greed

Jayne_Doe · November 2018

jlmurra2 wrote: »

Acrolas wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

For context, the original dwarven spider mount was 3000 crowns.

Blinkums was 4000.
https://eso.mmo-fashion.com/chroma-blue-dwarven-spider-mount/

That was the special Chroma blue version. Starlock is referring to this one: https://eso.mmo-fashion.com/dwarven-spider-mount/

So, yes 3000 Crowns, or 100 Crown Gems.

Yes, but his point was that there has already been a reskin at 4000 crowns, so while the original was 3000 it's not the one to compare this current reskin to, but to the reskin with blue lights.

maboleth wrote: »

With so many fantastic mounts available for gold, for little-effort achievements, from free crown crates (possible, I got 4 top mounts just by doing free crates), for twitch watching of E3 and other Bethesda shows, community Summerset efforts, Morrowind, now Indrik mount soon to be available...

.. and people STILL complain. Like, yeah, if it's expensive don't buy it. But you do get *plenty* of fantastic mounts for free.

Not entirely accurate. Well, you do get a basic brown horse now as part of the level-up system (was originally 10,000 gold at the stables), leaving just the three basic horses for 47,000 gold. There is the Imperial horse for 1 gold, but that's only available if you purchased the Imperial Edition, so not really free. So, that's 4 free basic horses. Fantastic mounts to some, I suppose. And yes, the free mount with Summerfall was great, as is the Indrink mount we'll be able to get. But, that's basically it. We haven't gotten any free mounts from doing in-game content/achievements or even as daily rewards. Not counting things that came with pre-orders or given out if you had already purchased content (such as the Nix Ox with MW).

Crates, now that's another story. As, of course, lots of people certainly aren't as lucky as you have been to get 4 top mounts from free crates. Or even to earn enough gems to buy even one. Plus, console gets left out in the cold for most of the Ouroboros crates. Sure, they've done a few special cases for consoles, but we certainly don't see the same amount of free crates that PC players do. Plus, they've now cut back on the amount they're giving out in the daily reward system and have stopped giving them out to ESO+ members during free trial events, so it pretty much leaves consoles with very little opportunity to get free mounts from free crates.

Now, I'm not complaining about the amount of free, fantastic mounts or about the prices of mounts in the CS (or in Crown Crates), I just think that your post was a bit exaggerated.

danno8 · November 2018

Soundles1990 wrote: »

Well the price is just too high for me . I rather go to a restaurant with my girlfriend for that money. 5-10 euros for a mount would have been okay .

Well yah, me too.

If you look at the area under the curve that I posted above the "Largest Profit" area, well that's you and me and a lot of other people. Unfortunately ZoS can't charge different prices for different people based on what they would pay for it. That would require individual negotiating and bartering, which is fine, but pretty impossible to implement.

If ZoS could charge me the $3-$5 I was willing to pay for a cool looking mount, I am sure they would gladly take my money, rather than the current amount of $0 they get from me. But they can't. Not without incensing those who would pay more, lol.

todokete · November 2018

You guys don't get it. That's the price for the alpha version of the game. Wait til it comes out and we get lower prices that everyone can afford or buy it now to support early stages of ESO!

AlienSlof · November 2018

Soundles1990 wrote: »

Well the price is just too high for me . I rather go to a restaurant with my girlfriend for that money. 5-10 euros for a mount would have been okay .

And more work would have gone into your meal than went into this:

Open Dwemer Spider texture file in Photoshop
Create new layer
Fiddle with colour sliders for a few seconds
Slap onto spider model
Release at ridiculous price and piddly discount
Rake in the money

geonsocal · November 2018

particularly for folks whom would like to take your money...

EQBallzz · November 2018

The whole purpose of a cash shop is greed. Cash shops in games are like a disease. It doesn't matter where on the greed spectrum the cash shop falls..it's going to make you sick.

