Interesting reading, for those who are sure that only those being vocal are those unhappy with the HoT situation.
Great post, as I have a background in sales as well.
I’m a big believer in #3.
3. The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 – 70%. The probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20% – Marketing Metrics.
Which is why bundling the core game with HoT DOESN’T make sense.
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
There are so many haters in Gw2 community, stop complaining, it would have cost the same without the core for free for new players.
Except that would not have cost the same. It’s a value bundle, and you can be sure that Anet’s financial wizards worked hard to calculate a price they could push this bundle at to absorb the cost of the so called “free” core game. It’s the same as every buy 2, get one free deals you see in stores.
And this “deal” is even better for Anet, because not only are they selling the core game bundled to new customers at a discount, but existing customers are paying for it and not even getting it. We’re expected to just hand Anet money that that is 100% profit for them, and get a slap in the face in return.
This, mrstealth understands basic economics.
I will add also that not allowing current players to get a separate key for the base game in the HoT expansion is that Anet would lose sales as players would be selling those keys on the cheap, using them or giving them away for FREE.
Not like Anet FREE, but really FREE FREE.
That is my guess why Anet will not give separate keys, don’t expect them to admit it.
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
To clarify: $50 is the price of the expansion. We included the core game as a free bonus to make it easier for new players to get into it.
No, this is not true. If the core game was free, it would be available for download on the website right now. It isn’t. It isn’t free. They want you to buy it (again) with HoT. Ridiculous.
If the core game was a separate serial code from HoT, or if veterans could opt to buy HoT + a character slot/fluff item/ or gems, this would not be a problem. Rebuying the core game is a problem.
I’ve been thinking the same think for a couple of days. If the base GW2 was TRULY FREE and WITHOUT VALUE it would be F2P right now.
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
Good video, I agree with his point at around 4:00 in which this (probably) was an attempt to streamline all clients with the base game and expansion. It was poorly done and blows my mind that noone at Anet/NCSoft thought about selling JUST the expansion to original game owners.
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
There are so many haters in Gw2 community, stop complaining, it would have cost the same without the core for free for new players. This community has to agree to the fact that we all win with this, we have our expansion and they have the entire game, which would increase the number of people who play it, so more money for Anet and better content in the future. I know this is difficult, but you will get over it, gokitten, Anet is doing alright, just buy it or dont if you dont want to, but dont claim more than they offer, you know where the door is. Anyway… get over this and stop complaining.
Haters?
Complaining?
Have you seen the earnings report for GW2?
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
You aren’t paying more because the prepurchase tiers include the core game. The core game is included as a Free Bonus. I repeat: FREE BONUS. As was officially stated above, since many of you either failed to read it or failed to comprehend it.
Whether the tiers include the base game or not will not alter the prices.
It’s not FREE. I’ll go out on a limb and say you have no idea where that FREE “pricetag” is being absorbed.
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
A simple point people don’t seem to understand is that the core game inclusion isn’t influencing the price in any way… it’s just something they threw in so new players that missed the previous sales aren’t stuck behind a huge paywall. They just got lucky to get the game at a lower price than others(free of charge in this case) the same way people got it for 75% less during the recent sales but nobody raised any pitchforks then even though they should have, according to the logic the complaining follows. The expansion itself costs 50$, you’d be paying that regardless of core game inclusion. Nobody is forcing you to pay extra for something you already have. Think of it as a 100% discount product you don’t have to put in your basket separately.
As for the pricing itself, $40 to $50 is just standard pricing for MMO expansions. And saying there’s not enough content to justify the price isn’t valid because we don’t know how much content there actually is. Which is where the magic of pre-purchasing kicks in… you don’t have to buy it now if you don’t feel you know enough. Pre-purchasing is an optional gesture of faith from the consumers. The game didn’t release yet. Anet isn’t demanding that we pay for the game now and then releasing it in a week or two from now. The game is several months from being ready. In fact, Anet isn’t demanding anything and people are hatemongering for no real reason. The game isn’t going live with just the things that were revealed up until now, and I don’t know why people are acting like it is. There’s still months of reveals ahead of us. Just stop with the pointless, and frankly baseless anger and hatred.
That is what they are telling you and your buying into it. They have people that crunch numbers, that is their job, you can sure as heck bet your butt that they took into account the value of the core game and added it to the price tag. It would be idiotic for them to not do this. It helps them justify the $50 price tag even if they tell you it doesn’t.
Like I have said before, if you buy a meal from McDonalds they may tell you the fries are basically free but in actuality they have taken into consideration the value of each part of that meal, right down to the paper wrap around the straw.
Reminds me of the deal I just got on new tires. Buy 3 get one free !!
Oh wait the free 4th tires price was absorbed into the cost of the other three.
