so much greed in this game by developers...

FLuFFyxMuFFiN · April 2016

bedlom wrote: »

Atleast you only have to buy costumes and mounts once. I have played a fair few mmo's that charge per character like swtor.

The cash shop in Maplestory was outrageous. Most of the stuff you could buy was only for a limited time meaning you could buy an item and own it for 30, 60, or 90 days and then would have to buy it again.

Lysette · April 2016

bedlom wrote: »

Atleast you only have to buy costumes and mounts once. I have played a fair few mmo's that charge per character like swtor.

Some things in ESO's crown store are as well per character - like character slots, motifs and so on. It is not all account-wide.

Pomaikai · April 2016

GREED! Pure greed I tell you! Have you been to Amazon.com? Almost everything there costs money! WTF?!?!?!?

There are businesses in your own backyard that try to sell you things! What is the world coming to?

Lysette · April 2016

CaptainBeerDude wrote: »

So is everyone saying the DLC to advance your games is overpriced? I think that the prices are quite reasonable. Other things may be overpriced, but that's ok. Don't buy it. It is there for people with disposable income. If you just bought the 3 base DLC packages it would have been about $60. That means if I didn't already have the game, I could get full functionality for about $100. In this country, new games can be more expensive without DLC.
I mean, seriously, just ride the brown horse. Nobody cares.

I agree with DLC prices - they are very reasonable for what they deliver - that is absolutely not greedy.

Edit: it is not about disposable income at all - I do not buy the assistant because anytime I would summon it, I would be reminded that I was blatantly ripped off with it and I could not enjoy the game. because this feeling would overshadow it. That was as well why I did not join ESO at start, and why reviews turned out so badly for ESO - because people do not like the feeling to be ripped off.

Gidorick · April 2016

ZOS isn't "Greedy" They're seeing how much they can get away with. They're like a child testing how far they can go before they get in trouble. They keep selling items at higher and higher prices. Once people stop buying this junk, they'll stop selling it for those process.

Problem is, there's a whole bunch of idiots out there with a lot of disposable income... so... *shrug*

katamuro11b16_ESO · April 2016

Gidorick wrote: »

ZOS isn't "Greedy" They're seeing how much they can get away with. They're like a child testing how far they can go before they get in trouble. They keep selling items at higher and higher prices. Once people stop buying this junk, they'll stop selling it for those process.

Problem is, there's a whole bunch of idiots out there with a lot of disposable income... so... *shrug*

That is basically the rest of the world too, businesses and people trying to charge as much as they can and a layer of people who can afford to buy it making life difficult for those beneath them on the financial ladder.

FLuFFyxMuFFiN · April 2016

Gidorick wrote: »

ZOS isn't "Greedy" They're seeing how much they can get away with. They're like a child testing how far they can go before they get in trouble. They keep selling items at higher and higher prices. Once people stop buying this junk, they'll stop selling it for those process.

Problem is, there's a whole bunch of idiots out there with a lot of disposable income... so... *shrug*

Disposable income makes them idiots? Not saying that people with disposable income have to spend it but if they want to spend their money they can. Personally I believe most of the prices in the Crown Store are fine but I will agree that the assistants are a little high. I wouldn't buy them even if they were 500 crowns though.

Lysette · April 2016

Gidorick wrote: »

ZOS isn't "Greedy" They're seeing how much they can get away with. They're like a child testing how far they can go before they get in trouble. They keep selling items at higher and higher prices. Once people stop buying this junk, they'll stop selling it for those process.

Problem is, there's a whole bunch of idiots out there with a lot of disposable income... so... *shrug*

It is just not very clever to do that - a more reasonable price might have provided more income overall - remember that poll which was made about that - 1000-2000 crowns was what most people saw as reasonable - and I agree with that. They could have sold a huge amount of assistants for that price.

Pomaikai · April 2016

"Life isn't fair Princess. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."

~Wesley "The Princess Bride"

Vrienda · April 2016

It's so the motif still has value to players who earned it legitimately. Because fewer people will buy it from the crown store, keeping the motif more unique.

nimander99 · April 2016

This game has one of the LEAST greedy stores among MMO's. Go play other games before you come to a conclusion like this OP...

Lysette · April 2016

katamuro11b16_ESO wrote: »

Gidorick wrote: »

ZOS isn't "Greedy" They're seeing how much they can get away with. They're like a child testing how far they can go before they get in trouble. They keep selling items at higher and higher prices. Once people stop buying this junk, they'll stop selling it for those process.

