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Thread: Item store items to expensive

  1. #1

    Item store items to expensive

    Hi folks,

    i reactivated few days ago some of my accounts. Yesterday i took a look in the item store to get some stuff im borrowed to farm again like i have done several time with other chars like the most of you veterans too. Stuff like token package and added xp. I saw another new item, instant levelup to 200 and i saw the prices and was a little bit surprised about the new price police of FC. Im not 100% sure, but i think the prices rises a lot as they was in the past. If im correct i need to pay 5000 points for a 1k token package now, thats something around 40-50€, for the needed 2.5k token you need to pay something around 100 €, i think it was much cheaper in the past. I work, i earn money and i could buy me the stuff in the shop. I could, but my personal feeling about the prices for the stuff is, it is much overpriced. Yea you could say you dont need to use that services. On the other hand i would say i would use it, but for an fair price. Or would you buy a pizza for 40 bucks? You could say, ok i dont need to buy it, on the other side the suitable price would be 10 bucks, damn why should i pay so much for it then. I really love pizza and i wanna eat one, but not if it overpriced like that.

    I have no clue how many ppl use that item store but im sure FC would make much more money with it if they drop the prices. Look at the gigantic money machine apple produces with the app store. The apps costs normaly 1-5 €/$. In the most cases you think, ok i dont know if i really need it and how long i will have fun with it, but hey thats only a few bucks, i try it. Apple make with this strategy millions of bucks. Make things cheap and let many ppl buy it. FC do it exactly the opposite way.

    cheers
    Vitalis

  2. #2
    Besides.. Tokens are so easy to get... Side tokens: 8020 my engi for example, most my 220's have between 8-10k tokens just from daily missions, wich are also the easiest way of leveling.

    Price really is to high. 1000 tokens should be at highest 10€, then again people sell 1k tokenpacks for 600mil credits. If you are farming anything 600mil is not much, just pay ingame credits.
    Quote Originally Posted by Michizure View Post
    This'll be fixed for the next patch

  3. #3
    (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ Tryptophy's Avatar
    The biggest pain for me is getting 1k tokens on a TL4 twink. There's really no easy way to do that other than the vet shop and then the really slow traditional methods. I too would gladly skip that for $5-10, but not $50. I've got too many characters to be dishing out that kind of money on every one.

    I think though that FC keeps the price high to keep the items rare. They probably make less money overall (speculation) but at $5 you can imagine that 80% of players would be willing to pay that, leaving the other 20% to have a legitimate gripe that they're being pressured to P2P.
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  4. #4
    Yeah, if some things were 500-1,000 pts, I would have bought like 20 of them by now. ~$200 for FC. But since they are 5,000-10,000 pts each, I will never buy even 1. $0 for FC. Seems a no brainer to lower price. Especially on silly virtual junk that costs nothing to actually "produce" beyond setting up the original marketplace. It's not like they're losing money by pricing it lower.
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  5. #5
    I was actually just looking at this too, and most of this stuff isn't account wide when it should be considering the price.

    Especially "convenience" items such as recall beacons.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Tryptophy View Post
    The biggest pain for me is getting 1k tokens on a TL4 twink. There's really no easy way to do that other than the vet shop and then the really slow traditional methods. I too would gladly skip that for $5-10, but not $50. I've got too many characters to be dishing out that kind of money on every one.

    I think though that FC keeps the price high to keep the items rare. They probably make less money overall (speculation) but at $5 you can imagine that 80% of players would be willing to pay that, leaving the other 20% to have a legitimate gripe that they're being pressured to P2P.
    You can spend 2-3 billion on a TL4 twink...thats 4 to 6 GRACE cards at $15 each...if you're a vet you may have a lot of these items already, so it wont cost you that much...but you'll have the credits, too.

    Nobody should be able to "buy" 1000 tokens for $5-$10. Thats pay to win when everyone drops $5, the cost of a single domestic beer in a club and less than a McDonald's meal. It should be $50 to keep everyone from buying it. Farm token guns on your main for 2 days. Thats 1000 tokens right there.
    Bitcoin and the ACA are Ponzi schemes. MMMmm, sounds like pizza.

  7. #7
    imo should drop prices by alot on many things. My goal would be to try to have customers wanting to do micro transactions every single day. nobody keeps track of spending 5 dollars a day, but 50 dollars is a chunk and noticable. take note from fb/cellphone games (not their methods, but their pricing) 5 dollars a day does add up fast! To maximize this you need an updated billing system that you dont need to redeem points, but you can directly purchase via card or paypal.

    i would also introduce beginner starting helper packages for like 15 dollars (shouldnt cost more than a sub). xp cans, garden keys, social armor, recall beacon + more.
    also would add medium level packages, high level packages,

    a person that would take 3 months to level an alt from 1-220. every month would buy a helper package to assist.
    every time this person rolls new alt, buys helper package also.

