57 PM.

[8CH Trooper]

People will vote with their wallets, if the price is too high then sales will be slow, find the right price point sales will go up. f2p is a sales driven economic model, if MWO want's to be successful they will have to find out what the consumer wants at the price they are willing to pay. It's easier to sell a million of something for a dollar each than it is to sell one thing for a million dollars.

Edited by 8CH Trooper, 11 December 2012 - 05:53 PM.

[Kronos907]

Brother i know exactly what your talking about, posted a thread on this very same topic about a week ago.

i suggested that they charge about a quarter of what they are now and i would almost guarrenty that they would double if not triple there profits.

$25 for a mech is crazy!!!! $5 ok now were in the ball park.

The thing with F2P games like this is that they will continuously be adding content so one would think that there should continuously be something to spend money on.

Just saying.........

[Asmosis]

I think at $30-50 bucks for a heavy - assult classed hero mech, I'd rather by a battletech model and sit it next to my computer. Or buy another game.

Bought some mech bays, but thats about it so far.

Still, you need to consider the age of the average battletech fan. Its an old IP, so has a decent amount of people in their 20's, 30's, 40's etc who have greater disposable income than some other games.

Edited by Asmosis, 11 December 2012 - 05:01 PM.

[HurlockHolmes]

I would say the price point is rather extreme, I know that Planetside 2 (a far from perfect game, I know) doubled station cash for all tiers when you bought some on black friday.(So buying $5 worth would get you $10, and so on)

Microtransactions are called that for a reason, and it is in the best interest of smart publishers as well when it comes to f2p games.

Edit: Spelling Errors

Edited by HurlockHolmes, 11 December 2012 - 05:37 PM.

[Solis Obscuri]

"Loosing"?

[Locan Ravok]

The sad thing is not that the itens are overpriced, but there is nothing worth to buy except mechbays and some premium time. Mechs you can buy with C-bills and you win those even losing every game (just need to be smart on the repairs). Hero mechs are not that good to begin with. YLW is just a founders Hunch with exchanged hardpoints position and IM is just a worth for the 3 gauss build that does not work in real life.

Vanity itens could be cool, but they would need to cost 10% or less of actual price.

[Vermaxx]

I bought christmas lights and a tree because they're limited time only and hilarious.

I've bought several mechbays (because you have to), and converted some xp. I still have 16,850 mc left and I see no reason to 'waste' it on mechs or paint ever. I also see very little reason to spend it on anything other than six months of premium time every six months.

[Corpsecandle]

I'm almost out of my founders cash and I'm not planning on re-upping. About the only thing so far I've been willing to spend additional cash on may be the premium bonus, but I still haven't turned on my founders time...

I was expecting a mech to run $12-13 and the cockpit decorations to run around $1-3....was completely blown away by their actual pricing scheme.

[Corvus Antaka]

Since closed beta I don't think I've heard one person say "prices are fine, stuff it you poor jerks"

My assumption is that PGI is milking diehards and early entrants, and that they already know they prices are way over the top and need to come down significantly.

Either that or a ton of people are spending huge money on the stuff PGI is selling - but honestly, spectating during matches I very rarely see much of anything in anybodies cockpit, so I doubt that is the case.

However, some have splurged on the Ilya Cataphract, since we don't know numbers it is hard to gauge.

since PGI lives by the money, I assume they know what they are doing, and that everyone is buying stuff like crazy, because if that isn't the case, well, it'd be crazy to keep these high prices so high.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Corpsecandle, on 11 December 2012 - 05:31 PM, said:

I'm almost out of my founders cash and I'm not planning on re-upping. About the only thing so far I've been willing to spend additional cash on may be the premium bonus, but I still haven't turned on my founders time...

I was expecting a mech to run $12-13 and the cockpit decorations to run around $1-3....was completely blown away by their actual pricing scheme.

The actual mech pricing "scheme" screams "out of money" to me.

[Daekar]

I suspect what will happen is that prices will stay where they are until all the Founders run out of MC.  If they're not happy with the purchase rate after that, then prices will come down..  If they are happy with it, then both the sellers and the purchasers (those that DO purchase) feel the price is fair, and it is therefore not overpriced by definition.
I'll keep giving them money for Hero Mechs as long as prices don't go even higher.  Call me stupid if you want... I feel like they're more lasting than Premium time.
FWIW, since I self-limit the amount of cash I spend on all games (one subscription or one $15 purchase per month), I'm hoping in-game prices come down or that we get more MC in each package.  That's just me though...  if Russ and Co. think sales are good, no problem.



EDIT: Just wanted to add, I'm a funny customer. I don't do F2P, I spend money on whatever I play. The catch for developers is, if I start feeling like it's no longer worth spending money on a game, I don't hang around and use the F2P part of the model... I just leave and spend money on something else. I guess I'm old fashioned, but I want the whole experience for a reasonable price... my time is too valuable to mess around with anything else.

Another thought: $15 isn't worth what it used to be. I'd pay for a $20 per month package if they offered it.

Edited by Daekar, 11 December 2012 - 05:50 PM.

[JohnnyC]

I am baffled by the pricing. It reminds me of Railsimulator.com's pricing. They sell single trains on Steam for $20 or more. There are TONS of them... I have no idea how much it would cost to buy every train, but I expect it is in the thousands of dollars.

I just don't get it. I had told my wife that I was considering picking up a hero mech last month. Then I saw the price for the Cataphract and put the brakes on that right quick. No way. And christmas lights that cost more than real christmas lights... yeah. Okay. Bah humbug on that.

[PANZERBUNNY]

What? You can't equip cockpit items in all your mechs at the same time?

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

PANZERBUNNY, on 11 December 2012 - 05:56 PM, said:

What? You can't equip cockpit items in all your mechs at the same time?

YEAH thats TOTALLY unreasonable to be able to take it out of one mech and walk it over to another mech, youre totally right