From a marketing standpoint it isn't good to price something like this incredibly high or anything when it comes to a micro-transaction view. You could say 10,000 players spent their crowns on this because of having it already on hand thanks to sales or ESO+. So for the most part it would have cost players around 50$ for the sales on crown or 'free' if they paid for ESO+ which is 15$ a month (it takes about 9 months to accumulate that so 15 * 9 would be 135$)

Now IF there's high interests in huge houses like DC overlook and Earthtear with interests around 50k+, wouldn't it be better business to price it at around 5k-6k crowns? If more players have the means or view it as not being too expensive in comparison to something that would cost them 100$+ unless they had purchased crowns on sales or saved up their ESO+ they would be more inclined to purchasing it at that value.

People aren't going to spend a lot on something unless they're die hard fans of the game but even some die hards draw the line at what's reasonable and unreasonable. Evolve would be a prime example of what happens when you price gouge your player base although they didn't have sales or memberships that gave cushions to the blow in regards to the cost of each new player but nonetheless the game has died out.

Housing is by far the most exploitive system they have put in game yet, it caters to people's vanity and it literally gives you a way to show off how rich you are, as most things are only purchaseable for real money i.e. crowns. The fact that Homestead didn't actually add any proper content (although some seem to think that target dummies are worth the wait) and only furthered the poor performance streak as well as the negligence towards the now heap of major bugs everywhere, are just even more reasons why ESO isn't particularly in a great spot right now.

We are all secretly hoping that the Morrowind expansion will be amazing and redeem the game, but what's to stop ZOS from continuing along the path of greed after its launch?

sirston wrote: »

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

MaxwellC wrote: »

This is how Housing should be in ESO (note this is a browser game)




^My character close up who's lava themed.

It's also restricted behind a monthly pay wall. If at anytime your subscription lapses you do not have access to your house. It's not really a good comparison.

$5 for new people and 1Cent for me if you played before for 4 years So yeh it still blows ESO out of the water.

Try $7.50 at the cheapest if you pay for a year and almost $10 if you pay monthly. Now they do have a way to purchase in game which is a plus but still. Housing in ESO might not be cheap but at least you have access to it forever (as long as the servers are up) once you pay for it.
As for the op's argument, I think they just want it and don't want to pay for it. A good way to look at the crown store cosmetics is a way to support the game more than simply buying the game and dlcs. The crown store and ESO+ help zos stay funded between releases of dlcs or expansions. And unlike most games with a cash shop, everything in it is not pay to win and at worst a little pay for convenience. If instead of a house for $100 they were offering bis equips that were unobtainable in game then this would be a different story entirely. Also Zos has said that they price their dlcs low in order to make them more accessible to players so comparing the price to the dlcs or expansions is a moot point.

there is no god to say what is or is not good or bad value, as that changes from person to person and is subjective. there is far more to it like supply and demand and costs of resources if we get into real world costs.

some people see spending hundreds of thousands on a car as silly when you can buy something that will take you from point a to point b just as effectively for less then 10k, does that mean a Bugatti or Ferrari are stupid? we say things like gold or silver has value when its just shiny metal, or pretty rocks, we say paper money has value because we say it does, and it has a different value base on the number on it, sounds silly when you think about it.

also price points are determined based on there estimated value (value being anything from amount of content, to intended rarity or exclusivity, etc.) based on gamers budgets (around $0-$100) on average for any particular content purchase. and not against the game as a whole.

for instance many free to play games have a cash store, if you used what you got in the core game as a bench mark for price then the game would have to pay you anytime you get any bonus content (weather it be gameplay or cosmetic in nature)

obviously that's ridiculous.

earthheart cavern is priced based on an average gamers budget so that its rare within the game or exclusive, its also priced at a particular supply and demand point based on sales figures we don't have access to.

if they price it cheaper so more people buy it they might end up loosing money on it in the long run then if they had made it more expensive. thus, supply and demand.


I'm sure concepts like this are hard for you OP, but its okay you don't have to understand them or like them for it to work, like gravity or why ice cubes float in water. the point is that it does work, it will sell, and it makes sense if you know the how and why.

