MMO games are NOT charity!

Eshelmen · August 2016

vamp_emily wrote: »

This is my proposal:

Give the game away for free, lower the prices of digital items by 50% and ..... follow Googles business model:

Hmmm interesting.... and instead of using adwords for money...Zeni could throw up ad billboards all through out Tamriel!
Brilliant!

redspecter23 · August 2016

If name change cost about 1/3rd of what it does, I'd have used 2 of them. At the current price, I will use zero. The op says that a business needs to make money. I agree and they won't be getting any from me for that particular service.

It's obviously not a charity, but pricing has to be reasonable in order to get a large enough percentage of your player base interested. Maybe ZoS has run the numbers and decided they would rather have fewer sales at a high price point than a lot of sales at a low price point. That is up to them I suppose.

Lysette · August 2016

Then I want a premium version without ads and pvp - with a nicely done Cyrrodil for PvE only. Kind of a pre-war version of the game.

But seriously - I do not watch TV anymore due to ads - and I have adblocker running and every website where I see ads nevertheless or who want to force me to deactivate adblocker is a no-go for me and I will not buy their products. If ESO does this, I will be gone.

Lysette · August 2016

,

redspecter23 wrote: »

If name change cost about 1/3rd of what it does, I'd have used 2 of them. At the current price, I will use zero. The op says that a business needs to make money. I agree and they won't be getting any from me for that particular service.

It's obviously not a charity, but pricing has to be reasonable in order to get a large enough percentage of your player base interested. Maybe ZoS has run the numbers and decided they would rather have fewer sales at a high price point than a lot of sales at a low price point. That is up to them I suppose.

Exactly. But a clever business does both - packs with a good discount and single tokens for more. My idea was to have 8-12 tokens in a pack for that price they ask now - but for the pack, not for just 1 token. I guess, that pretty much anyone, who buys from the crown store at all would have bought such a pack when it would be like that - and in total they would make more than with their greedy strategy. Rich people are not greedy ones, but generous - this attracts more customers to their business and they live from the higher volume of sales.

Rohamad_Ali · August 2016

Lysette wrote: »

Then I want a premium version without ads and pvp - with a nicely done Cyrrodil for PvE only. Kind of a pre-war version of the game.

But seriously - I do not watch TV anymore due to ads - and I have adblocker running and every website where I see ads nevertheless or who want to force me to deactivate adblocker is a no-go for me and I will not buy their products. If ESO does this, I will be gone.

Me too . I hate when they turn the bottle in commercials and it's a 110 degrees outside like they know I'm in a desert an thirsty .

I'm so weak willed I don't need that ingame .

Garldeen · August 2016

Lysette wrote: »

Then I want a premium version without ads and pvp - with a nicely done Cyrrodil for PvE only. Kind of a pre-war version of the game.

But seriously - I do not watch TV anymore due to ads - and I have adblocker running and every website where I see ads nevertheless or who want to force me to deactivate adblocker is a no-go for me and I will not buy their products. If ESO does this, I will be gone.

Watching ad less to is fine as they tend to be paid services, but there is a big problem with ad blockers online. I don't work for free, I doubt anyone here does, so why do we expect people to create web content and not get paid for it? Personally I pay to subscribe to thetime.co.uk it's expensive and there are cheaper sources of news, but you get what you pay for. Expecting everything for free just leads to a race to the bottom to see who can do it cheapest. This is why I preferred the sub model of this game

Sylveria_Relden · August 2016

I've said it before... and I'll say it again. I begrudge no business for want of money... that's what business is about.

However, there's no "fine line" between making money and doing it ethically- bending your customers over a table in order to obtain said riches will eventually drive your customers away. Ethics is about people, business is about money- and there's really a balance in doing it ethically.

That said, there's a definitive difference these days between businesses of old, where the owners understood it takes years to develop customer loyalty and trust, and customer relationships were indeed the focus, and the new businesses where it's all about getting rich as quickly as possible, no matter what the "cost".

Hiring all mostly part-timers to avoid having to pay employee benefits, selling cheaply made less than quality products, treating your customers as just another number, etc. All of these factors will indeed cost a business more in the short-term than it will long-term, but most won't care because they plan on sipping martinis on a beach somewhere with your money after they've shut their doors and blamed "the economy" for having to do so.

I encourage all customers to educate themselves- to really research ANY business before you buy products, and as long as you're making an informed decision, by all means continue the business contract. As the saying goes- "Caveat Emptor".

Also makes me wonder why there's no "Angie's List" for software companies these days.

