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Limited items, Limited housing, ESO Policies
BackStabeth
✭✭✭✭✭
I have been having a bit of back and forth with support.
More or less I was told that a policy was recently changed that negatively affects my ability to purchase something I wanted to purchase.
[snip]
That didn't make me feel any better, after reading the forums [snip] Take limited time housing for example. None of that makes me feel warm and fuzzy towards Zenni. Making a house a limited time offer [snip]
Don't get me wrong, someone put a lot of work and effort into the things being offered. Those people have real talent. But the items being offered just meh, don't interest me. More horned mounts just re-skinned versions of other horned mounts offered before. And who likes camels? And the limited time housing? Phhffftttt
Shalidor's Shrouded Realm is a death trap. Uneven bridges going all over the place, edges you can run off, specially if you are using a thief build, built around running fast. It's a maze of places to kill yourself in your own home. I want a house I can pop in, go into a crafting room and take care of the stuff in my backpack, hit up my NPC banker and merchant and enjoy the rooms I created without risking walking off the side of an uneven skinny bridge and wasting time rezzing myself. The rooms are spread out in a maze, confusing and bleh. [snip] I feel the same way about these limited houses lately.
Stone Eagle Aerie a rate in a maze. [snip] The fact that the current limited house, and the future limited house both are a maze just accentuates this feeling. Again, lots of work and detail, tons of artistic talent has been spent on this house but it's a maze. A maze with a gimmick to sell you something that falls short of the effort that was invested in it. Sure, there is a waterfall you can walk through to use an elevator that leads to a thieves guild, but there are so many thieves guilds easier, and quicker to get into that after you take the elevator one time and realize it it's no longer a selling point. Why would you ever use it when others are more convenient? And again you have to wander through a maze of paths, doors and rooms to get to the places you created and want to enjoy. It feels like one of those quests where the wayshrine is on the wrong side of a huge mountain you cannot cross over and instead have to run all the way around to the other side before you can get access to the objective. And to top it off, you can't furnish everything because even with eso+ you don't have enough slots to furnish with. And this super giant maze houses only have 50 more slots than the medium houses, so... WHY? Truly, why? Sure, the light plays off the stone beautifully, but you are a rat in a maze. Sure, the waterfalls, the pools, they are all beautiful but how many waterfalls does a house really need before it seems like the main selling point is that the house is one gigantic waterfall, a maze and a gimmick?
I wanted to write something positive, something happy, something that was encouraging but this last crown store change has been dismal. Besides the typical bad feeling I get from seeing all the "convenience" items that really mean inconvenience was coded on purpose to sell you more convenience, the offerings really are blah this time. They couldn't figure anything special for the special offerings? How are those offerings special in any way, what specifically is special about them other than the word "special"? The crates, uhggggg, the horned mohawk thing is over done. It's like Thanksgiving turkey that has been cooked too long and nobody wants to say it's dry and tastes like turkey bones. Usually, you see people proudly riding the new mounts but not this time, people are proudly riding other mounts [snip]. And what is the deal with the boring, booooorrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnnggggggg mounts you can purchase with crowns? I don't know about you, but who wants to buy a camel with crowns? A bland bear, or lion, or whatever. Phffft. The non-combat pets look better than the mounts and really, if you are spending crowns on a mount should that ever happen?
[snip]
I was told by support that limited houses come back around for sale. Other than the snowglobe for sale right now which is seasonal, what was the last limited time house that was up for sale? That came back around for sale? And how many times in a year does that happen?
I was told by support that they read what people suggest for the crown store. But you know what it feels like to me? [snip] Instead of engaging the community, asking what we want to see more of, they want people to work for them and create excitement and then provide those things. [snip]
And finally, if you are going to have a crown sale, then do yourself and all of us a favor and actually provide something of interest to spend crowns on. [snip]
[edited for bashing and inappropriate content]
Edited by ZOS_Lunar on December 30, 2020 1:19PM More or less I was told that a policy was recently changed that negatively affects my ability to purchase something I wanted to purchase.
[snip]
That didn't make me feel any better, after reading the forums [snip] Take limited time housing for example. None of that makes me feel warm and fuzzy towards Zenni. Making a house a limited time offer [snip]
Don't get me wrong, someone put a lot of work and effort into the things being offered. Those people have real talent. But the items being offered just meh, don't interest me. More horned mounts just re-skinned versions of other horned mounts offered before. And who likes camels? And the limited time housing? Phhffftttt
Shalidor's Shrouded Realm is a death trap. Uneven bridges going all over the place, edges you can run off, specially if you are using a thief build, built around running fast. It's a maze of places to kill yourself in your own home. I want a house I can pop in, go into a crafting room and take care of the stuff in my backpack, hit up my NPC banker and merchant and enjoy the rooms I created without risking walking off the side of an uneven skinny bridge and wasting time rezzing myself. The rooms are spread out in a maze, confusing and bleh. [snip] I feel the same way about these limited houses lately.
Stone Eagle Aerie a rate in a maze. [snip] The fact that the current limited house, and the future limited house both are a maze just accentuates this feeling. Again, lots of work and detail, tons of artistic talent has been spent on this house but it's a maze. A maze with a gimmick to sell you something that falls short of the effort that was invested in it. Sure, there is a waterfall you can walk through to use an elevator that leads to a thieves guild, but there are so many thieves guilds easier, and quicker to get into that after you take the elevator one time and realize it it's no longer a selling point. Why would you ever use it when others are more convenient? And again you have to wander through a maze of paths, doors and rooms to get to the places you created and want to enjoy. It feels like one of those quests where the wayshrine is on the wrong side of a huge mountain you cannot cross over and instead have to run all the way around to the other side before you can get access to the objective. And to top it off, you can't furnish everything because even with eso+ you don't have enough slots to furnish with. And this super giant maze houses only have 50 more slots than the medium houses, so... WHY? Truly, why? Sure, the light plays off the stone beautifully, but you are a rat in a maze. Sure, the waterfalls, the pools, they are all beautiful but how many waterfalls does a house really need before it seems like the main selling point is that the house is one gigantic waterfall, a maze and a gimmick?
I wanted to write something positive, something happy, something that was encouraging but this last crown store change has been dismal. Besides the typical bad feeling I get from seeing all the "convenience" items that really mean inconvenience was coded on purpose to sell you more convenience, the offerings really are blah this time. They couldn't figure anything special for the special offerings? How are those offerings special in any way, what specifically is special about them other than the word "special"? The crates, uhggggg, the horned mohawk thing is over done. It's like Thanksgiving turkey that has been cooked too long and nobody wants to say it's dry and tastes like turkey bones. Usually, you see people proudly riding the new mounts but not this time, people are proudly riding other mounts [snip]. And what is the deal with the boring, booooorrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnnggggggg mounts you can purchase with crowns? I don't know about you, but who wants to buy a camel with crowns? A bland bear, or lion, or whatever. Phffft. The non-combat pets look better than the mounts and really, if you are spending crowns on a mount should that ever happen?
[snip]
I was told by support that limited houses come back around for sale. Other than the snowglobe for sale right now which is seasonal, what was the last limited time house that was up for sale? That came back around for sale? And how many times in a year does that happen?
I was told by support that they read what people suggest for the crown store. But you know what it feels like to me? [snip] Instead of engaging the community, asking what we want to see more of, they want people to work for them and create excitement and then provide those things. [snip]
And finally, if you are going to have a crown sale, then do yourself and all of us a favor and actually provide something of interest to spend crowns on. [snip]
[edited for bashing and inappropriate content]
12
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bluebird✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭100% agree. The policy change is really annoying. Who exactly benefits from turning away customers who go out of their way to give them money? Instead of making a sale right now (on an item that hasn't been generating any profit for over a year because it wasn't being sold due to negligent management of Crown Store assets), they maaaaybe make a sale another year from now if they return the item - assuming people are still insterested (we often aren't 1 year from now, lol), and assuming people even play the game still (many aren't, lots of folks from my guild have left for GW2 and WoW, and guess what, GW2 is doing regular sales and rotation on their virtual items).
People are so divines-darned tired of getting 90% of cosmetics behind a Crown Store paywall; but especially behind a limited-time Crown Store paywall that makes 90% of items virtually impossible to get. This shouldn't even be this way, because character customisation and player housing are a huge part of an RPG, so this counts as content - and you're locking 90% of cosmetic content behind the Crown Store for years. And now we can't even get stuff we really really want unfurnished (so we end up paying more for less) through support tickets?
Does THE SIMS sell their packs at only certain weeks a year? Because I can go to the SIMS right now and spend the 15k Crowns-worth I would've spent on 1 ESO house if it was available, and buy any SIMS expansion pack I want, any time. Guess which one is more appealing if a player is in the mood for housing - wait 1 or 2 years maybe uncertainly hoping that ESO returns a house to the Store, or go to SIMS and buy the Magic Pack and make as many houses we want, at any time.
Does GW2 need players to tell them what they should be selling? No. They regularly rotate their items. GW2 Outfits, gliders, mount skins switch around every 3 months or so, with new items added every 1 month for a period of 1 month, and that's in addition to seasonal items (which predictably return every notable events - unlike in ESO which may or may not actually offer the houses that correlate to their events, so even seeing a DB or Orsinium or Summerset celebration is no guarantee that any of the related items make a return).
It's not rocket science, you shouldn't expect players to micromanage what you're offering. IF THE ITEM HASN'T BEEN SOLD IN THE PAST 6 MONTHS, PUT IT ON SALE FOR 2 WEEKS. Jesus Christ.
By now, you have 20 LIMITED TIME Crown Store only houses. TWENTY. If you returned 1 per month, it would still take over 2 years to see them all. And you have 16 LIMITED TIME Crown Crate Seasons. SIXTEEN. If you returned 1 older Crown Crate per month alongside the current Season, it would still take 1-and-a-half years to see them. You have over 180 Costumes. HUNDRED-EIGHTY. If you returned 1 per WEEK, it would take 3 and a half years to see them all. Ridiculous. But you don't even bring them back that regularly AT ALL.