Mr_Walker · November 2018

*still uses brown horse that was free*

Loves_guars · November 2018

Mr_Walker wrote: »

*still uses brown horse that was free*

In my time you had to buy the brown horse!

Gandrhulf_Harbard · November 2018

qbit wrote: »

Buyers set the prices in a free market. So who’s being greedy here?

Naivete of the highest order I am afraid.

Sellers set the price.

And there has never been a "free market" because "free markets" simply don't work.

All The Best

zaria · November 2018

jlmurra2 wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

For context, the original dwarven spider mount was 3000 crowns.

I got one in the free Psijic Crown Crates awhile ago. I believe they could also be purchased for 100 Crown Gems.

I also got it there, pretty nice, so i don't an simple reskin, tend to buy Senche who match various Khajiits fur however but they are far cheaper

Mostly why people complain is that this is the new eso+ bonus feature.
An chance to buy overpriced reskins, let us buy old stuff who has not returned to store for years and people would celebrate.

Bhaal5 · November 2018

cecibergesnrb18_ESO wrote: »

Mr_Walker wrote: »

*still uses brown horse that was free*

In my time you had to buy the brown horse!

Next you'll have to use crowns to buy your "once apon a time brought that was free before that".
Maybe theyll sell it for 3000 crowns

Jameliel · November 2018

rynth wrote: »

Soundles1990 wrote: »

3600 crowns for a reskin ?

you realize this game doesn't run on goodwill and handouts, ZOS is a business and needs to make money to keep the game going and chugging out updates, DLC's, and expansions. No Bucks No Buck Rogers

To keep driving Mercedes and living in mansions you mean? G R E E D. There is reasonable, and there is outright capitalism, and excess.Im not naive.

TheShadowScout · November 2018

Jameliel wrote: »

To keep driving Mercedes and living in mansions you mean? G R E E D.

Jameliel wrote: »

There is reasonable, and there is outright capitalism, and excess.

Sadly, in the world we live in, the suits in charge of a corporation like ZOS lusting for a new mercedes and a better mansion and sustaining their life in excess is what drives them to hire the team to put out a game like ESO, since only the greedy glance at the expected profits is what makes them spend the investments that gets a game as involved as ESO to go from a concept to an actual game.
And when the game no longer makes them enough profits to satisfy their greed but only covers the costs... that is when they pull the plugs and sell off the assets.
Its not perfect, but its the world we have, not the world we'd like to have.

And yeah, I agree that some things in the crown store are insanely overpriced (cough, namechange, outfit slots, cough) - but that is the decision of the ones in charge, and best we can hope for is them not making any sales, and reconsidering the price at some time. But as that would get them a lot of bad press from all the "I paid -this- much, why is it now half the price???", they likely will not do, but instead make "limited time discounts" like they have for the outfit slots, repeating those periodically to lure people into spending money... and sometimes it will be a BIG discount, and sometimes a small one...

Want them to have lower prices?
Too bad, that will only happen if they do not make the expected profits from something. So as long as there are some people who really spend that much on a mount... S.O.L. (and we know there are those)

JinMori · November 2018

It's pretty easy honestly, if you do not buy, the free market will adjust the price.

Yes, zenimax and many other companies are greedy af, but there is also the costumer who enables these practices by buying this useless garbage, so stop.

Feric51 · November 2018

For everyone complaining about ZOS being greedy when it relates to prices in the crown store and, in this case, the reskinned mount. I present to you a situation that I was in years ago with a game I also loved playing.

The game was a subscription-based online MUD that charged $10/month. Game population was small --- probably around 300-400 active players near the end. EA bought it along with other games from Mythic Entertainment and decided it wasn't profitable enough to keep the server running so they shut it down with zero warning. One day we were questing and PvP-ing and shooting the breeze in chat, and the next day the client wouldn't load. Done.

