Should Zos continue to sell Crowns at a discount?

CelestialSlayer

The reason i am holding this poll is because someone the other day raised a good point about how flooding the market with cheap crowns just causes inflationary pricing and devalues the crowns themselves and from another angle actually devalue the value of the monthly subscription for Eso plus members. If you want to increase sales you should discount store items not the currency.

Aebaradath

Other

Just go back to the P2P model. It's vastly superior to the current model.

Nemesis7884

Why would that distort the prices unless zos distorts them....crowns and gold are separate

DieAlteHexe

Biased poll. If you just had a simple "yes" without the "slant", I'd vote.

CelestialSlayer

They should do a discount on store items and not crowns

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

Why would that distort the prices unless zos distorts them....crowns and gold are separate

if you have thousands of crowns sitting in thousands of accounts then the currency has no value because i was bought at a lower rate. So they will need to recuperate the lost sales for the initial crown purchase via store pricing.

Thats my theory anyway.

Turelus

They should do a discount on store items and not crowns

PelinalWhitestrake wrote: »

Just go back to the P2P model. It's vastly superior to the current model.

It's not superior for consoles of the income of ZOS.

As much as we hate it the B2P Crown Store model has proven to be very good for their income, and attracted a lot more players it seems.

As for the poll I think the better way to do things is discount the items rather than the crowns. I think we'll see things continue as they are though, because as I said above this is working for them.

CelestialSlayer

They should do a discount on store items and not crowns

DieAlteHexe wrote: »

Biased poll. If you just had a simple "yes" without the "slant", I'd vote.

Good point. sorry for missing out just a yes. Its not easy creating a poll. Unfortunately i cant change it now.

Laenendil

CelestialSlayer wrote: »

someone the other day raised a good point about how flooding the market with cheap crowns just causes inflationary pricing and devalues the crowns themselves

Wait what ? What the hell are you talking about ?

CelestialSlayer

They should do a discount on store items and not crowns

Laenendil wrote: »

CelestialSlayer wrote: »

someone the other day raised a good point about how flooding the market with cheap crowns just causes inflationary pricing and devalues the crowns themselves

Wait what ? What the hell are you talking about ?

Market economics

Beardimus

Other

Biased Poll.

I have ESO+ and I want the discounts to continue as they don't make things more expensive they make them cheaper for people with control.

I hoard in sales, and thus every price I see in the store is 50% off. I'm fine if people with impulse problems don't do this and fund the game with their impatient nature.

DeadlyRecluse

Putting sales on fake currency doesn't cause inflationary pricing--they seem related because they are IRL (if money becomes more available, things get more expensive), but with the crown store both qualities (rate of real to fake money, relative cost of digital goods) are independent of each other and controlled directly by ZOS.

pareidolon

Yes - because I don't care if it might make things more expensive in the future.

I have several opinions on this, though I do personally like the option of buying crowns at a discount.

Fundamentally, ZOS will do what they feel they need to do to meet their bottom line. Time-limited discounts are a very common method of driving sales. Though I don't know how this plays out in the rest of the world, where I am virtually all retail and grocery stores do this -- JC Penny tried coming out of the discount model a while back and they had to run right back into it. So in the end, I don't believe it will actually be a factor in increasing the prices of crown store items. Those will increase as ZOS feels it is most effective to gain sales.

I've been keeping track of these discounts for a couple years now. I was actually very disappointed in January to see that the 5500 crown pack has gone up in price (against a 2016 sale). Now to get that same cost efficiency you have to buy a whopping 14,000 crowns at once. Further they now have a somewhat better deal if you buy 21,000 crowns at once. I'd be very surprised if many people spent that much at once on crowns alone.

I do have a general dislike of a number of marketing tactics that abuse psychology to get sales from people who might otherwise not buy, however, in the case of the crown store I don't see discount crowns as being the primary avenue of pressure-based marketing. Oftentimes it's not linked with limited time mount/house/pack offers or with crown crate seasons, but with times that people may be coming into the game fresh (like with a Con, or at the holidays) and if you think about it, can be a kind of reward for people who plan to stick with the game for a while and who delay gratification in their crown store purchases.

heaven13

I do believe that ZOS sees all the "wait until crowns are on sale so you're paying half price" posts and prices accordingly because they know people wait to buy crowns. Then we end up with costumes that are 2000 crowns that are broken. But wait! It's only really 1000 crowns...haha. No.

