96 replies to this topic

[Secundus]

Thirdstar, on 16 January 2013 - 09:38 PM, said:

Though entirely within the spectrum of F2P. Compare this pricing to that of say World of Tanks or Star Trek Online and you'll see some similarities.

From my perspective this game seems more like it's going the Motor City Online or Cities XL route. Niche games pricing themselves out of business within a year or so.

[Profiteer]

You'd have to be a pretty hardcore fan to spend that on a single mech.

Around the $5 mark seems right to my eye.

Guess I'll be playing for free

[Norris J Packard]

Profiteer, on 16 January 2013 - 10:58 PM, said:

You'd have to be a pretty hardcore fan to spend that on a single mech.

Around the $5 mark seems right to my eye.

Guess I'll be playing for free

I can see why you'd feel that way, to state frankly I didn't mean for this to become a politicized thread but rather inform people what they should be expecting to pay.

[Apoc1138]

Thirdstar, on 16 January 2013 - 08:20 PM, said:

Sorry your entire argument boils down to "I'm a Founder". Norris has correctly calculated the BASE cost of the mechs. Having spare MC lying around or getting MC on sale is irrelevant.

my argument boils down to; would you pay $41 for something in $7 increments, or $25 if you pre-pay $100
the person putting in $7 each time is very unlikely to spend $25 anyway, the person throwing in $100 is more likely to spend a chunk of that on something if he really wants it

anyway, my take on this is; don't buy mechs, buy premium time and earn a mech in a few hours of gameplay

[Vassago Rain]

Apoc1138, on 17 January 2013 - 02:12 AM, said:

my argument boils down to; would you pay $41 for something in $7 increments, or $25 if you pre-pay $100
the person putting in $7 each time is very unlikely to spend $25 anyway, the person throwing in $100 is more likely to spend a chunk of that on something if he really wants it

anyway, my take on this is; don't buy mechs, buy premium time and earn a mech in a few hours of gameplay

I would do neither, and I have done neither. When I run out of MC from my founders, that's it. Unless prices change, eh.

At the current rage, I can pick up like four used gamecube games for the same money that'd buy me a virtual atlas hero.

[Apoc1138]

Vassago Rain, on 17 January 2013 - 02:25 AM, said:

I would do neither, and I have done neither. When I run out of MC from my founders, that's it. Unless prices change, eh.

At the current rate, I can pick up like four used gamecube games for the same money that'd buy me a virtual atlas hero.

and that is absolutely fine
I would have no use for gamecube games... I might have a use for a hero atlas... though even if I did, I wouldn't be buying one until after netcode fixes, CW etc. etc.

generally speaking, I don't buy mechs, I buy premium time, because cbills and XP come easily when you are playing the game for fun, and I already have a mech with cbill booster

I have no interest in the hero mechs released to date so the cost of them is irrelevant - I see lots of them in game though so I find it hard to follow the reasoning that they are "too expensive and the game will fail if they don't drop prices"... too expensive to you or me maybe, but obviously not the hundreds of people buying them

the number of individuals I see on the forum saying "too expensive, game will die" is balanced by the number of individuals I see in game with hero mechs, painted mechs, team mates I know who have bought regular mechs with cbills etc. etc.

my only reason for posting in some of these threads is to try to point out that there are different viewpoints on value, and whilst I understand anyone saying "I'm not paying that, I think it's too expensive"... that is not the only point of view and without sales data any claims regarding the future success of the game is totally unfounded

[Exoth3rmic]

Apoc1138, on 17 January 2013 - 02:52 AM, said:

my only reason for posting in some of these threads is to try to point out that there are different viewpoints on value, and whilst I understand anyone saying "I'm not paying that, I think it's too expensive"... that is not the only point of view and without sales data any claims regarding the future success of the game is totally unfounded

And unnecessarily inflammatory.

[Thirdstar]

Exoth3rmic, on 17 January 2013 - 03:22 AM, said:

And unnecessarily inflammatory.

