Anotherone773 wrote: »

Soul_Marrow wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Soul_Marrow wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Soul_Marrow wrote: »

If you read the entire post, I explained why. And those examples are terrible because they are accidents. I clearly stated its their hard earned money and they are welcome to spend it how they want to. I went on to give examples of why its a ridiculous purchase and how it affects us all. Keep shillin'.

Your trying to use your feelings towards something to invalidate someone elses spending and then saying it affects everyone. I had a $40 steak dinner the other night. You could invalidate that by saying, its a waste of money to spend that much on food when you can go to the store and buy Ramen noodles for $0.20 a pack. Some people have a $600 phone, we can invalidate that by saying that you can buy one for less than $100 and sometimes even get one for free. I have 4 TVs in my house, but i cant watch all of them at the same time, so why do i need four? Same with vehicles i have two, i cant drive both at the same time. I can pretty much invalidate all of the spending you do in life to the point where you might not even need a job. If you would just LISTEN to me!!!!!!

Some people like to collect costumes, skins, mounts, and pets in game. Some like to do the achieves. Some like PVE and some like PVP. Some have to even RP there way through the entire game because its important to them to "be in character."
I personally think it is silly to blow money on vanity items that ultimately have no purpose, but im sure those people that do could find many things i do in life and/or the game they think are silly and pointless.

My only hangup with this radiant mount thing, is people whine when they spent money and didnt win. You didnt pay to win, you paid for a chance to win and lost. Other than that if they want to spend themselves into bankruptcy i really dont care. And even if you could, and you cant, get every gamer in the world to stop spending money on non essential parts of the game, its only going to make your gaming difficult.

Without that revenue stream they have to come up with other ways to make revenue. $40 chapter just became $80 chapter. Subs are mandatory. You will pay for everything in every game. Gaming would actually become more expensive for a majority of people and in many cases people could not afford it.

It sounds like to me, you have "cant afford remorse". You cant afford to buy premium items but you really really want them. And your solution is if people would just stop paying ridiculous( to you) amounts of money for them, ZOS would have to make them cheaper and thus more affordable for everyone, including you.

Just remember those crates are a big reason why, after the initial purchase, you can play as much as you want for free. That purchase price only covers the development costs and bug fixes of the game usually. All the expense to pay CS, mods, IT, bandwidth usage, and further development costs arent covered by that. Thats all covered by our "pointless overpriced" purchases.

See my above post. You are comparing apples to pumpkins. Your 40 dollar steak dinner doesn't set a precedent to the restaurant industry because that market operates much differently. It's also different if said item takes a specific amount of time and resources to create. I wouldn't expect to get a new car for 300 dollars. I expect to pay for the materials used, time spent in development and production, cost of transport, etc then a little more than that in order for a business to do what they are supposed to do: make money. 90 percent of these things are re-skins that an amateur modder could have created in an hour for free. Once again, see my above post if you care to HELP US ALL, yet here you are to argue why we should be expected to pay an absurd amount at a CHANCE at getting an item we don't even own. The gap in logic is larger than the Grand Canyon.

You still dont understand do you? You know when you fill out a customer support ticket, that person that writes you back? Where do you think his salary comes from? The devs that make those skins " in an hour" where do you think their salary comes from? The IT people that constantly monitor the servers, traffic, and back end stuff....where do you think their salaries come from? The business and risk managers...there salary comes from where? The lawyers that make sure the business is operating legally for all countries it is operating in... pro bono? The HR folks that makes sure labor laws are followed, people are getting paid, and deal with their benefits... hobby for them? Janitors, secretaries, other essential personnel for basic business function...nothing better to do for them?

What about that building all of this is contained in? Maintenance, landscaping, property taxes, electricity, water, sewer, trash service, etc? Licenses trademarks patents? Servers, redundancy systems, power generators, computers many of which have to be fairly high end to do graphics design...even copier paper, pencils, and yes...even toilet paper?

Where do you think all the money comes from for these daily costs every day this game is online? You think the chapter that is coming pays for that? Wrong. That chapter pays its development costs, marketing, distribution fees, and all associated nonsense. If they are lucky they will make some profit off it but it will likely take them a year or two before they get there.

All that money for day to day operations of an MMO comes from...wait for it...

wait for it.....

That crate that shady khajiit is sitting on.

