Crown Store Website Updates

kind_hero · July 22

Your lead devs said there will be less FOMO content.

A catalogue-calendar with dates would be much appreciated, especially for the returning items.

Last year, I missed a house guest NPC I really wanted by a day. I reached out to the customer service with a ticket, willing to pay for that item, and they said something like we can make an exception for life (!), and there will not be other exceptions, to get an item I missed. I was like, hey, I want to give you money for pixels, and you don't want them only once? I really didn't like this "favor". So, I refused... I think you need to change this approach, let people have what they want if they are paying you real money.

After this "xbox earthquake", I would really re-think my approach towards my customers, since you are redesigning this crown store page.

LordLomax · July 22

I totally agree with the above, as we are not aloud to buy items that have not been brought back for years that in some cases have appeared once , putting all old crown store items on a rotation or in a separate tab for returning items would resolve this especially as the bazar updates are very limited .

AScarlato · July 22

tomofhyrule wrote: »

I have heard from some of the Stream Team that the monthly showcase took a lot of hours to set up every month (like a large part of one person’s job was just making that), so it is understandable that that needed to be cut with the smaller team.

I don't understand why they would cut this person. They directly increased revenue because people used these to know when they had to 100% log in to buy a FOMO item that might not ever return.

SerafinaWaterstar · July 22

coop500 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hey everybody, we wanted to let you know about changes to how we communicate Crown Store updates on the website.

To help manage workload, we have decided to remove the Web Crown Store from the official elderscrollsonline.com website on Wednesday, July 22. The ability to acquire crowns via the website will remain and, of course, this does not affect the items that will be offered on the Crown Store in The Elder Scrolls Online, you will just need to login into the game to view and purchase the latest offerings.

Furthermore, for the same reason, the monthly Crown Store Showcase blog will also change. We appreciate your patience and understanding, and we will continue to reassess how we promote the Crown Store in the future-thank you!

This is concerning news, admittedly. To my knowledge, the Crown Store is a pretty big part of what funds this game. Thank you for the update.

It is concerning. I'm tired of being called a doomer by just being realistic about this stuff, it's not friggen good guys, wake the frick up I swear (talking to the players who thinks ZOS is fine/the layoffs was a good thing/bethesda will help.)

Why is it concerning?

Have NEVER, in over 10 years of playing this game, used that function on the website.

The person posting is sounding like they think the whole store is being deleted, not just one underused access!

Destai · July 22

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hey everybody, we wanted to let you know about changes to how we communicate Crown Store updates on the website.

To help manage workload, we have decided to remove the Web Crown Store from the official elderscrollsonline.com website on Wednesday, July 22. The ability to acquire crowns via the website will remain and, of course, this does not affect the items that will be offered on the Crown Store in The Elder Scrolls Online, you will just need to login into the game to view and purchase the latest offerings.

Furthermore, for the same reason, the monthly Crown Store Showcase blog will also change. We appreciate your patience and understanding, and we will continue to reassess how we promote the Crown Store in the future-thank you!

Thanks for letting us know.

For me personally, this really will mean less money spent and less time in the game. I understand it's a workload issue, but also feels like yet another negative change. It's unfortunate you guys are in this place.

It's worth mentioning there's a lot of obstacles for revenue. Things like this, the reliance on timed deals, optional battle passes, and near-impossible gifting enablement all blunt your revenue. Avenues where people want to give you money and there's roadblocks. Especially where the game is, I hope you guys really start reconsidering some things about the Crown Store going forward, not just the website.

coop500 · July 22

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

coop500 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hey everybody, we wanted to let you know about changes to how we communicate Crown Store updates on the website.

To help manage workload, we have decided to remove the Web Crown Store from the official elderscrollsonline.com website on Wednesday, July 22. The ability to acquire crowns via the website will remain and, of course, this does not affect the items that will be offered on the Crown Store in The Elder Scrolls Online, you will just need to login into the game to view and purchase the latest offerings.

