Confused over pricing strategy

Canasta

I was looking at Murkmire, saw it in the crown store, could not quite pull the trigger on buying it at initial crown price, Im thinking they might knock it down a bit in the next sale, suddenly it's totally free as a daily reward, SOLD thank you very much.

Then I was mulling over getting Summerset. I saw some nice offers for it here and there for about £12. Was about to buy, then the big sale pops up - £7.39 direct from ESO web site, SOLD thank you very much.

To be honest, these offers were overly generous, I would have bought Summerset add on for £12 from the ESO web site, and I would have bought Murkmire for up to 900 Crowns in a sale.

Then at the other end of the scale you have motifs on sale for 5000 crowns, I would pay no more than 800 for any motif. I would usually spend crowns on DLC or riding lessons or mule Alts, and other practical and useful things.

Taleof2Cities

You’ve illustrated perfectly why other consumers are different than you.

Canasta

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

You’ve illustrated perfectly why other consumers are different than you.

Oh come on, admit it, you know as well as I do that the correct price point for Murkmire at this time after its initial release was not zero. You don't make any money selling things for zero.

Dawnblade

Canasta wrote: »

Taleof2Cities wrote: »

You’ve illustrated perfectly why other consumers are different than you.

Oh come on, admit it, you know as well as I do that the correct price point for Murkmire at this time after its initial release was not zero. You don't make any money selling things for zero.

Making playable content realistically priced (or even free) is a way to bring in players and keep them occupied, where ZOS will then have many opportunities to tempt players to drop money in the crown store for things like impulse purchases or convenience items.

Luck for me, I don't fall for this approach - I take the free or cheap content, and enjoy playing it, while totally ignoring all the over-priced, over-hyped, limited time only crap in the store with the 10000000000% margins.

VaranisArano

You've conflated a whole bunch of things that have different pricing strategies.

Was Murkmire going free as a Daily Login Reward a little absurd as a pricing strategy? Yeah. That's because it's a really expensive investment in getting people to really get attached to that Daily Login Reward thing - which ZOS has embraced because they really, really want people logging in. ZOS will get plenty of sales from people who didnt want to wait, who missed it, or new players who join the game later.

In the case of Summerset, they already made their run of full price sales, and had the big event to flog sales even more. That event also served to boost sales of Alinor furnishings from the Crown Store. Next year, Summerset zone will probably be a DLC or part of the new base game just like Morrowind, so while we can quibble over the exact price, it just makes sense to sell as many copies for cash, even on sale, as possible before it becomes another DLC/base game .

Whereas Crown Store Motifs are so expensive because you can obtain them in-game and ZOS doesnt want to devalue the in-game stuff...except that you get the occasional cash grab like Welkynar were ZOS deliberately locked it behind a prohibitive grind to encourage people to buy it from the Crown Store. Or you have ZOS releasing new motifs in the Crown Store sooner than they get released in game.

ZOS does some interesting things, but there's usually a method to their madness when you look with an eye to the profits over the whole game.