Lysette · August 2016

wonkydog wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

Then I want a premium version without ads and pvp - with a nicely done Cyrrodil for PvE only. Kind of a pre-war version of the game.

But seriously - I do not watch TV anymore due to ads - and I have adblocker running and every website where I see ads nevertheless or who want to force me to deactivate adblocker is a no-go for me and I will not buy their products. If ESO does this, I will be gone.

Watching ad less to is fine as they tend to be paid services, but there is a big problem with ad blockers online. I don't work for free, I doubt anyone here does, so why do we expect people to create web content and not get paid for it? Personally I pay to subscribe to thetime.co.uk it's expensive and there are cheaper sources of news, but you get what you pay for. Expecting everything for free just leads to a race to the bottom to see who can do it cheapest. This is why I preferred the sub model of this game

Yes, I am as well in favor of a subscription model - I have paid that in EVE online since 2008 and I am still doing it. But in this case I expect nearly all content included and not again be charged for it - or at least every extra content in a cash shop to be as well acquirable with ingame currency. ESO has no mandatory subscription and so we have in the end to pay more for less.

As far as web-services go, I do not know in adance, what is on that website - and I do not want them to waste my time with presenting ads to me, which I do not want - this is a rude way to steal my time - I do not want this. Even worse is advertisment via phone, this got really nasty, I have to add about a dozen numbers per week to my black list to not be pestered by this nasty bunch. They call many times a day at all times - at night time done by automatic dialers - I do not support this - ads are a plague and people like this better never enter my property because I would shoot them.

THEDKEXPERIENCE · August 2016

Businesses "of old" didn't care about anything other than money either. You just didn't know about it because the Internet didn't exist.

For example ... The entire 1980s.

Or later Enron, Worldcom, Haliburton etc.

Or earlier ... there was that whole slave labor thing.

People have been greedy jerks as long as money has existed. Yet, still, I do not believe for a second ZOS is one of those companies. They have their flaws for sure, but there pricing is pretty fair in my view.

Sylveria_Relden · August 2016

danielpatrickkeaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Businesses "of old" didn't care about anything other than money either. You just didn't know about it because the Internet didn't exist.

For example ... The entire 1980s.

Or later Enron, Worldcom, Haliburton etc.

Or earlier ... there was that whole slave labor thing.

People have been greedy jerks as long as money has existed. Yet, still, I do not believe for a second ZOS is one of those companies. They have their flaws for sure, but there pricing is pretty fair in my view.

Yeah, uh sorry but I'm not some "twenty-something" that was recently educated with the advent of the internet. Your comment comes across as quite presumptuous

That said, I'll leave you to your own belief. There's no harm in any potential customer educating themselves about a business before deciding to buy products from them- and if what you say is true, they'll continue to do so.

Lysette · August 2016

danielpatrickkeaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Businesses "of old" didn't care about anything other than money either. You just didn't know about it because the Internet didn't exist.

For example ... The entire 1980s.

Or later Enron, Worldcom, Haliburton etc.

Or earlier ... there was that whole slave labor thing.

People have been greedy jerks as long as money has existed. Yet, still, I do not believe for a second ZOS is one of those companies. They have their flaws for sure, but there pricing is pretty fair in my view.

But it is just so inconsistent - subscription for example is very generous - you even get crowns with it - and then they have on the other side massively overpriced items which have on top of it a low quality - and this feels like a rip off - Breton hero f.e.

RebornV3x · August 2016

my issue with this stuff ZOS mainly is how is a name change or a race change is more expensive than a DLC area or content is what I think has a lot of people pissed off a race change is about 3,000 crowns or about 25$ US while DB DLC was 2,000c and Shadows of the hist DLC being 1500c. Nothing in this game should cost more that the price of DLC.
So to charge so much for so little is absurd can't really be mad ZOS they can sell it for whatever they think people will buy there stuff at they have bills to pay and people to pay.but still if I think its too much I won't buy it

Lysette · August 2016

The race change thing introduced together with racial passive changes was intentionally like this - to make money out of the min/maxing end game guys. They waited with these changes until they had the style parlor going. Jessica even said this - maybe not intentionally like this - in a way in a live show. like they had to have the style parlor before they introduce racial passive changes - so basically that is admitting the intention behind it.

cjthibs · August 2016

Wow. You entitled whiners are comparing ESO's business model to Haliburton...and NOW, slavery?!

Are you serious?

They charge you for OPTIONAL items. Do yourself a favor and go look that up, it's in that book called the dictionary.
I know it's hard to spell, but there are several online versions as well. OR if you're feeling super lazy and entitled, have google do it for you. Type 'define: optional' into google.

