How do you feel about Crown Store costs?

Cazzy

I just want to say that I'd like this to be a mature and friendly discussion. Please try to be respectful in your responses and constructive. Thank you

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Today the 3 Alliance Motifs were added to the Crown Store at 5000 crowns each. To buy all three would require purchasing the 5500 Crown Pack coming to £71 or roughly $85 (correct me if I'm wrong!). Besides the motifs we have seen individual costumes and mounts being sold for a higher price.

With ESO+ you get 1500 Crowns per month, which was great at the beginning. Now, even if you save your crowns you'd need to save for some time before you could buy all the latest high-cost items. Sadly, ZoS retires a lot of these items before we can save up so we reach for the credit card or simply go without.

Do you think these prices are too steep?
What would you expect to receive for 5000 crowns?
Should only Motifs be that price?
Should ZoS refrain from retiring items?
Would you like to see more bundles (Mount and Pet)?

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Again, please share your thoughts but do so maturely and constructively or you won't get cake

DRXHarbinger

Way over priced. 99% of it anyway. Why a mount or a motif costs more than a dlc is beyond me.

I bought the Dro M'artha senche and that's about it. I'd never pay for any of those costumes, imo they are all pants I'd rather they brought out more stuff like skins and polymorphs for that price. Not some motif that I farmed in 1hr when IC spawns were crazy. Content for that cost needs to be well...slightly better. AD motif at the moment is dirty cheap. You'd be a fool to buy them.

Thevorpal1

I don't care. The only item I find remotely essential in the crown store is eso+ for the crafting bag. Everything else is fluff.

I have no problem with forking over 5k crowns for something I want. Now the real question for me is if there is actually something I want on the crown store.


Right now not so much but that can change.

Roechacca

I use crowns for DLC purposes only. I wait for cheaper offers too. I make plenty of cash but can't justify to myself spending a lot of money on novelty items. If they were cheaper I'd pick up a few but the prices listed for some are the same as DLC packs. That's never gonna happen with me. Ya want me to throw an extra five bucks at some digital art, sure. Twenty? Get out of town.

Cazzy

What I personally find interesting are the people who say "I can just farm this" or "I don't buy it" when from my perspective it's more about what's best for the consumer (not necessarily you or me).

Praeficere

Cost of the motifs is fine, if you're to buy your way to in-game items, it needs a premium. They've been in the game for a while now and are easy to get.

As for costumes and mounts? Getting too much to what they used to be however the quality has improved a fair amount. Still not as expensive as other games, but we'll soon be there.

AlnilamE

Motif prices are fine because they are available in game.

Costumes are mostly reasonable, the fancy mounts are expensive so I don't usually buy them.

Cazzy

AlnilamE wrote: »

Motif prices are fine because they are available in game.

Costumes are mostly reasonable, the fancy mounts are expensive so I don't usually buy them.

I've updated my OP but would you consider buying the mount if it came with a pet?

Grileenor

Most prices are fine for me. They never had any offers worth 5000 crowns, so you get the idea, how I think about stuff around 5000 crowns each. But for most of the stuff the costs look ok for me.

KimberlyannKitsuragi

I feel like it's all over priced. However I don't buy much. I guess I don't buy much because it's overpriced

ADarklore

Cazzy wrote: »

What I personally find interesting are the people who say "I can just farm this" or "I don't buy it" when from my perspective it's more about what's best for the consumer (not necessarily you or me).

And what ZOS feels about pricing is 'what's best for the company and it's shareholders' not the consumer.

rhapsodious

I think 4,000 was pretty pricey for the Dro-m'Athra senche, but I had been looking forward to it for months and thus I bought it. I do, however, think that 3k would have been a more reasonable price.

@Cazzy what costume has been 5000 crowns? I think the Hero costumes were 2500, no? Entirely possible I missed something, though. Which is still very pricey, but I know the Breton costume is coming and therefore I have enough for it.

As far as pricing in general... this is a hairy one. I see there being three camps, if you will, of people who spend crowns:

Group 1: The people who do not use crowns for non-gameplay functions, at all. They make do with their stable-bought horse, but they might buy a character slot or the Adventurer Upgrade or whatever it's called. Anything that can be obtained by in-game means, they obtain using in-game means.

Group 2: Basically this, but with crowns:

Not that there's anything wrong with those people. They've either been camping on them for a long time or they just have enough disposable income for it to not matter. (Again, no judgment. I have spent way more on a F2P mobile game than I care to admit.) But if they want it and have no patience for farming, they'll spend some of their stash on something they don't yet have, just to be spared the trouble of farming it or buying it with in-game gold which they use for other ventures.