What? "I'm not paying that, I think it's too expensive" is inflammatory? What kind of strange bubble you live in?

[Protoculture]

This is a great thread and should be stickied (but won't be ).

I was pretty close with my eyeball assessment of the Ilya Muromets cost (I was off about $3, too low), and the cost is why I didn't buy one, because I love both ballistics and the concept.

No premium mech should cost more than $10. I won't buy them above that point. So far the only MC I've spent from my Founders package has been on converting XP to GXP.

It's even more disappointing that they're using tonnage as a pricing metric.

Great work Norris.

[Thirdstar]

Protoculture, on 17 January 2013 - 04:16 AM, said:

This is a great thread and should be stickied (but won't be ).

I was pretty close with my eyeball assessment of the Ilya Muromets cost (I was off about $3, too low), and the cost is why I didn't buy one, because I love both ballistics and the concept.

No premium mech should cost more than $10. I won't buy them above that point. So far the only MC I've spent from my Founders package has been on converting XP to GXP.

It's even more disappointing that they're using tonnage as a pricing metric.

Great work Norris.

The price genie is out of the bottle. Ain't going back in. Blame Farmville.

Edit: Norris' sleuthing/math is quite awesome.

Edited by Thirdstar, 17 January 2013 - 04:17 AM.

[Apoc1138]

Thirdstar, on 17 January 2013 - 04:11 AM, said:

What? "I'm not paying that, I think it's too expensive" is inflammatory? What kind of strange bubble you live in?

read the words, understand what they mean, saying "I'm not paying that" is fine (which is exactly what I said)... claiming that the game will end because you are a cheapskate is what he is referring to

[Protoculture]

Thirdstar, on 17 January 2013 - 04:17 AM, said:

The price genie is out of the bottle. Ain't going back in. Blame Farmville.

Edit: Norris' sleuthing/math is quite awesome.

Gouging people will just keep the pop low and their profits lower. Right now I'm guessing it's only hardcore fanbois who bought premium mechs at their exorbitant prices. Let's see how that works out in 6 months.

[Thirdstar]

Apoc1138, on 17 January 2013 - 04:19 AM, said:

read the words, understand what they mean, saying "I'm not paying that" is fine (which is exactly what I said)... claiming that the game will end because you are a cheapskate is what he is referring to

Again, you keep pointing to the WORST of the feedback responses. How about some care for the moderate ones. King Arthur's huge *** poll about the pricing of paint for one? Or any number of others.

It's disingenuous of the game's most ardent supporters to keep pointing to worst written, least thought out, trollish feedback as some sort of standard. It isn't, you should know better than that.

All you're doing is worsening the US vs THEM situation here. You compare feedback from moderate critics to that from mouthbreathing morons and stick them into the same group. Most sane people hate the trolls and half thought out rants just as much as you do, because it devalues any real criticism.

Edited by Thirdstar, 17 January 2013 - 04:35 AM.

[Quxudica]

Thirdstar, on 16 January 2013 - 09:38 PM, said:

Though entirely within the spectrum of F2P. Compare this pricing to that of say World of Tanks or Star Trek Online and you'll see some similarities.

Just because a practice is common does not mean the practice is good or consumer friendly. World of Tanks has had many criticisms of it's business model and is regarded as somewhat shady, STO is a failed MMO that converted to free to play (after being bought out I believe). Regardless, they doubled back on their stance when they introduced cash-only unique variants and ontop of that they massively overpriced them. What each person sees as reasonable when it comes to such transactions is subjective, but to me any mech (if they must be sold, personally I find it distasteful to sell anything non-cosmetic/novelty) over 15 at the max is unreasonable.

[Apoc1138]

Thirdstar, on 17 January 2013 - 04:33 AM, said:

Again, you keep pointing to the WORST of the feedback responses. How about some care for the moderate ones. King Arthur's huge *** poll about the pricing of paint for one? Or any number of others.