You should absolutely rotate your regular stock (bringing back 10 costumes, 10 mounts, 10 pets, 2 houses, etc) at least 4 times a year, rather than leaving the same crap up there for five years (probably longer, but I started playing 5 years ago). Create a revolving door policy for your Crown Store items, rather than having a stale selection of permanent stuff, with the rest buried under the swamp of Crown-Store-never-returns.
But if you don't create a rotation, at least bring them back for limited time sales then. GW2s Anniversary sales for example allowed players to get every special mount skin on a daily new sale, and any old costume, glider or weapon skin for the duration of the celebration. They also had daily deals for Black Friday, with tons of returning stuff. Meanwhile in ESO, there was no Black Friday sale to speak of. Even when people are looking to spend money, you don't even try, and refuse to give people to opportunity to spend money on LITERAL HUNDREDS of cosmetics I mentioned above (plus weapon skins, pets, etc that I didn't even count) that are permanently unavailable.
And now you expect people to tell you what you should return? Boy, we'd be here all night. Go browse ESO Fashion Collection database that lists all the Crown Store items and you'll see all the stuff you haven't sold for YEARS. I'm sure the people in charge don't even play their game, because THEY WOULD KNOW. So go, familiarize yourself with your actual stock and notice how 90% of it is permanently unavailable, then feel free to explain it to us, and the creators, and your stock owners why you're not even trying to sell them.
______
tl;dr: I know this is a huge block of text, I tried to put bold and italics and caps to highlight the important details, but here's a basic summary:- You shouldn't need people to ask you to return things, just rotate your stock regularly. Much simpler, no need to scour the forums and manually reply to requests. Just. Rotate. Your. Items. Regularly. Other MMOS can do it, so can you.
- Bring back limited time items regularly. Make it a habit. Every month, an Old Crown Crate season, 2 houses, and 10 costumes/mounts/pets are returned for the limited time of 1 month (or 2 weeks or whatever). You have SO MUCH STUFF that the only way to rotate them back in a reasonable timeframe (e.g. less than 3 years which is what we have now) is to do so regularly.
- At the very least (though ideally in addition to the above rotation change), you should capitalize on sales events - Anniversary, Black Friday, notable Holidays - to sell your older stock. Compare your Black Friday sales of 2018 (I think it was 2018) to the newer years where you sold the same old stuff that's in your store all-year-round anyway. If people want those, they already have them, duh. Try selling 90% of barely-seen-once-every-2-years items instead; and watch people buy all the limited time stuff if you give them the chance.
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idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.1 -
Araneae6537✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭It has always baffled me that ESO doesn’t rotate items through the Crown store more often. Basic services/upgrades should always be available, but why don’t most/all of the costumes rotate every month or so? I get limited time offers, but you don’t want hoards of players joining, playing and leaving the game while a bunch of assets are NEVER available, do you?
Are houses the type of thing people impulse buy in ESO anyway? To my thinking, they are at the price point where most would save up and only buy the one(s) they really want. Costumes, hairstyles, mounts, furnishings and pets are things I have bought more on impulse.
I am told they have sophisticated marketing, or something like that, so who am I to gainsay them when I know only my own interests and spending habits? Still, it is difficult for me to fathom how this strategy could possibly be most profitable... 🤔5 -
tomofhyrule✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
I'd agree... if it seemed like it was working. As it stands, it really seems like people will buy Crowns in bulk during Crown sales or use their ESO+ crowns, and then just stockpile them until their LTO thing releases, or failing that they'd use a Crown seller in game who did the same thing. I know very few people who will buy crowns at price anymore, and the ones that will usually are buying packs that come with another bonus - I've seen a number of Hailcinder mounts around, which only came from buying a full-price pack at a given time.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data, so I could be wrong. But I still question how "This is never coming back" will drive sales more than "This won't come back for a while, and we're not telling you when." Either way you'll have to buy it now if you want it, but in one case you still have a chance of getting it to return, you just don't know how long you have to wait (not to mention the people who never had the chance before who now do).
There are loads of threads right now that have the same basic set of complaints: the LTO idea of the Crown Store has gone too far. Everyone understands a LTO sale will drive people on the fence to purchase things, but I don't know if the profit margin from making something available for 2 weeks will offset the profits that could be made for it being 154 weeks (or more) unavailable. Do the number of people who are pushed to buy something offset the number of people who would at other times? Not to mention how much money was put in vis-à-vis the art team to make said content - is the company getting an acceptable return on that?
A personal example: I'm the kind of person who really likes characters with their own looks, so hairstyles and personalities are big things for me. Mounts and pets, not so much. A LTO non-combat pet won't push me at all since I don't like them. But I have added up thousands of Crowns I would spend on things that I can't. As a result, I don't see the need to buy Crowns, since the store is not releasing what I do want, and I'm not going to use my Crown stockpile to buy LTO things I don't want just because they're LTO. In essence, I keep saving my Crowns from ESO+ or sales and don't buy more.
Another: Several people have mentioned they are building characters' stories or whatever, and all of a sudden get deeply invested in a certain style. On impulse, they'd see nothing wrong with dropping e.g. 17.5k crowns on a Daedric house and then buying a matching furnishing pack, but it's unavailable. By the time they do put these things up, the person has moved on, maybe they got creative enough with their house they bought for gold and don't want to redecorate, so they never end up buying it. In the end, ZOS lost a 17.5k+ crown sale they could have had.
I think they should start to rotate things back in. Either have two weeks of a "here's a lot of old stuff!" blowout where they bring back a bunch of old things, or just rotate the entire stock of the store monthly. Either way, it's still giving the FOMO driving impulse buys, but actually gives people a chance to get stuff. Here are my thoughts for these:- New Crate seasons are big events - they get their own news articles, announcements on twitter/etc., the whole works. I'm sure dropping a season drives a bunch of people to buy, considering the number of (Radiant) Apex mounts you see the week a new Crate season hits. So make the bringback events to mirror those - space them between the Crate seasons so you can generate the hype (aka sales), and then announce them the same way: news article, forum post, etc. "This sale, we're bringing back X, Y, Z, etc. for two weeks only! Get it while it's here!" And now, everyone who didn't have a chance before will treat this like another crate season - yes, there are older players who already have the stuff, but there are already a lot of anti-lootbox players who don't get moved by the crate season drops that will be moved by this.
- A lot of impulse purchases come from just browsing. It's the reason that most stores make nice window displays - if you like what you see, you're likely to go in. And if you go in, you'll see what they have on offer and think "oh, I want this, even though I didn't come here looking for it." As it stands, the base store has been relatively unchanged for ages, so nobody goes to look through it - we all have already seen what's there. As such, we're not inclined to check it out and say "oh, this costume actually looks really good on this character! I think I'll actually get this now!" I'd suggest rotating the bulk of the store out - perhaps keep staples like the Alliance styles and Wedding outfits, but then rotate everything else around. That will make people want to look through... and then they might find something they find interesting enough to buy.
There are people playing now who haven't been here since the beginning. ZOS is essentially saying that these players (and their money) are not worth it since they got all the money they'll ever need from others. I also question how well this works in an MMO where you can see other characters, who essentially act as store advertisements - someone walks by with a flashy mount, and some people are like "dude, where did you get that!" If it's from the store, congrats, that could drive purchases. But now? "lol you can't get it, sucks to be you!" Seems like poor advertising in my opinion, since that'll only make people annoyed and drive them away.
Edited by tomofhyrule on December 30, 2020 9:34PM15 - New Crate seasons are big events - they get their own news articles, announcements on twitter/etc., the whole works. I'm sure dropping a season drives a bunch of people to buy, considering the number of (Radiant) Apex mounts you see the week a new Crate season hits. So make the bringback events to mirror those - space them between the Crate seasons so you can generate the hype (aka sales), and then announce them the same way: news article, forum post, etc. "This sale, we're bringing back X, Y, Z, etc. for two weeks only! Get it while it's here!" And now, everyone who didn't have a chance before will treat this like another crate season - yes, there are older players who already have the stuff, but there are already a lot of anti-lootbox players who don't get moved by the crate season drops that will be moved by this.
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bluebird✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Araneae6537 wrote: »I am told they have sophisticated marketing, or something like that, so who am I to gainsay them when I know only my own interests and spending habits? Still, it is difficult for me to fathom how this strategy could possibly be most profitable... 🤔
ESO and 'sophisticated marketing'? Hahaha... no.
Jokes aside, yeah. The ESO Marketing Team knows nothing (I'd insert Jon Snow here but I don't want to spam memes. I've had my fun). Just look at their Anniversary or Black Friday Sales (which I assume is one of the most profitable times of the year in most sales sectors, including other MMOs). If they can't be bothered to make sales during an event specifically created to make sales, they really are hopeless. If I can't trust a marketing team to rake in the big bucks during Black Friday, they really can't be trusted to appropriately monetize their products the rest of the year either, imo.In 2018, they returned several limited time houses, costumes, assistants and other stuff (I remember buying 2 houses and Naryu's Costume and some other stuff I think). Overall, I spend over 30k Crowns during that 1 week. That was hugely successful with players. In 2019 and 2020, their Black Friday 'sale' was a discount on the Starter Pack or some other nonsense that's available in the store throughout the year. I spent a literal 0 Crowns on Black Friday in 2019-20. Not because I wasn't inclined to spend money on ESO, but because they didn't sell me anything new/old. *nudge nudge, ZOS*
Do it. Bring stuff back regularly. Dooo ittt.