That said, ZOS directly controls the prices of both (digital goods and fake currency) so I'm sure it's working exactly as intended.

NoTimeToWait

Yes - because I don't care if it might make things more expensive in the future.

Crowns is the bonus in ESO+. I don't care about crowns, because it is not the reason I have eso+. And I think it is unwise to subscribe just for crowns bonus.

Soul_Marrow

Other

This is the dumbest and most misleading Q/A poll I have ever seen. You are either a ZOS employee or a very unintelligent player. Just because YOU think something it doesn't make the facts less factual. That's the beauty of a fact, they stay facts regardless of someone's opinion of them. The things they sell are EXTRA revenue for them, if you think they NEED it to get by then you have sipped the Kool-Aid one too many times. Pass. You offer a sale on crowns as a way to keep customer morale high and to spark extra spending. It encourages an upward trend in revenue. Nearly everything in the crown store is a cosmetic re-skin and takes almost no time or effort to create in comparison to the amount of money made on said item. Please learn basic economics before assuming so many things about the topic you are commenting on. There is much more for you to learn.

reiverx

It's not that crowns aren't worth the money, it's the items they sell that are overpriced.

Soul_Marrow

Other

CelestialSlayer wrote: »
someone the other day raised a good point about how flooding the market with cheap crowns just causes inflationary pricing and devalues the crowns themselves

This is a terrible point. Crowns aren't a currency that can be used or passed around among people unlike real money. Apples to oranges.

This isn't a REAL currency. You are pretending inflation exists for a faux currency that is used as a marketing ploy. I would consider saying that MAYBE the argument could be made if these items were listed for sale in USD (or equivalent) and the items were simply lowered in price and considered "on sale", but this is ALSO apples to oranges. Crowns are not a real form of currency which is why they have to be purchased with another form of currency. They are used as a way to obscure the real cost of an item and to "trick" the consumer into buying more crowns by offering set amounts of crowns for sale and then charging more or less crowns for an item than you can buy in said crown packages. You end up with either not enough crowns to make your purchase or more crowns than you need for the original purchase which entices you to spend those crowns on another purchase (where the left over amount is unlikely to be enough to obtain the 2nd item so you have to purchase even more crowns until it finally "zero's" itself out). There is a reason crowns aren't 1:1 with USD, which would also render them completely useless in the first place. Once again, basic sales and economics.

Jimmy

Crown Sales only happen during periods where ZOS needs to raise money fast. ZOS is smart enough to know the majority of people buy crowns up during the sale periods. So when they need to raise funds for whatever reason, that means crown sale time! Easy money for them.

Hokiewa

CelestialSlayer wrote: »

Laenendil wrote: »

CelestialSlayer wrote: »

someone the other day raised a good point about how flooding the market with cheap crowns just causes inflationary pricing and devalues the crowns themselves

Wait what ? What the hell are you talking about ?

Market economics

Uh no, just simply no.

Violynne

PelinalWhitestrake wrote: »

Just go back to the P2P model. It's vastly superior to the current model.

Agreed.

But I don't think we'll ever see this model return. The vast number of players would leave if they had to actually pay for a game of this caliber.

Now that I think about it, the P2P model would actually fix other issues:
- Number of forum complaints would drop because they don't sub so "fixing" the game is no longer an issue to them

- Server load diminished instantly, reducing lag and making it enjoyable for those who do sub

ZoS' subscriber numbers wouldn't be 10Mil anymore, but I find I can live with this well before I have any concerns over Crowns or store prices (both in game and real).

Slurg

Other

Do you seriously think they are going to reduce the crown prices of items in the store if they stop having crown sales? I certainly don’t believe that for a second.

CelestialSlayer

They should do a discount on store items and not crowns

Soul_Marrow wrote: »

This is the dumbest and most misleading Q/A poll I have ever seen. You are either a ZOS employee or a very unintelligent player. Just because YOU think something it doesn't make the facts less factual. That's the beauty of a fact, they stay facts regardless of someone's opinion of them. The things they sell are EXTRA revenue for them, if you think they NEED it to get by then you have sipped the Kool-Aid one too many times. Pass. You offer a sale on crowns as a way to keep customer morale high and to spark extra spending. It encourages an upward trend in revenue. Nearly everything in the crown store is a cosmetic re-skin and takes almost no time or effort to create in comparison to the amount of money made on said item. Please learn basic economics before assuming so many things about the topic you are commenting on. There is much more for you to learn.

hey there. no need to get pesonal with your objections. All this is your opinion, and just becuase it is your opinion doesnt make it fact. I dont need a lecture on basic economics from someone who it would appear knows very little about sales and the impact that discounts have on the value of an item over a period with consumers. You only need to look at Black Friday and how that has effected consumer spending. but thanks for the lesson.