It's disingenuous of the game's most ardent supporters to keep pointing to worst written, least thought out, trollish feedback as some sort of standard. It isn't, you should know better than that.

All you're doing is worsening the US vs THEM situation here. You compare feedback from moderate critics to that from mouthbreathing morons and stick them into the same group. Most sane people hate the trolls and half thought out rants just as much as you do, because it devalues any real criticism.

the moderate ones say "I'm not paying that, it's too expensive"... which I've already said IS FINE
and the previous responder who you decided to jump on and insult said the same thing

I do have a problem when people post things that are either offensive to the person they are replying to (such as your last post) or is factually incorrect

the dollar price of a mech is a flexible value depending on how you acquire your in game money - I personally happen to think that people should be aware of this and make purchasing decisions based on fact rather than a fictional "if you only buy $7 of MC at a time" situation, yet I've been accused of being "unrealistic" in pointing out that you can buy MC packs of better value if you spend more than $7 each time, or you wait for a sale (of which there have been 2 since open beta started).

I'm quite happy for someone to point out when I have been guilty of the same, I admit that I do sometimes get carried away if someone starts slinging insults for no good reason

Edited by Apoc1138, 17 January 2013 - 04:49 AM.

[Thirdstar]

Quxudica, on 17 January 2013 - 04:39 AM, said:

Just because a practice is common does not mean the practice is good or consumer friendly. World of Tanks has had many criticisms of it's business model and is regarded as somewhat shady, STO is a failed MMO that converted to free to play (after being bought out I believe). Regardless, they doubled back on their stance when they introduced cash-only unique variants and ontop of that they massively overpriced them. What each person sees as reasonable when it comes to such transactions is subjective, but to me any mech (if they must be sold, personally I find it distasteful to sell anything non-cosmetic/novelty) over 15 at the max is unreasonable.

WoT is certainly not shady and is quite wildly successful. And STO has had a troubled life but is also known to be making a fair amount of cash for their new owners. I won't comment on quality because it's pretty subjective. But, the business plan in both games clearly works, i.e. people do pay those prices for those things.

My point of course wasn't about whether it was acceptable or not but that certain price points exist for comparison.

[Corvus Antaka]

Quxudica, on 16 January 2013 - 09:34 PM, said:

All massively overpriced in my opinion. Buy two mechs and you've spent enough for a full priced brand new AAA game, and you have to buy the mech bays for them too, not to mention any of the other nickle and dime things youd do to them. Money grubbing at its finest, particularly distasteful considering they once claimed to be against this entire concept.

All boils down to PGI seeing the numbers, if people are actually buying mechs for these ridiculous prices at a rate that is making PGI earn significant funds to keep this game moving forward, then I say "milk em for every penny" but if on the other hand sales & players are hurting in part due to the high prices then obviously PGI needs to curb their prices.

For myself $10 for an assault and $3 for a light (2.99) would seem more reasonable and more encourgaing to a larger slice of the gamer population, but thats just my humble opinion.

Primarily I'd still like to see a "Heroize your mech" option, because while the hero mechs themselves have yet to have any appeal for me, I would certainly spend $5 to convert a mech into a hero mech and get a 25% cbill bonus on the mech - thus encourgaing us to run the mechs we want.

[Biruke]

Thanks God I don't have to count each penny. I've already spent something close to USD 200 fro this game. Am I a fan or just silly? LOL

Edited by Biruke, 17 January 2013 - 04:55 AM.

[Thirdstar]

Biruke, on 17 January 2013 - 04:54 AM, said:

Thanks God I don't have to count each penny. I've already spent something close to USD 200 fro this game. Am I a fan or just silly? LOL

You're a person with $200. Well, had.

[Biruke]

Thirdstar, on 17 January 2013 - 04:56 AM, said:

You're a person with $200. Well, had.

I really look froward to spending more. I'm not going to buy every single hero mech, only the ones I like. Plus paintings and getting GXP out of XP. It also costs MC.