Problem is, there's a whole bunch of idiots out there with a lot of disposable income... so... *shrug*

That is basically the rest of the world too, businesses and people trying to charge as much as they can and a layer of people who can afford to buy it making life difficult for those beneath them on the financial ladder.

This is not really the case seen from economics - and why businesses sell their stuff as branded goods and as well as no-name products at different prices. Different people buy at different prices and if many different prices are covered it will be overall more. There is an optimal price though, and that is normally not any near to the highest possible due to the shape of the demand graph (demand at a certain price).

The optimal sale volume would be the integral below this curve. And selling in different price ranges leads to not overlapping areas under this graph and is maximizing the win. That is why ZOS will have a sale at some point in time and offer it for half the price most likely - to catch another group of people with it - but at the same time, a lot of those who bought it for 5k will feel ripped off in one way or the other - a more reasonable price would have covered a larger area and no one would have to feel ripped off - so it is economically not clever to try to get the highest price, but a reasonable one is king.

badmojo0777b14_ESO · April 2016

ive seena few B2P games and F2p, and pay to 2 win, this is by FAR the classiest and least intrusive of the lot. i preferred the subscription anyway, kept the scrubs out but you would complain about 15 dollars a month for total access too. companies have to make money to provide the game

Lysette · April 2016

badmojo0777b14_ESO wrote: »

ive seena few B2P games and F2p, and pay to 2 win, this is by FAR the classiest and least intrusive of the lot. i preferred the subscription anyway, kept the scrubs out but you would complain about 15 dollars a month for total access too. companies have to make money to provide the game

So to ask you directly - you think it is ok to sell an assistant for 35€, when ZOS sells the whole game for 22€ on sale? You do not think that is unreasonably high?

waterfairy · April 2016

MaxwellCrystal wrote: »

Yeah it isn't a problem; I do agree it's greed in my opinion too but then I gotta look at the lack of subbers. If a MMO is going to have great people who can accomplish great feats then it's going to be a successful MMO that sells a lot so they can retain those talented people.

Unfortunately when this game lost P2P a lot of the talented staff left which resulted in the loss of bounty enforcers, spellcrafting, jewelry crafting,etc. There's a lot of potential for this game still... I suppose but... that is the only thing this game will ever have in it's current state 'potential'.

Consider the B2P console market and they should have more then enough money to fund this game for a long time.

At $60 per copy they would only need to sell 17 million copies for both consoles combined (less then 9 mil per console) to break $1 Billion ....with a big name like The Elder Scrolls in their title and the huge success of Skyrim, I'm willing to bet that they've sold 3 times that amount and all this in less then a year. What do they do after such a win? Cut people from the team and further their greed through ridiculous prices for reskins and poor quality work.

Lysette · April 2016

Vigarr wrote: »

MaxwellCrystal wrote: »

Yeah it isn't a problem; I do agree it's greed in my opinion too but then I gotta look at the lack of subbers. If a MMO is going to have great people who can accomplish great feats then it's going to be a successful MMO that sells a lot so they can retain those talented people.

Unfortunately when this game lost P2P a lot of the talented staff left which resulted in the loss of bounty enforcers, spellcrafting, jewelry crafting,etc. There's a lot of potential for this game still... I suppose but... that is the only thing this game will ever have in it's current state 'potential'.

Consider the B2P console market and they should have more then enough money to fund this game for a long time.

At $60 per copy they would only need to sell 17 million copies for both consoles combined (less then 9 mil per console) to break $1 Billion ....with a big name like The Elder Scrolls in their title and the huge success of Skyrim, I'm willing to bet that they've sold 3 times that amount and all this in less then a year. What do they do after such a win? Cut people from the team and further their greed through ridiculous prices for reskins and poor quality work.

Just that they do not get 60$ per copy, retailers want to earn as well and they get the biggest part of the cake, because distribution is the real hard part of a business. What do you think steam is paying per copy, when they sell it for 22€ on sale - that is just a handful of dollars what they pay for a copy.

katamuro11b16_ESO · April 2016

Lysette wrote: »

This is not really the case seen from economics - and why businesses sell their stuff as branded goods and as well as no-name products at different prices. Different people buy at different prices and if many different prices are covered it will be overall more. There is an optimal price though, and that is normally not any near to the highest possible due to the shape of the demand graph (demand at a certain price).

