Does Eso make more money off the rng?

seipher09 · November 2017

Just curious how other players feel about this.

Let's say an awesome mount comes out that you really really want. But you see it's locked behind crown crates and apex rewards.

Would you be willing to spend x amount of money to get that mount right away? Say $10? Because I know I sure would!

Or do you see it in the apex crates and say I'm not wasting money for a complete gamble to get things I don't even want?

Or are you all about the I'll waste hundreds of dollars to try to get that awesome rare mount?

Personally drives me crazy because some things I want in a video game I'd gladly spend money for but would never spend my money to gamble in a video game.

redspecter23 · November 2017

I'm not sure your question matches your poll choices. I do think ZoS makes way more off RNG crates than direct selling the items. Why would they do it if it weren't more profitable? It's a predatory practice plain and simple. They could sell the items in the crates separately but they don't. They know that whales will throw hundreds or thousands of dollars at crates to try for a super special shiny and they are ok with that.

As a non whale, you just have to know that there are some things that are just not for you. Collecting every mount in the game is just not an achievable goal for any person, regardless of how much money they spend.

TelvanniWizard · November 2017

I will gladly buy crowns if it's guaranteed to get me what I want

I want to pay for what I want. But never will buy a single scam crate with the empty promise of a chance of getting what I want.

idk · November 2017

The poll question differs greatly from the question in the title.

JKorr · November 2017

The rngesus crates and buying crowns to directly purchase the item you want are not the same thing.

There is no "guarantee to get what you want", no matter how many crowns you buy. Now that they have changed the system so some of the apex rewards/special mounts can't be bought with gems, this is even more true.

Motherball · November 2017

I will never buy crowns for a chance at apex rewards

Eso makes more money from crown crates even if only 1/100 players buys them. I honestly think they make more off rng than if they just offered every cosmetic item for sale. Its the gamblin whales that make f2p possible at all. Same thing here with crates, imo.

swippy · November 2017

More likely to buy crowns for a chance at apex rewards

JKorr wrote: »

There is no "guarantee to get what you want", no matter how many crowns you buy.

sure there is! i wanted the Ancestor Moth Priest Robes and pet, so i bought 15 crates and the costume dropped for me. by then i had enough gems to buy the pet. (incidentally, this gave me impetus to go buy Prophet Eyes and a blindfold.) i also ended up with a spriggan wolf i'll never ride, but whatever. doesn't hurt me much to scroll past it. the only exceptions are, as you noted, the Radiant Apex rewards. luckily i haven't seen one i liked. i am opposed to the Radiants being unbuyable -- as an ideal -- but i don't bother feeling sorry for myself about it.

so yeah i think it makes them money. i'm happy with my purchases. i was able to accurately calculate my risk vs my reward and worked hard enough to be able to afford what i wanted. i know, i'm lucky.

ArcVelarian · November 2017

I will gladly buy crowns if it's guaranteed to get me what I want

swippy wrote: »

JKorr wrote: »

There is no "guarantee to get what you want", no matter how many crowns you buy.

sure there is! i wanted the Ancestor Moth Priest Robes and pet, so i bought 15 crates and the costume dropped for me. by then i had enough gems to buy the pet. (incidentally, this gave me impetus to go buy Prophet Eyes and a blindfold.) i also ended up with a spriggan wolf i'll never ride, but whatever. doesn't hurt me much to scroll past it. the only exceptions are, as you noted, the Radiant Apex rewards. luckily i haven't seen one i liked. i am opposed to the Radiants being unbuyable -- as an ideal -- but i don't bother feeling sorry for myself about it.

so yeah i think it makes them money. i'm happy with my purchases. i was able to accurately calculate my risk vs my reward and worked hard enough to be able to afford what i wanted. i know, i'm lucky.

starkerealm · November 2017

I will never buy crowns for a chance at apex rewards

I've spent crowns for lower tier crate rewards. I've never chased the apex rewards.

Kiralyn2000 · November 2017

I will never buy crowns for a chance at apex rewards

Personally, I've had no need for any of the "fancy" mounts, so it doesn't matter if they're in an RNG crate @ 1% chance, or 2-3k crowns in the crown store.

Only thing that's showed up in crates that I've been interested in are the ~40-gem-level returning costumes. But I haven't bought any crates for those yet, either.

edit: on the more general topic of buying loot boxes for the Super Rare prize.... I've opened lots of lockboxes in Star Trek Online over the years, having bought the keys off other people for in-game currency. I'd never open those boxes looking for the Big Prize. You need to open boxes being happy for the general prizes you'll find, otherwise you'll just be disappointed.