Meanwhile in GW2 brought back virtually every item imaginable, and they regularly rotate their items to give people the chance to buy stuff. I spent more money in GW2's Anniversary and Black Friday sales than I spent on Crowns in ESO in a year. Here's my purchase history for the past regular month in GW2, and most of them are returning 1week-1month limited time items that are on a rotation (obviously they returned more than this, this is just stuff that I bought):
https://pasteboard.co/JHnepOY.png
(And none of this is a flex, it's just a support of my argument - that returning items more regularly would mean that people spend money more regularly. Who would've thunk?!?
)
If ZOS thinks that people will buy random unwanted stuff that's been sitting in the Crown Store for years, just because they want to keep older stuff unavailable and once-in-2-years limited time, they are wrong. I won't buy any of that, because I don't want any of that. If I wanted it, I would've bought it when it was added. They should return older items that haven't had a chance to be sold in a year or often more. But with tons of stuff unavailable and no hope on the horizon for them to return, and no chance to get them through support tickets either pretty please, I will just take my money and buy stuff in GW2 and the Sims instead, and will complain about ESO's ridiculous Crown Store every chance I get. Great system.
As for the question about 'impulse buying houses', I do, actually. I bought Strident Springs and Quondam Indorilia (with gold, cause they're the old types you can buy with gold) when I unlocked them through questing, thinking them totally awesome. Later, I didn't actually furnish them and now use them as storage. I also would've bought Erstwhile Sanctuary if it was available when I was leveling my Dark Brotherhood character, but it wasn't. So I no longer want it, even though it came back twice - instead of spending 16k Crowns, I spent nothing because I couldn't buy it. Another poster on a different thread also said that he would've bought Shalidor's when he saw it first, but they didn't sell it for such a long time that now he actually doesn't want it anymore.
So knowing that an upcoming house will be limited time isn't what makes people buy houses. It's wanting to buy the house what makes them buy houses. And the wait between the time of wanting and the house becoming available, often means that people will no longer be interested by the time it returns. Had the Dwemer Pipes and Sotha Sil packs returned a few months ago, I would've bought them - but they didn't, and with all the Dwemer furnishings in Markarth, I no longer will buy them when/if they do. So, GG Marketing team. Way to keep 90% of your stuff permanently out of reach.
Edit: Also, 100% what @tomofhyrule said. ^Edited by bluebird on December 30, 2020 10:21PM11 -
idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.1 -
bluebird✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭
Except they don't have the data. Or they aren't using it. They didn't try it any other way. They only have the data from their LTOs which they sold for a limited time. They don't have the data from what the same item would have made if it wasn't an LTO. Or, you're telling me that the data showed that selling nothing during a Black Friday is better for the company than selling lots of stuff during a BF? Because that's what they did after 2018. Hard to believe when every other store, online service, etc does BFriday sales. I'm sure they are all wrong and ZOS is right, is that what ZOS thinks?
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.
And stuff they could use to maybe draw comparisons is just flawed. They added Lucky Cat Landing (a new Crown-Exclusive house) to the store permanently, rather than for limited time as they usually do. They also discounted it some months after it was put up (which is unusual, they don't usually offer discounts on newer items). From the relative lack of sales, they might conclude that people don't buy houses as much if they are up for longer. But that would be wrong, for example.
People complained about LCL ever since the PTS. It's a small house (so less impressive than many other Crown mansions), it's got too few slots for the size, and it's a moudly Elsweyr house with chipped walls. We had SIX Elsweyr houses that year, in the same chipped stone and mouldy wall styles), so the appeal of yet another Elsweyr house is negligible when we had so many (including the quest-unlocked Hall of the Lunar Champion which was much larger and versatile). So the relative lack of sales from Lucky Cat Landing (I assume it sold less than usual, as I barely know anyone with it compared to Moonsugar Meadow for example) had nothing to do with the house being offered for longer, and everything to do with better similar styled alternatives and that this mouldy hovel with few slots that people are tired of had nothing to offer.
If they tried selling Grand Topal and Lakemire Xanmeer, or Princely Dawnlight Palace and Thieves' Oasis on a permanent basis, they'd see if all those Argonians and Redguards buying their dream houses over years would still be less than whatever % of players who played that week bought it a year ago when it was sold for 4 days. But the issue is, they don't know. Because they didn't try. They never tried any other system of Crown Crates either, than just randomly returning a few seasons here and there.
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idk✭✭✭✭✭
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Except they don't have the data. Or they aren't using it.
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.
Are you suggesting that Zos does not have the data for sales of crown packages or does not look at how many crowns they sell to see if there is a notable increase in sales when they offer an LTO with a significant cost?
That is all that matters.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts.
Edit: To be clear, Zenimax is not attempting to maximize how many LTO homes they sell. They are trying to maximize how many are purchased with crowns that cost the full value vs crowns purchased on sale. That is maximizing revenue overall. And again, I am sure Zenimax has analysts that understand the economics of this.Edited by idk on December 30, 2020 10:35PM0 -
bluebird✭✭✭✭✭
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I'm just suggesting exactly what I wrote. That they don't have the data for things they didn't try.
Are you suggesting that Zos does not have the data for sales of crown packages or does not look at how many crowns they sell to see if there is a notable increase in sales when they offer an LTO with a significant cost?
Except they don't have the data. Or they aren't using it.
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.
That is all that matters.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts.
Edit: To be clear, Zenimax is not attempting to maximize how many LTO homes they sell. They are trying to maximize how many are purchased with crowns that cost the full value vs crowns purchased on sale. That is maximizing revenue overall. And again, I am sure Zenimax has analysts that understand the economics of this.
When they offer a LTO for 4 days every 2 years, they have the data on how many players saw it during 4 days, and how many of those bought it (and how many had it already). How they bought it (e.g. with Crowns, or gold), and how many people bought Crowns from ZOS in those 4 days.- They don't have the data on how many other people would have done all of that as well, if it returned it more frequently. Because they never tried doing that. If the 4-day LTOs work (and you suggest they do based on ZOS's data) then why don't they do them more often, with more items? That's an argument right there for more regular Crown Store rotations, even if they're bringing them back for LTOs rather than longer periods.
- They don't have the data on how many people would have done the same regardless - e.g. I'm sure most people buy Crown Crates soonish after logging in during a new season, even though they are up for 3 months at a time - so ZOS don't know how many of those purchases during a 4-day LTO would have happened regardless, even if it was a 3-month item. (And overall, Crates likely generate more profit in their 3-month lifetime than if they just appeared for 4 days, so that's another argument for longer LTOs).
- They don't have the data on how many people would have bought that house in the other 361 days of the year, because those players weren't able to buy it. So they don't know if the profit of the maybe-swayed-into-buying it minority on those 4 days outweighs all the would-love-to-buy-it-but-can't people in the other 51 weeks.
- They don't have the data on how many people would have splurged their sales-Crowns on returning items (making them buy full-price Crowns for newer items and LTOs if they come out and want them) if they don't try to sell older stuff more frequently, thus giving people something to spend their Crowns on instead of just sitting on piles in boredom.
- They don't have the data for people who would have bought it if it was available when the mood struck them, but then no longer want it next year if it ever returns for a 4-day LTO, or if they no longer play when it returns; essentially losing out on a purchase that could've been struck on the spot if they allowed it.
So yeah. Even if they have data, they don't have all the data they would need to make the right decisions. And I'm pretty sure Zenimax doesn't have analysts that understand the economics of this.Otherwise, why didn't they offer Black Friday sales on returning items so people get rid of their stocked up Crowns (unless you assume Black Friday is a loss to businesses which is why literally everyone is doing them except ZOS?). I still have the sale-Crowns from last year, and now they're on sale again, lol. ZOS doesn't bring back enough items for players to spend them.ESO: Sells Crowns at a discount --> don't bring back items regularly so people don't have a chance to buy them
And when people are hoping for that one house or mount or pack or whatever to make a sudden unannounced return once in a blue moon, they are more likely to hold on to their Crowns, just in case it comes back, and won't buy many newer items because of it. Rather than buying the stuff they really wanted, spending their Crowns, and then seeing newer items put up for LTOs and maybe deciding to buy those too. Priorities are a thing. If I'm trying to get 2 items, I'm focusing on those. But if I already got them and had my fill of them, I'm more likely to look for something else now. In GW2 for example, the ONLY reason I bought 3 outfits (some of which are up all the time), is that I was able to buy 5 great ones that I really really wanted for a while during the Anniversary returning sales. If those hadn't returned, the other costumes would have been barely at the bottom of my purchasing list and would not have had my attention or money.
GW2: Doesn't sell Gems at a discount --> regularly gives people old and new stuff to buy to encourage purchases.
It's hard to imagine that ZOS's economists are masterminds when we know they don't have data for things they never tried, and when they engage in practices that go against common practices in the industry that seem to work for everyone else.11 -
tomofhyrule✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭To be clear, Zenimax is not attempting to maximize how many LTO homes they sell. They are trying to maximize how many are purchased with crowns that cost the full value vs crowns purchased on sale. That is maximizing revenue overall. And again, I am sure Zenimax has analysts that understand the economics of this.
I'm not an economist or a marketing analyst, but if that was their entire goal, wouldn't the answer be to stop/reduce sales on Crown packs? Or stop/reduce including Crowns with ESO+? Or at least break the pattern of the three sales a year in April, in August, and over the winter holidays. People have argued that LTO that returns periodically will not drive people to buy because they can predict when the item will come back. Similarly, we all know when we can get crowns cheap, so we stock up and wait for then.
Besides, I can't see how hoping someone will drop $150 on a 21k Crown pack because the house they want is available matches up to someone dropping $8 for a 750 crown hairstyle. I'd think it'd be easier to drop smaller amounts of money and have them add up, but they're just as stingy with (re)releasing smaller content.