Seriously though, they can charge what they want because, guess what, you're not required to buy it.
That's it. Really, that's all there is to it.

There is this other idea called value, go ahead and use my google trick on that one too. The basic idea is that each person can decide for themselves how much of a value, monetary or otherwise, that they will place onto a good or service. If people are willing to pay it, they find it valu-able. With me so far?

Obviously, people DO find these prices reasonable, because they have opted to buy them. They find their value and the monetary value more-or-less in line with each other. Just because YOU (one person) don't find that reasonable, that doesn't change the fact that the consensus is that these things are reasonable. It's not really a matter of debate, it's self-evident, either people buy them or they don't.

Want to fight the man? Don't buy the services.
Whining and resorting to hyperbole does nothing to further your argument.

One last thing, I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the same people whining are the same people that threw a fit back in the day to drop the subscription model. Well, this is what happens. This is the inevitable outcome of moving away from such a model. It happens in every single game that does so.

Simple math and logic dictate that fewer people will pay their $15 a month, resulting in a revenue LOSS.
To make up for that loss, the game maker must then shift resources away from creating new content, and into marketing research and ultimately into artists for shiny, new, flashy things, that will grab attention. (Costumes, Hairstyles, Race Changes for L337-PwN3rz)
In addition, the cost of said items, will always be fairly high. Why, you might ask? Because of the loss I mentioned above coupled with the additional resources shifted into marketing and art.

You think this is incorrect?
Ask yourself this: Why has every DLC been smaller than the last? Why was Orsinium massive, TG a bit smaller, DB a little smaller, and now our last DLC ONLY two dungeons?

This doesn't mean that ZoS or ESO is dying, it just means they've adopted a new normal. And this is it. More flashy stuff, less content. You asked for it, and they answered.

A very insincere thank you/middle finger from someone who would've been much happier paying a sub.

Lysette · August 2016

RebornV3x wrote: »

my issue with this stuff ZOS mainly is how is a name change or a race change is more expensive than a DLC area or content is what I think has a lot of people pissed off a race change is about 3,000 crowns or about 25$ US while DB DLC was 2,000c and Shadows of the hist DLC being 1500c. Nothing in this game should cost more that the price of DLC.
So to charge so much for so little is absurd can't really be mad ZOS they can sell it for whatever they think people will buy there stuff at they have bills to pay and people to pay.but still if I think its too much I won't buy it

With the crown sale the race change including name change (as a bundle) was 14€ for me - that is acceptable, if I just want to do it once - I would not pay this if I would have to change a lot of characters though. I have as well upgraded my horses on the new characters with crowns, well part of it, that they do not move around mounted like snails.

Sylveria_Relden · August 2016

Exactly. They can sell it for whatever they like- and if customers wish to open their wallets, they will. People will only buy your products if they believe they're fairly priced, and if the majority won't buy you'll eventually have to lower your prices in order to sell product.

A business that disregards customer feedback referencing their pricing structure is eventually bound to fail.

Public forums have turned into divisive communication methods because of the extremist views one way or the other- and people get termed as "haters" or "fanbois" because they dare to critique, or they dare to defend.

There's nothing wrong with defending a product you like- as long as you're not trying to dismiss another's views as irrelevant, no more than there's nothing wrong with critiquing a product you dislike, as long as you're not trying to dismiss another's like of a product.

Katahdin · August 2016

Big NO to in game advertising.

Some sign advertising anything from the modern world in a game set in Medieval times would look absolutely distracting and look like a big steaming pile of dog doo.

cjthibs is spot on. Nothing in the crown store is necessary to play. Your life wont be ruined and you wont die if you cant/dont buy it.

This reminds me, I need to go buy some crowns before the sale expires

Lysette · August 2016

Opinions can change as well - I was at start as well against the price of the banker - until I finally found a real purpose for it and a benefit to have him - and now I am using it about 25 times every time I play and are pretty happy with it, even it was expensive, it has now value to me, which I did not see at first.

This said, it became useful to me AFTER they introduced the crafting bag - before my bank was always at the brink to explode. But now I have space in it and I can use the banker to transfer stuff between my characters regardless where those are - and this is great.

Kalante · August 2016

The only things you should be getting are the DLC. Anything is else is just lackluster. Last time there was what? a peter pan hat? lol no thanks.

Lysette · August 2016

Katahdin wrote: »

Big NO to in game advertising.

Some sign advertising anything from the modern world in a game set in Medieval times would look absolutely distracting and look like a big steaming pile of dog doo.

cjthibs is spot on. Nothing in the crown store is necessary to play. Your life wont be ruined and you wont die if you cant/dont buy it.