Hippie4927

Is this a "nerf crown sales" thread?

CelestialSlayer

They should do a discount on store items and not crowns

Hippie4927 wrote: »

Is this a "nerf crown sales" thread?

looks that way lol.

DeadlyPhoenix

Other

It doesn't really matter what we or they do either way.

ZOS controls the value of crowns and the value of crowns store items. If they stop giving crowns at a discount and instead start discounting specific crown store items, they will simply make the initial cost of the crown store item whatever they want. 10k crowns for a motif for example so that at 50% off they make 5k.

They will just change up they way their model works. You can believe that if they put crowns on sale it's profit for them either way. They decide what crowns are worth and what the crown store items are worth.

It's all up to them and they aren't going to hurt their profit margins to give "you" the best deal. It's just the same thing in a different wrapper to put it simply.

CelestialSlayer

They should do a discount on store items and not crowns

DeadlyPhoenix wrote: »

It doesn't really matter what we or they do either way.

ZOS controls the value of crowns and the value of crowns store items. If they stop giving crowns at a discount and instead start discounting specific crown store items, they will simply make the initial cost of the crown store item whatever they want. 10k crowns for a motif for example so that at 50% off they make 5k.

They will just change up they way their model works. You can believe that if they put crowns on sale it's profit for them either way. They decide what crowns are worth and what the crown store items are worth.

It's all up to them and they aren't going to hurt their profit margins to give "you" the best deal. It's just the same thing in a different wrapper to put it simply.

true - different perpectives really - cheap crowns and expensive prices or cheaper prices and more expensive crowns - my main point is that when they discount crowns the eso plus members get their montly allocation devalued - or should eso plus members just look at the 1500 crowns as a freebie and not something to base their subscription on?

DaveMoeDee

Yes - because I don't care if it might make things more expensive in the future.

CelestialSlayer wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

Why would that distort the prices unless zos distorts them....crowns and gold are separate

if you have thousands of crowns sitting in thousands of accounts then the currency has no value because i was bought at a lower rate. So they will need to recuperate the lost sales for the initial crown purchase via store pricing.

Thats my theory anyway.

I don't see that as the reason.

The reason prices go up is because people are willing to pay them. Many people are only willing to buy at the high crown prices because they have a glut of crowns. Then there are the whales. It would be irresponsible to not test the high end market to see how high prices can be raises. The fact that we continue to see pricey items likely means that they sold a good amount of high end items.

It would also be informative to see if there is a correlation between crowns sold and expensive cosmetics/homes released. In particular, how many people had crown bundles applied to their account in temporal proximity to buying an expensive crown store item.

jedtb16_ESO

I wasnt bothered either way

CelestialSlayer wrote: »

Laenendil wrote: »

CelestialSlayer wrote: »

someone the other day raised a good point about how flooding the market with cheap crowns just causes inflationary pricing and devalues the crowns themselves

Wait what ? What the hell are you talking about ?

Market economics

hmm.... the crown store is not a market economy.

pshift

Other

Yes, because I think you're wrong but your stupid and biased poll won't let me select an appropriate response.

CelestialSlayer

They should do a discount on store items and not crowns

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

CelestialSlayer wrote: »

Laenendil wrote: »

CelestialSlayer wrote: »

someone the other day raised a good point about how flooding the market with cheap crowns just causes inflationary pricing and devalues the crowns themselves

Wait what ? What the hell are you talking about ?

Market economics

hmm.... the crown store is not a market economy.

yeah ok i put my hands up - its not market economics - its more like a fun fair where you can only buy your presents with your vouchers that come out of the machine, after you have put your money in....:)

CelestialSlayer

They should do a discount on store items and not crowns

pshift wrote: »

Yes, because I think you're wrong but your stupid and biased poll won't let me select an appropriate response.

yeah well i suppose your response would be yes. i already apologised for that earlier.

you try and make a poll and not get the "biased poll is biased" responses - it wont be easy.

my first poll - could be my last, but I'm engaging the ESO community on a general discussion board - so if this poll upsets you just close the thread and read something else, or start your own poll.