Finally, if that was the goal, why use crowns at all? Why not just slap a price tag of $162.50 on furnished Pariah's Pinnacle? Gaming companies use currencies to mask the actual prices of things (I had to check that a few times to make sure since it seems ridiculously high, but 16250 crowns at 100c/$...). Expecting people to buy crowns in order to buy a house on impulse makes it that much more of a connection between the actual price vs. crown cost, so it's a lot more likely that someone will stop the transaction once they see how much they need. Whereas if people have 30k crowns in their bank account that've been sitting there a while, it's a lot easier to forget what the dollar value of that was.
True, they're the experts. But I've seen so many examples of people in a position who do things because 'that's how you do it' instead of actually reasoning it out. After all, who doesn't have a coworker like Dilbert's Pointy-Haired Boss? And yes, you see it in the gaming industry. Current example? Remember the developers of Cyberpunk 2077 thought it would be a great game on PS4/XB1 since it was developed for them originally? Or how they thought it'd be a good idea to use flashing lights for memory sequences that real world doctors use to trigger seizures without a warning? I don't know if a 'devs know best' attitude works there.
Even with this game, there are a few things that the fans have arguably done better than the devs - there was a small bug introduced a few patches ago which resets the inventory screen when opening containers instead of keeping it in the tab you were in. Official patches still haven't fixed it, but there was a fanmade addon that fixed that a day or so after it was introduced.
I just think that, if they're getting enough requests that they need to have a policy in place, that maybe it's something that should be looked into. I'd love to know what the explanation to the investors/CEOs is - "We're getting a lot of people practically begging to give us money to virtual things, so we made a policy to tell them that we don't want their money and they should go spend their money elsewhere" just doesn't logically sound like a solid business practice.
And there's a new wrinkle as well, for housing specifically - houses are giftable starting last update. As such, there's a whole wealth of people who want to get into housing that couldn't afford it before, and now a lot of them are going to want to go to in-game Crown sellers to get them. Housing gifting is going to be booming over the next few months... is it really a good idea to leave a bunch of them on the table and let the interest fade out?
The store seems to be putting most of its stock in the crates lately - we see less available for direct purchase, and more things popping as crown gem exclusive. But times are also changing - Belgium has banned gamble mechanics, so that's an entire country cut off from getting them. ZOS's marketing team has made it pretty clear that the loss of that source of funding isn't problematic, since other people are still buying crates. As such, Belgian players can only buy direct purchases, but fewer and fewer of those are even releasing. But if more and more countries start coming out with similar regulations (and the UK and the EU are looking into such), at what point will the crates stop being sustainable? Wouldn't it be great if there was still some alternate revenue source for the Crown store?8 -
idk✭✭✭✭✭
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I'm just suggesting exactly what I wrote. That they don't have the data for things they didn't try.
Are you suggesting that Zos does not have the data for sales of crown packages or does not look at how many crowns they sell to see if there is a notable increase in sales when they offer an LTO with a significant cost?
Except they don't have the data. Or they aren't using it.
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.
That is all that matters.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts.
Edit: To be clear, Zenimax is not attempting to maximize how many LTO homes they sell. They are trying to maximize how many are purchased with crowns that cost the full value vs crowns purchased on sale. That is maximizing revenue overall. And again, I am sure Zenimax has analysts that understand the economics of this.
I am pointing out they do have the data that matters, their revenue, and what happens to it most of the time they offer a LTO.
Zos is not trying to maximize how many units they sell but maximize how many crowns they sell at full price. That is maximizing revenue/profits which is more important than how many homes they sold. The information you are suggesting Zos has is not important.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts. They seem to know what they are doing.0 -
bluebird✭✭✭✭✭
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I understood you the first time. But I addressed this in my previous post. They have data about their revenue with their current sales tactics. They don't have data about what the revenue they could have had, if they did things differently, because they never tried. If you read my post, most of the things I listed do affect revenue, and their bottom line. We do realize that there are many considerations to be had; you're the one who seems to trust is some simplistic focus that Crowns sold during an LTO are the be-all and end-all of revenue by which the full picture of all other potential profits are to be judged (it isn't)..
I am pointing out they do have the data that matters, their revenue, and what happens to it most of the time they offer a LTO.
I'm just suggesting exactly what I wrote. That they don't have the data for things they didn't try.
Are you suggesting that Zos does not have the data for sales of crown packages or does not look at how many crowns they sell to see if there is a notable increase in sales when they offer an LTO with a significant cost?
Except they don't have the data. Or they aren't using it.
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.
That is all that matters.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts.
Edit: To be clear, Zenimax is not attempting to maximize how many LTO homes they sell. They are trying to maximize how many are purchased with crowns that cost the full value vs crowns purchased on sale. That is maximizing revenue overall. And again, I am sure Zenimax has analysts that understand the economics of this.
Zos is not trying to maximize how many units they sell but maximize how many crowns they sell at full price. That is maximizing revenue/profits which is more important than how many homes they sold. The information you are suggesting Zos has is not important.3 -
idk✭✭✭✭✭
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They don't have data about what the revenue they could have had.
I am pointing out they do have the data that matters, their revenue, and what happens to it most of the time they offer a LTO.
I'm just suggesting exactly what I wrote. That they don't have the data for things they didn't try.
Are you suggesting that Zos does not have the data for sales of crown packages or does not look at how many crowns they sell to see if there is a notable increase in sales when they offer an LTO with a significant cost?
Except they don't have the data. Or they aren't using it.
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.
That is all that matters.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts.
Edit: To be clear, Zenimax is not attempting to maximize how many LTO homes they sell. They are trying to maximize how many are purchased with crowns that cost the full value vs crowns purchased on sale. That is maximizing revenue overall. And again, I am sure Zenimax has analysts that understand the economics of this.
Zos is not trying to maximize how many units they sell but maximize how many crowns they sell at full price. That is maximizing revenue/profits which is more important than how many homes they sold. The information you are suggesting Zos has is not important.
They are not missing that. They already know what crown sales are like when the price is reduced and have a baseline for crown sales at full price.
What they want to see, and what they seem to get more times than not, is a surge in crown sales at full price with LTO offerings. That equals more revenue, more profits.
So they have all the data they need.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts. They know what they are doing.0 -
bluebird✭✭✭✭✭
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So... you're saying ZOS has data about sales they never made?
They are not missing that. They already know what crown sales are like when the price is reduced and have a baseline for crown sales at full price.
They don't have data about what the revenue they could have had.
I am pointing out they do have the data that matters, their revenue, and what happens to it most of the time they offer a LTO.
I'm just suggesting exactly what I wrote. That they don't have the data for things they didn't try.
Are you suggesting that Zos does not have the data for sales of crown packages or does not look at how many crowns they sell to see if there is a notable increase in sales when they offer an LTO with a significant cost?
Except they don't have the data. Or they aren't using it.
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.
That is all that matters.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts.
Edit: To be clear, Zenimax is not attempting to maximize how many LTO homes they sell. They are trying to maximize how many are purchased with crowns that cost the full value vs crowns purchased on sale. That is maximizing revenue overall. And again, I am sure Zenimax has analysts that understand the economics of this.
Zos is not trying to maximize how many units they sell but maximize how many crowns they sell at full price. That is maximizing revenue/profits which is more important than how many homes they sold. The information you are suggesting Zos has is not important. You're honsetly not reading what I'm writing or we just keep talking on different threads or something because I'm not sensing that things clicked after this convo. And since I've been hogging this thread quite a bit, I'll just stop. But here's a spoiler tag if you want to see why you're wrong.
You're talking about Crowns and Crown prices again. Only that. Without considering Crown Store items. That's wrong.
People don't buy Crowns for having them, people buy Crowns for things to spend it on.
Full price / reduced price Crowns are the supply. But demand doesn't simply respond to price, it responds to a variety of factors. Like, how many things are available, how desirable those things are, etc. So ZOS's revenue isn't simply affected by the price of Crowns, it's also affected by the number, quality, price, and subjective appeal of the items those Crowns are for, and for patterns of Crown-habits - e.g. does the current system encourage the splurging and frequent repurchase of Crowns, or does it encourage bulk-buying and hoarding. Most considerations I mentioned affect the demand for Crowns in some way, and are absolutely relevant for ZOS's revenue. (One of the things I mentioned for example, availability of suitable substitutes reduces the attractiveness of an item - so the more time passes without a chance of buying it, the more likely it is that people found something else, moved on, stopped playing, etc).
ZOS have data about the revenue they make off of a 4-day LTO item. But they don't have data about the potential revenue for that same item if they tried selling it any other way, because they don't try selling it any other way. So stop saying they have all the data, when it's physically impossible to have data on things they never tried.
Take your Crown sales example (which is pretty reductionist, but even there you'll see that what you say makes no sense). They put up something for 4 days. Some people will buy full-priced Crowns for the sake of that 4-day LTO. Right. That's what you're focusing on. But if people buy Crowns for that 4 day item, what's saying that people wouldn't buy Crowns for the same item if it was a 2-week LTO? Or a 1-month LTO? Or a seasonal LTO? If they never tried, how exactly would ZOS have data about some magical cutoff-point where people buy Crowns for 4day items but DON'T buy Crowns for 1-month items???
And who says that the number of people who buy Crowns in 4 days is MORE than the number of people who would buy Crowns in 4 weeks for that same item? (The production cost of which is a one-off fixed sum with no duplication costs or other materials - so clearly milking the same copy-pasted code as much as possible would be better). If people on the other 26 days of a month get to buy that item and spend money on Crowns to do it, would those people who did so in the first 4 days suddenly REFUSE to do so? Do they actually LOSE OUT on more revenue if the item isn't LTO (or is a longer LTO), than if it is a 4-day one and doesn't reach the hands of way more players with way more opportunity to make a purchase?
They have data about how many people purchased Crowns on the 4 days that Grand Topal Hideaway was last available, sure. But they don't have data about the people who would have purchased Crowns in the past year if it was available all the time. Because they didn't try to sell it. Or if they insist on 4-day LTOs, they again don't have data on what would happen if they brought things back for 1 week at least once a year (at random times, if they insist). But they don't know.