This reminds me, I need to go buy some crowns before the sale expires

Me too, I used 14,000 crowns yesterday on race/name change, appearance change and riding skill upgrades. What brings me to another complain, the style parlor could have better lighting, I had a problem to see how some features look before I saved. And dyed costumes loose their dyes when you unequip them and reequip them in the style parlor - not ingame though, just in the style parlor. Ah, I better tag that for @ZOS_GinaBruno to let them have a look at.

Garldeen · August 2016

danielpatrickkeaneub17_ESO wrote: »

Businesses "of old" didn't care about anything other than money either. You just didn't know about it because the Internet didn't exist.

For example ... The entire 1980s.

Or later Enron, Worldcom, Haliburton etc.

Or earlier ... there was that whole slave labor thing.

People have been greedy jerks as long as money has existed. Yet, still, I do not believe for a second ZOS is one of those companies. They have their flaws for sure, but there pricing is pretty fair in my view.

At the risk of side tracking this into a business ethics debate.... I agree that some companies are dodgy, however if business owners didn't see the chance to make money who would have developed the phone or computer you wrote that message on. The drive for profit leads to development of better technology, hence the superior cars, technology in the west compared to communist states in the 80s where state controlled production and there was no competition in the market place.

Returning to the game. Everyone accepts Zos need to make money, the sticky bit is the grey line between acceptable prices and taking advantage of a captive audience.

BalticBlues · August 2016

danielpatrickkeaneub17_ESO wrote: »

The market sets the price.

And would you say "the market" is always right?
Company greed is not only a topic in MMO games.
It is everywhere where companies milk fans.

A much more prominent example is football. In 2013 ticket prices had risen on average by 716 per cent since 1989. The Bank of England’s inflation rate in that period was 77.1 per cent. The resentment of fans at being ripped off and taken for granted for so long has been threatening to boil over for several years, but it finally happened at Anfield on Feb. 6, when thousands of Liverpool fans staged a momentous walkout.

When Liverpool fans had hinted they would take this action, the club’s chief executive officer, Ian Ayre, told them, via the Guardian: "Of course everybody would like the tickets to be cheaper, including us, but that’s not an option for us right now." Strangely enough, four days after witnessing the walkout, it suddenly became an option. To Liverpool’s credit, the club issued an apology, reversed their decision and froze prices for the next two years.

Compare this to the attitude of German clubs in the Bundesliga.
The noble words of former Bayern president Uli Hoeness:

We could charge more than £104. Let's say we charged £300. We'd get £2 million more in income but what's £2 million to us? In a transfer discussion you argue about that sum for five minutes. But the difference between £104 and £300 is huge for the fan. We do not think the fans are like cows, who you milk. Football has got to be for everybody.

taken from: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2616164-more-premier-league-fans-need-to-rise-up-to-defeat-ticket-price-greed

Replace the word "football" with "MMO" and you get the idea. Bayern Munich is the most successful and wealthy football club in Germany. Why are they so successful and rich? Because good businessmen understand customers, and milking fans isn't healthy on the long run.

hi-res-28d30a8130427e84861ced23627839d9_crop_north.jpg?w=630&h=420&q=75

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Lysette · August 2016

Kalante wrote: »

The only things you should be getting are the DLC. Anything is else is just lackluster. Last time there was what? a peter pan hat? lol no thanks.

Actually the silvenar hat looks pretty good, when dyed - it has just a problem with elven ears, what is weird, considering that it is supposed to be an elven hat. Even that silly looking "kiss-me-not" looks good dyed on my male Khajiit - believe it or not, I could not believe it myself when I saw it.

Lysette · August 2016

BalticBlues wrote: »

danielpatrickkeaneub17_ESO wrote: »

The market sets the price.

And would you say "the market" is always right?
Company greed is not only a topic in MMO games.
It is everywhere where companies milk fans.

A much more prominent example is football. In 2013 ticket prices had risen on average by 716 per cent since 1989. The Bank of England’s inflation rate in that period was 77.1 per cent. The resentment of fans at being ripped off and taken for granted for so long has been threatening to boil over for several years, but it finally happened at Anfield on Feb. 6, when thousands of Liverpool fans staged a momentous walkout.

When Liverpool fans had hinted they would take this action, the club’s chief executive officer, Ian Ayre, told them, via the Guardian: "Of course everybody would like the tickets to be cheaper, including us, but that’s not an option for us right now." Strangely enough, four days after witnessing the walkout, it suddenly became an option. To Liverpool’s credit, the club issued an apology, reversed their decision and froze prices for the next two years.