Doflamingo wrote: »

But Mass Effect Andromeda lasts for like 1 week and then there's nothing to do (story takes 4 days at most). ESO is an MMORPG so it never ends

You're so adorable. Are you unaware that MMO's do eventually sunset (or get closed down)? Here's just a few that will show you that MMOs, in fact, do not last forever.

http://www.gamingclimax.com/mmorpg-articles/mmorpg-top-10/top-ten-mmos-that-shut-down-the-fastest/

not sure if it was mentioned yet (edited - it has been).. but the price is an equivalent of buying physical edition of Morrowind expansion. so... pick and chose what you want? I'm not buying the cave. I don't like it regardless of the price. but.. its a luxury. luxuries are usually priced like that. I don't have a problem with it being priced that way. I have a slight problem with certain decorations being crown store only. but.. i can make do without.

Oakmontowls_ESO wrote: »

RebornV3x wrote: »

Nearly everthing in the crown store is overpriced nothing in this game should be more then 5500 crowns or the Morrowind Expansion which is 40$ for the standard upgrade so your telling me that a 1 dank cave in Craglorn is worth more than the biggest content drop and a whole zone 1/3 bigger then Orsinium. the Craglorn cave should be tops 1500 crowns seeing as its smaller than the Shadows of the Hist dlc lol.

Like I said a few posts up, comparing the price of cosmetics to dlcs doesn't work when they have said they sell them for less than they normally would.

Yeah they really need to tone the prices down bad, that's why the CM failed so much and no one barely buys anything on that anymore, pretty soon it'll be crown store.

STEVIL wrote: »

Origin wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Origin wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Funny thing is that if you ever did some Morrowind / Oblivion / Skyrim mods (using creation kit) you will know that creating new location that is abut the size of a Earthtear Cavern... takes about 5 days (if only one person is working on it) - or 5 hours if you had layout planned before

So I really don't know why they charge so much of this...

You are perfectly right. This is also my effort estimate for the Earthtear Cavern, if not even significantly lower if the person working on it is an expert.
And the point here is not the comparison with one game or another. I just picked up Andromeda as an example because I like ME and I know that there is a massive effort invested in it vs. a ridiculously lower effort for the creation of the cave in ESO. It is also perfectly fine if people like more the cave and decide to buy it, it is their own decision how they spend their money.

What I question is the value of the digital content in ESO for the premium prices. I think that is absurd to sell for this price something that you created with almost no effort. And keep in mind that the effort was spent once while the digital item will sell countless times with no additional costs. It is not like buying a premium good like for ex an expensive sport car - in that case, each car requires effort and materials, meaning there are significant costs for producing every unit.

Time and materials is only a small part of the value of a thing.

For things that are of an entertainment nature - it may be the least important factor.

in 1995 Waterworld cost 175m to make vs Apollo 13 at 62m and Waterworld took a lot longer to film to boot.

if we were to assign a "value" based on time and materials - that makes Waterworld the best picture of 1995 - by a landslide iirc.

The value for these kinds of things has little to do with budget and man-hours - and everything to do with whether or not it delivers what its intended audience wants.

EC IMO will do this for its intended audience - but that intended audience is not "every ESO player" or "every ESO forum whiner" at all.

There are lots of cheaper houses scaling up from free to just under the price of EC for those who don't share the same values as the intended audience or buyers of EC.

there is no right or wrong metric for these things beyond personal preferences.

@STEVIL, could you please explain what exactly is EC delivering to justify this insane price? I would also like to know who may be the intended audience, in your opinion.

And while at it, could you also please explain what do you mean by "every ESO forum whiner"?

Thank you.

Asking someone to explain why one piece of entertainment value is worth it is like asking why they find rosie funny but ellen not or they think mint choco chip sux but butter pecan is best thing going. You seem to be imagining you can quantitify fun.

Comparing EC to the other houses it makes sense to me. The things that attracted me include the tons of space, lots of separation without structure and the lotsa water along with its feel.as i did the preview i saw several different scheme in my minds eye, very appealing ones, that i could not do elsewhere as well.

Imo the intended audience are those for whom decorating and utilizing the space and the instance are must haves and for whom money is not a significant restriction. It all comes down to what do you value.

When i go to the movies, i choise IMAX 3d if possible. If i am going out to see a movie i want the full visual, full and best sensory aspect. One of my oldest friends waits for it to hit the two buck second runs. He says he doesnt understand why i would pay so much for "3d that doesnt matter" etc.

This discussion reminds me of that a lot - most particularly in that while i never try to tell him that he should see imax 3d etc instead of second runs, thats its clearly worth it (i just say to each his own)... anytime the subject comes up he insists on challenging, on proving his assessment of value is right.

As for "every eso forum whiner" that seems self-explanatory, unless you expect they were the audience zos sought.