YOU don't seem to understand, in fact. Do you think this is the only MMO in history who had to solve those financial woes? Is this the magical unicorn MMO that never existed before and completely flipped the table? Do you really think this costs SSOOO much more to operate than literally ANY other big name MMO in the past, present, or future? Please read a little more on the economics of this industry before you answer this with another ill informed, smarmy retort. THIS IS NOTHING NEW...THE BUSINESS PRACTICE, HOWEVER, IS. Explain that to me logically and with something other than feelings to back it up please.

i have been playing MMOs LITERALLY since they were invented. I have yet to find one that doesnt charge either a sub or have a prem currency/store or have both that is remotely healthy. You have no idea what is required, resource wise to run a business, little lone a company that distributes and operates an MMO. Stick to making better MRIs and defibrillators, that way when you have a heart attack because you learned that all MMOS have some form of ongoing revenue to cover ongoing operating costs, the defib will for sure be able to revive you.

Leave business management to people who manage businesses. If you dont agree with something Zenimax is doing you can show your disapproval two ways: One, dont buy anything. Two, dont play the game. Pretty simple. `

duendology wrote: »

Soul_Marrow wrote: »

Guess what happens when we show a company what we are and aren't willing to pay for or stand for? They change their good/bad habits based on our dollars. Want to know why EA sells you crappy games that are half cocked? Because you let them. You come onto the internet and moan about hoe bad it is, but you still fork over your cash time and time again hoping for different results.

Would any of you go to McDonald's and buy a Big Mac for full price and allow them to hand you a bun then try to sell you the rest of the ingredients separately after your purchase? Would any of you go to McDonald's and buy a Big Mac that comes as a full burger for full price and then allow them to charge you 300 dollars for the condiments, or worse, a CHANCE at maybe having the condiments? Of course not. You would be all hashtags and boycots and collective outrage, but for some reason we turn a blind eye when it comes to gaming. Stop normalizing shady, bad business practices PLEASE because WE ALL suffer from it in the long run. Sure, "it's his/her money" now...then the companies crunch the numbers and realize that people will pay it so that is what they offer us....then it becomes all of our money. If someone wants to spend 300 dollars on a mount, go for it. Buy the mount from the crown store for 20 and then donate the remaining 280 dollars to ZOS out of the goodness of your hearts if you think something is worth more than you paid for it. Would you sell something for 50 bucks if you were guaranteed to get 100 for it easily? Hell no you wouldn't. Stop normalizing predatory business practices of ripping us all off "because we can". Why is this even an argument to be had? How is this even the slightest bit controversial?

I suspect there are some misconceptions about how ZOS and Bethesda operate here.
I do not work in the gaming industry but common sense tells me that:

1. There's no one big team that works on new content in terms of coding and planning, graphic design (in terms of visual and art concept), or marketing and pricing.
2. Different people work on different things. There are "nerds" who work on fixing all bugs and issues. And then, there's a different group of people that designs new dungeons, areas, when it comes to quests and mechanics, so on so forth... and also the group of artists that makes it all flesh and blood, so to speak, aka design the graphics and all the visuals.
3. I suspect there's even one more team that ONLY, probably, crates all these shiny things you see in crates and in crown store.
4. And finally there are "marketing wizawds" who put a price tag on everything, and also come up with new "brilliant ideas" how to make more money... "we know, crates!" And this is the people who you should whine to about atrocious business practises. In fact I am going to call them "marketing wizawds" from now on.

My point is, somewhat I doubt that business practices of those wizawds concerning crown crates impact in any way other areas of the game. As you can see, ZOS releases bits of new content every few months, some "bits" bigger than others. There are events all the time happening in the game which are quite rewarding. New cosmetic items appear in store, sometimes even crowns are or sale, or dlcs and so called chapter. lol I am saying that everything has got its own timing in this game. Crates happen somewhere in between..and it's a bonus in which you may or may not want to participate. The decision is yours.

Is the crown crates a fast cash grab? It is, certainly. Is it shady? Probably. But you seem to think that because of things like crown crates, the rest of the game is neglected because ZOS focuses specifically on making people buy crown crates and "experimenting" with prices. I don't agree with that.
Maybe it' the matter of personality. I buy crates from time to time. I don't buy more than 8 in each season, plus all the free ones from events. I might be lucky or I might not to get something nice, I know what I get myself into though. Sometimes I get something from the crown store. I've got the limit of money I can spend on this entertainment and not a cent more...For instance, I won't buy any of the limited time only houses or some other items (no matter how shiny they are) that, in my opinion, are ridiculously priced.