Compare this to the attitude of German clubs in the Bundesliga.
The noble words of former Bayern president Uli Hoeness:

We could charge more than £104. Let's say we charged £300. We'd get £2 million more in income but what's £2 million to us? In a transfer discussion you argue about that sum for five minutes. But the difference between £104 and £300 is huge for the fan. We do not think the fans are like cows, who you milk. Football has got to be for everybody.

taken from: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2616164-more-premier-league-fans-need-to-rise-up-to-defeat-ticket-price-greed

Replace the word "football" with "MMO" and you get the idea. Bayern Munich is the most successful and wealthy football club in Germany. Why are they so successful and rich? Because good businessmen understand customers, and milking fans isn't healthy on the long run.

But they are german - where honor and dignity has still value. This makes a huge difference, as well as far as loyalty of customers goes. Companies value their customers a whole lot more and customers value the services of a company, which respects them a lot more. That is the german way of doing things and it works - there is a reason why a country with just 80 million people is so highly ranked in the world.

Garldeen · August 2016

Football fans annoy me. They moan each week about the price of tickets but still buy them. If no one turned up at the next game they would soon lower the price, but when games are selling out, why would they. Like this game, instead of holding up banners (posting on the forum) complaining how expensive things are, just don't buy them

Lysette · August 2016

wonkydog wrote: »

Football fans annoy me. They moan each week about the price of tickets but still buy them. If no one turned up at the next game they would soon lower the price, but when games are selling out, why would they. Like this game, instead of holding up banners (posting on the forum) complaining how expensive things are, just don't buy them

Fandom is a form of addiction and therefore easily exploitable. But with Bayern München there is something special - national pride - inside germany - bavaria against the rest of germany, which is considered "very different". I am born and raised in munich, this is special - maybe much like Liverpool as well - it has a very loyal and proud fan community.

I have just experienced something like that in Durban a while ago - first time I watched a Rugby game live in a stadium - which is very violent - you cant say anything against the Springboks if you value your life - this is just crazy.

Brittany_Joy · August 2016

nimander99 wrote: »

Yeah, basically people are starting to line up in two categories: People who own business' and people who work for business'.

The people who own a business or small business or understand free market concepts get that there should be a fair exchange, time = money.

The people who have just been underpaid overworked employees with no concept of how to run a business think that they are owed more from other sectors of society i.e 'meh gamez shuld be free'

This is the very essence of what we are seeing today around us. We must not allow the workers to unite

Not entirely. People want a Steve Jobs or Walmart prices or summer drink days at Mickey Ds pulled in their MMO; by that I mean a business person fighting for low costs to increase sales. When prices are high people will use fraud more often. Just read the multiple reasoning behind pirating they pirate cause costs are too high or the process of obtaining it is too difficult. Reasonable prices create reasonable customers who pay it cause its not a huge loss and it helps the company that got on their good side.

Edit: By steve jobs I mean the 99 cent per song thing. Not the overpriced apple products.

THEDKEXPERIENCE · August 2016

And in the USA we have the NFL where even the worst teams raise prices almost every year, and in places where they don't sell out we black out the game to force people to buy tickets ... and then they do.

Garldeen · August 2016

People's fear of missing out on time sensitive things - football matches, limited time mounts - often causes them to spend what they wouldn't with the time limits removed. If you miss the big game next week you cannot buy the experience cheaper in a few months. It is gone forever. Expect to see more time limited crown store items.

Lysette · August 2016

Brittany_Joy wrote: »

nimander99 wrote: »

Yeah, basically people are starting to line up in two categories: People who own business' and people who work for business'.

The people who own a business or small business or understand free market concepts get that there should be a fair exchange, time = money.

The people who have just been underpaid overworked employees with no concept of how to run a business think that they are owed more from other sectors of society i.e 'meh gamez shuld be free'

This is the very essence of what we are seeing today around us. We must not allow the workers to unite

Not entirely. People want a Steve Jobs or Walmart prices or summer drink days at Mickey Ds pulled in their MMO; by that I mean a business person fighting for low costs to increase sales. When prices are high people will use fraud more often. Just read the multiple reasoning behind pirating they pirate cause costs are too high or the process of obtaining it is too difficult. Reasonable prices create reasonable customers who pay it cause its not a huge loss and it helps the company that got on their good side.

Edit: By steve jobs I mean the 99 cent per song thing. Not the overpriced apple products.

You buy a status symbol if you buy an iphone or an ipad - instead of an android device or windows tablet. That is why people are willing to pay more.