Jaraal wrote: »

Another point is that these virtual homes are veblen goods. They could charge 1,500 USD for a house, and many people would buy it, because of the perceived exclusivity. Why would someone buy a Bentley, when they could buy ten Kias for the same price and have ten times as many cars?

Marginis wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Another point is that these virtual homes are veblen goods. They could charge 1,500 USD for a house, and many people would buy it, because of the perceived exclusivity. Why would someone buy a Bentley, when they could buy ten Kias for the same price and have ten times as many cars?

Problem with that is that it's artificial scarcity. You could make an argument for that also being the case for something like a bentley, but the counter argument (that there's a reason for it being scarce) holds no water in the case of digital goods. There's no reason other than wanting money for not making digital goods as plentiful as possible. What this thread is about is where ESO lies on the spectrum of artificial scarcity - whether the amount they charge is fair - rather than if they can charge whatever they want, although that's a fair point.

Anotherone773 wrote: »

I wouldnt pay half that for any house i dont care what size it is. Its just pixels and i dont even own them. I dont get to keep them if they shut the server down.

duendology wrote: »

The interesting part is that..you don't actually own the things you buy in the game. You pomp your cash into something that exists so long the game continues. You can't just take the things and leave. When ESO dies.. so is your collection. But, well, of course, everyone assumes ESO is forever.

And so far... ESO housing is the most expensive decoration simulation EVAR!!!

reoskit wrote: »

Bwa? Why is ownership even coming up? No one thinks ESO is forever...

Why do you spend money going to the movie theatre? To amusement parks? Your time with it will come to an end and you won't own the movie, the theatre, the park. We're buying entertainment experiences.

FWIW, I'm going to get more entertainment hours/$ decorating this house than I would in one day at an amusement park or a couple trips to the movie theatre. That said, I wouldn't begrudge you spending $100 at Six Flags... This is how some people elect to spend their expendable income. I haven't the foggiest why that bothers some of you so much.

kargen27 wrote: »

nursingninja wrote: »

There are cheaper homes if that's too much for you.

Not much in the way of new houses though unless you wanna go big.

badmojo wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Another point is that these virtual homes are veblen goods. They could charge 1,500 USD for a house, and many people would buy it, because of the perceived exclusivity. Why would someone buy a Bentley, when they could buy ten Kias for the same price and have ten times as many cars?

Problem with that is that it's artificial scarcity. You could make an argument for that also being the case for something like a bentley, but the counter argument (that there's a reason for it being scarce) holds no water in the case of digital goods. There's no reason other than wanting money for not making digital goods as plentiful as possible. What this thread is about is where ESO lies on the spectrum of artificial scarcity - whether the amount they charge is fair - rather than if they can charge whatever they want, although that's a fair point.

ZOS have to have servers available to host these house instances. If they sold 100x as many houses at lower prices that would mean they have to pay 100x more in server costs.

There is more to them selling a house than simply 1s and 0s in a database somewhere. These servers arent dedicated to running only our houses 24/7, but they still need to have enough available to accomidate everyone online deciding to go to their houses at the same time.

badmojo wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

There's a strange obsession about ZOS not getting paid in this community.

How much money could a person have made if they did something productive with the hours they have spent playing ESO? Even at minimum wage here in Canada($15/h), I could make enough money to pay for this house in 10 hours of work, that's only 2 short days of work. But, ten hours is nothing in the ESO grind, that might get you one character to 50 during a double XP event.

I am not trying to defend the pricing ZOS has implemented for housing, believe me I would love to pick up these houses for much less. But, there seems to be a strange disconnect in some players minds between the time they invest in this game and the money they invest.

In 10 hours at a minimum wage job, I could get 15,000 crowns.
In 10 hours of doing crafting writs, I could get maybe 350,000-400,000 gold.
How big of a house can we buy for 400k gold? Certainly nothing like the Princely Dawnlight.

I have probably spent 3000 hours playing ESO. At a minimum wage job I could have made $45,000 during that time. But suddenly I am supposed to be outraged at a 10 hour time investment for an in-game mansion? I also don't work for minimum wage, so it's more like 5hours of my time for access to a part of the game I really enjoy.

If I was a casual player and only played ESO a couple hours a week, sure, the price would be outrageous. But, if I only played ESO a few hours a week I wouldn't be buying a house that extravagant.

Don't go all crazy in here. It's not about ZoS getting paid. It's about profit margin. The prices in the crown store are completely out of whack with the investment.

Dawnlight, for example, probably took one ZoS employee 1-2 weeks to cut the palace from the game (it already exists, hence the loading screen description) and paste it down the hill from the existing palace. For the sake of argument, let's say it cost ZoS $5k for the work to be performed. I am being generous because based on some of the bugs that come and go from the game, it's more likely they off-shored the work for a couple grand.

