"GEM EXCLUSIVE" items...BS game monetization

Dzadzey

The monetary system in ESO needs to be DRASTICALLY revised. It should be limited to gold earned in game or, if one is so inclined, purchasing crowns. The wretched dependency of "gems" on the purchase of overpriced crown crates full of largely useless items or some equally useless daily reward items to recycle is pointless. Except to incentivize the purchase of crown crates. SO, really ZOS, get your act together and just drop this execrable game mechanic.

Kiralyn2000

The main/original purpose of "gem only" items was to serve as a gem sink, after the year that they gave away WAAAAAY too many free crates and everyone & their brother had piles of gems sitting around. (and whales who buy lots of crates still have plenty of gems anyway).

They wanted to get rid of the excess gems, so that people couldn't just skip several seasons of crates by buying things with their stash.

It isn't supposed to be a "ok, I want this gem-only thing, so now I have to buy seventy-eleven crates to get them!"

xF1REFL1x

Gems items are usually pretty cool... but i'll pass everytime. Nothing in the crates is usually worth it or wanted in order to get a few gems.

Hapexamendios

If other people want to buy crates for them, they can. I don't think they're worth it myself.

idk

Umm, the daily login rewards are pretty much free after the small cost of purchasing the game. If you do not want them trash them but they are not worthless nor a big deal. They rarely have anything to do with the crown crates either. Sometimes even give us a free customer, pet. I use the potions for less serious stuff. It is not a big deal.

As for gems and creates, unfortunately enough people buy them that they are not going anywhere. Revenue is king. It is only cosmetic items so they are all things we can do without. Ok, with the exception of one pet, but the rest is just cosmetic and has no effect on gameplay.

I do without them, easily.

Starlock

When legislation catches up with gambling in video games, the gamble crates will go away. When the gamble crates go away, so will the gems.

tsaescishoeshiner

Some people still have thousands of gems on hand, so Crown Gem exclusives will probably stay around. I'm really curious what percentage of the game population buys most of the crates.

You average over 3 gems per crate (short video on it here), and each crate costs 333 Crowns (ONLY if you buy 15). So you have to spend ~111 Crowns per Crown gem. A 200 gem non-combat pet thus costs 22,200 Crowns - but along the way you'll also get a lot other collectibles that you wanted less than what you were going for. And some people have reported higher gems/crate yields, so some more data would be nice.

Crowncrates dot com is our only source of data on Crown Crate droprates - be sure to check first, always >_>

volkeswagon

i think when crates go away you may be able to convert gems back into crowns. I don't agree with crown crates or gems as I'm stated before it is gambling and the gem prices for certain items are way too much. Some mounts people would need to spends hundreds of dollars to get the gems for them. I think all gem items should also have a crown price.

NewbieOKS

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Some people still have thousands of gems on hand, so Crown Gem exclusives will probably stay around. I'm really curious what percentage of the game population buys most of the crates.

Crowncrates dot com is our only source of data on Crown Crate droprates - be sure to check first, always >_>

Yup there is an addon called “Crown Crate Tracker” , here’s the link https://www.esoui.com/downloads/info1741-CrownCrateTracker.html

idk

Starlock wrote: »

When legislation catches up with gambling in video games, the gamble crates will go away. When the gamble crates go away, so will the gems.

Not necessarily. It is more likely their will some practices banned and companies could still offer the boxes within those parameters. The focus seems to be mostly on loot boxes that have an impact on how powerful a character can be whereas nothing in Zos' loot boxes does not venture into this direction. Governments tend to regulate vs eliminate.

what_the

Starlock wrote: »

When legislation catches up with gambling in video games, the gamble crates will go away. When the gamble crates go away, so will the gems.

Well, is it gambling when you are guaranteed to get an item from a crate when you open it? imo no.
It may not be an item you want or need, but you will always get a return with every single crate you open.
Vegas guarantees you absolutely nothing when you go there to play, that's gambling.

MasterSpatula

Anyone who expects anything other than shadiness out of any aspect of Crown Crates has failed to understand anything about Crown Crates.

Dusk_Coven

Is anything "BS" in monetization? If you think it's not a good deal, then don't buy it. That's the same for basically every product or service.
e.g., You find in a Guild Store style stones priced at 20 gold a piece -- when players can just buy it from an NPC for 15 gold, or just run around looting Urns and backpacks to get style stones. Is it a BS price in the Guild Store? Sure! Do you have to buy it?

If it's fraudulent or illegal, that's another story.

mikejezz

I never buy crowns for getting crates, but I have plus for crafting bag, and I might use my crowns there to get crates.

