Allow Gifting Crowns

Phinix1

Also, possible Incentive for Addon Developers?

I realize there is this unspoken rule that addon developers are never supposed to have a public opinion. The are supposed to be the silent Zen transcendent warrior monks that never have anything negative or constructive to say about anything. I think this is mostly because Bethesda and Zenimax see them as sort of the Elephant in the room. They realize that a huge part of their IP is based on repeat business due to 3rd party content developers, but they haven't figured out a way to actually include them in any of the benefits of that success, therefore they take the safe, non-confrontational stance of no communication at all.

I think they silently hope the community will just keep increasing their value for free and never complain about it (and even attack efforts to change this stance), and that the company will never have to take any steps or make any effort to compensate or incentivize them to do so.

It is basically free intellectual labor, and if you don't HAVE to reward them for it, you don't. It is easy to understand why they would not want to draw attention to this tact. But there are some simple things they could do to help encourage people that make quality works to keep doing so, and it wouldn't cost them millions of dollars or bad PR.

One of these things is to simply make Crowns something you can gift to others.

They already blatantly encourage gambling your money away so long as they profit. What is so bad about allowing people to spend money on Crowns to gift them to others? Is it that "gift" sounds too much like "selfless compassion" and it goes too much against the corporate canon? I am not seeing how gambling = good and gifting crowns to friends/guildmates/addon authors = bad.

Speaking as an addon author, I can testify to what Robin from the Nexus and others have pointed out: Donations don't work. They don't work because they basically never happen. Robin recently published statistics that even among top content creators, donations amounted to maybe $2 or $3 dollars in literally YEARS, and that is for popular projects. If people don't HAVE to pay for something, they won't.

For someone like me with a bleeding cavernoma in their brain, unable to do steady work or take care of myself, but too young to qualify for ANY help from the government, my ability to tinker around at my own pace on addon projects could have been at least a minor source of side revenue for things like power, a high speed internet connection, basics you know? But despite walking the line and putting up donation links (you aren't allowed to ask people to sponsor you for specific projects) it has not really amounted to much.

By much I mean anything.

I have so many cool ideas that I just don't feel motivated to complete. So I guess I figure that even if I never make a dime on my hobby, at least people could send me some crowns once in a while so I don't have to miss out on every cool thing that passes for a limited time through the crown store.

Crowns are already there. You get them with your crafting bag sub. It would probably be a lot easier for more people to rationalize sharing a digital currency that automatically accumulates for money they are already spending then to input their credit card number to help some stranger.

So, what do you think?

ntheogenic

They are already working on a gifting program. Not for crowns, but for crown store items if I understood this correctly:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/3618204/#Comment_3618204

This may not be exactly what you propose, but it's a start

GabiAlex

Let me explain...

There is a little issue with gifting crown and that is the Chinese gold sellers that are laundering stolen money by buying premium items from online games stores, then selling them to lower prices and the most affected will be ZOS. I there wasn't a major risk of fraud by criminal organization I'll totally agree, but after I witnessed in BDO I'll be against it.

Now let the jokes about me wearing a tinfoil hat begin.


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Phinix1

Yes: ZOS makes money and less people are excluded.

GabiAlex wrote: »

There is a little issue with gifting crown and that is the Chinese gold sellers that are laundering stolen money by buying premium items from online games stores, then selling them to lower prices and the most affected will be ZOS. I there wasn't a major risk of fraud by criminal organization I'll totally agree, but after I witnessed in BDO I'll be against it.

Now let the jokes about me wearing a tinfoil hat begin.


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You can't buy crowns with gold. What you describe doesn't effect Crown gifting.

Slylok

I also wouldn't mind seeing crowns awarded for playing the game. Achievements , quests , first time boss kills.. etc.

Dracindo

Yes: ZOS makes money and less people are excluded.

Should be possible. However, this should only be possible after purchasing crowns. So buying the game and having 500 Crowns doesn't allow you to gift it.

But if what @ntheogenic is saying is upcomming in the future, then I don't mind either. It would just be nice if there were ways to get just enough crowns to buy that one item in the shop you really want, without having to pay €7, just because you're only 200 Crowns short.

Slurg

Yes: ZOS makes money and less people are excluded.

But only if they put some serious limits on how much/ how often you can gift crowns to reduce incentives for fraud. They should also put these kinds of limits on item gifting when it is introduced. If they allow it to be very profitable to hack accounts to give away large amounts of crowns and items, scumbags will make the extra effort.

GabiAlex

Let me explain...

Phinix1 wrote: »

GabiAlex wrote: »

There is a little issue with gifting crown and that is the Chinese gold sellers that are laundering stolen money by buying premium items from online games stores, then selling them to lower prices and the most affected will be ZOS. I there wasn't a major risk of fraud by criminal organization I'll totally agree, but after I witnessed in BDO I'll be against it.

Now let the jokes about me wearing a tinfoil hat begin.


.

You can't buy crowns with gold. What you describe doesn't effect Crown gifting.

Let me explain what happened when BDO was launched with the possibility to gift items from item mall. Some Chinese organization used it in their advantage to launder some money. They bought and mailed as gifts requested items from the item mall to player in exchange for like 1/3 of their original price. People got banned for it, also Pearl Abyss lost a lot of money because of this.

Imagine to possibility to buy 500 crowns for 1 euro from a third party person, tempting, no? Even that will be illegal and will result in lot's a bans, people will still get their cheap crowns from Illegal sources and will affect ZOS a lot.

Again, I'm against it because I've witnesses what can happen, otherwise it will sound like an excellent idea to me too.

Phinix1

Yes: ZOS makes money and less people are excluded.