People, it seems, get hysterical about these stupid mounts in crown crates and get whiney because they can't get them. That's the reason behind all this whining, nothing else. They say they would buy it for crowns/gems directly, even if the said mounts were ridiculously priced. And to me, it makes no difference whether you're ready to pay *** load of crowns for crates for a chance to get an item..or pay less, but still ridiculous, amount of crowns to get the said item directly from the store. Do you see where I am getting with this?

There's not a chance of ZOS changing the idea behind the crown crates..They know it's profitable and they will continue to do it, and you will continue to whine while other players will continue buying the crates or other expensive items. Personally, I don't feel negatively impacted by it. How directly impacted are you? You can't get all the shinies because of rng? Bummer. *shrugs*. ZOS does not give you new content and stuff? I don't agree with that. The prices in crown store are ridiculously high. That's true, I agree.
People at zos putting all their energy into cosmetic aspects of ESO rather than fixing bugs etc.. I'd argue it's not true.
So, what did I miss?

Again, crown crates are just one aspect of this game, you realise. And with so much happening in the game, and crown crates being optional cosmetic containers, I could not care less about someone's a) spending their entire monthly (or yearly lol)wage on crates, b) getting or not getting a desired cosmetic item.
And really, I can't judge a person who spends that much money on crates. If they know what they're doing and accept the odds, and most importantly, can afford it? Why not? You got something shiny? Nice! You did not? OuchI That's the thing with the crown crates.
People are willing to spend crazy amount of money on, you know, that fanciful food (truffles or caviar, for instance) which is like 30 seconds of pleasure..and done. And you don't hear them whining "oh noes, but it's gone, I ate my money [ almost literally]) lol Heck, some people are willing to spend lots of money on the food that, actually, may kill them!!
Some people choose the crown crates: for the thrill and the chance to get nice stuff, I guess. If someone buys too many crates though, knowing what the odds are, and then comes here to whine how unfair the crates are.. I am like ugghh. o_0
I'd argue that the crates are both lol.. expensive and killing(your wallet) aka bearing risk food.lol

Of course, I understand the argument against the crates when someone can't afford those digital goods and have a very hardcore addictive personality and no self-control. But then again, is it my business? Should I feel responsible for them? Should ZOS feel responsible? This game is aimed at adult audience, after all.

Do I like when my characters look nice and ride badass mounts? I do. But, ultimately, I don't play this game to make some fashion statement. Also, I am not the type of person who absolutely must own every single new item in the game. So, maybe I am not the marketing target of the ZOS "mawketing wizawds" after all. lol

One could ask why the performance issues, bugs, or various errors aren't solved on daily basis as they should? Maybe the technical team has priorities.. maybe some of the issues can't be fixed ad hoc, and it does not matter how "easy" to fix they may look like, from a programmer/coder's point of view it may be a different story. That's my only issue with ESO right now.: performance issues, some skills not working as they should, or some classes not performing as they should (werewolf, for instance, then again werewolf is not a class, but you know what I mean)

Ehh, anyway, it ended up being a wall of words, and a bit messy. Sorry about that.
I find the psychological aspect of crown crates or loot crates in gaming fascinating.

Soul_Marrow wrote: »

I agree with you about some of what you said, but if you think other things don't suffer as a result of a bigwig making decisions to focus more efforts on easy money and less effort on complicated fixes that are "working well enough" then you are being naive. Please do not take that as an insult because we all have things we get that way about. My main point with all of this is that crates are a relatively new things and have seeped into gaming via the mobile market testing out new ways to grab cash. Then micro-transactions slowly crept onto consoles via the PS3 and Xbox 360. Now these and other shady practices have naturally made their way to the newest generation of consoles and continue to push the line further out until the line pushes back and gives some resistance.