Otherwise I use gold. I know someone else buys it for me but as long as I don't use money on it I really don't care how other spent theirs.

Darkenarlol

it is cosmetics

don't like it for whatever reason? don't buy then

problem solved, case closed

Kiralyn2000

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Some people still have thousands of gems on hand, so Crown Gem exclusives will probably stay around. I'm really curious what percentage of the game population buys most of the crates.

You average over 3 gems per crate (short video on it here), and each crate costs 333 Crowns (ONLY if you buy 15). So you have to spend ~111 Crowns per Crown gem. A 200 gem non-combat pet thus costs 22,200 Crowns

Didn't watch the video (only so much time in life), but doesn't the number of gems gotten increase the longer you buy the same type of crates? (i.e, the more of a single season you buy, the more collectables from it you have, and the higher % of dupes you get)

edit: actually, remembering from when I opened free crates - I got like ~3 gems just from the 'garbage consumables' slots in the crate. Any collectable dupes (or higher-rarity furniture items like banners, which can also always be traded in) were in addition to those consumable gems.



I'd still never buy them for gems (or anything, really - I don't care for 90%+ of the "big prizes", and I'm still sitting on a cache of gems from the free crate era, to buy any 'small' prizes I might want... ...which just goes to prove why they want gem sinks in the game.)

ItsJustHashtag

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

The main/original purpose of "gem only" items was to serve as a gem sink, after the year that they gave away WAAAAAY too many free crates and everyone & their brother had piles of gems sitting around. (and whales who buy lots of crates still have plenty of gems anyway).

They wanted to get rid of the excess gems, so that people couldn't just skip several seasons of crates by buying things with their stash.

It isn't supposed to be a "ok, I want this gem-only thing, so now I have to buy seventy-eleven crates to get them!"

False, they were created to entice people to purchase more crown crates.

Knightpanther

idk wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

When legislation catches up with gambling in video games, the gamble crates will go away. When the gamble crates go away, so will the gems.

Not necessarily. It is more likely their will some practices banned and companies could still offer the boxes within those parameters. The focus seems to be mostly on loot boxes that have an impact on how powerful a character can be whereas nothing in Zos' loot boxes does not venture into this direction. Governments tend to regulate vs eliminate.

Not entirely true, here in the UK loot boxes are definitely being looked at as potential gambling regardless of content.
Legislation is already a long way down the line and the nerf hammer for RNG items that cost real money will not be far off.
A friend of mine works for the legal team on another MMO, trust me they are shitting themselves.

Be Safe

JKorr

Starlock wrote: »

When legislation catches up with gambling in video games, the gamble crates will go away. When the gamble crates go away, so will the gems.

See, *technically* the crates aren't gambling. The premise is that players buy the crates to get bundled consumables that are worth more than the cost of the crate. That is not gambling. There is a chance you can get costumes or collectables. There is a slim chance you could get a better than costume level apex collectable. There is a almost nonexistant chance you can get a super better than costume level radiant apex collectable. No guarantees for the bonus items, but you *will* get the consumables every time.

When the crates started, people collected the items they really wanted. People posted here on the forums that, now that they've gotten what they really wanted, they had a lot of gems from trading in the consumables they didn't want, so they could just buy the exact apex mount they wanted from the next crates, and they didn't have to buy more crated until something they really wanted came along. After a short interval, the new radiant apex mounts were introduced, that can't be bought with gems....

Kiralyn2000

ItsJustHashtag wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

The main/original purpose of "gem only" items was to serve as a gem sink, after the year that they gave away WAAAAAY too many free crates and everyone & their brother had piles of gems sitting around. (and whales who buy lots of crates still have plenty of gems anyway).

They wanted to get rid of the excess gems, so that people couldn't just skip several seasons of crates by buying things with their stash.

It isn't supposed to be a "ok, I want this gem-only thing, so now I have to buy seventy-eleven crates to get them!"

False, they were created to entice people to purchase more crown crates.

Eh. As long as people have big piles of gems sitting around, they have no need to buy crates when a new season starts - they can just buy the stuff they want from the gem shop. (This is also why they added the "radiant apex" mounts that can't be bought for gems.)

So a gem sink, which clears out the supply of already-existing gems, is something they definitely wanted.


The fact that there's a number of crazies who look at the gem-exclusive things and say "You're FORCING me to buy lots of crates to get gems for that!" (as opposed to "it would be stupid to buy a lot of crates just for some gems") isn't the main goal. It's just a "fortunate" (/eyeroll) side-effect.

mavfin

When you're the CEO or Marketing Director, you can set the prices.