Group 3, which I feel like most people fall into:

They spend crowns on aesthetic things that they really like, but they don't throw them away like it's going out of style. They want to feel like their crowns have value. They'll buy a distinct, unique outfit for 1,000, or maybe a rare mount every now and then, but they don't buy something just because it's there. If they can earn it in-game without too much pain, they will.

Group 1 won't be buying motifs with crowns anyway. As many people have mentioned, it's just stupid if you're looking to be cost-effective. Emphasis before someone says I'm calling anyone who buys the motif stupid, because I'm not.

For group 2, it's great if you value time more than money. A few confirmation screens to go through and bam, you just saved yourself hours of farming/guild store trawling/RNGesus laughing at you/collecting the gold. One and done. Nobody will ever need to know that you spent $37 on a motif. I can see them selling a lot to this crowd.

For group 3, I don't think many motifs will sell, but even if only a few people buy it, ZOS still made money on something available in-game. I'm sure someone crunching numbers theorized that 5K was the sweet spot, the cutoff for people in group 3 who really want the motif but also want to feel like their money has value.

Gotta speak with your wallet in addition to your voice, though. I don't think they'll change prices going forward, but maybe in the future we'll get more bundles, or 4,000 crown motifs if they're not selling well enough.

I will say, though, that in regards to the outfits, a lot of the cheaper ones are just models that were already used. The rogues pack that has Naryu and Crafty Lerisa's armor is just free money for them because the model already exists. Whereas something like the Toxin Doctor had to be made from scratch. So I get the pricing, there.

I still think ZOS should rotate stock instead of retiring it forever for non-limited items, because it's going to make people upset. It'd be a great gesture of good faith if they cycled out stock in a digital storefront that probably has a capacity somewhere in the vicinity of 2^32.

Oh golly gosh did I type a lot about an MMO economy.

Cazzy

ADarklore wrote: »

Cazzy wrote: »

What I personally find interesting are the people who say "I can just farm this" or "I don't buy it" when from my perspective it's more about what's best for the consumer (not necessarily you or me).

And what ZOS feels about pricing is 'what's best for the company and it's shareholders' not the consumer.

- which is what brings us to this Tug-of-War that we'll never win. If they offered more for the price I think people would be happier paying it. Bundles are a good example of that.

lonewolf26

I feel these motifs and exclusive items are far too expensive.

starkerealm

The Motif and most services costs are way too expensive to even think about.

The costume, pet and mount costs tend to be a bit high, but not completely unpalatable.

The Banker and Merchant... pffff. No.

ADarklore

Cazzy wrote: »

ADarklore wrote: »

Cazzy wrote: »

What I personally find interesting are the people who say "I can just farm this" or "I don't buy it" when from my perspective it's more about what's best for the consumer (not necessarily you or me).

And what ZOS feels about pricing is 'what's best for the company and it's shareholders' not the consumer.

- which is what brings us to this Tug-of-War that we'll never win. If they offered more for the price I think people would be happier paying it. Bundles are a good example of that.

I hear this same argument every time something expensive comes out, but people ARE buying them and ZOS knows this. They can make more money with fewer people buying at higher prices than more buying at lower prices. Do you not think the bean-counters spend their time going over numbers before prices are added? They have a clear track record of sales, and if you'd note, they have NEVER lowered the prices of ANY motifs once they hit the crown store... the closest we get is the bundles... but I haven't seen any new motif bundles since the 'exotic' styles.

Cazzy

@rhapsodious you're quite right, there haven't been any 5k costumes. I meant to say they're more costly than they used to be! I've rephrased my OP. Thanks for pointing it out

I also totally agree with your post. 100%. The sad thing is that even if a minority are spending a lot of their own money to buy crowns those of us without that luxury miss out. It's a real shame and I hope they don't keep raising the price further. We need to fund ESO, absolutely, but it should be a symbiotic relationship imo

Kronuxx

I prefer the fact that motifs are at a premium of 5000 crowns. I personally usually try to farm them in game before spending real money on them and as such I'm glad they are at a high price.

Abeille

I don't really care for the prices of anything that is purely cosmetic. I think that's where they should really cash in.

The one (well, two) things that I found absolutely absurd were the Banker and the Merchant, but not just because they are super expensive, but also because they do not have the full functionality of an in-game banker or merchant (no access to guild store and bank on banker, no repair of gear on merchant) and that is very misleading. A lot of people bought them without knowing they didn't offer the full functionality, and I am strongly against this kind of business practice.