If these LTOs are working so well, why don't they do them for more items, more frequently? Why didn't they sell any LTOs during Black Friday? You seriously believe that the data they get from Crown purchases on 4 days tells them all they need to know about how many people would have bought Crowns just the same if the LTO was longer, or how many people had a demand and the money but couldn't buy it on the other 361 days, or how many people had the money and demand but now that demand is gone by the time it comes around? They don't know. So I don't think you understand the current system and the points that people are raising in this and other threads. We're telling them that the most limiting factor on their revenue is the lack of supply. Not the price, not the lack of demand, but the lack of supply. (And on that note before you try to bring up artificial scarcity or whatever, read everything I wrote, because I addressed it all and there's no point going in circles).
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idk✭✭✭✭✭
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So... you're saying ZOS has data about sales they never made?
They are not missing that. They already know what crown sales are like when the price is reduced and have a baseline for crown sales at full price.
They don't have data about what the revenue they could have had.
I am pointing out they do have the data that matters, their revenue, and what happens to it most of the time they offer a LTO.
I'm just suggesting exactly what I wrote. That they don't have the data for things they didn't try.
Are you suggesting that Zos does not have the data for sales of crown packages or does not look at how many crowns they sell to see if there is a notable increase in sales when they offer an LTO with a significant cost?
Except they don't have the data. Or they aren't using it.
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.
That is all that matters.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts.
Edit: To be clear, Zenimax is not attempting to maximize how many LTO homes they sell. They are trying to maximize how many are purchased with crowns that cost the full value vs crowns purchased on sale. That is maximizing revenue overall. And again, I am sure Zenimax has analysts that understand the economics of this.
Zos is not trying to maximize how many units they sell but maximize how many crowns they sell at full price. That is maximizing revenue/profits which is more important than how many homes they sold. The information you are suggesting Zos has is not important. You're honsetly not reading what I'm writing or we just keep talking on different threads or something because I'm not sensing that things clicked after this convo. And since I've been hogging this thread quite a bit, I'll just stop. But here's a spoiler tag if you want to see why you're wrong.
You're talking about Crowns and Crown prices again. Only that. Without considering Crown Store items. That's wrong.
People don't buy Crowns for having them, people buy Crowns for things to spend it on.
Full price / reduced price Crowns are the supply. But demand doesn't simply respond to price, it responds to a variety of factors. Like, how many things are available, how desirable those things are, etc. So ZOS's revenue isn't simply affected by the price of Crowns, it's also affected by the number, quality, price, and subjective appeal of the items those Crowns are for, and for patterns of Crown-habits - e.g. does the current system encourage the splurging and frequent repurchase of Crowns, or does it encourage bulk-buying and hoarding. Most considerations I mentioned affect the demand for Crowns in some way, and are absolutely relevant for ZOS's revenue. (One of the things I mentioned for example, availability of suitable substitutes reduces the attractiveness of an item - so the more time passes without a chance of buying it, the more likely it is that people found something else, moved on, stopped playing, etc).
ZOS have data about the revenue they make off of a 4-day LTO item. But they don't have data about the potential revenue for that same item if they tried selling it any other way, because they don't try selling it any other way. So stop saying they have all the data, when it's physically impossible to have data on things they never tried.
Take your Crown sales example (which is pretty reductionist, but even there you'll see that what you say makes no sense). They put up something for 4 days. Some people will buy full-priced Crowns for the sake of that 4-day LTO. Right. That's what you're focusing on. But if people buy Crowns for that 4 day item, what's saying that people wouldn't buy Crowns for the same item if it was a 2-week LTO? Or a 1-month LTO? Or a seasonal LTO? If they never tried, how exactly would ZOS have data about some magical cutoff-point where people buy Crowns for 4day items but DON'T buy Crowns for 1-month items???
And who says that the number of people who buy Crowns in 4 days is MORE than the number of people who would buy Crowns in 4 weeks for that same item? (The production cost of which is a one-off fixed sum with no duplication costs or other materials - so clearly milking the same copy-pasted code as much as possible would be better). If people on the other 26 days of a month get to buy that item and spend money on Crowns to do it, would those people who did so in the first 4 days suddenly REFUSE to do so? Do they actually LOSE OUT on more revenue if the item isn't LTO (or is a longer LTO), than if it is a 4-day one and doesn't reach the hands of way more players with way more opportunity to make a purchase?
They have data about how many people purchased Crowns on the 4 days that Grand Topal Hideaway was last available, sure. But they don't have data about the people who would have purchased Crowns in the past year if it was available all the time. Because they didn't try to sell it. Or if they insist on 4-day LTOs, they again don't have data on what would happen if they brought things back for 1 week at least once a year (at random times, if they insist). But they don't know.
If these LTOs are working so well, why don't they do them for more items, more frequently? Why didn't they sell any LTOs during Black Friday? You seriously believe that the data they get from Crown purchases on 4 days tells them all they need to know about how many people would have bought Crowns just the same if the LTO was longer, or how many people had a demand and the money but couldn't buy it on the other 361 days, or how many people had the money and demand but now that demand is gone by the time it comes around? They don't know. So I don't think you understand the current system and the points that people are raising in this and other threads. We're telling them that the most limiting factor on their revenue is the lack of supply. Not the price, not the lack of demand, but the lack of supply. (And on that note before you try to bring up artificial scarcity or whatever, read everything I wrote, because I addressed it all and there's no point going in circles).
I have made it clear that they have a baseline for crown sales throughout the year and when they are discounted. On top of that, they have the data for increased crown sales during LTOs.
Then add in that the largest private game developer in the world, a company worth billions of dollars, can hire analysts that are smart enough to analyze. As such they are very capable of figuring this out which means that other information is not important.
In other words, they do not care how many houses they could sell if they offered the homes year-round. It is irrelevant because Zos is not in the business of selling digital homes. They are in the business of selling the game and crowns.1 -
bluebird✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭
The baseline Crown sales are affected by the baseline items that are available to purchase for Crowns. People buy Crowns to spend them on something, not just to have them. So the fact that Crowns are purchased more during LTOs than during baseline times may have something to do with the fact that there are more things to purchase during LTOs than baseline items.
I have made it clear that they have a baseline for crown sales throughout the year and when they are discounted. On top of that, they have the data for increased crown sales during LTOs.
So... you're saying ZOS has data about sales they never made?
They are not missing that. They already know what crown sales are like when the price is reduced and have a baseline for crown sales at full price.
They don't have data about what the revenue they could have had.
I am pointing out they do have the data that matters, their revenue, and what happens to it most of the time they offer a LTO.
I'm just suggesting exactly what I wrote. That they don't have the data for things they didn't try.
Are you suggesting that Zos does not have the data for sales of crown packages or does not look at how many crowns they sell to see if there is a notable increase in sales when they offer an LTO with a significant cost?
Except they don't have the data. Or they aren't using it.
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.
That is all that matters.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts.
Edit: To be clear, Zenimax is not attempting to maximize how many LTO homes they sell. They are trying to maximize how many are purchased with crowns that cost the full value vs crowns purchased on sale. That is maximizing revenue overall. And again, I am sure Zenimax has analysts that understand the economics of this.
Zos is not trying to maximize how many units they sell but maximize how many crowns they sell at full price. That is maximizing revenue/profits which is more important than how many homes they sold. The information you are suggesting Zos has is not important. You're honsetly not reading what I'm writing or we just keep talking on different threads or something because I'm not sensing that things clicked after this convo. And since I've been hogging this thread quite a bit, I'll just stop. But here's a spoiler tag if you want to see why you're wrong.
You're talking about Crowns and Crown prices again. Only that. Without considering Crown Store items. That's wrong.
People don't buy Crowns for having them, people buy Crowns for things to spend it on.
Full price / reduced price Crowns are the supply. But demand doesn't simply respond to price, it responds to a variety of factors. Like, how many things are available, how desirable those things are, etc. So ZOS's revenue isn't simply affected by the price of Crowns, it's also affected by the number, quality, price, and subjective appeal of the items those Crowns are for, and for patterns of Crown-habits - e.g. does the current system encourage the splurging and frequent repurchase of Crowns, or does it encourage bulk-buying and hoarding. Most considerations I mentioned affect the demand for Crowns in some way, and are absolutely relevant for ZOS's revenue. (One of the things I mentioned for example, availability of suitable substitutes reduces the attractiveness of an item - so the more time passes without a chance of buying it, the more likely it is that people found something else, moved on, stopped playing, etc).
ZOS have data about the revenue they make off of a 4-day LTO item. But they don't have data about the potential revenue for that same item if they tried selling it any other way, because they don't try selling it any other way. So stop saying they have all the data, when it's physically impossible to have data on things they never tried.
Take your Crown sales example (which is pretty reductionist, but even there you'll see that what you say makes no sense). They put up something for 4 days. Some people will buy full-priced Crowns for the sake of that 4-day LTO. Right. That's what you're focusing on. But if people buy Crowns for that 4 day item, what's saying that people wouldn't buy Crowns for the same item if it was a 2-week LTO? Or a 1-month LTO? Or a seasonal LTO? If they never tried, how exactly would ZOS have data about some magical cutoff-point where people buy Crowns for 4day items but DON'T buy Crowns for 1-month items???
And who says that the number of people who buy Crowns in 4 days is MORE than the number of people who would buy Crowns in 4 weeks for that same item? (The production cost of which is a one-off fixed sum with no duplication costs or other materials - so clearly milking the same copy-pasted code as much as possible would be better). If people on the other 26 days of a month get to buy that item and spend money on Crowns to do it, would those people who did so in the first 4 days suddenly REFUSE to do so? Do they actually LOSE OUT on more revenue if the item isn't LTO (or is a longer LTO), than if it is a 4-day one and doesn't reach the hands of way more players with way more opportunity to make a purchase?