Till then, ZOS makes the game, and sets the prices.

You can pay them, or not pay them. That's the choices you have.

There is nothing there necessary to life, so there's no 'gouging', either.

I won't pay for that stuff, either, but obviously, some people are, or they wouldn't be doing it.

SolidusPrime

Agree 100%. I always defended crowns and crates, but the gem thing takes it too far in my opinion. It just feels extremely greedy.

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

It isn't supposed to be a "ok, I want this gem-only thing, so now I have to buy seventy-eleven crates to get them!"

Maybe it wasn't supposed to be, but it is for a lot of us and they know it.

The non-combat Watcher for 300 gems really disgusted me to be quite honest. How much would I have to spend in real money to get that much starting from 0? The problem is, is that no one can tell me because it's totally random.

I get it: I don't NEED it. I don't HAVE to buy it and I didn't. But when I step back and look at it, I don't get a "ZOS made something cool for players" vibe, I get a "ZOS is trying to get me to spend as much money as possible" vibe. Even if that IS their goal as a company, they don't have to make it so blatant. It feels disrespectful to the player base. "If you pay us $15/month, it will 'only' be 200 crowns! We really value our loyal subscribers!"

dcam86b14_ESO

Nothing in the cash shop/gem shop is required to play the game. [snip]

[Edited to remove Baiting]

Myyth

When I saw that floating eye pet in the crown featured items section I wast tempted to purchase it, then as soon as I saw it required a huge amount of gems not crowns....all temptation was gone.
I hate items that cost gems as well. The only way to get gems is to purchase who knows how many crates to get a random amount of gems. No way I am doing that.

Dusk_Coven

Myyth wrote: »

I hate items that cost gems as well. The only way to get gems is to purchase who knows how many crates to get a random amount of gems. No way I am doing that.

Just from participating in Twitch Drops you can get free crates and free Gems through that. If you frittered all those away, that's on you wanting things. I haven't seen anything I really want and I'm sitting on 800 Gems, all from Crates given to me free one way or another -- mostly Twitch drops, some from daily rewards.

I'm just one player. Multiply that by the thousands who qualify for twitch drops and multiply it again by all the days in a year the promotion is on.

ZOS really is giving away so much in potential sales, just in twitch drops alone.

BisDasBlutGefriert

Myyth wrote: »

When I saw that floating eye pet in the crown featured items section.

Anyone else noticed how disgustingly big that pop up has become when you enter the game? It used to be 25% of our screen, now its over 55% of our opening screens.

🖕

Scion_of_Yggdrasil

Its a problem, and plenty of people are sick of them.

The best part is when people try to defend loot/gamble crates. As though purposefully getting as close as you can to the line (gambling) without crossing it is okay...

kargen27

Scion_of_Yggdrasil wrote: »

Its a problem, and plenty of people are sick of them.

The best part is when people try to defend loot/gamble crates. As though purposefully getting as close as you can to the line (gambling) without crossing it is okay...

Crown crates are like Topp's trading cards or one of the gum ball machines with little prizes in them.

Kiralyn2000

kargen27 wrote: »

Scion_of_Yggdrasil wrote: »

Its a problem, and plenty of people are sick of them.

The best part is when people try to defend loot/gamble crates. As though purposefully getting as close as you can to the line (gambling) without crossing it is okay...

Crown crates are like Topp's trading cards or one of the gum ball machines with little prizes in them.

Which reminds me of why I'm not really down with this whole "the govt will take care of it!" idea - I trust the lawmakers to write a rational/workable law around things related to the internet & gaming, less than I trust the devs. I can totally picture them come up with some idea to 'protect the children' from the evil random prizes... and have it so poorly worded that some class-action vampire firm launches lawsuits against Pokemon/Magic/baseball cards, gumball prizes, retail store grab bags, blind-box toy figures, and random loot from critters in dungeons. /eyeroll

Kadoin

If you think X, don't Y used to be something that can be said about this game, but with the direction it is going these days, that is applying less and less.

BRCOURTN

So here's the problem with "if you don't want it, just don't buy it!"...

There are people in the world who suffer from gambling addiction. These people can't be near casinos or card games or even casual bets the way that serious alcoholics need to stay away from bars or other people that drink.

Its not hard to stay away from race tracks or casinos or bookies when you know you have a problem, but it might be hard to get away from things as simple as... playing their favorite video games.

There are so many games now that have loot crate transactions, and I'm not asking to take them away just like I wouldnt ask for every casino to shut down. But there needs to be more regulation to help protect the people who need it.