The new and shiny things tax.

Think of it like theatre. You want to get in with great seats to a new musical in the first couple of weeks.. expect to pay hundreds a seat. If you wait till near the end of the season when the promoter realises ticket sales have dropped.. so do the prices in order to sell out remaining 'stock'.

I have no problem with a games expansion being more expensive than it's base game, if the base games price has also dropped significantly - which ESO's has not.

In fact, generally speaking WoW's expansions were more expensive than the base game when they launched, and I had no issue buying them.... but the base game's price had also dropped dramatically as well. I bought BC & WotLK when they were $40/50 and the base game was $30 iirc at the time - the base game had dropped by 40%

Another example is look at Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Released late 2013 at $29.99, ~3 years on it's now $9.99 for the base game. That's a drop of 66.69%, with it's latest expansion costing $40.00. I'd have no problem paying for that, since the base game is way, way cheaper... and yes, I know it's a Sub based game. It's first expansion shows the same thing - released in min 2015 when the base game price had dropped to $19.99. So base game had dropped 33.39%

Now lets look at ESO: Started at $59.95, and in ~3 years has dropped to $44.95... a drop of 25%. When compared to the other games I've mentioned, this drop in base price is... pitiful. Yes, it's a B2P game, but keeping the base game price high doesn't encourage ppl to buy.

And one other point - why is the price on ZOS's store so much more expensive than elsewhere?

$44.95 AUD vs $29.99 US on Steam, which is $38.86 AUD at current exchange rates. And ZOS looses out if people buy on Steam as Valve takes 30% cut from every sale.

And for the Upgrade? If I was going to buy it, I'd buy it from Steam - $39.99 US, which is $51.82 AUD, vs $59.95 AUD on ZOS site. And again, buying on Steam screw's ZOS over due to Valve's 30% cut... so not only do I pay less, but ZOS gets less.

And I think I should also point out what happened with GW2 when they opened their expansion up for purchase - there was a fairly large outcry of rage and anger at the pricing they did. They forced people to basically buy the game again to get the expansion - so the base game was $50 US, and the expansion was priced at $50 & included the base game. So if you already owned the game, you still had to pay full price to get the expansion. Forget all the other issue's & problems that cropped up after it's launch, but it's official & unofficial forums were quite lively with people complaining to hell and back about this pricing scheme and being forced to buy the game again, forced to pay the same amount for the expansion as the base game. Another B2P game, reaction was same as mine here - why pay same/more than base game when base game price has either not changed price or changed very little.

I'm still interested in knowing what other countries are being charged for the 'Upgrade' on ZOS store (as well as on Steam) if anyone actually wants to be bothered to reply with that rather than silly meme post's.

Sausage wrote: »

Because they just cant give it all freely to you. It takes money to make Expansion, of course they gotta make profit.

Therefore the pricing should never be questioned by anyone... was that your point?

Sausage wrote: »

Iselin wrote: »

Sausage wrote: »

Because they just cant give it all freely to you. It takes money to make Expansion, of course they gotta make profit.

Therefore the pricing should never be questioned by anyone... was that your point?

Ive no point.

True that.

Because they want to get new players to play the game, so they make it cheaper.
They know old players will buy Morrowind, no matter what, so they make it more expensive.

OP have you ever bought a movie / game / cellphone / car right upon release? (we call it full price) It's usually expensive but it covers the cost of production. Many people buy things upon release & these people ensure that the company made a profit. Then as time moves on these items price falls to attract new customers since interest fades. This is economy 101...

Also you are aware that many people & I mean MANY PEOPLE!!! bought the Collectors Edition upon launch right? Which was $150.00 ... while the regular version I believe was $59.99

Now keep in mind since it launched on Steam this game has had MANY MANY sales and the game could be picked up for as little as $15.00, this is just to attract new players into the game and they ARE getting their money's worth.

However for you to argue that new content should be priced lower than the base game is laughable, especially since the majority of the over 1 000 000 new happy owners of this game picked it up for less than $20.00

I will give you another example many MMO's which have subs let players play for free up to a certain level, then ask money and sub fee and their expansions are also priced much much higher than the base game.

See where I am going ?

As other people said prices change over time.

When I bought ESO (a month before the B2P switch) the base game, with the pre-order Explorer's Pack cost me £12 and the Imperial Edition upgrade cost me £20. But I just thought of it as getting the Digital Imperial Edition for £32.

I can absolutely guarantee that if you shop around you can get the base game (from reliable sellers) for even less than £12 these days. Not all retailers are clued up on how MMOs work - as far as they're concerned it's just a 3 year old game and they'd probably count themselves lucky to sell a copy at all.

(Also sometimes weird things can happen with old stock - when I worked in a video game shop I once got a copy of Lord of the Rings Online collectors edition for £0.20 - it had been stuck at the back of a high shelf for months, we didn't even know it was there, but the computer system knew we had it and assumed since it was the only copy it was out on the shop floor where it was supposed to be and just not selling, so it kept dropping the price. Then I sold it on ebay because I was working part-time in a store and couldn't afford the subscription.)