So why the steep price? Zero competition. Only ZoS can sell digital items to ESO players.

In other cases where a company might otherwise have a monopoly, such as cable, wireless and gas/electric utilities, most countries have some form of unbundling legislation that forces infrastructure providers to sell access to new market entrants (competitors). If you have never traveled through the U.S., you probably don't know that in most of the EU the prices for internet and cellular services are some 40% cheaper than in the U.S. You also have 2-3 times as many choices. Most of the U.S. has no choice, except between say a cable and a satellite company (but try to play ESO over the Dish network...). Only cities really have choices, and it's usually 1 or 2 alternatives. Go to the U.K. and you have 4-6 choices.

Circling back, if game companies were similarly regulated so that they had to sell at-cost access to third party software companies, Dawnlight would be dirt cheap.

Much like the network providers in North America, ZOS can set the prices because they built the infastructure.

You can say it only cost them $5k to create the Dawnlight property, but they also created all the objects inside it, and the world that it exists inside of, not to mention building up the game and community around it. At launch I remember hearing the number $250million being thrown around a lot, I am sure they have invested plenty more since then.

Your $5k argument is like saying The Simpsons movie was overpriced because all they had to do was pay a few writers to make a script. That argument totally ignores the hard work of creating a new brand, establishing a foothold in the market and then rising to the top of the market.

Point is I could pay to have a script written, but its not going to be a Simpsons movie. At the same time I could pay someone $5k to create a digital palace, but its not going to be a property in Tamriel that my ESO friends can visit. The price we pay for these things are more expensive because they are attached to large and established brands, and in this case they are inside a large established MMORPG.

If the Palace is not worth the money to you, just dont buy it. We dont need the government to step in and force ZOS to make their own creations cheaper because some people think everything should be easily accessible to everyone. That is a slippery slope, and these are LUXURY purchases, that nobody actually needs.

badmojo wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

There's a strange obsession about ZOS not getting paid in this community.

How much money could a person have made if they did something productive with the hours they have spent playing ESO? Even at minimum wage here in Canada($15/h), I could make enough money to pay for this house in 10 hours of work, that's only 2 short days of work. But, ten hours is nothing in the ESO grind, that might get you one character to 50 during a double XP event.

I am not trying to defend the pricing ZOS has implemented for housing, believe me I would love to pick up these houses for much less. But, there seems to be a strange disconnect in some players minds between the time they invest in this game and the money they invest.

In 10 hours at a minimum wage job, I could get 15,000 crowns.
In 10 hours of doing crafting writs, I could get maybe 350,000-400,000 gold.
How big of a house can we buy for 400k gold? Certainly nothing like the Princely Dawnlight.

I have probably spent 3000 hours playing ESO. At a minimum wage job I could have made $45,000 during that time. But suddenly I am supposed to be outraged at a 10 hour time investment for an in-game mansion? I also don't work for minimum wage, so it's more like 5hours of my time for access to a part of the game I really enjoy.

If I was a casual player and only played ESO a couple hours a week, sure, the price would be outrageous. But, if I only played ESO a few hours a week I wouldn't be buying a house that extravagant.

Don't go all crazy in here. It's not about ZoS getting paid. It's about profit margin. The prices in the crown store are completely out of whack with the investment.

Dawnlight, for example, probably took one ZoS employee 1-2 weeks to cut the palace from the game (it already exists, hence the loading screen description) and paste it down the hill from the existing palace. For the sake of argument, let's say it cost ZoS $5k for the work to be performed. I am being generous because based on some of the bugs that come and go from the game, it's more likely they off-shored the work for a couple grand.

So why the steep price? Zero competition. Only ZoS can sell digital items to ESO players.

In other cases where a company might otherwise have a monopoly, such as cable, wireless and gas/electric utilities, most countries have some form of unbundling legislation that forces infrastructure providers to sell access to new market entrants (competitors). If you have never traveled through the U.S., you probably don't know that in most of the EU the prices for internet and cellular services are some 40% cheaper than in the U.S. You also have 2-3 times as many choices. Most of the U.S. has no choice, except between say a cable and a satellite company (but try to play ESO over the Dish network...). Only cities really have choices, and it's usually 1 or 2 alternatives. Go to the U.K. and you have 4-6 choices.

Circling back, if game companies were similarly regulated so that they had to sell at-cost access to third party software companies, Dawnlight would be dirt cheap.

Much like the network providers in North America, ZOS can set the prices because they built the infastructure.

You can say it only cost them $5k to create the Dawnlight property, but they also created all the objects inside it, and the world that it exists inside of, not to mention building up the game and community around it. At launch I remember hearing the number $250million being thrown around a lot, I am sure they have invested plenty more since then.