Had they offered a cash shop for in-game cosmetics (generally in the form of item/spell renames since it was a text-based game) I'm sure many of us would have ponied up significant monies to keep the game online and operational. Many of us still communicate on Facebook and other social sites recalling the fun times we had, and how much we'd love to get our hands on the source code for that game to resurrect it.

Bottom line... If you enjoy playing this game and want to see it around for the foreseeable future, why complain what other people spend their money on? There's nobody forcing you to open your wallet (in the crown store) to stay competitive in this game. If your own vanity and lack of willpower prevents you from saying "no" to overpriced cosmetics, well then, that's on you, not ZOS.

Edit for clarification.

Alpheu5 · November 2018

Valrien wrote: »

qbit wrote: »

Buyers set the prices in a free market. So who’s being greedy here?

Zenimax, since they set the prices regardless of how people feel.

When has protesting with your wallet ever actually worked for this company?

When has going "it didn't work before so it won't work now" been productive outside of scientifically futile attempts?

"Welp, women still can't vote so we may as well stop the suffrage movement."
"Welp, our rockets keep blowing up so we may as well stop trying to get to the moon."
"Welp, Battlespire and Redguard did pretty poorly back-to-back so we may as well close the studio."

JinMori · November 2018

Honestly though, one day or the other consequences for these practices will come, the costumers will probably be done with this garbage, the company seems to be more focused on making as big as a profit with as little effort as possible first than making a good game, sooner or later people will be done with this, keep in mind that this is a very general statement.

I said it before, when a new and better game comes out because you didn't want to improve your game much and would rather make money through the crown store, you better pull something really good, because otherwise you are done, right now there isn;t a lot of competition in mmos, because most of them are f2p ptw garbage, and there are only a couple of "good" mmos.

This isn;t gonna last forever zos, and even with the money i have i refuse to spend it on anything other than content, even if i had 100k crowns, this is about principle.

JinMori · November 2018

Feric51 wrote: »

For everyone complaining about ZOS being greedy when it relates to prices in the crown store and, in this case, the reskinned mount. I present to you a situation that I was in years ago with a game I also loved playing.

The game was a subscription-based online MUD that charged $10/month. Game population was small --- probably around 300-400 active players near the end. EA bought it along with other games from Mythic Entertainment and decided it wasn't profitable enough to keep the server running so they shut it down with zero warning. One day we were questing and PvP-ing and shooting the breeze in chat, and the next day the client wouldn't load. Done.

Had they offered a cash shop for in-game cosmetics (generally in the form of item/spell renames since it was a text-based game) I'm sure many of us would have ponied up significant monies to keep the game online and operational. Many of us still communicate on Facebook and other social sites recalling the fun times we had, and how much we'd love to get our hands on the source code for that game to resurrect it.

Bottom line... If you enjoy playing this game and want to see it around for the foreseeable future, why complain what other people spend their money on? There's nobody forcing you to open your wallet (in the crown store) to stay competitive in this game. If your own vanity and lack of willpower prevents you from saying "no" to overpriced cosmetics, well then, that's on you, not ZOS.

Edit for clarification.

Why complain about this?

Well, for one aggressive monetization of a game is never really welcome, although in eso it';s not really aggressive, but if devs are not called out on this it will become more and more aggressive in time.

Second big reason, if you can make a lot of money through this garbage, than why even bother making good content? Separation of pvp and pve, new pve modes dedicated to reduce the cp "power creep" the constant nerf because it requires less resources than making new gameplay, did you know that cp used to grant almost 60 % more resources at cp 3600, that was removed, so cp has already been nerfed as well as our classes, this is all at least partially the fault of these practices, and possibly devs laziness, although less likely.

So there are at least 2 big reasons.

And also crown crates are borderline gambling.

goldenflameslinger · November 2018

qbit wrote: »

Buyers set the prices in a free market. So who’s being greedy here?