Resfeber · November 2017

ESO wouldn't make a lot of money off of me either way because I don't base my purchases off of crates. I only buy crowns when there's a sale at the same time as an item coming up that I want. Which is rare enough.

ESO Plus allows me a few stray crate purchases but Starke and kiralyn pretty much cover my point of view on that. Expectation is part of the shot in the foot for most. I don't want mounts so it's just nice to get a few rando perk items I can't get elsewhere when there's nothing better to buy. And I enjoy the occasional nice surprise. You don't have to spend a lot of money to do that.

Elsonso · November 2017

I have no idea what poll answer to pick.

Apex mounts are not going to be $10. If they were that cheap, people would be going crazy buying them. Even normal Apex mounts are going to be a lot more expensive than that. Say the $50 - $80 range. Radiant Apex mounts, the ones you cannot buy with Gems, are probably worth upwards of $80 - $100.

So, no, I wouldn't be buying them, directly or in Crown Crates.

JKorr · November 2017

swippy wrote: »

JKorr wrote: »

There is no "guarantee to get what you want", no matter how many crowns you buy.

sure there is! i wanted the Ancestor Moth Priest Robes and pet, so i bought 15 crates and the costume dropped for me. by then i had enough gems to buy the pet. (incidentally, this gave me impetus to go buy Prophet Eyes and a blindfold.) i also ended up with a spriggan wolf i'll never ride, but whatever. doesn't hurt me much to scroll past it. the only exceptions are, as you noted, the Radiant Apex rewards. luckily i haven't seen one i liked. i am opposed to the Radiants being unbuyable -- as an ideal -- but i don't bother feeling sorry for myself about it.

so yeah i think it makes them money. i'm happy with my purchases. i was able to accurately calculate my risk vs my reward and worked hard enough to be able to afford what i wanted. i know, i'm lucky.

@swippy Um...no, there is not. If you wanted one of the "only drop in crates/can't be bought with gems" mounts, you're not getting one, no matter how many gems you might have. And spending money for crowns to attempt to get the "only drop in crates/can't be bought with gems" mount by buying crates might be just a teeny tiny bit on the expensive side. Rng is rng; some people were blessed by the rng gremlins and got a Adamant Dwarven Horse, Ebon Dwarven Senche or Vitrine Dwarven Wolf in a free crate. Some got one of the can't be bought with gems mounts in their purchased bundle of 5.

Congratulations; you bought 15 crates and rngesus blessed you. This poster was no so blessed: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/365819/im-disappointed-zos-rare-mounts/p1

The most recent version of the crates had the Plague Husk Horse, Cinder Wolf and Frost Draugr Senche Mounts that can't be bought with gems.

There is no guarantee to get what you want if you want one of the restricted, uber rare items, no matter how many crowns you spend on crates. Rng is rng; the only guarantee is that you will get "consumables" in the crates.https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/25871

swippy · November 2017

More likely to buy crowns for a chance at apex rewards

@JKorr i do understand that. that's why i included the following sentence in my first post:

swippy wrote: »

the only exceptions are, as you noted, the Radiant Apex rewards.

but when you said that the Radiants make your sweeping point more true, when in fact it wasn't true at all before the Radiants, that was inaccurate. i was just pointing out an obvious logical flaw, and then backed it up with an example. we're on the same side as far as not enjoying the way the Radiants work. i was disagreeing with your first sentence in the second paragraph of Post #5 on the basis that people can want things that are not Radiant rewards.

Pwoo · November 2017

I will gladly buy crowns if it's guaranteed to get me what I want

I only ever bought the dwarven crates because I needed 40 gems for a hairstyle. I never expect to get anything I actually want as I'd waste a fortune with my luck.. so now I just consider crates to be "gem-makers" while I get to keep other pets/costumes I get. Not many people share this mindset though, and keep complaining about something that probably won't change anytime soon.

edit: I think all "extremely-rare" mounts should be purchasable as well since zos loves to show them off in every post. A good example is CS:GO where rare knife skins can be bought in the Steam market etc. - so if you really want it, you can buy it (even if it's 10 times more expensive than the crate)

karrie7 · November 2017

I will gladly buy crowns if it's guaranteed to get me what I want

I dont spend anymore on crown crates.I even keep my eso plus gems to buy something from the store.I used to buy 30 crowns+ but after not getting jack *** the last time I made a promise to myself not to buy again no matter how fancy they look.Also I can still see them on others which is strangely more satisfying as you get to see the mount better than when you ride it..

The Elder Scrolls Online

Does Eso make more money off the rng?

Does Eso make more money off the rng? 63 votes