Motifs, costumes, vanity pets and mounts for absurdly high prices? Good. I would rather have cheap DLCs and expensive cosmetics than the other way round. It doesn't matters for me personally because I subscribe anyway so I don't have to buy the DLCs and I spend the subscription's Crowns on these purely cosmetic items, but I think doing it this way is better for the health of the game. If they need to monetize on something, be it on things that do not give people an advantage over someone who didn't buy.

Silverado

Very few crown store items make me feel like I'm getting my money's worth. I understand the hype but I just wish I could buy things without feeling the remorse after. I'm not one of those who'll go on a crown store strike but some items I will never buy no matter what because the price Is just not worth it....like the dromathra mount. I'm proud and grateful I'm not an owner of that 5k mount.

ItsGlaive

Everything is becoming far too overpriced. Early costume pack and mount prices were where prices should've stayed. There's no way a company can honestly justify a 5K motif or a 1K costume other than to say it's all about hiking profits as high as possible, without respect or regard for the playerbase.

Loralai_907

I thought the assistants were slightly higher than they should have been, and they serve a real purpose. I get that motifs once known can be used over and over again, so they are at the higher end of the spectrum as well. But I still think that high end is a little higher than it should be. I would like to see them scale back a little bit. Take their 5k items and make them 4k, 4k to 3k. 2500 mounts to 2k. All pets should be under 500. Costumes can have tiers. 500 for basic level, 1k for super great awesome level. 1500-2k for costume packs (3-4 costumes).

I don't buy ALL the things. I save up and get things that I super love. I'm hesitant to spend much right now, because I want the shaman costume when it comes out, and I have no idea what to expect for the price tag. And it looks like in October, more awesome stuff is coming out that I am going to want. I'm sure everything I want is going to be on the higher end. At the end of the day, its a video game, I am not going to throw down thousands of dollars on crown store purchases. That just is not going to happen.No matter what special crazy packs they come up with in the future.

Unsent.Soul

Cazzy wrote: »

What I personally find interesting are the people who say "I can just farm this" or "I don't buy it" when from my perspective it's more about what's best for the consumer (not necessarily you or me).

You could farm them, but the tin foil hat crowd would say they nerfed drop rates to boost crown store sales.

If there's something in the store that is appealing to me, I usually buy it. Like it was stated as well, prices seem to keep climbing.

1k for 1 costume, 5k per motif, mounts and pets at the higher price end (some old pets went for 400, now the new ones are all 700) I say they are getting way to greedy or just depending on the casuals to buy something and barely use it.

My personal opinion, if things were brought down in price you'd see more people using the crown store more often.

nine9six

I'm cool with all of it considering I wish the game never had to go B2P anyway. Charge an arm and a leg, I say...

Elsonso

They can price stuff at whatever they think people will buy it for, and keep it in the store for as long, or as short, as they want.

If I want it at the price they are selling it for, I will buy it. Otherwise, I don't. There is nothing in the Crown Store that I cannot live without.

I really see no reason to be concerned about it.

Whatzituyah

Im not concerned of how expensive a item is I just don't like how limited time only works. I understand its a business practice but it causes frustration for people who know can't afford the crowns at that moment.

magnusthorek

The biggest absurd IMHO is the Digital Deluxe upgrade. Why does it have to cost 2k Crowns? The price of a full DLC?

The only thing slightly useful is the Imperial race. Everyone that's playing for at least 24h already have the basic horse and the imperial style is awful to convert other armor styles to it.

Tandor

The prices don't concern me as I don't really buy anything. I'm happy for ZOS to set them at a level that generates decent additional revenues for the game over and above subscriptions. At the end of the day it's all about balancing supply and demand, and really it's only the DLC that can be called essential, and those prices are actually pretty reasonable. The rest of the stuff comprises convenience items and fluff. I can appreciate that some people can't afford the prices but that's like all walks of life, it's a hobby like any other and you don't get the green fees at your local golf course reduced because you personally can't afford to pay them.

ArchMikem

How do I feel? It's outrageous.

What do I do about it? I go without. I previewed the Motifs though and honestly apart from the Covenant Hood I'd never craft and wear any of it anyway. The only Crown Store Motif I actually would like to have is Ancient Orc, and even then it's only because I want the Hood and Heavy Legs.

I'm so picky.

FullBlownBeast

Crown store is just for subs to spend they're "free" crowns on at this point. Nothing wrong with it I guess, and the sub value in ESO is really nice IMO, but kinda sucks for people that don't want to pay monthly and just wanna spend as they want.

Luigi_Vampa

I just wish it was still a sub based game and we had no crownstore. The prices are high. They should have bundled the Alliance motifs if they were going to charge that much.