The optimal sale volume would be the integral below this curve. And selling in different price ranges leads to not overlapping areas under this graph and is maximizing the win. That is why ZOS will have a sale at some point in time and offer it for half the price most likely - to catch another group of people with it - but at the same time, a lot of those who bought it for 5k will feel ripped off in one way or the other - a more reasonable price would have covered a larger area and no one would have to feel ripped off - so it is economically not clever to try to get the highest price, but a reasonable one is king.

The thing is that sometimes what seems like a reasonable price isn't.
For example here in UK the house prices have been rising for many years now, even the economic troubles of the past 8 years haven't made much impact on it.
And you know why price keeps going up, locking people with incomes of less than £60k out from buying it? Because landlords, the people who are free to set any price for rental property keep buying them to rent them out at prices that are quite high. Plus letting agencies charge really high prices for their services so moving house, even a modest one with the deposit and the agency fees usually run around £1500-2000.
And neither the landlords nor the letting agencies are controlled in how much they charge so once a person starts renting and unless you get a REALLY good job you are locked out of ever owning your own house.

In theory it should work like you describe but when people are left without a choice the people who profit from it don't charge less because it is reasonable.

It doesn't directly apply to ZOS and ESO and frankly there is nothing in the crown store that I need or want and you can play game perfectly well without it but the prices do seem high for what they are selling.

Lysette · April 2016

katamuro11b16_ESO wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

This is not really the case seen from economics - and why businesses sell their stuff as branded goods and as well as no-name products at different prices. Different people buy at different prices and if many different prices are covered it will be overall more. There is an optimal price though, and that is normally not any near to the highest possible due to the shape of the demand graph (demand at a certain price).

The optimal sale volume would be the integral below this curve. And selling in different price ranges leads to not overlapping areas under this graph and is maximizing the win. That is why ZOS will have a sale at some point in time and offer it for half the price most likely - to catch another group of people with it - but at the same time, a lot of those who bought it for 5k will feel ripped off in one way or the other - a more reasonable price would have covered a larger area and no one would have to feel ripped off - so it is economically not clever to try to get the highest price, but a reasonable one is king.

The thing is that sometimes what seems like a reasonable price isn't.
For example here in UK the house prices have been rising for many years now, even the economic troubles of the past 8 years haven't made much impact on it.
And you know why price keeps going up, locking people with incomes of less than £60k out from buying it? Because landlords, the people who are free to set any price for rental property keep buying them to rent them out at prices that are quite high. Plus letting agencies charge really high prices for their services so moving house, even a modest one with the deposit and the agency fees usually run around £1500-2000.
And neither the landlords nor the letting agencies are controlled in how much they charge so once a person starts renting and unless you get a REALLY good job you are locked out of ever owning your own house.

In theory it should work like you describe but when people are left without a choice the people who profit from it don't charge less because it is reasonable.

It doesn't directly apply to ZOS and ESO and frankly there is nothing in the crown store that I need or want and you can play game perfectly well without it but the prices do seem high for what they are selling.

I know the problem with housing prices in the UK, I lived for a year in London - 1200 pounds for a shoe box per month, it's insane.

waterfairy · April 2016

Lysette wrote: »

Just that they do not get 60$ per copy, retailers want to earn as well and they get the biggest part of the cake, because distribution is the real hard part of a business.

True but even if they only bank 1/10 of their sales, that's $100 million or more in their pocket less then a year ago. They must earn at least $100,000 (very meager estimate) each month off of subs and crown store stuff...probably $1 mil a month as WoW was pulling in over $10 mil monthly and that was only PC (ESO is for 3 big platforms).

Lysette · April 2016

Vigarr wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Just that they do not get 60$ per copy, retailers want to earn as well and they get the biggest part of the cake, because distribution is the real hard part of a business.

True but even if they only bank 1/10 of their sales, that's $100 million or more in their pocket less then a year ago. They must earn at least $100,000 (very meager estimate) each month off of subs and crown store stuff...probably $1 mil a month as WoW was pulling in over $10 mil monthly and that was only PC (ESO is for 3 big platforms).

While this is true, you have to see that seen from the perspective of an investor those 200 million spent have to earn 2 million dollars each month just to be not worse than any other normal investment they do - these people do nothing below 1% per month most will be a lot more. So they compare this to that, their perspective is different.

And then taxes add to it, so this is more like 5 million it has to earn before taxes, just to be as good as another investment, and this does not even include the required return on investment yet. This is by far more complicated than you think. Not to forget that staff costs as well millions per year. the servers itself are just a tiny part of what all the other stuff costs. i am not sure, they broke even yet, not seen from an investors perspective. But that is no reason to overprice things, more reasonable stuff will earn more than a few overpriced items.