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
All I can say is that some veterans don’t like it for whatever reason, others do, and still others don’t really care. Don’t know what the split is but it makes having any sort of decent discussion difficult.
Because IMO Anet “devalued” overnight the “value” of the core game owned by “veterans” to nothing while saying at the same time it added “value” to the deal for new players.
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
I mean is really must be difficult to program the HoT key to “see” what account you have i.e. already own GW2 base game and “add” the character slot to compensate for losing that GW2 base game key.
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
On a side note, Marvel Heroes released their Cow Level as random drops. Hilarious fun! If you guys need a break arguing semantics, you should give it a try.
Moo, moo, moo . . . quack.
Man, seriously, try it!
I was just playing Blackwidow !
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
I will add also that not allowing current players to get a separate key for the base game in the HoT expansion is that Anet would lose sales as players would be selling those keys on the cheap, using them or giving them away for FREE.
Just letting us have that key would have prevented a lot of the mess. I know I’d feel a lot better about it.
It would even somewhat (not completely) make up for what they did to recent customers that bought GW2 after they announced HoT. The dishonesty in the FAQ and previous ownership requirements would still stand, but it does soften the slap to the face.
At the office:
Billy McNoob: Hey MMOGamer I’ve been looking at GW2 and I know you play it, I’m not sure it’s the game for me. Should I sink $50 into this game?
MMOGamer: Oh Billy McNoob today is your lucky day! I have this extra key that came with my HoT expansion for the base game sitting at the house, I’ll bring it tomorrow for you.
Billy McNoob: Hey cool man, what you want for it?
MMOGamer: Nothing Billy McNoob it’s FREE.
Glad ArenaNet isn’t a car dealership.
You would have to rebuy your old car packaged with your new car.
The precedent being set is every 3 years you pay 50-ish bucks to play gw2. I see no problem with that.
It’s more along the lines of, every 3 years abandon your primary account if you want to get the same value out of the package as a new customer. Once again, I’m glad customers get the opportunity to take advantage of these types of bundles. The lower the barrier for entry to them, the better. However, I cannot, currently, purchase a product of equal value to them at this time. I have already purchased vanilla in the past, I have no use for it now, so there is no logical reason for me, and a surprisingly large number of other customers, to purchase a current bundle.
The easiest solution to this would honestly be for Anet to just separate the bundle into two codes, one for vanilla, one for HoT, as this makes no difference for new players, and gives the exact same product value of the bundle into the hands of old players. There are simple solutions to this “problem” that would appease those who are hesitant to purchase the expansion at the moment. The marketing team just needs to design logical bundles of new players and old players, and then the criticism for all of this will die down significantly. Of course it’s important to realize that even if they Anet does change something with their current bundles, it will take some time for them to do so. Change doesn’t happen overnight, if it happens at all. That being said, for those that share my opinion on the matter, we need to be patient, but at the same time not be afraid to continue voicing our opinion. Likewise, those who think the bundles are fair are free to do so as well.
We can have both “White Knights” and “Entitled Crybabies” (like me!) on this forum debating. It’s what a forum is for after all: exchanging ideas and views on relevant issues.
So how do you answer the fact that WoW is doing this very thing now? That it makes sense for a company to do. That by not doing it they’re hurting their own game, they’re hurting their bottom line and yes, they’d be hurting their veteran players?
Wow bundles all expansions except the most current one together. In order to play their most recent expansion WoD you have to buy the base game, which includes vanilla up to mop. So $19.99 + $49.99 for a brand new player. Buying warlords of draenor without the base game doesn’t do anything for you. Of course a new player could just buy the base game, but they would only be able to access content up to level 90 where the new level cap is 100.
WoD by itself doesn’t include any precious expansions or vanilla.
I’m not sure that’s true, but even if it is, a person who was there all along, who bought each expansion at the time didn’t get that deal. New players got a better deal. Because it becomes harder and harder as time goes on to attract new players.
Yeah but the old players in that WoW scenario also aren’t being given bundle options that only sell the new expansion with all previous expansions + vanilla right? They can just purchase the newest expansion released without also including the price of previous releases in the cost, correct? I’m honestly not sure, as I stated earlier I don’t anything about WoW’s business model at the moment. But if my assumptions are correct it’s not the same as what Anet’s marketing is doing right now and is actually healthier for both old and new players alike for them.
But they did pay for something other people are getting for free, which is just like this. It’s just how it’s packaged. It’s not that big a mental leap to see how it’s the same. The decide was made for the same reason at WoW. The reasoning behind the decision lends credence to the idea that maybe, just maybe, we’re not paying extra.
A WoW player who bought every expansion would have spent well over a hundred dollars that a new player isn’t going to have to spend.