Your $5k argument is like saying The Simpsons movie was overpriced because all they had to do was pay a few writers to make a script. That argument totally ignores the hard work of creating a new brand, establishing a foothold in the market and then rising to the top of the market.

Point is I could pay to have a script written, but its not going to be a Simpsons movie. At the same time I could pay someone $5k to create a digital palace, but its not going to be a property in Tamriel that my ESO friends can visit. The price we pay for these things are more expensive because they are attached to large and established brands, and in this case they are inside a large established MMORPG.

If the Palace is not worth the money to you, just dont buy it. We dont need the government to step in and force ZOS to make their own creations cheaper because some people think everything should be easily accessible to everyone. That is a slippery slope, and these are LUXURY purchases, that nobody actually needs.

Marginis wrote: »

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

There's a strange obsession about ZOS not getting paid in this community.

How much money could a person have made if they did something productive with the hours they have spent playing ESO? Even at minimum wage here in Canada($15/h), I could make enough money to pay for this house in 10 hours of work, that's only 2 short days of work. But, ten hours is nothing in the ESO grind, that might get you one character to 50 during a double XP event.

I am not trying to defend the pricing ZOS has implemented for housing, believe me I would love to pick up these houses for much less. But, there seems to be a strange disconnect in some players minds between the time they invest in this game and the money they invest.

In 10 hours at a minimum wage job, I could get 15,000 crowns.
In 10 hours of doing crafting writs, I could get maybe 350,000-400,000 gold.
How big of a house can we buy for 400k gold? Certainly nothing like the Princely Dawnlight.

I have probably spent 3000 hours playing ESO. At a minimum wage job I could have made $45,000 during that time. But suddenly I am supposed to be outraged at a 10 hour time investment for an in-game mansion? I also don't work for minimum wage, so it's more like 5hours of my time for access to a part of the game I really enjoy.

If I was a casual player and only played ESO a couple hours a week, sure, the price would be outrageous. But, if I only played ESO a few hours a week I wouldn't be buying a house that extravagant.

Don't go all crazy in here. It's not about ZoS getting paid. It's about profit margin. The prices in the crown store are completely out of whack with the investment.

Dawnlight, for example, probably took one ZoS employee 1-2 weeks to cut the palace from the game (it already exists, hence the loading screen description) and paste it down the hill from the existing palace. For the sake of argument, let's say it cost ZoS $5k for the work to be performed. I am being generous because based on some of the bugs that come and go from the game, it's more likely they off-shored the work for a couple grand.

So why the steep price? Zero competition. Only ZoS can sell digital items to ESO players.

In other cases where a company might otherwise have a monopoly, such as cable, wireless and gas/electric utilities, most countries have some form of unbundling legislation that forces infrastructure providers to sell access to new market entrants (competitors). If you have never traveled through the U.S., you probably don't know that in most of the EU the prices for internet and cellular services are some 40% cheaper than in the U.S. You also have 2-3 times as many choices. Most of the U.S. has no choice, except between say a cable and a satellite company (but try to play ESO over the Dish network...). Only cities really have choices, and it's usually 1 or 2 alternatives. Go to the U.K. and you have 4-6 choices.

Circling back, if game companies were similarly regulated so that they had to sell at-cost access to third party software companies, Dawnlight would be dirt cheap.

Much like the network providers in North America, ZOS can set the prices because they built the infastructure.

You can say it only cost them $5k to create the Dawnlight property, but they also created all the objects inside it, and the world that it exists inside of, not to mention building up the game and community around it. At launch I remember hearing the number $250million being thrown around a lot, I am sure they have invested plenty more since then.

Your $5k argument is like saying The Simpsons movie was overpriced because all they had to do was pay a few writers to make a script. That argument totally ignores the hard work of creating a new brand, establishing a foothold in the market and then rising to the top of the market.

Point is I could pay to have a script written, but its not going to be a Simpsons movie. At the same time I could pay someone $5k to create a digital palace, but its not going to be a property in Tamriel that my ESO friends can visit. The price we pay for these things are more expensive because they are attached to large and established brands, and in this case they are inside a large established MMORPG.

If the Palace is not worth the money to you, just dont buy it. We dont need the government to step in and force ZOS to make their own creations cheaper because some people think everything should be easily accessible to everyone. That is a slippery slope, and these are LUXURY purchases, that nobody actually needs.

badmojo wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

There's a strange obsession about ZOS not getting paid in this community.

How much money could a person have made if they did something productive with the hours they have spent playing ESO? Even at minimum wage here in Canada($15/h), I could make enough money to pay for this house in 10 hours of work, that's only 2 short days of work. But, ten hours is nothing in the ESO grind, that might get you one character to 50 during a double XP event.