    Lower prices and items will start moving. Create a good strategy to inplement it could bring in good revenue.

  8. #8
    WOW there's an idea... pay 10$ and get 1 month 50% xp buff. that'd be a nice itemstore item.

    Billing needs to change, it needs to be more effortless yes. Itemstore stuff should be optimaly priced... so people buy it often.

    The way it is right now, not sure some items sell at all ever.

    Also 1k tokens is far from pay2win. Pay 2 win for me is when you get an item that is otherwise unavailable to get via regular gameplay.
    Quote Originally Posted by Michizure View Post
    This'll be fixed for the next patch

  9. #9
    I agree with paying a sub and the high prices in the item shop are a bit rich. As a family man with 3 kids. One a teenage son who plays AO with me, we look at the shop but rarely if ever buy anything.
    Not because we don't like whats in there just the prices are way to high.

    My son trades in Team Fortress 2 itemry and always has steam cash saving up to buy a game he wants but waits for it to come on sale.
    He looked at the FC shop once or twice and just wrote it off because the pricing is targeted at someone working.
    He would love a portable GMI but simply refuses to hand over his real life loot for it because he believes it is way to much.

    My son just turned 15. His generation is growing up with game platforms like Steam that have built in cash systems and micro transactions are the norm.
    He loves AO and particularly playing with the GMI and selling/buying stuff. If FC pricing was right this would translate into the real world.

    I have seen first hand the effect of high pricing has had on a young up and coming AO player.
    FC needs to revisit their in game shop and look at ways to tailor it for our next generation of gamers or be left behind.

    MMO's and gaming platforms with small priced transactions are here to stay and AO is in a unique position were it's player base see's the value in paying a sub and having an in game shop this advantage will erode away over time if prices remain high.

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Soju View Post
    imo should drop prices by alot on many things. My goal would be to try to have customers wanting to do micro transactions every single day. nobody keeps track of spending 5 dollars a day, but 50 dollars is a chunk and noticable. take note from fb/cellphone games (not their methods, but their pricing) 5 dollars a day does add up fast! To maximize this you need an updated billing system that you dont need to redeem points, but you can directly purchase via card or paypal.

    i would also introduce beginner starting helper packages for like 15 dollars (shouldnt cost more than a sub). xp cans, garden keys, social armor, recall beacon + more.
    also would add medium level packages, high level packages,

    a person that would take 3 months to level an alt from 1-220. every month would buy a helper package to assist.
    every time this person rolls new alt, buys helper package also.

    Lower prices and items will start moving. Create a good strategy to inplement it could bring in good revenue.
    once again, I agree with Soju.

    I have one exception; however, on how to implement it.
    Last edited by lunarsolace; Aug 4th, 2015 at 19:21:52.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by lunarsolace View Post
    once again, I agree with Soju.

    I have one exception; however, on how to implement it.
    I cant say completely remake the payment system because thats hard. but an alternative that might work would be a phone app. Use google and apple's existing payment systems to take payments. What do you think about buying ao items on a phone? could fc afford the coding talent to write an app?

    additional features like chatting from the android app the leet would be nice too.

    i know of 2 markets (egypt and romania) that this app payment system would be much more accessible than current one.
    Last edited by Soju; Aug 5th, 2015 at 10:28:43.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Soju View Post
    I cant say completely remake the payment system because thats hard. but an alternative that might work would be a phone app. Use google and apple's existing payment systems to take payments. What do you think about buying ao items on a phone? could fc afford the coding talent to write an app?

    additional features like chatting from the android app the leet would be nice too.

    i know of 2 markets (egypt and romania) that this app payment system would be much more accessible than current one.
    I know several "markets" that will have their AO activity increased greatly if they would have "fix-price" on FC points and subscription.
    For example - in Russia, where I do live in, 14 euro for 1 month is like 1k RUR at the moment. 2 years ago that was 500 RUR.

    So subscription is still the same in Euro, but it was doubled in RUR. Nearly noone in Russian wanted to pay 500 RUR for 1 month. Now we have price doubled and chance to have subscribers from Russia is nearly zero atm.

    Same thing for KZ, BY, UA and other ex-USSR markets.
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