This is true. They are charging 3600 cause enough people are obviously paying it.

weedgenius · November 2018

Feric51 wrote: »

Bottom line... If you enjoy playing this game and want to see it around for the foreseeable future, why complain what other people spend their money on? There's nobody forcing you to open your wallet (in the crown store) to stay competitive in this game. If your own vanity and lack of willpower prevents you from saying "no" to overpriced cosmetics, well then, that's on you, not ZOS.

You've undermined your own point. First you wonder "why complain what other people spend their money on?" but then you go on to say it's up to the consumer, not the company, to say "'no' to overpriced cosmetics." Have you ever read about behavior adoption in network theory? It's not an unworthy endeavor to encourage your peers to take on a behavior that you feel would benefit players as a whole.

TheShadowScout · November 2018

weedgenius wrote: »

It's not an unworthy endeavor to encourage your peers to take on a behavior that you feel would benefit players as a whole.

So... you are saying, encouraging people not to spend money on a game so it eventually gets shot down is somehow benefitting players as a whole???

Yeah, riiiiiiight...

The fact it, the whole system is self-correcting anyhow. No amount of whining on the forums can change the bottom line, and that is what the powers that be will price their goodies after.
And as long as its profitable, they will keep doing so.
And when its no longer profitable to have those prices... then the powers that be have a choice, either adjust their pricing policies, or take a good hard look at the whole game and maybe...

Feric51 wrote: »

...decided it wasn't profitable enough to keep the server running so they shut it down with zero warning.

And I for one would rather put my money where my mouth is and support a game I enjoy even through the occasional painfully overpriced purchase (still smarting about those couple outfit slots I bought before they were 50% off) then see the game suddenly go "poof" when some suits in a boardroom feel its not making them enough money anymore...

And yeah, I also wish this was not the reality we had to deal with, I wish that good online games would be supported forever without such money-grubbing practices. (Can we get some politician declare some nifty MMORPGs "cultural heritage" and be state-funded as "basic neccessity" until the end of time, please?

) But I acept that this is not how it is, and that rocking the boat too much has a great chance of sinking it all.

LapisLazuli99 · November 2018

I dont see the point in carring about pricing on "Vanity" items or cosmetics in general. But i have a more easy going mindset than most of the comunity i suppose.

weedgenius · November 2018

TheShadowScout wrote: »

weedgenius wrote: »

It's not an unworthy endeavor to encourage your peers to take on a behavior that you feel would benefit players as a whole.

So... you are saying, encouraging people not to spend money on a game so it eventually gets shot down is somehow benefitting players as a whole???

Yeah, riiiiiiight...

Obviously I'm talking about encouraging players not to buy in at ludicrous mark ups so eventually adjusting their pricing policies (which benefits players as a whole) becomes a lucrative alternative for the ZOS "powers that be." Clearly, though, reading my comment in its context would not have helped you make your argument.

TheShadowScout · November 2018

weedgenius wrote: »

Obviously I'm talking about encouraging players not to buy in at ludicrous mark ups so eventually adjusting their pricing policies...

...which as I tried to point out (maybe a bit too snarkily) a company can react to in two ways - either adjust their prices, or decide that "this mine is played out" and drop the game.

Personally I would prefer them to have more reasonable prices myself, but I do look at other MMORPGs as well, and... well, at least ESO is not requiring you to buy the latest extra-special starship to stay competetive (cough, STO, cough). And the extra-special cosmetic stuff is just that... cosmetic.

Me, I would prefer to see less people go like "Don't buy from capitalists!" (and not only because I live in Austria and that sort of thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth thanks to the history my grandparents lived through) but instead see more people go like "I'd buy that too if it only was a -bit- cheaper..." to make the suits at ZOS put their greed to work for us in the hopes of gaining more profit...

Because as has been said:

danno8 wrote: »

...this is what determines their pricing policies.
If they can expect twice the buyers, they can lower the price...
But for such "epeen" stuff like super-special limited mounts, the -rarity- is part of the draw that gets people buying it, and thus the inflated price actually works in their favor... so don't expect it to change.