I understand from your answer that you like top quality and you are willing to pay for it. I totally agree with you because I have the same preference. But let me ask you this: will you pay the premium price of IMAX 3d for a second run in a poor quality theater? Because this is exactly my question.
I don't argue that everybody is free to decide how to spend money, but why should you pay top bucks for so little?

Origin wrote: »

Well, I think that the prices are not entirely subjective and without any relation with the value on the market. Is like you are claiming that is fine for you to buy dirt for the price of gold.

Now, regarding the general pricing in the crown store, I think the problem is the baseline pricing. As long as ZoS was able to establish a price of 5000 crowns for a skin, the next step was to ask 13000 crowns for a big house.
But this is exactly the problem. Because some people accepted this baseline price, now their perception about the EC pricing is that it is fair price, which is ridiculous.

prices have value based on lots of things, gold is a rare material in relation to dirt, rare = exclusivity, it also looks pretty (subjective) compared to dirt, etc. etc. so its price in the market is much more then dirt, that said dirt still has value.

but I don't want to get into that conversation for very long as talking about that value of dirt in relation to other things sounds boring af XD

that said I want to draw your attention to a part of your statement:

"Because some people accepted this baseline price"

meaning some people found the value of the item worth more then the cash equivalent they had and purchased it. all prices are based on what people are willing to pay, just because some of us cannot afford those prices does not mean that they deserve those prices, thus, supply and demand.

ZOS, and anyone trying to sell a product for any reason, does not overprice stuff for the sake of over pricing it, as that would loose you money, they also don't make it cheap for the sake of making sure everyone can buy it, as that could also loose you money. there is a sweet spot of cost vs amount of people buying it determined by sales data we don't have access to.

now this is broad as there is a broad line on the sales data graph where you can choose to put something for the max amount of money and where you decide to place it usually has to do with how exclusive you want to make it and that itself can be worth more money.

things might be priced high so that a lot of people DONT purchase it, as that itself can be the point, enough will to justify the cost and to make a good profit and sell a good amount of the content, but enough wont that it will retain its special and exclusive place. in fact in contradiction to a previous point something as easy to make as a home DLC could priced very high because the intent is not to try and make a profit on it at all, but simply provide an incredibly exclusive home for a very few wealthy players, if that is indeed the point. we don't know

end of the day though is buyers set the market, ZOS could not price things they way they do if it was not working for them, does it suck that everyone cannot afford everything because some people have more disposable income then others? sure. is that how the world works though? sure is.

Wing wrote: »

prices have value based on lots of things, gold is a rare material in relation to dirt, rare = exclusivity, it also looks pretty (subjective) compared to dirt, etc. etc. so its price in the market is much more then dirt, that said dirt still has value.

OK, let's use your argument of rarity as one parameter that can establish the value of an item. I would say that with the effort of 200 programmers over 5 years you can make tons of different houses similar with EC but only one ME Andromeda. So, we have exactly the case of selling dirt with the same price as gold.

Wing wrote: »

that said I want to draw your attention to a part of your statement:

"Because some people accepted this baseline price"

meaning some people found the value of the item worth more then the cash equivalent they had and purchased it. all prices are based on what people are willing to pay, just because some of us cannot afford those prices does not mean that they deserve those prices, thus, supply and demand.

Or maybe this started with peoples which just used their crowns from subscription without bothering to do the mats and to realize that they just purchased a skin or more with 30+ EUR each. Or a merchant that doesn't repair gear for that matter.

OK, I understand that you may value the EC above a AAA game, doesn't matter which one and I'm fine with it. From my point a view what ZOS is doing is a rip-off, regardless how anybody would try to sugar-coat it.

Origin wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Origin wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Origin wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Funny thing is that if you ever did some Morrowind / Oblivion / Skyrim mods (using creation kit) you will know that creating new location that is abut the size of a Earthtear Cavern... takes about 5 days (if only one person is working on it) - or 5 hours if you had layout planned before

So I really don't know why they charge so much of this...

You are perfectly right. This is also my effort estimate for the Earthtear Cavern, if not even significantly lower if the person working on it is an expert.
And the point here is not the comparison with one game or another. I just picked up Andromeda as an example because I like ME and I know that there is a massive effort invested in it vs. a ridiculously lower effort for the creation of the cave in ESO. It is also perfectly fine if people like more the cave and decide to buy it, it is their own decision how they spend their money.