They have data about how many people purchased Crowns on the 4 days that Grand Topal Hideaway was last available, sure. But they don't have data about the people who would have purchased Crowns in the past year if it was available all the time. Because they didn't try to sell it. Or if they insist on 4-day LTOs, they again don't have data on what would happen if they brought things back for 1 week at least once a year (at random times, if they insist). But they don't know.
If these LTOs are working so well, why don't they do them for more items, more frequently? Why didn't they sell any LTOs during Black Friday? You seriously believe that the data they get from Crown purchases on 4 days tells them all they need to know about how many people would have bought Crowns just the same if the LTO was longer, or how many people had a demand and the money but couldn't buy it on the other 361 days, or how many people had the money and demand but now that demand is gone by the time it comes around? They don't know. So I don't think you understand the current system and the points that people are raising in this and other threads. We're telling them that the most limiting factor on their revenue is the lack of supply. Not the price, not the lack of demand, but the lack of supply. (And on that note before you try to bring up artificial scarcity or whatever, read everything I wrote, because I addressed it all and there's no point going in circles).
Maybe, just maybe, the demand for Crowns increases as demand for Crown Store items increases - and actually trying to sell them (as they do for 4 days at a time) is a factor in that. 3 -
BackStabeth✭✭✭✭✭.
I'm just suggesting exactly what I wrote. That they don't have the data for things they didn't try.
Are you suggesting that Zos does not have the data for sales of crown packages or does not look at how many crowns they sell to see if there is a notable increase in sales when they offer an LTO with a significant cost?
Except they don't have the data. Or they aren't using it.
This is the reality. We can hypothesize and speculate based on the limited interaction we have with the player base. However, Zos did not see a sizeable net increase in real revenue from limited-time offerings then it would make no sense to continue the practice.tomofhyrule wrote: »It comes down to a marketing ploy to drive sales. This is not limited to Zos or even MMORPGs.
In the case of Zos, it is designed and intended to drive real revenue. If someone sees a house they really like or even a mount, and they lack the crowns some will pay full price for crowns instead of waiting until they are on sale. Of course, other players do stock up on crowns when they are on sale for such eventualities.
I am not arguing. I am merely pointing out the business side.
Of course, nobody except ZOS has the data,
Given we are talking about the largest independent gaming developers worth billions of USD I expect they have very bright and experienced economists and marking analysts that look ay these kinds of things constantly. Zenimax seems to know the business side of things.
That is all that matters.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts.
Edit: To be clear, Zenimax is not attempting to maximize how many LTO homes they sell. They are trying to maximize how many are purchased with crowns that cost the full value vs crowns purchased on sale. That is maximizing revenue overall. And again, I am sure Zenimax has analysts that understand the economics of this.
I am pointing out they do have the data that matters, their revenue, and what happens to it most of the time they offer a LTO.
Zos is not trying to maximize how many units they sell but maximize how many crowns they sell at full price. That is maximizing revenue/profits which is more important than how many homes they sold. The information you are suggesting Zos has is not important.
Again, Zenimax is the largest private gaming developing company in the world and is worth billions of USD. I am pretty sure they have some very capable and bright analysts. They seem to know what they are doing.
Zenimax cannot possibly know anything about data that they have not collected. They cannot know if it has any value, they cannot know what it might tell them, they are ignorant to all data that they cannot, have not, do not capture.
I was a WAN admin for 167 remote locations that collected data. You cannot imagine the amount of data collected even at one location, let alone 167. It took an AS400 and a lot of custom coding to create the tools to be able to drill down through the collected data in order to understand it. Collecting the data didn't tell us anything, it was the tools we used to drill down through the data that mattered.
Point is this, if ZOS is not collecting data, they then don't know anything about it. If ZOS is collecting the data required, unless they look at that data, in right way, using the correct tools, they don't have any clue what that data means. I could say an item that is sitting on a shelf that only sells a few a week is not worth having on the shelf. I could say that shelf space would be better used for items that sell quickly. However, if I look at the people who purchase that item and find out those people's average ring equals several peoples average rings I might instead realize that retaining the item that doesn't sell fast is actually better than replacing that with something else. So to retain that customer, i need to reserve that shelf space for that item and make sure it's always present.
We have no idea what data ZOS collects, nor do we have any idea if they are looking that data in a way that allows them to make the best decisions for us and them. If ZOS does not sell items in the way we are suggesting they should, then they are certainly not capturing data they are not collecting and have no way of knowing, which is what is being discussed.
If they do not have the data, they cannot possibly interrogate it and cannot know. Doesn't matter how many billions they make, or how much data they collect, it's collecting the correct data and then using the right tools to interrogate that data that matters. Period.6 -
tomofhyrule✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭If these LTOs are working so well, why don't they do them for more items, more frequently? Why didn't they sell any LTOs during Black Friday? You seriously believe that the data they get from Crown purchases on 4 days tells them all they need to know about how many people would have bought Crowns just the same if the LTO was longer, or how many people had a demand and the money but couldn't buy it on the other 361 days, or how many people had the money and demand but now that demand is gone by the time it comes around? They don't know. So I don't think you understand the current system and the points that people are raising in this and other threads. We're telling them that the most limiting factor on their revenue is the lack of supply. Not the price, not the lack of demand, but the lack of supply. (And on that note before you try to bring up artificial scarcity or whatever, read everything I wrote, because I addressed it all and there's no point going in circles).
I think this is one of the most telling things - if LTO sales work so well, why are they so few and far between? Last year, the items in the Crown Store showcase would usually be released Thurs-Mon, and Mondays would usually bring in some surprises - some new yet unmentioned things, some returns, etc. Now, any day that doesn't have an associated thing in the showcase is "Starter Pack, Adept" at 40% off. The stock is cycling less, and it's getting stale. If LTO deals increase sales by such an incredible amount, why are there not more LTO sales? What's the limit of the art team making new content that will only see the light of day for a week versus the money they make from that? Why not have more crate seasons, if they're the big earner?
Considering that you mentioned it, it's interesting to look back at the Black Friday bundles from the past few years - I didn't realize how different they were:
2018:- Standard mount/consumable bundle
- 30% off 15-crate pack for ESO+
- Sales on houses - Daggerfall Overlook, Earthtear Cavern, Ebonheart Chateau, Hakkvild's High Hall, Orbservatory Prior, Pariah's Pinnacle*, Colossal Aldmeri Grotto*, Princely Dawnlight Palace*, Erstwhile Sacntuary*, Linchal Grand Manor*, Serenity Falls Estate. Marked houses are not perpetually available.
- Standard mount/consumable bundle
- Sales on assistants and 2019 dungeon DLCs
- Sales on mundus stones from housing editor
- Standard mount/consumable bundle
- Second mount/consumable bundle for ESO+
So 2018 actually brought back some LTO things. 2019 had sales for things already in the store, but that's it. And this year?5 -
Raideen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭I can tell you as an absolute that the way LTO are being handled that ZOS is leaving money on the table.3 -
tomofhyrule✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Here's something else - some things get brought back rather often, but others are gone seemingly forever. As for which is which... [shrug]
There are too many cosmetics to list, but I'm sure we can all point out at least one thing that's been unavailable for ages by now. Mine is certain hairstyles - The Heroic Poet was removed from the store on November 6, 2017, and hasn't returned since. Now some of the other things removed with it have returned in crates or for individual purchase periodically, but those hairstyles are lost now for over 3 years.
I just went through all of the showcases to use the Crates as an example. Below are the crate seasons we've had, and the date they were last available for purchase (original or returned). Also marking which have never seen a rerelease, which also includes the ones that just left the store recently:- Storm Atronach, released Q1 2017, last available Apr 2020
- Wild Hunt, released Q2 2017, last available Dec 2017
- Dwarven, released Q3 2017, last available Sep 2017 (never rereleased)
- Reaper's Harvest, released Q4 2018, last available Oct 2019
- Flame Atronach, released Q1 2018, last available Aug 2019
- Scalecaller, released Q2 2018, last available Jan 2020
- Psijic Vault, released Q3 2018, last available July 2020
- Hollowjack, released Q4 2018, last available Oct 2020
- Xanmeer, released Q1 2019, last available Feb 2020
- Dragonscale, released Q2 2019, last available July 2019 (never rereleased)
- Baandari Pedlar, released Q3 2019, last available Sep 2019 (never rereleased)
- New Moon, released Q4 2019, last available Aug 2020
- Frost Atronach, released Q1 2020, last available Mar 2020 (never rereleased)
- Nightfall, released Q2 2020, last available Sep 2020 (never rereleased)
- Sovngarde, released Q3 2020, last available Dec 2020 (never rereleased)
Most of the crates have been pretty good at returning - of the 12 crate seasons before 2020, 6 made an appearance this year and 10 have been seen at least once in the past two years. And yet there is still one from 2017 that never rereleased (and another that only made a brief appearance after 6 months and hasn't been seen in the 36 months since). Meanwhile, there's one crate season that left in Dec 2019 and still came back again 8 months later.
It seems like our best 'bet' to get stuff to return is to see them returning in the crates, but even that's messy since 1) that's only four times a year, and 2) it's only a handful of things (I think the current Potentate crates have 4 returning items: the Dungeon Explorer and Harborsworn costumes were in the store, the Bardic Tavern-Singer dress was a daily reward, and the Ghostly Housecat pet was in the store). Most of the Crate items are new, especially the themed mounts. That means every quarter we're adding more stuff to the pile of limited availability, and only rereleasing a couple of things.
Also, that means things like the houses and Monster Arms packs are in a perpetual state of limbo. And those are rereleased extremely rarely. To see the art team putting that much work in for them never to resurface... it just seems like a bit of a waste, not to mention the fact that people who would want to buy these things are unable to.