I am not trying to defend the pricing ZOS has implemented for housing, believe me I would love to pick up these houses for much less. But, there seems to be a strange disconnect in some players minds between the time they invest in this game and the money they invest.

In 10 hours at a minimum wage job, I could get 15,000 crowns.
In 10 hours of doing crafting writs, I could get maybe 350,000-400,000 gold.
How big of a house can we buy for 400k gold? Certainly nothing like the Princely Dawnlight.

I have probably spent 3000 hours playing ESO. At a minimum wage job I could have made $45,000 during that time. But suddenly I am supposed to be outraged at a 10 hour time investment for an in-game mansion? I also don't work for minimum wage, so it's more like 5hours of my time for access to a part of the game I really enjoy.

If I was a casual player and only played ESO a couple hours a week, sure, the price would be outrageous. But, if I only played ESO a few hours a week I wouldn't be buying a house that extravagant.

Don't go all crazy in here. It's not about ZoS getting paid. It's about profit margin. The prices in the crown store are completely out of whack with the investment.

Dawnlight, for example, probably took one ZoS employee 1-2 weeks to cut the palace from the game (it already exists, hence the loading screen description) and paste it down the hill from the existing palace. For the sake of argument, let's say it cost ZoS $5k for the work to be performed. I am being generous because based on some of the bugs that come and go from the game, it's more likely they off-shored the work for a couple grand.

So why the steep price? Zero competition. Only ZoS can sell digital items to ESO players.

In other cases where a company might otherwise have a monopoly, such as cable, wireless and gas/electric utilities, most countries have some form of unbundling legislation that forces infrastructure providers to sell access to new market entrants (competitors). If you have never traveled through the U.S., you probably don't know that in most of the EU the prices for internet and cellular services are some 40% cheaper than in the U.S. You also have 2-3 times as many choices. Most of the U.S. has no choice, except between say a cable and a satellite company (but try to play ESO over the Dish network...). Only cities really have choices, and it's usually 1 or 2 alternatives. Go to the U.K. and you have 4-6 choices.

Circling back, if game companies were similarly regulated so that they had to sell at-cost access to third party software companies, Dawnlight would be dirt cheap.

Much like the network providers in North America, ZOS can set the prices because they built the infastructure.

You can say it only cost them $5k to create the Dawnlight property, but they also created all the objects inside it, and the world that it exists inside of, not to mention building up the game and community around it. At launch I remember hearing the number $250million being thrown around a lot, I am sure they have invested plenty more since then.

Your $5k argument is like saying The Simpsons movie was overpriced because all they had to do was pay a few writers to make a script. That argument totally ignores the hard work of creating a new brand, establishing a foothold in the market and then rising to the top of the market.

Point is I could pay to have a script written, but its not going to be a Simpsons movie. At the same time I could pay someone $5k to create a digital palace, but its not going to be a property in Tamriel that my ESO friends can visit. The price we pay for these things are more expensive because they are attached to large and established brands, and in this case they are inside a large established MMORPG.

If the Palace is not worth the money to you, just dont buy it. We dont need the government to step in and force ZOS to make their own creations cheaper because some people think everything should be easily accessible to everyone. That is a slippery slope, and these are LUXURY purchases, that nobody actually needs.

I think the key words here are Luxury purchases.....lets face it, there is a metric crap ton of envy not only in this very toxic community but in gaming in General....the pseudo games news blog massively OP regularly cranks out hit pieces on cash shops, loot boxes and the people that participate in the business model, stopping just short of endorsing the whackado philosophy of making death threats to folks that dare ride their apex mounts through Daggerfall, or drop a few quid for Overwatch loot crates

it is very reminiscent of the proletariat outrage rags of the early 1900's in which anyone who isn't dirt poor is automatically evil and poisoning the well for everyone else...it's laughable really.

I honestly think it's a generational thing, most millennial's want everything free and now and run with open arms to anything that vaguely resembles a communal utopia or uses 1984 as a tactical manual rather than the cautionary tale it was intended to be.


This too shall pass, in the same way the Hippies of the 60's became the yuppies of the 80's, in the mean time folks that want these items will still pay what the market demands

I think you misunderstand, like the baby boomers misunderstand millenials. It's not that everyone wants everything for free, it's that everyone doesn't like being taken advantage of. Predatory practices are bad, and it's that that compels the millenials in this metaphor, not laziness. Yes, there are some that just want to take advantage, like in any generation, millenial OR baby boomer, but it's as unfair to say that all millenials are lazy as it is to say all baby boomers are cranky old farts who just want to make life harder on everyone else just because they can't handle change and want everyone else to suffer like they did. I mean, think about all the generations before, if you need to. We don't really accept imperialistic dictators and corrupt monarchs like we used to in the middle ages, which would make baby boomers the whiny and entitled millenials. (This is a metaphor remember - we aren't actually talking about millenials and baby boomers)

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

Marginis wrote: »

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

There's a strange obsession about ZOS not getting paid in this community.