Furthermore, for the same reason, the monthly Crown Store Showcase blog will also change. We appreciate your patience and understanding, and we will continue to reassess how we promote the Crown Store in the future-thank you!

This is concerning news, admittedly. To my knowledge, the Crown Store is a pretty big part of what funds this game. Thank you for the update.

It is concerning. I'm tired of being called a doomer by just being realistic about this stuff, it's not friggen good guys, wake the frick up I swear (talking to the players who thinks ZOS is fine/the layoffs was a good thing/bethesda will help.)

Why is it concerning?

Have NEVER, in over 10 years of playing this game, used that function on the website.

The person posting is sounding like they think the whole store is being deleted, not just one underused access!

You're choosing to focus on ONE ASPECT of this announcement, the 'easy low hanging fruit'.

I'm more concerned that they can't even do crownstore showcases like they used to anymore. You know, THE CORE way they make money now?

Lydawobbles · July 22

Thank you Kevin!
You are amazing!

driosketch · July 22

At least I'm not the only one who finds this an odd cut. Even if I didn't buy from the web store, having pictures was really helpful. As someone who decides to spend money based on the showcase, not having pics of returning items was already a compromised, and now having just a bullet point list for the new stuff too?

baratron · July 22

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

coop500 wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hey everybody, we wanted to let you know about changes to how we communicate Crown Store updates on the website.

To help manage workload, we have decided to remove the Web Crown Store from the official elderscrollsonline.com website on Wednesday, July 22. The ability to acquire crowns via the website will remain and, of course, this does not affect the items that will be offered on the Crown Store in The Elder Scrolls Online, you will just need to login into the game to view and purchase the latest offerings.

Furthermore, for the same reason, the monthly Crown Store Showcase blog will also change. We appreciate your patience and understanding, and we will continue to reassess how we promote the Crown Store in the future-thank you!

This is concerning news, admittedly. To my knowledge, the Crown Store is a pretty big part of what funds this game. Thank you for the update.

It is concerning. I'm tired of being called a doomer by just being realistic about this stuff, it's not friggen good guys, wake the frick up I swear (talking to the players who thinks ZOS is fine/the layoffs was a good thing/bethesda will help.)

Why is it concerning?

Have NEVER, in over 10 years of playing this game, used that function on the website.

The person posting is sounding like they think the whole store is being deleted, not just one underused access!

I don't know anyone who used the website version of the Crown Store. It was useless because you couldn't actually buy items through it.

But every player I know who has Crowns to spend looks at the monthly Crown Store preview. It is those glossy, rendered images which sell items - or, at least, have players going into the Crown Store in-game to see if the items look good on the characters they want to use them with.

And it seems that Kevin is talking about BOTH the website Crown Store that few players used AND the Crown Store Showcase that everyone who's into costumes, mounts, furnishings, houseguests, music boxes, new homes etc. looks at every month.

Elvenheart · July 22

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

If it's a sign of anything, it's a sign that people didn't use it very much compared to the work it took, and that the web team was reduced (which was stated on Reddit by people who claim to be former employees).

Something can be "not good" without the sky falling.

Notice how no one so far has said, "I will miss spending Crowns via the website instead of in-game" (though I'm sure they're out there somewhere).

I can confirm that I didn’t even know about the crown store website and always bought my stuff through the game. I did always look forward to the preview, but if we’re still getting a list, I’ll be OK with that.

DragonRacer · July 23

Dropping my voice in as feedback to agree that I never even knew about the web version of the store. I am on PS5 and always access the Crown Store from in-game.

However, I do make shopping decisions/Crown amount-planning based on the monthly Crown Store Showcase article. Totally understand the bells and whistles need to come off to simplify it for whoever it's gotten dumped on during the shake-up. A list of what's coming and availability dates is the bare minimum needed - lets us know when to keep an eye out for an item coming back around that we may have missed before. But a picture or two of the fanciest brand new shiny would still be nice if possible. That has been a selling point for me in the past: see new shiny, decide I need it, note what date it will become available so I don't miss it.