GabiAlex wrote: »

Let me explain what happened when BDO was launched with the possibility to gift items from item mall. Some Chinese organization used it in their advantage to launder some money. They bought and mailed as gifts requested items from the item mall to player in exchange for like 1/3 of their original price. People got banned for it, also Pearl Abyss lost a lot of money because of this.

Imagine to possibility to buy 500 crowns for 1 euro from a third party person, tempting, no? Even that will be illegal and will result in lot's a bans, people will still get their cheap crowns from Illegal sources and will affect ZOS a lot.

Again, I'm against it because I've witnesses what can happen, otherwise it will sound like an excellent idea to me too.

Resolved simply enough by ensuring that the cost of crowns are proportional to the payment method.

If you pay in Shinyclams then the current conversion rate applies to the cost in Shinyclams.

Simple.

EDIT: I wouldn't take ANYTHING that BDO does as an example of the right way to do ANYTHING. That company is bad and should feel bad. Encouragement to grief crafters with forced PVP as a play-style? Real money character respecs? Character exclusive paid items? Selling rez items to avoid XP loss from 1-shot bosses? Everything that game does is disgusting.

Speak not to me of BDO.

Mady

Let me explain...

No: Having something others don't is the whole reason I buy it.

WTF? What's that stupid answer?!



People that are rich irl would just buy a ton of crowns and sell them for ingame gold.

Phinix1

Yes: ZOS makes money and less people are excluded.

Mady wrote: »

People that are rich irl would just buy a ton of crowns and sell them for ingame gold.

How is that a problem?

So long as the Crowns are purchased by someone, ZOS makes money to support the game.

People with excess Crowns trade with people with excess gold, and everybody gains.

magnusthorek

Let me explain...

Not as donation for addon developers as this would open the world of "shareware addons" but by allowing Crowns to be donated would make easier, for example, the acquisition of Crown Store items from people that don't have an international credit card (very common in my social circle)

GabiAlex

Let me explain...

Phinix1 wrote: »

GabiAlex wrote: »

Let me explain what happened when BDO was launched with the possibility to gift items from item mall. Some Chinese organization used it in their advantage to launder some money. They bought and mailed as gifts requested items from the item mall to player in exchange for like 1/3 of their original price. People got banned for it, also Pearl Abyss lost a lot of money because of this.

Imagine to possibility to buy 500 crowns for 1 euro from a third party person, tempting, no? Even that will be illegal and will result in lot's a bans, people will still get their cheap crowns from Illegal sources and will affect ZOS a lot.

Again, I'm against it because I've witnesses what can happen, otherwise it will sound like an excellent idea to me too.

Resolved simply enough by ensuring that the cost of crowns are proportional to the payment method.

If you pay in Shinyclams then the current conversion rate applies to the cost in Shinyclams.

Simple.

EDIT: I wouldn't take ANYTHING that BDO does as an example of the right way to do ANYTHING. That company is bad and should feel bad. Encouragement to grief crafters with forced PVP as a play-style? Real money character respecs? Character exclusive paid items? Selling rez items to avoid XP loss from 1-shot bosses? Everything that game does is disgusting.

Speak not to me of BDO.

As a former player I can't agree more that what you have said about Pearl Abyss is totally true.
But I'm still against after what happened there, even that being able to gift crown items will be nice, especially when an in-game friend is celebrating his/her birthday and you want to make a nice gift for all the good moments together.

You may say whatever you wish about ZOS, but at least they are trying to keep people interest on. A bad marketing decision, or an exploit of the crown store may affect badly the company and the game.

Acrolas

Let me explain...

No to gifting crowns, yes to gifting items that you have purchased with the crowns.

Crowns in any form are a lease that you agree to. By limiting it to items, you agree to those lease terms but don't transfer any responsibility or obligation on to the new recipient. If fraud is involved, then ZOS removes the item that was gifted but you are the only one who receives any disciplinary action because you didn't transfer the agreement, just the item.

Solid_Metal

No: Having something others don't is the whole reason I buy it.

isnt this a clear epidemy of P2W system and what make Black Desert Online community goes ape sh*t, cause if i remember correctly, the dev implement this kind of thing, cash shop item can be trade/bought with ingame gold from other players

while arguably ESO doesnt have any P2W item on the crown store, but you know, its better to prevent

Runs

At this point I really don't care much either way as it's already been semi initiated by gifting items via support. But I think it would be bad for the average person who buys crowns and uses them....

This would mean the crown prices that are already rising would rise even higher though. Imagine all the people who are content to with subbing and haven't bought much of anything from the crown store, add to that all the people who were like that before they quit playing. Those people gifting crowns could affect the number of people actually purchasing them. I mean why should I spend 50$ on crowns if my buddy no longer plays and is willing to give me his for free?

If they made it so you could only gift crowns packs as you buy them, instead of once they are in your account... Then that would alleviate my concerns.

Nerouyn

Let me explain...

Mady wrote: »

No: Having something others don't is the whole reason I buy it.

WTF? What's that stupid answer?!

This poll is an example of a loaded question.

Obviously there are many other reasons why a person would say no to this idea, but the poll attaches a fairly unpleasant reason to the no option.

Essentially, 'You can only say no to my idea if you label yourself an entitled, rich, ***.'

Keep_Door

No: Having something others don't is the whole reason I buy it.

Meh this could lead to scams i bet

Scams for real money pretty much

Oreyn_Bearclaw

No: Having something others don't is the whole reason I buy it.

Crown gifting would be the clearest path to date for people to convert cash to gold. It sounds nice in theory, but would certainly be exploited. You would see things being sold in zone for crowns (cash). This is such a bad idea.

I realize there will always be a market for Cash to in game gold through external sites, but blatantly putting it into the game on this level would be the worst decision ZOS ever made.

Also, the your survey responses are lame. My answer is definitively NO but not for the reason you listed.