How much money could a person have made if they did something productive with the hours they have spent playing ESO? Even at minimum wage here in Canada($15/h), I could make enough money to pay for this house in 10 hours of work, that's only 2 short days of work. But, ten hours is nothing in the ESO grind, that might get you one character to 50 during a double XP event.

I am not trying to defend the pricing ZOS has implemented for housing, believe me I would love to pick up these houses for much less. But, there seems to be a strange disconnect in some players minds between the time they invest in this game and the money they invest.

In 10 hours at a minimum wage job, I could get 15,000 crowns.
In 10 hours of doing crafting writs, I could get maybe 350,000-400,000 gold.
How big of a house can we buy for 400k gold? Certainly nothing like the Princely Dawnlight.

I have probably spent 3000 hours playing ESO. At a minimum wage job I could have made $45,000 during that time. But suddenly I am supposed to be outraged at a 10 hour time investment for an in-game mansion? I also don't work for minimum wage, so it's more like 5hours of my time for access to a part of the game I really enjoy.

If I was a casual player and only played ESO a couple hours a week, sure, the price would be outrageous. But, if I only played ESO a few hours a week I wouldn't be buying a house that extravagant.

Don't go all crazy in here. It's not about ZoS getting paid. It's about profit margin. The prices in the crown store are completely out of whack with the investment.

Dawnlight, for example, probably took one ZoS employee 1-2 weeks to cut the palace from the game (it already exists, hence the loading screen description) and paste it down the hill from the existing palace. For the sake of argument, let's say it cost ZoS $5k for the work to be performed. I am being generous because based on some of the bugs that come and go from the game, it's more likely they off-shored the work for a couple grand.

So why the steep price? Zero competition. Only ZoS can sell digital items to ESO players.

In other cases where a company might otherwise have a monopoly, such as cable, wireless and gas/electric utilities, most countries have some form of unbundling legislation that forces infrastructure providers to sell access to new market entrants (competitors). If you have never traveled through the U.S., you probably don't know that in most of the EU the prices for internet and cellular services are some 40% cheaper than in the U.S. You also have 2-3 times as many choices. Most of the U.S. has no choice, except between say a cable and a satellite company (but try to play ESO over the Dish network...). Only cities really have choices, and it's usually 1 or 2 alternatives. Go to the U.K. and you have 4-6 choices.

Circling back, if game companies were similarly regulated so that they had to sell at-cost access to third party software companies, Dawnlight would be dirt cheap.

Much like the network providers in North America, ZOS can set the prices because they built the infastructure.

You can say it only cost them $5k to create the Dawnlight property, but they also created all the objects inside it, and the world that it exists inside of, not to mention building up the game and community around it. At launch I remember hearing the number $250million being thrown around a lot, I am sure they have invested plenty more since then.

Your $5k argument is like saying The Simpsons movie was overpriced because all they had to do was pay a few writers to make a script. That argument totally ignores the hard work of creating a new brand, establishing a foothold in the market and then rising to the top of the market.

Point is I could pay to have a script written, but its not going to be a Simpsons movie. At the same time I could pay someone $5k to create a digital palace, but its not going to be a property in Tamriel that my ESO friends can visit. The price we pay for these things are more expensive because they are attached to large and established brands, and in this case they are inside a large established MMORPG.

If the Palace is not worth the money to you, just dont buy it. We dont need the government to step in and force ZOS to make their own creations cheaper because some people think everything should be easily accessible to everyone. That is a slippery slope, and these are LUXURY purchases, that nobody actually needs.

badmojo wrote: »

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

badmojo wrote: »

There's a strange obsession about ZOS not getting paid in this community.

How much money could a person have made if they did something productive with the hours they have spent playing ESO? Even at minimum wage here in Canada($15/h), I could make enough money to pay for this house in 10 hours of work, that's only 2 short days of work. But, ten hours is nothing in the ESO grind, that might get you one character to 50 during a double XP event.

I am not trying to defend the pricing ZOS has implemented for housing, believe me I would love to pick up these houses for much less. But, there seems to be a strange disconnect in some players minds between the time they invest in this game and the money they invest.

In 10 hours at a minimum wage job, I could get 15,000 crowns.
In 10 hours of doing crafting writs, I could get maybe 350,000-400,000 gold.
How big of a house can we buy for 400k gold? Certainly nothing like the Princely Dawnlight.