Taleof2Cities · April 2016

Callous2208 wrote: »

If I'm not mistaken that crown store pop-up doesn't occur every time you log in. For me it's just when something is added or goes on sale, which, is cool because sometimes I don't pay attention to the forums or use the launcher. If I don't see anything I like I just click that big X and go on playing the game. Oddly enough they still allowed me to play even when I didn't purchase anything. The greed is real folks.

... was typing a response and then found this reply matching my thoughts and more illustrative ...

Yes, I proudly bought my grey Yokudan Charger and still ride it today ...

http://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Legend_of_the_Yokudan_Chargers

ContraTempo · April 2016

How DARE they sell totally optional items for a premium, and then use their ill-gotten gains to support their foul, perverted habits like eating and paying rent! Foul, evil, corrupt developers! For SHAME! For SHAME!

Van_0S · April 2016

Thevampirenight wrote: »

Elder Scrolls online is much cheaper on the wallet.

Valrien · April 2016

Svalinn wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

They do when people buy horses from the cash shop because they don't want to grind 42k for a horse, which was their obvious intention.

So well.. what is the deal with horses? seems like grinding 42k of gold is not that much a deal in the game... or are we talking about something that goes a long way back in the past?

was a LONG time ago.

MrDenimChicken · April 2016

the fact that I have gotten this many responses means this has touched a nerve in the community

Obviously I'm not saying that Zenimax is forcefully robbing us or anything. And obviously they need to make money.

I'm just saying that sometimes it becomes blatantly obvious that a company is price gouging, and it makes the company look worse.

But if you guys don't roll your eyes when you see a motif going for $30, than I just don't see eye to eye with you. For a motif to cost as much as a Witcher 3 expansion is just crazy to me.

To each their own, but I think it looks bad on the company.

Lysette · April 2016

Valrien wrote: »

Svalinn wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

They do when people buy horses from the cash shop because they don't want to grind 42k for a horse, which was their obvious intention.

So well.. what is the deal with horses? seems like grinding 42k of gold is not that much a deal in the game... or are we talking about something that goes a long way back in the past?

was a LONG time ago.

it was 1 gold loot for a normal mob, 2 gold loot for a boss. Ridiculous. One of the many reasons, ESO got that bad reviews at that time.

Lysette · April 2016

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

the fact that I have gotten this many responses means this has touched a nerve in the community

Obviously I'm not saying that Zenimax is forcefully robbing us or anything. And obviously they need to make money.

I'm just saying that sometimes it becomes blatantly obvious that a company is price gouging, and it makes the company look worse.

But if you guys don't roll your eyes when you see a motif going for $30, than I just don't see eye to eye with you. For a motif to cost as much as a Witcher 3 expansion is just crazy to me.

To each their own, but I think it looks bad on the company.

Exactly, it is unreasonable - but these guys can't see it.

FLuFFyxMuFFiN · April 2016

ContraTempo wrote: »

How DARE they sell totally optional items for a premium, and then use their ill-gotten gains to support their foul, perverted habits like eating and paying rent! Foul, evil, corrupt developers! For SHAME! For SHAME!

Seriously. We should call the authorities on these criminal scum.

FLuFFyxMuFFiN · April 2016

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

the fact that I have gotten this many responses means this has touched a nerve in the community

Obviously I'm not saying that Zenimax is forcefully robbing us or anything. And obviously they need to make money.

I'm just saying that sometimes it becomes blatantly obvious that a company is price gouging, and it makes the company look worse.

But if you guys don't roll your eyes when you see a motif going for $30, than I just don't see eye to eye with you. For a motif to cost as much as a Witcher 3 expansion is just crazy to me.

To each their own, but I think it looks bad on the company.

I don't roll my eyes at a $30 motif because I would rather earn the motif. Seems pointless to spend $30 on something you can find in the game.

mistermutiny89 · April 2016

I think the greed comes from the staff they've supposedly put off or rather the jobs they aren't supplying to more gifted minds in the gaming industry.

It's so excruciatingly apparent that the staff there now, are not the size or quality of what was first put together during the game's release.

Either get some contractors in like they did for Destiny where that coding genius was hired for three months to fix year old bugs and send them on their way. Get results, restore our faith. So explicitly simple, if not for the possibility that the heads at the top of the top want much more profit from the game without ANY noticeable overheads.

I mean, look how dingy, disorganized and tasteless the ESO live stream is, but most note able is how exhausted they all look. I wouldn't be surprised if each existing member of ZoS working on ESO has a work load ment for five people. I salute them.