I would hope that some of the data that ZOS is collecting would include 'Which items have been unavailable the longest?' since those are the things that newer players are most likely to not have (and therefore would be most likely to buy). I know personally I'd spend a lot more money on e.g. Wild Hunt crates than I would on New Moon crates since I joined the game in mid 2019 - I bought what I needed from the New Moons when they were out, but I never got a chance for the Wild Hunts. And I know I can't be the only person who hasn't played since the inception of the Crown Store, especially if they like to tout their numbers of new players after each chapter drops.Edited by tomofhyrule on December 31, 2020 5:07AM9 -
BackStabeth✭✭✭✭✭It's my feeling that ZOS is so focused on new content, that they don't bother looking at previous content in the same way at all. It seems to me that their belief, internally, as to what drives sales is new content not existing content people wish to purchase.
It's all screwy and backwards. I have always felt that working towards giving your customer what they want most is always the best policy, not refusing them what they want and offering something else, they don't.
It's my wish that ZOS would pay attention to what is expressed in the forums instead of seemingly ignoring it totally. The forums end up being a sea of complaints with very little positive anything. That should be the first sign something is wrong. When I was a WAN admin, I gauged my team's success by the ration of positive feedback to negative feedback. People generally communicate complaints more than praise, but even still it was a way of keeping measurement on the ups and downs. I don't feel that ZOS has a way of doing this or if they do, they are not paying much attention to it, or caring much about it.
We as a community seem to be clearly stating we want previous content to come back into the crown store and on a much more regular basis. People want to spend crowns on items they want, not on the new items they do not want.
Personally I can't stand the new limited housing. Falling off bridges and dying in your own house is not engaging content and feeling like you are moving through a rat maze isn't enjoyable at all. And lets talk about Mohawk Mounts with Horns. It's over dune and not engaging at all. I didn't buy the mount with gems from the last crate hoping that the new mounts would look better, and here we are, and they look much, much worse. It's having a choice between the lessor of what you don't want.
Here we are on the cusp of a new year, nothing exciting for Christmas, nothing exciting for the new year. There is so much previous content that would have been so much more exciting than what we were offered. I am confused as to why it's not being offered. It's like the people at ZOS calling shots are turning to face the wind, unzipping their pants and urinating right into the wind.7 -
Dagoth_Rac✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I can tell you as an absolute that the way LTO are being handled that ZOS is leaving money on the table.
They are leaving your money on the table. But what about other players? What about the players who bought item X when it first came out because they were worried it might be their only chance to buy the item? What about the players who buy new item Y because they missed out on item X and it never came back, and they don't want same thing to happen with item Y?
Limited time offers are driven by "fear of missing out". That fear does not work unless players legitimately fear that they may never have another chance to buy. And you reinforce that fear by really, truly never bringing back lots of cool stuff.
ESO players are not a unique species of human. These marketing tactics are driven by well-known human behaviors. They do not have to test what happens when they bring stuff back versus not bring it back versus bring it back at different prices. They know how players behave from other games and other industries.
In fact, the marketing team at ZOS is probably delighted by this thread. "Look at how upset they are. We are really driving home the, 'Buy now or you going to miss out,' mantra. Look how many views from players who are not even participating in thread. They are all seeing what happens when you don't buy. They are all seeing that we are serious."
ZOS are like a mob boss. They can't just threaten to break your knee caps if you don't pay off your gambling debts. They need to break your knee caps. Will they lose out on the payment of Mr. Broken Knee Caps? Yes. But it sends the proper message of fear to all their other clients. And those clients will be much more likely to pay on time. Likewise, ZOS cannot just threaten, "limited time only". They need to actually follow through enough times to make players truly fear that they will miss out.4 -
BackStabeth✭✭✭✭✭Dagoth_Rac wrote: »In fact, the marketing team at ZOS is probably delighted by this thread. "Look at how upset they are. We are really driving home the, 'Buy now or you going to miss out,' mantra. Look how many views from players who are not even participating in thread. They are all seeing what happens when you don't buy. They are all seeing that we are serious."
ZOS are like a mob boss. They can't just threaten to break your knee caps if you don't pay off your gambling debts. They need to break your knee caps. Will they lose out on the payment of Mr. Broken Knee Caps? Yes. But it sends the proper message of fear to all their other clients. And those clients will be much more likely to pay on time. Likewise, ZOS cannot just threaten, "limited time only". They need to actually follow through enough times to make players truly fear that they will miss out.
So you recognize that ZOS is creating fear that an item might not come back around, and yet they themselves claim they will. So in truth you are saying they are lying.
You believe that the people managing these things, those who are employed by ZOS to do so, are delighted that people are unhappy about the way things are sold on the crown store? You think that making their customers upset, makes them happy?
You think the proper message to communicate to people is if you don't buy something you never will be able to buy it again? I think you are missing out on one fact here, when you miss out on buying garbage, you miss out on buying garbage. There is nothing in the crown store right now that I feel is worth spending any money on. So what if I miss it, my knee caps are not broken and I'm not going to buy the garbage offered right now.
So you really believe that ZOS would rather make everyone who can never purchase what they truly desire, unhappy to the point they leave the game for good because of these strong arm, manipulate you to buy garbage that is not what you want, than sell more stuff, make more money and make more customers happy?
Yeah, seems about right...
Really the thing to do is not to sub until ZOS sees things our way, not to spend crowns, not to put up with manipulating marketing tactics. I don't think ZOS is as evil as you make them out to be, I think the managers have absolutely no clue as to whom their customer is. They seem to think that manipulating and using dirty sales tactics will make them more money, and that's not the case. Selling what people want most makes the most money, that's a fact always has been down through thousands of years of history.
Unless you are selling tulips perhaps.
0 -
BackStabeth✭✭✭✭✭On a side note, with a few exceptions 2020 has been the worst year for most people all over the world. ZOS has benefited in a way from the pandemic, more people are playing the game which means more revenue.
And yet, this was the worst Black Friday sale in ESO history. The current crown store offerings are just plain bad. Not only has 2020 been one of the worst years in memory, but ESO has taken that them to all new levels. And they could have done so much better, so easily.
Send 2020 off with good feelings, make all things ever sold in the crown store available for sale for a week. Do something that gives back to the community in such a way to create tremendous excitement and just good old fashion good feelings.
But nothing, not one thing, nada. It's as if they live in a bubble, totally disconnected from the world and reality, from what is going on. I can tell you this, they are for sure without any doubts seriously disconnected from the community they are tasked with managing, and doing the worst possible job in regards to that fact. Disconnected, not knowing, uninformed, not caring, all these things seem to apply to those making the decisions that affect us most.
I'm honestly just blah, so over the crown store or buying anything else. The way I feel now about ESO is that I'll play out the rest of my sub, and probably stop playing unless something dramatic changes.
I don't like feeling manipulated, I am not going to buy anything unless ZOS shows us some serious appreciation and love.3 -
Anotherone773✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭BackStabeth wrote: »I have been having a bit of back and forth with support.
More or less I was told that a policy was recently changed that negatively affects my ability to purchase something I wanted to purchase.
[snip]
That didn't make me feel any better, after reading the forums [snip] Take limited time housing for example. None of that makes me feel warm and fuzzy towards Zenni. Making a house a limited time offer [snip]
Don't get me wrong, someone put a lot of work and effort into the things being offered. Those people have real talent. But the items being offered just meh, don't interest me. More horned mounts just re-skinned versions of other horned mounts offered before. And who likes camels? And the limited time housing? Phhffftttt
Shalidor's Shrouded Realm is a death trap. Uneven bridges going all over the place, edges you can run off, specially if you are using a thief build, built around running fast. It's a maze of places to kill yourself in your own home. I want a house I can pop in, go into a crafting room and take care of the stuff in my backpack, hit up my NPC banker and merchant and enjoy the rooms I created without risking walking off the side of an uneven skinny bridge and wasting time rezzing myself. The rooms are spread out in a maze, confusing and bleh. [snip] I feel the same way about these limited houses lately.
Stone Eagle Aerie a rate in a maze. [snip] The fact that the current limited house, and the future limited house both are a maze just accentuates this feeling. Again, lots of work and detail, tons of artistic talent has been spent on this house but it's a maze. A maze with a gimmick to sell you something that falls short of the effort that was invested in it. Sure, there is a waterfall you can walk through to use an elevator that leads to a thieves guild, but there are so many thieves guilds easier, and quicker to get into that after you take the elevator one time and realize it it's no longer a selling point. Why would you ever use it when others are more convenient? And again you have to wander through a maze of paths, doors and rooms to get to the places you created and want to enjoy. It feels like one of those quests where the wayshrine is on the wrong side of a huge mountain you cannot cross over and instead have to run all the way around to the other side before you can get access to the objective. And to top it off, you can't furnish everything because even with eso+ you don't have enough slots to furnish with. And this super giant maze houses only have 50 more slots than the medium houses, so... WHY? Truly, why? Sure, the light plays off the stone beautifully, but you are a rat in a maze. Sure, the waterfalls, the pools, they are all beautiful but how many waterfalls does a house really need before it seems like the main selling point is that the house is one gigantic waterfall, a maze and a gimmick?
I wanted to write something positive, something happy, something that was encouraging but this last crown store change has been dismal. Besides the typical bad feeling I get from seeing all the "convenience" items that really mean inconvenience was coded on purpose to sell you more convenience, the offerings really are blah this time. They couldn't figure anything special for the special offerings? How are those offerings special in any way, what specifically is special about them other than the word "special"? The crates, uhggggg, the horned mohawk thing is over done. It's like Thanksgiving turkey that has been cooked too long and nobody wants to say it's dry and tastes like turkey bones. Usually, you see people proudly riding the new mounts but not this time, people are proudly riding other mounts [snip]. And what is the deal with the boring, booooorrrrrrriiiiiiinnnnnnnggggggg mounts you can purchase with crowns? I don't know about you, but who wants to buy a camel with crowns? A bland bear, or lion, or whatever. Phffft. The non-combat pets look better than the mounts and really, if you are spending crowns on a mount should that ever happen?