I have probably spent 3000 hours playing ESO. At a minimum wage job I could have made $45,000 during that time. But suddenly I am supposed to be outraged at a 10 hour time investment for an in-game mansion? I also don't work for minimum wage, so it's more like 5hours of my time for access to a part of the game I really enjoy.

If I was a casual player and only played ESO a couple hours a week, sure, the price would be outrageous. But, if I only played ESO a few hours a week I wouldn't be buying a house that extravagant.

Don't go all crazy in here. It's not about ZoS getting paid. It's about profit margin. The prices in the crown store are completely out of whack with the investment.

Dawnlight, for example, probably took one ZoS employee 1-2 weeks to cut the palace from the game (it already exists, hence the loading screen description) and paste it down the hill from the existing palace. For the sake of argument, let's say it cost ZoS $5k for the work to be performed. I am being generous because based on some of the bugs that come and go from the game, it's more likely they off-shored the work for a couple grand.

So why the steep price? Zero competition. Only ZoS can sell digital items to ESO players.

In other cases where a company might otherwise have a monopoly, such as cable, wireless and gas/electric utilities, most countries have some form of unbundling legislation that forces infrastructure providers to sell access to new market entrants (competitors). If you have never traveled through the U.S., you probably don't know that in most of the EU the prices for internet and cellular services are some 40% cheaper than in the U.S. You also have 2-3 times as many choices. Most of the U.S. has no choice, except between say a cable and a satellite company (but try to play ESO over the Dish network...). Only cities really have choices, and it's usually 1 or 2 alternatives. Go to the U.K. and you have 4-6 choices.

Circling back, if game companies were similarly regulated so that they had to sell at-cost access to third party software companies, Dawnlight would be dirt cheap.

Much like the network providers in North America, ZOS can set the prices because they built the infastructure.

You can say it only cost them $5k to create the Dawnlight property, but they also created all the objects inside it, and the world that it exists inside of, not to mention building up the game and community around it. At launch I remember hearing the number $250million being thrown around a lot, I am sure they have invested plenty more since then.

Your $5k argument is like saying The Simpsons movie was overpriced because all they had to do was pay a few writers to make a script. That argument totally ignores the hard work of creating a new brand, establishing a foothold in the market and then rising to the top of the market.

Point is I could pay to have a script written, but its not going to be a Simpsons movie. At the same time I could pay someone $5k to create a digital palace, but its not going to be a property in Tamriel that my ESO friends can visit. The price we pay for these things are more expensive because they are attached to large and established brands, and in this case they are inside a large established MMORPG.

If the Palace is not worth the money to you, just dont buy it. We dont need the government to step in and force ZOS to make their own creations cheaper because some people think everything should be easily accessible to everyone. That is a slippery slope, and these are LUXURY purchases, that nobody actually needs.

I think the key words here are Luxury purchases.....lets face it, there is a metric crap ton of envy not only in this very toxic community but in gaming in General....the pseudo games news blog massively OP regularly cranks out hit pieces on cash shops, loot boxes and the people that participate in the business model, stopping just short of endorsing the whackado philosophy of making death threats to folks that dare ride their apex mounts through Daggerfall, or drop a few quid for Overwatch loot crates

it is very reminiscent of the proletariat outrage rags of the early 1900's in which anyone who isn't dirt poor is automatically evil and poisoning the well for everyone else...it's laughable really.

I honestly think it's a generational thing, most millennial's want everything free and now and run with open arms to anything that vaguely resembles a communal utopia or uses 1984 as a tactical manual rather than the cautionary tale it was intended to be.


This too shall pass, in the same way the Hippies of the 60's became the yuppies of the 80's, in the mean time folks that want these items will still pay what the market demands

I think you misunderstand, like the baby boomers misunderstand millenials. It's not that everyone wants everything for free, it's that everyone doesn't like being taken advantage of. Predatory practices are bad, and it's that that compels the millenials in this metaphor, not laziness. Yes, there are some that just want to take advantage, like in any generation, millenial OR baby boomer, but it's as unfair to say that all millenials are lazy as it is to say all baby boomers are cranky old farts who just want to make life harder on everyone else just because they can't handle change and want everyone else to suffer like they did. I mean, think about all the generations before, if you need to. We don't really accept imperialistic dictators and corrupt monarchs like we used to in the middle ages, which would make baby boomers the whiny and entitled millenials. (This is a metaphor remember - we aren't actually talking about millenials and baby boomers)

If it's arbitrary why not just say Reds and Blues or Big Macs and Whoppers?




Anywho.....


It's interesting to be broad brushed as a cranky old fart by a generation that claims to be misunderstood and misrepresented, yet typical. It's also hilarious to label actually working for a better life as suffering, but also typical.

And not all change is good change just ask the democratic republic in Germany when their Millennial's started making noise...odd thing about that they had a lot of the same ideas as this current crop.