What I question is the value of the digital content in ESO for the premium prices. I think that is absurd to sell for this price something that you created with almost no effort. And keep in mind that the effort was spent once while the digital item will sell countless times with no additional costs. It is not like buying a premium good like for ex an expensive sport car - in that case, each car requires effort and materials, meaning there are significant costs for producing every unit.

Time and materials is only a small part of the value of a thing.

For things that are of an entertainment nature - it may be the least important factor.

in 1995 Waterworld cost 175m to make vs Apollo 13 at 62m and Waterworld took a lot longer to film to boot.

if we were to assign a "value" based on time and materials - that makes Waterworld the best picture of 1995 - by a landslide iirc.

The value for these kinds of things has little to do with budget and man-hours - and everything to do with whether or not it delivers what its intended audience wants.

EC IMO will do this for its intended audience - but that intended audience is not "every ESO player" or "every ESO forum whiner" at all.

There are lots of cheaper houses scaling up from free to just under the price of EC for those who don't share the same values as the intended audience or buyers of EC.

there is no right or wrong metric for these things beyond personal preferences.

@STEVIL, could you please explain what exactly is EC delivering to justify this insane price? I would also like to know who may be the intended audience, in your opinion.

And while at it, could you also please explain what do you mean by "every ESO forum whiner"?

Thank you.

Asking someone to explain why one piece of entertainment value is worth it is like asking why they find rosie funny but ellen not or they think mint choco chip sux but butter pecan is best thing going. You seem to be imagining you can quantitify fun.

Comparing EC to the other houses it makes sense to me. The things that attracted me include the tons of space, lots of separation without structure and the lotsa water along with its feel.as i did the preview i saw several different scheme in my minds eye, very appealing ones, that i could not do elsewhere as well.

Imo the intended audience are those for whom decorating and utilizing the space and the instance are must haves and for whom money is not a significant restriction. It all comes down to what do you value.

When i go to the movies, i choise IMAX 3d if possible. If i am going out to see a movie i want the full visual, full and best sensory aspect. One of my oldest friends waits for it to hit the two buck second runs. He says he doesnt understand why i would pay so much for "3d that doesnt matter" etc.

This discussion reminds me of that a lot - most particularly in that while i never try to tell him that he should see imax 3d etc instead of second runs, thats its clearly worth it (i just say to each his own)... anytime the subject comes up he insists on challenging, on proving his assessment of value is right.

As for "every eso forum whiner" that seems self-explanatory, unless you expect they were the audience zos sought.

I understand from your answer that you like top quality and you are willing to pay for it. I totally agree with you because I have the same preference. But let me ask you this: will you pay the premium price of IMAX 3d for a second run in a poor quality theater? Because this is exactly my question.
I don't argue that everybody is free to decide how to spend money, but why should you pay top bucks for so little?[/quote]

In "for so little" you have already made a subjective value judgement that is a different judgement of value than anyone who wants this product enough to pay for it would reach.

i get that you place a different value on the things i listed than i do and than other do, juts like my friend placed different avlue on the IMAX video and sound and 3d than i do, and so i am fine that you decide its not worth your money.

What keeps being amusing is your (and his, my good friend) insistance on proving to me (and others) that yours is the right value judgement in cases where we disagree on this subjective value?!

I'd rather buy a standard house, it's cheaper and nice. Also, ME:A, anyone getting it?

I have to laugh at the people hurling insults at folks who buy this. Some of us are adults with decades of employment, and the $ doesn't mean the same thing to us that it does for you.

Like there's some magical number where it goes from an ok purchase to being stupid. It's pixels no matter what you pay.

Personally I have over 20k crowns just from subbing 6 months a pop, I could buy a furnished whatever without putting one additional penny down. I'm not going to because I don't happen to care about this kind of stuff at all (need extra storage at a minimum to make somebody like me care, I'm not really into cosmetics). But if I did, I don't see how that makes me a lesser person then if I had just spent those crowns a few hundred at a time or whatever.

I have 6 kids, I've literally spent more money on an hours worth of attractions when on vacation. I remember spending about $40 more then the price of this item just to watch some short movie about beavers when Imax was new.

Btw you people who rag on folks who discuss the price being too high for them ect are being silly too. It's perfectly fine to have varied perceptions of the value of a product or service. And that can be valuable information, companies routinely spend lots of money trying to get similar feedback.
It's potentially much more useful to hear that a customer would never buy something at x pricepoint then for you to go "if you don't like it you don't have to buy it". There is nobody who doesn't already know that they don't have to buy whatever.
You're telling us that your cats breath smells like cat food.