(edited by IndigoSundown.5419)
Deprioritizing Monetization
GW had “costumes” in their cash shop, same as GW2.
Evon’s weekly blog about the BLTC has been there forever and since, if you agree with it or not, the game’s operational income is dependent on Gem sales with cash so it makes sense to do so. Nobody really got all that upset until it mentioned using gems to buy gold even though that was always an option.
I don’t even notice the “Get More Gold” button on the TP screens. I do notice the “Buy More Gems” button simply because I occasionally press it other than buy when I’m converting Gold to Gems on the custom screen. Nether of these are “intrusive” IMO. Intrusive is having a button on screen, all the time that will send you to the buy gems screen, in game, while doing content. “Having problem soloing that boss? For 100 Gems buy the one shot Boss Buster. Buy Yes/No”
There are much more intrusive ways to monetize a game. I assume you all have played “free” mobile/tablet games. Some bash you over the head every time the game starts and pester you with notifications if you hadn’t played today. Some have a buy button along side other buttons on the interface where fat fingers can bring up the buy screen. Some are well behaved, but some are downright annoying (see what EA did with Dungeon Keeper). This game has none of that.
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Out of curiosity.
If one cannot work toward rewards/items in game how do all of the rares, exotics, legendaries, and ascended items make it into the game ?
Currently the vast majority of gear skins are drops in game. In my opinion Anet has reserved some of the least attractive options for the gemstore.
Buying items with gold is just a means of shortening the time spent working for items yourself. I could do the same in GW1. I had terrible luck getting items that I wanted to drop so I farmed close to a hundred stacks of ectos and could then buy the items I wanted.
The differences in GW2 are:
1) items are not generally tied to specific content so working towards a specific item can be more time consuming as the drop table is truly enormous.
2) one can work toward the items they want without being restricted to one, or a few, specific pieces of content.
3) one can more readily bypass the “working toward,”’part by choosing to spend real money. I say more readily because this was possible in GW1 as well.
Personally I like a mix. Getting that cool skin drop from completing a piece of challenging content can be very nice. Being able to get what you want by playing content that you like rather than working on content that you don’t is similarly very nice. I do think that the balance between these two could use some adjusting in GW2.
Out of curiosity.
If one cannot work toward rewards/items in game how do all of the rares, exotics, legendaries, and ascended items make it into the game ?
If you how doable drop rates but in just a few places or one place for one item you can work directly towards it by doing or farming (depending on it it’s RNG or guaranteed reward) that content and then you will get the item in a reasonable time.
If you have extremely low drop rates but it can drop in many places it is not really doable to work towards getting how. However because is drops in so many places the total amount of drops on the world might still be the same. It’s just so that people who do not want get it and then sell it.
And then there are of course the cash-shop items you can also not work directly for but also only buy with cash or gold.
Funny enough you explain it yourself in point 1.
And don’t forget as long as items are not account bound grinding gold is always a viable option but now for most things it’s the only viable option.
So 2 is possible in both cases, 1 isn’t.
Well buying it with cash is imho never good from a game perspective and the balance you can simply get by locking rewards behind specific content with reasonable drop-rates (so you can work towards it) and not making most of them account-bound.
(edited by Devata.6589)
MMO’s have never been a level playing field, not even worth thinking about what is fair. Factors, such as time, internet connection speeds, lag adding RL currency to that isn’t really going to be that noticeable.
GW begs to differ, as far as currency is concerned. And no, unlocking pvp skill packs is not giving anyone the edge – if anything, it is a convenience purchase for exped players wanting a 2nd account – it actually puts a completely new player at a disadvantage compared to them learning the skills’ functions and their synergy step by step by playing.
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(edited by KarlaGrey.5903)
At the end of the day, what matters is that NCSOFT is happy.
So far, they seem to be happy since they are not actively firing/ transferring
people from ANET to other projects. In fact, Anet is hiring more people than the other development teams under NCSOFT. So, they have to be doing something right to keep NCSOFT happy.By they, you mean we. We keep spending money on gems.
Please speak for yourself. I never spend a single dime on gems and will never spend a single dime on gems. I won’t support something that is bad for the game.
For every one of you that doesn’t, enough do to keep it going.
Give us more GW 1 weapon and armor skins, please. COPY/PASTE ALREADY!!!!
At the end of the day, what matters is that NCSOFT is happy.
So far, they seem to be happy since they are not actively firing/ transferring
people from ANET to other projects. In fact, Anet is hiring more people than the other development teams under NCSOFT. So, they have to be doing something right to keep NCSOFT happy.By they, you mean we. We keep spending money on gems.
Please speak for yourself. I never spend a single dime on gems and will never spend a single dime on gems. I won’t support something that is bad for the game.
For every one of you that doesn’t, enough do to keep it going.
Sadly yes, well at least they did the first two years. Numbers have been dropping all the time. Wonder where the bottom is and if that bottom is low enough for them to change things.
Anet is an NCSoft property. I wouldn’t be surprised if they get shut down out of a clear blue sky one day for nebulous and nonsensical reasons.
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(edited by naiasonod.9265)
At the end of the day, what matters is that NCSOFT is happy.
So far, they seem to be happy since they are not actively firing/ transferring
people from ANET to other projects. In fact, Anet is hiring more people than the other development teams under NCSOFT. So, they have to be doing something right to keep NCSOFT happy.By they, you mean we. We keep spending money on gems.