The simple fact is you can't be taken advantage of over cosmetic items, and just like in High School some kids are going to have nicer shoes and cooler cars than you do.

If you're answer is to not allow them to have those things because it hurts your self esteem then you are messed up.

• I never said that (I presume you're referring to millennials and baby boomers) millennials and baby boomers are arbitrary, or arbitrarily chosen for my metaphor. That's kind of the thing with metaphors - you can't say something is like "algae and oligarchs" when you really mean "apples and oranges", because then the metaphor might not hold up (or make any sense to begin with).
  

• Marginis wrote: »

  ...it's as unfair to say that all millenials are lazy as it is to say all baby boomers are cranky old farts...

  ...is the exact opposite of broad brushing an entire generation as lazy old farts. It's saying that broad brushing like that is unfair, or in simple terms, BAD.
  
• It's also pretty clearly not calling you a cranky old fart, because as was implied, I think it's BAD to paint with a broad brush like that.
  
• Wait what? Are you likening millennials to Nazis because they both wanted to change things? Well in that case, we're all like Nazis because we all breathe air, or, to be reciprocal, baby boomers are like Nazis because they both went to war. I hesitate to even point out why this doesn't make sense. Suffice to say, breathing air does not mean you are a ***.
  
• Saying that you cannot be taken advantage of by cosmetic items is like saying you cannot be taken advantage of by casinos. Yes, you can. Some people are good at defending themselves from being taken advantage of, but that does NOT mean that things cannot be used to take advantage of others.
  
• Actually, that last point is okay. If you think the proper response to something JUST hurting your self-esteem is to ban or censor it, you're probably blowing things way out of proportion.
  
  ...But I don't think most of the people here - or any reasonable people, anyway - are trying to eliminate player housing.

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

Much like the network providers in North America, ZOS can set the prices because they built the infastructure.

The networks may have built the infrastructure, but they only paid for some of it. The internet infrastructure in the U.S. is subsidized. The subsidies for fiber are estimated to be nearly half a trillion dollars to date.

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

You can say it only cost them $5k to create the Dawnlight property, but they also created all the objects inside it, and the world that it exists inside of, not to mention building up the game and community around it. At launch I remember hearing the number $250million being thrown around a lot, I am sure they have invested plenty more since then.

Your $5k argument is like saying The Simpsons movie was overpriced because all they had to do was pay a few writers to make a script. That argument totally ignores the hard work of creating a new brand, establishing a foothold in the market and then rising to the top of the market.

Point is I could pay to have a script written, but its not going to be a Simpsons movie. At the same time I could pay someone $5k to create a digital palace, but its not going to be a property in Tamriel that my ESO friends can visit. The price we pay for these things are more expensive because they are attached to large and established brands, and in this case they are inside a large established MMORPG.

Good Will Cost

Good will is usually compensated by the consumers attracted by the reseller (including through marketing expenditures), as well as an access charge above cost. In many parts of Europe this is not the case, because access is provided at-cost. But in those cases, the government generally built the infrastructure. The U.K. is a good example.

Providers are also granted an amount of control over reseller activities to protect goodwill.

$250M Development Cost

The last figure to be bandied about at release was $300M. It doesn't really change the picture. ESO is beyond the $600M range at this point, and might be pushing $750M.

Pre-release Development Included Morrowind

Let's baseline the discussion on the fact that cut and paste housing is the tip of the iceberg. The cut and paste housing was developed around release, with everything else, up through Morrowind. If you want proof, there is an early convention video where ZoS shows off Morrowind on Youtube.

Conservative revenue Numbers

At the time the Morrowind DLC came out, Bethesda reported 10,000,000 game units sold and 2.5M active users.

Box sales. Let's say that ZoS received only $10 a copy for those 10M.

Subscriptions: Let's be very conservative and say that less than half of active users subscribed over the last three years. Heck, let's call it 1M. Let's use that $10 figure for the average amount of money ZoS made per month on each subscription. So, 1M x 36 months x $10.

You see where I am going with this?

We haven't touched "chapter" sales or crown store revenue.

As to crown store sales, I don't meet the definition of a whale, and yet I personally have spent at least 3x the amount of money that I spent on everything else related to ESO, in the store. And I have been a continuous subscriber on multiple accounts since early release AND I buy the DLCs even though I am a subscriber. Some whales spend thousands of dollars on crown crates to get one mount...

Ok, so that's all for the 3 years leading up to February of 2017. Steam reported ESO as a gold tier best seller for all of 2017. You can only buy the base game on Steam in package deals, the cheapest currently being $30.

That's probably enough to make my point for even the biggest 'ZoS needs money' poster.