Cpt_Teemo · November 2018

Yeah if I was a company i would rather have 2 people paying 500$ a month than 10 paying 20$ a month too, but if they continue that trend so deep later in the future there won't be a generic population to even continue to support it anymore.

idk · November 2018

qbit wrote: »

Buyers set the prices in a free market. So who’s being greedy here?

This is pretty much it. Zos sees what players are willing to spend and sets an optimal price for profits from that. Normal business practices.

D0PAMINE · November 2018

Katahdin wrote: »

rynth wrote: »

Soundles1990 wrote: »

3600 crowns for a reskin ?

you realize this game doesn't run on goodwill and handouts, ZOS is a business and needs to make money to keep the game going and chugging out updates, DLC's, and expansions. No Bucks No Buck Rogers

People realize this.
However there is a difference between reasonable price and price gouging which is a fine line that is different for everyone.

It would be price gouging if they raised the price of the sub or made the sub mandatory. Not for a silly luxury no one NEEDS. If the price is too high, dont buy.

These arn't $50 bottles of water in a disaster area, its pixals.

kadochka · November 2018

cecibergesnrb18_ESO wrote: »

Mr_Walker wrote: »

*still uses brown horse that was free*

In my time you had to buy the brown horse!

Same.
When I first started, I had to borrow gold from a friend just to get it! Eek!

EQBallzz · November 2018

TheShadowScout wrote: »

weedgenius wrote: »

Obviously I'm talking about encouraging players not to buy in at ludicrous mark ups so eventually adjusting their pricing policies...

...which as I tried to point out (maybe a bit too snarkily) a company can react to in two ways - either adjust their prices, or decide that "this mine is played out" and drop the game.

Personally I would prefer them to have more reasonable prices myself, but I do look at other MMORPGs as well, and... well, at least ESO is not requiring you to buy the latest extra-special starship to stay competetive (cough, STO, cough). And the extra-special cosmetic stuff is just that... cosmetic.

Me, I would prefer to see less people go like "Don't buy from capitalists!" (and not only because I live in Austria and that sort of thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth thanks to the history my grandparents lived through) but instead see more people go like "I'd buy that too if it only was a -bit- cheaper..." to make the suits at ZOS put their greed to work for us in the hopes of gaining more profit...

Because as has been said:

danno8 wrote: »

...this is what determines their pricing policies.
If they can expect twice the buyers, they can lower the price...
But for such "epeen" stuff like super-special limited mounts, the -rarity- is part of the draw that gets people buying it, and thus the inflated price actually works in their favor... so don't expect it to change.

And this is why cash shops in games is such a bad idea for gamers. Game content is designed based on profit graphs like this instead of whether it's fun or good or innovative. Game content should be fun and interesting. Rare items should come from playing the game not getting out your wallet. If you don't have a stupid amount of money to waste that shouldn't prevent you from participating in the content (even cosmetics IMO).

It used to be that buying the game and paying a monthly sub was enough but now that isn't even enough to warrant full access to a game. Here is what I have spent on the game:

100 - collector's edition of the game
180 - sub cost from release to when it went B2P
200+ - ESO+
30 - Summerset

That's over 500 dollars I have spent on ESO and do I have full access to all the content? Nope. If you want access to all the cosmetics and other things you are expected to pay even more. These cash shops are nothing but greed.

Thankfully, I don't care about most of that crap in the cash shop. Most of the cosmetics just look embarrassing IMO.

I also don't care to buy convenience items even though some of the game is purposefully designed to be obnoxious unless you spend more money (primarily research, mount training and motifs). I used my ESO+ crown stipend to buy the new class and shorten some of that grind but not paying for more crowns..ever. With how much money I have given Zenimax since release I shouldn't *need* to give them any more but this is the new normal for MMOs, sadly.

Mettaricana · November 2018

This whole eso plus exclusive crap was just another slap in our face. This company is a joke