Please speak for yourself. I never spend a single dime on gems and will never spend a single dime on gems. I won’t support something that is bad for the game.
For every one of you that doesn’t, enough do to keep it going.
Sadly yes, well at least they did the first two years. Numbers have been dropping all the time. Wonder where the bottom is and if that bottom is low enough for them to change things.
You don’t get it. They’re not going to change things. They’ll simply shut down the game. There’s no reason for them to do this huge gamble, and it is a gamble, on trying to create content fast enough to keep people buying expansions.
This might have been possible eight years ago. I seriously doubt it’s possible now and I don’t think the company will change how they do business. If’ it’s profitable for another three years they got their money and they cut their losses.
You think you’re going to change how companies do business. There aren’t enough of you for that to happen and there’s no real percentage in it for them.
I don’t think monetization is a terrible thing but I am very reluctant to spend anything when we have been kept in the dark for so long on what the future holds as I’m certain many people are.
The fact of the matter is if they continued to add these items but were committed to building expansions as well as the gem additions through living story I don’t see an issue. People would at the very least understand what their support is going towards but at this point I’ve no idea so why the heck would I continue to drop money if I’m not happy with the direction?
Anet hurts their own cause by being so tightlipped and at the end of the day we have no idea why they’re following this path but hey they may be happy keeping it status quo, can’t imagine why but the current path sure seems to indicate that to me.
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For me, it’s relatively simple.
If I’m satisfied with the product, I will happily purchase additional items for the product (Gem Store). If I’m not satisfied with what I’m getting, then I will not purchase anything.
In the past year I have not been satisified with majority of the content or direction, so I have stopped purchasing gems. This eventually led to distaste for the game, thus I have stopped playing.
However, I hope to see the game re-attract me so I can once again support the franchise.
I’m not really bothered by the current model. The only thing that bugs me is the gamble aspect, i have partaken in it and have also gotten pretty disgruntled over it.
I think i realize that the exchange of in-game currency for store bought items influences how heavy the pay store needs to be. Since the gem exchange continues to escalate, it does seem like more folks are trading gold for gems than the inverse.
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I’m not really bothered by the current model. The only thing that bugs me is the gamble aspect, i have partaken in it and have also gotten pretty disgruntled over it.
- Gambling without at the very least knowing the odds is throwing your money away. What if the thing you want has 0.001% chance per bet and bet is 5 dollars? We don’t know it, it could be a scam.
@ Vayne.8563
-“You don’t get it. They’re not going to change things. They’ll simply shut down the game. There’s no reason for them to do this huge gamble, and it is a gamble, on trying to create content fast enough to keep people buying expansions.”-
Can’t quote for some reason so do it this way.
Oow I do get it maybe it’s even Anet who did not get it. You see I talked about this back when the game was only out for half a year (as at that moment there cash-shop focus in stead of expansion focus became clear). I have always said that it’s good in the short run but bad in the long run (while the question was if Ncsoft would even care about that).
Back then they had plenty of time to change things but they didn’t and we have seen a decrease in not ending drop in income (Q4’s not counted) since release. So at least what that go’s I can now say I was write.
Maybe they don’t care and never did see it as a long term thing but it could have been.
Numbers also show that if they where able to put out an expansion every year and would then peak at a 100% income as on original release (Like the GW1 expansions did) they would have earned more money then they did now. So yeah it would have been a gamble back then but one that resulted in more money and a better game.. Something the stakeholders would love and the gamers would love. Sadly the financial / monetize people (You know those same that advices many many games to use the P2P system and then have a game completely fail because of it).. (What the heck do those people learn??) decided different and so we got a lesser game and the investors got less money. You gotta love those people.
Anyway the big question is now not so much if they want to make the gable (because yes now it’s becoming a gable, after having scared away so many people and likely used up resources for junk) but how low is the bottom, will that be to low and will they be willing to try and get that number up again. If that bottom is to low, an they want to increase it then they don’t really have another choice.
Not sure what you mean about 8 years ago, I recently did hear even WoW was looking into releasing more expansions if that would go in pare with lovering the monthly payment it would mean at least a step into this direction. Then there is Destiny that uses a similar system (While in a bad way) and all the non-mmo’s like battlefield and GTA that use the same model.
“If’ it’s profitable for another three years they got their money and they cut their losses.” That is indeed very likely. I am sure the expansion model could have been profitable for them for over 10 years. Of course we can never know if that would be true but all the data we do have would at least suggest they would have earned more money already using that model.
“You think you’re going to change how companies do business. There aren’t enough of you for that to happen and there’s no real percentage in it for them.” For me as in that I would persuade them? Probably not. I was active in many beta forums of many mmo’s saying there P2P would not work (I have a track records of being right in 100% of those cases.. not bad) and they still seem to not have learned it. But at some point they might. Are there enough people to buy it? For sure, you can simply create a better game because you don’t have to fool people into buying in-game junk. Are there many people who would buy a good game and be willing to buy an expansion every year? More then enough..
For me, it’s relatively simple.
If I’m satisfied with the product, I will happily purchase additional items for the product (Gem Store). If I’m not satisfied with what I’m getting, then I will not purchase anything.
In the past year I have not been satisified with majority of the content or direction, so I have stopped purchasing gems. This eventually led to distaste for the game, thus I have stopped playing.
However, I hope to see the game re-attract me so I can once again support the franchise.
The problem however is that in the year before you yourself have might been pushing them in that direction by buying gems.