(The reverse of that is seeing stuff I have no interest in and being happy I save my Crowns for a month, but still. LOL)

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · July 23

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hey everybody, we wanted to let you know about changes to how we communicate Crown Store updates on the website.

To help manage workload, we have decided to remove the Web Crown Store from the official elderscrollsonline.com website on Wednesday, July 22. The ability to acquire crowns via the website will remain and, of course, this does not affect the items that will be offered on the Crown Store in The Elder Scrolls Online, you will just need to login into the game to view and purchase the latest offerings.

Furthermore, for the same reason, the monthly Crown Store Showcase blog will also change. We appreciate your patience and understanding, and we will continue to reassess how we promote the Crown Store in the future-thank you!

Is this something that you can automate?

Purely hypothetical, but I would imagine that the crown store catalog could just be published via some webservice. The items in rotation have a flag that promotes them to the website, along with a description and image. A shift from a blog - which TBH I found a little hard to read after a while - to just a catalog. Can that be done?

I believe this was not possible due to several tech limitations. And building the tech was not an option. But this was explored.

@ZOS_Kevin could likely request some help from the addon developers in the stream team on this. I'm sure there would be some way of pulling the files from the game and auto updating based on changes - maybe to a discord bot?

baratron · July 23

According to Reddit, the entire website team was laid off. I cannot comment on the veracity of this claim.
https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1v2sl26/comment/oyxpflp/

I literally cannot understand how this could possibly be any kind of saving for Microsoft. Surely the Crown Store Showcase brought in far more money than the cost of one person's salary each month? It's impossible for it not to have done!

DoofusMax · July 24

@ZOS_Kevin: appreciate being kept informed, but must admit that to some pretty heavy cognitive dissonance between the reassurance that the team is about the same size as the one which released Orsinium and Summerset and "we're taking down the web Crown Store and retiring the Crown Store Showcase blog", which were both done while the team was same size AND producing Orsinium and Summerset. Y'all are going to do as y'all are going to do and running a game development studio does not appear in my CV ("fascinated by shiny objects" might; I'd have to go look), so I'm mostly just pointing out what seem to be discrepancies in what is being communicated.

coop500 · July 24

DoofusMax wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin: appreciate being kept informed, but must admit that to some pretty heavy cognitive dissonance between the reassurance that the team is about the same size as the one which released Orsinium and Summerset and "we're taking down the web Crown Store and retiring the Crown Store Showcase blog", which were both done while the team was same size AND producing Orsinium and Summerset. Y'all are going to do as y'all are going to do and running a game development studio does not appear in my CV ("fascinated by shiny objects" might; I'd have to go look), so I'm mostly just pointing out what seem to be discrepancies in what is being communicated.

That's because team number and team talent isn't the same thing.
A good chunk of the people who were fired are the long time talent, the backbone of the game dev team. Sure, not every single one, but a great number of them.

Numbers don't matter if most of the people remaining are AI-trained interns being paid peanuts while the people who've worked on things like Summerset and Orsinium are gone.

dubq77 · July 28

Firing the web team was certainly a choice. 🫪

Thoriorz · July 28

So what does this mean for the monthly showcase? Will it happen or not? I check this every month to see what’s coming to the shop and when, but if this doesn’t happen, I’ll just ignore the whole Crown Store.
There's no way I'm going to open the in-game store every day just to take a look lol...

ZOS_Kevin · July 28

Thoriorz wrote: »

So what does this mean for the monthly showcase? Will it happen or not? I check this every month to see what’s coming to the shop and when, but if this doesn’t happen, I’ll just ignore the whole Crown Store.
There's no way I'm going to open the in-game store every day just to take a look lol...

It will still happen.