[snip]
I was told by support that limited houses come back around for sale. Other than the snowglobe for sale right now which is seasonal, what was the last limited time house that was up for sale? That came back around for sale? And how many times in a year does that happen?
I was told by support that they read what people suggest for the crown store. But you know what it feels like to me? [snip] Instead of engaging the community, asking what we want to see more of, they want people to work for them and create excitement and then provide those things. [snip]
And finally, if you are going to have a crown sale, then do yourself and all of us a favor and actually provide something of interest to spend crowns on. [snip]
[edited for bashing and inappropriate content]
People are tired of the limited time housing, me included. We are also tired of the very limited crown store. ZOS missed out on selling me Shalidor's because i impulse buy houses. When i looked at it, it wasn't for sale so i couldn't buy it even though i would have. Now it's available and i haven't bought it. The mood left me when i left the house and i am interested in other things in the game atm, so feel no need to purchase this house. I might buy it at sometime in the future, but for now it is a lost sale and with as many houses that i can still get for gold and new houses popping up regularly the chances of selling me this specific house are dwindling.
I was going to buy 5 crown crates for my wife and 5 for me as a christmas present. But neither of us like what is in these crown crates. If i was able to choose an earlier season that had things we liked, then they would have made the sale. Again missed out on a sale because they limit what i can buy and when.
Do you know why amazon got so big? I am old enough to remember what life was like before amazon changed the way people shop. People went to the store and shopped because ordering was a slow clunky process that didnt save you any money. 4-8 weeks for delivery. Amazon took off by offering a lot of things when i wanted it and often for cheaper( it was cheaper when they started out). It blew up because people could buy what they wanted when they wanted without leaving the house. We could shop on our schedule instead of a store schedule. We could shop from our couch instead of making a special trip.
The crown store is the anti- Amazon. They do things that is well known in marketing to frustrate customers. Restricting access, limited rotating stock, charging a higher price because you ( think) you are creating demand. All this does is frustrate customers and cause you to miss out on a load of sales. Frustrated customers do not spend money. Frustrated customers are spiteful. Happy customers spend money. Happy customers will spend more and more often for things that make them happy.
There is very little about the crown store setup that makes people happy. It is not a pleasant shopping experience. The selection is horrible, the prices are insane, and you can't never just buy what you want. My real house was less headache to purchase than all the hoopla, one has to go through to get an in game house.6 -
tomofhyrule✭✭✭✭✭
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This is assuming that every person playing now was around when item X was available, and has an interest in item Y.Dagoth_Rac wrote: »I can tell you as an absolute that the way LTO are being handled that ZOS is leaving money on the table.
They are leaving your money on the table. But what about other players? What about the players who bought item X when it first came out because they were worried it might be their only chance to buy the item? What about the players who buy new item Y because they missed out on item X and it never came back, and they don't want same thing to happen with item Y?
I couldn't care less about whatever LTO mount or non-combat pet they throw in the store. I know they don't bring them back, and I don't care. It's not making me any more likely to buy something I never wanted in the first place.
You know what would make me jump? Hairstyles and Personalities. You know what they haven't added to the store in ages?
I don't have information on how many people are currently/formerly playing. I'm just saying that the population playing after 3 years, especially if we're talking casual players, is likely not the same. There are a decent number of new players. This means your range of [people who want item X] and [people who have item X already] don't overlap much. Yes, there's also your [people who had the ability to buy item X but didn't] is still there as well, but it's likely smaller than it was. If item X is rereleased after a number of years, there's a whole extra group of players to target. This is also completely ignoring the number of people who didn't buy X when it was out, but have since changed their mind from seeing their friends with it or whatever.
Is [people who will not buy something on impulse because they know it'll return after about 3 years and they'll definitely still be playing] really bigger than [people who were not playing at the time and will jump on an item when it returns]? In every case?
I'll go back to the hairstyles again - Hairstyles are available so rarely, so people will generally wear a new one for a while. I saw loads of characters wearing the Misanthropic Lycanthrope mullet when those crates were available. But how many people have you seen wearing Breda's hairstyle? I think I've seen two characters with that style in the 1.5 years I've been playing - doesn't that suggest that not many people have it? Wouldn't that mean that there is a big potential market? Is that really going to make people think "welp, they brought it back after 3 years, so I'm not buying things from the Crown Store ever again since it all comes back!"
And this also presumes that nothing ever rereleases, but we've seen them bring other things back. I'm not even talking about the typical Witches/New Life stuff that we know comes every year - the Meridia statue out right now was here before in April of 2019. And going through the showcases, I did see things like the Intrepid Gourmand bundle several times. If the goal is to make us think that nothing ever comes back ever, we can see that's patently false. And again, this is all presupposing that nobody's situation changed. I remember that I waffled on the Kalgrontiid statue when it was out, but I decided against it because I didn't have a house to put it in so I couldn't display it. Besides, it was really expensive. Now I have a house and I've seen it at my guildmaster's house, so if it came back, I'd be more likely to buy it.
Nobody is arguing that everything should be available permanently; every idea in here is still using LTO concepts in some fashion. We're just saying that there are players who joined later in the game's life that would like to have a chance to get to content that's only available from the Crown Store in 2017.
Besides, at what point are you going from 'never bringing it back drives people to buy other things!' to 'we're paying the art team thousands of dollars for content that we throw out within a week'? At what point is it worth it to keep the art team churning out content if you're not going to see it used?6 -
NotaDaedraWorshipper✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I've been waiting for the Wild Hunt and Dwarven crates to return for years. Along with random hairstyles, facial hairs and costumes like Treethane Ceremonial Dress.[Lie] Of course! I don't even worship Daedra!4 -
Taleof2Cities✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Anotherone773 wrote: »There is very little about the crown store setup that makes people happy. It is not a pleasant shopping experience. The selection is horrible, the prices are insane, and you can't never just buy what you want. My real house was less headache to purchase than all the hoopla, one has to go through to get an in game house.
Someone has to say it ... so I guess it will be me:
There's nothing stopping anyone commenting in this thread from discontinuing their purchases in the Crown Store if they're unhappy.
Game cosmetics are totally optional.
The Crown Store items sold do not affect combat gameplay ... there is no pay-to-win.
If you started the game late (after your favorite Crown Season ended), you'll have to wait until the next time it comes around just like any other MMO.
If you don't like the artificial scarcity with cosmetics, you don't have to buy. Period.
Edited by Taleof2Cities on December 31, 2020 7:41PM1 -
Raideen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Dagoth_Rac wrote: »I can tell you as an absolute that the way LTO are being handled that ZOS is leaving money on the table.
They are leaving your money on the table. But what about other players? What about the players who bought item X when it first came out because they were worried it might be their only chance to buy the item? What about the players who buy new item Y because they missed out on item X and it never came back, and they don't want same thing to happen with item Y?
Limited time offers are driven by "fear of missing out". That fear does not work unless players legitimately fear that they may never have another chance to buy. And you reinforce that fear by really, truly never bringing back lots of cool stuff.
ESO players are not a unique species of human. These marketing tactics are driven by well-known human behaviors. They do not have to test what happens when they bring stuff back versus not bring it back versus bring it back at different prices. They know how players behave from other games and other industries.
In fact, the marketing team at ZOS is probably delighted by this thread. "Look at how upset they are. We are really driving home the, 'Buy now or you going to miss out,' mantra. Look how many views from players who are not even participating in thread. They are all seeing what happens when you don't buy. They are all seeing that we are serious."
ZOS are like a mob boss. They can't just threaten to break your knee caps if you don't pay off your gambling debts. They need to break your knee caps. Will they lose out on the payment of Mr. Broken Knee Caps? Yes. But it sends the proper message of fear to all their other clients. And those clients will be much more likely to pay on time. Likewise, ZOS cannot just threaten, "limited time only". They need to actually follow through enough times to make players truly fear that they will miss out.
The problem with your assertion is the assumption that every player in the game is old, not new and that the game does not bring new players do it.
Anyone who purchased the game after any of these LTO, or anyone who simply did not have the money during the LTO, or anyone who has changed their mind and no wants that LTO are all missed sales. We are talking about years passing by for some of these items, a LOT of new blood can roll through a game in that time period and every single one of them has the potential to be lost profit by not offering things for sale.
For digital goods that cost nothing to sell, this simply makes zero sense. ZOS is in fact, leaving money on the table. Their operating procedure is generating them LESS revenue, not more.6 -
Raideen✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Taleof2Cities wrote: »Anotherone773 wrote: »There is very little about the crown store setup that makes people happy. It is not a pleasant shopping experience. The selection is horrible, the prices are insane, and you can't never just buy what you want. My real house was less headache to purchase than all the hoopla, one has to go through to get an in game house.
Someone has to say it ... so I guess it will be me:
There's nothing stopping anyone commenting in this thread from discontinuing their purchases in the Crown Store if they're unhappy.
Game cosmetics are totally optional.
The Crown Store items sold do not affect combat gameplay ... there is no pay-to-win.
If you started the game late (after your favorite Crown Season ended), you'll have to wait until the next time it comes around just like any other MMO.
If you don't like the artificial scarcity with cosmetics, you don't have to buy. Period.
The misunderstanding with your post is the assumption that all players play like you do. For many people, cosmetics are a PRIMARY reason to play MMORPG's. This has been established for two decades now by the most popular MMORPG's to exist. This is what many customers perceive an MMORPG to be.
For folks like yourself who are only concerned about running dungeons or killing in pvp, then of course its easy to put aside the desire for cosmetics. For those of us who have spent a decade+ in other MMO's where cosmetics were part of the fun, ZOS is simply leaving money on the table in regards to the crown store and making game play less than fun with limited in game offerings for collecting.5