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

If the Palace is not worth the money to you, just dont buy it. We dont need the government to step in and force ZOS to make their own creations cheaper because some people think everything should be easily accessible to everyone. That is a slippery slope, and these are LUXURY purchases, that nobody actually needs.

Of course, competition theory is not limited to staples. So your point is lost on me. Societies make rules to benefit the entire population.

There is no segment of the market that does not benefit from competition. Aside from certain libertarian sects, no political party believes competition can be bad. Oh, sure, politicians receiving significant donations from telecoms used to make arguments that infrastructure providers won't make investments if they have to permit access. They no longer make those arguments because last mile countries not only dominate the top 10 for consumer access penetration and average internet speeds, they also provide consumers the greatest amount of choice.

The U.S. is not on the top 10 of any of those three metrics.

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

Much like the network providers in North America, ZOS can set the prices because they built the infastructure.

The networks may have built the infrastructure, but they only paid for some of it. The internet infrastructure in the U.S. is subsidized. The subsidies for fiber are estimated to be nearly half a trillion dollars to date.

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

You can say it only cost them $5k to create the Dawnlight property, but they also created all the objects inside it, and the world that it exists inside of, not to mention building up the game and community around it. At launch I remember hearing the number $250million being thrown around a lot, I am sure they have invested plenty more since then.

Your $5k argument is like saying The Simpsons movie was overpriced because all they had to do was pay a few writers to make a script. That argument totally ignores the hard work of creating a new brand, establishing a foothold in the market and then rising to the top of the market.

Point is I could pay to have a script written, but its not going to be a Simpsons movie. At the same time I could pay someone $5k to create a digital palace, but its not going to be a property in Tamriel that my ESO friends can visit. The price we pay for these things are more expensive because they are attached to large and established brands, and in this case they are inside a large established MMORPG.

Good Will Cost

Good will is usually compensated by the consumers attracted by the reseller (including through marketing expenditures), as well as an access charge above cost. In many parts of Europe this is not the case, because access is provided at-cost. But in those cases, the government generally built the infrastructure. The U.K. is a good example.

Providers are also granted an amount of control over reseller activities to protect goodwill.

$250M Development Cost

The last figure to be bandied about at release was $300M. It doesn't really change the picture. ESO is beyond the $600M range at this point, and might be pushing $750M.

Pre-release Development Included Morrowind

Let's baseline the discussion on the fact that cut and paste housing is the tip of the iceberg. The cut and paste housing was developed around release, with everything else, up through Morrowind. If you want proof, there is an early convention video where ZoS shows off Morrowind on Youtube.

Conservative revenue Numbers

At the time the Morrowind DLC came out, Bethesda reported 10,000,000 game units sold and 2.5M active users.

Box sales. Let's say that ZoS received only $10 a copy for those 10M.

Subscriptions: Let's be very conservative and say that less than half of active users subscribed over the last three years. Heck, let's call it 1M. Let's use that $10 figure for the average amount of money ZoS made per month on each subscription. So, 1M x 36 months x $10.

You see where I am going with this?

We haven't touched "chapter" sales or crown store revenue.

As to crown store sales, I don't meet the definition of a whale, and yet I personally have spent at least 3x the amount of money that I spent on everything else related to ESO, in the store. And I have been a continuous subscriber on multiple accounts since early release AND I buy the DLCs even though I am a subscriber. Some whales spend thousands of dollars on crown crates to get one mount...

Ok, so that's all for the 3 years leading up to February of 2017. Steam reported ESO as a gold tier best seller for all of 2017. You can only buy the base game on Steam in package deals, the cheapest currently being $30.

That's probably enough to make my point for even the biggest 'ZoS needs money' poster.

Rain_Greyraven wrote: »

If the Palace is not worth the money to you, just dont buy it. We dont need the government to step in and force ZOS to make their own creations cheaper because some people think everything should be easily accessible to everyone. That is a slippery slope, and these are LUXURY purchases, that nobody actually needs.

Of course, competition theory is not limited to staples. So your point is lost on me. Societies make rules to benefit the entire population.

There is no segment of the market that does not benefit from competition. Aside from certain libertarian sects, no political party believes competition can be bad. Oh, sure, politicians receiving significant donations from telecoms used to make arguments that infrastructure providers won't make investments if they have to permit access. They no longer make those arguments because last mile countries not only dominate the top 10 for consumer access penetration and average internet speeds, they also provide consumers the greatest amount of choice.

The U.S. is not on the top 10 of any of those three metrics.

Wreuntzylla wrote: »

...

Subscriptions: Let's be very conservative and say that less than half of active users subscribed over the last three years. Heck, let's call it 1M. Let's use that $10 figure for the average amount of money ZoS made per month on each subscription. So, 1M x 36 months x $10.
...