For example: The gaming industry tries to sell games for 10 dollars more on average and notices that their sales stay consistent and do not drop at all. Guess what happens? The price of a new title MSRP officially climbs 10 dollars because it can. Why would they sell it for less unless they are forced to? Then what happens next? Maybe they try to push it up 5 dollars more and they get no resistance. The official MSRP is now 15 dollars more than before. They try once more and their sales drop. Interest in their titles drop and they become less profitable. The MSRP stays 15 dollars above past average, but stops climbing...for now. They will try it again eventually. The price becomes normalized and people forget the time where games used to cost 15 dollars less. Some gamers grow up and stop gaming for various reasons so the majority is now a younger generation that didn't exist in the time during the 15 dollar price hike. The higher MSRP is now the standard. Obviously I'm leaving out inflation, etc because that's an unnecessary variable in this half-explained example. lol

If you don't think that games are suffering as a result of these practices then go back 20 years before internet patches were a method that lazy publishers relied on in order to hit development time cycles. A game used to release and that was the game. It existed on launch day in it's final form...so if it was trash, it was trash and the developer suffered for it. If it was amazing or ahead of it's time, the developer grew from that. Now we rely on releasing half baked games and rushing out patches to fix them just enough in order to save money for the publisher. This is a real thing...I didn't simply dream it up.It has even caused some developers to leave the industry for good...or good developers who don't resort to shady tactics to fail. This is a similar example of a shady practice that did not used to exist, but quickly became the norm.

duendology wrote: »

Soul_Marrow wrote: »

I agree with you about some of what you said, but if you think other things don't suffer as a result of a bigwig making decisions to focus more efforts on easy money and less effort on complicated fixes that are "working well enough" then you are being naive. Please do not take that as an insult because we all have things we get that way about. My main point with all of this is that crates are a relatively new things and have seeped into gaming via the mobile market testing out new ways to grab cash. Then micro-transactions slowly crept onto consoles via the PS3 and Xbox 360. Now these and other shady practices have naturally made their way to the newest generation of consoles and continue to push the line further out until the line pushes back and gives some resistance.

For example: The gaming industry tries to sell games for 10 dollars more on average and notices that their sales stay consistent and do not drop at all. Guess what happens? The price of a new title MSRP officially climbs 10 dollars because it can. Why would they sell it for less unless they are forced to? Then what happens next? Maybe they try to push it up 5 dollars more and they get no resistance. The official MSRP is now 15 dollars more than before. They try once more and their sales drop. Interest in their titles drop and they become less profitable. The MSRP stays 15 dollars above past average, but stops climbing...for now. They will try it again eventually. The price becomes normalized and people forget the time where games used to cost 15 dollars less. Some gamers grow up and stop gaming for various reasons so the majority is now a younger generation that didn't exist in the time during the 15 dollar price hike. The higher MSRP is now the standard. Obviously I'm leaving out inflation, etc because that's an unnecessary variable in this half-explained example. lol

If you don't think that games are suffering as a result of these practices then go back 20 years before internet patches were a method that lazy publishers relied on in order to hit development time cycles. A game used to release and that was the game. It existed on launch day in it's final form...so if it was trash, it was trash and the developer suffered for it. If it was amazing or ahead of it's time, the developer grew from that. Now we rely on releasing half baked games and rushing out patches to fix them just enough in order to save money for the publisher. This is a real thing...I didn't simply dream it up.It has even caused some developers to leave the industry for good...or good developers who don't resort to shady tactics to fail. This is a similar example of a shady practice that did not used to exist, but quickly became the norm.

I am not naive..I am pragmatic, and realistic.

Heh this is all true. But this whole argument stems from the very idealistic attitude of the player base (we want as it used to be, fair and clean) vs a very pragmatic and business oriented stand of companies, in this specific case - Zos's. You know it, you run a company (as you said in your earlier post) I agree it all sucks, you know. And I wish the gaming industry (and ZOS) did not go down that path. But let's face it, if a company "sniffs" an opportunity to make money, they will do it.
Of course the only way to change these practices is the massive boycott of the said practices. Unfortunately, It seems though that, the majority of the ESO player base is fine with the crates (I am not counting the people who frequent the forums here, I believe we are not the big enough group to stand as the player base representative) and ZOS knows it can profit a lot of it.

ZOS, probably ,knows that they can get away with it as long as the content in crates are cosmetic..so they won't risk losing player base.. like other companies did recently.

vamp_emily wrote: »

I was bad yesterday.

I was in stormheavon and a group was near me with new mounts and I said. "Ooo look it is the crown crate zombies. How much did those cost, $10,000?"

Soul_Marrow wrote: »

Yes, sir!

And once again, I want to point out that I wasn't trying to insult you with the naive comment and I'm sorry if I did.