Real Talk: Black Fredas

Kittytravel · November 2018

Im going to start by prefacing this very clearly: I know companies have to make money. Im not faulting ZOS for this Im faulting their methods.

Ive never seen digital company so very hesitant to use sales to their advantage. A year ago crowns went 50% off and myself and hundreds of other people in my guilds dropped 100$ right there on the discounted crowns to stock up. This years "sale" is a poor attempt in comparison, 30% off select crown store items and you still have to buy crowns full price. Most of this playerbase doesnt even do that to begin with, Id wager maybe 10-15% actually buy full price crowns while the other 85-90% just use ESO+ and shrug it off when they are out.

But what confuses me more is why? A digital game doesn't have to worry about supply and demand. It's the largest advantage in the entire dynamic of gaming. If 350,000 people want Princely Dawnlight they can have it. So what's with this awkwardness at not discounting a product that no longer costs you money? Many of the houses have been out long enough to merit discounts by now, and crown sales would only garnish surplus money at this point. It costs nothing to put them on sale, even at 25% off with a crown store sale going on.

I really don't understand ZOS's marketing team because they all seem to be idiots. The whole goal here should be to have every single player who logs in for the next week to buy crowns and spend them in the crown store, and Im sorry but a lot of us aren't going to do it in comparison to what we have seen in the past (40% and 50% off crowns is far better than this faulty 30% off the store prices).

Do you not know you are a digital game? That you dont adhere to the supply and demand issues that real world companies deal with?

I cannot imagine a scenario where you make more money off people buying full price crowns VS when they are even 20% off. People dont care about the digital price tags, they care about the $€£¥ price tags.

Zypheran · November 2018

Firstly, to preface, I totally agree with you. I too am actually disappointed in the sale. I would have opened my wallet had it been a 40% off Crown Pack sale but alas...
I presume that because ZOS have more visibility on this that their decision is more strategic goals than we can see.
It is possible that they can see that many people are hoarding crowns at the moment and that an upcoming planned 20% (boo!) reduction on Crowns would fall on deaf ears if they don't do something to first reduce peoples stock-holdings.
I suspect this event is something of a crown sink before a possible future sale.

Dystopia2020 · November 2018

I too was waiting for a crown sale to save up to buy Xanmeer, I am still hoping they offer us Tel Galen...already have Ertswhile and I don't want any of the others.

Ramber · November 2018

people who buy crown at a discount ARE NOT the same kind of people that will buy them at full price just to get a small discount for something they probably dont want... i mean i buy them BECAUSE they are on sale not just buy anything specific. I get stuff like crown repair kits. This just doesn't make sense to me at all but u guess im not the person they are trying to attract to the crown store lol. So i save money this time around.

Royaji · November 2018

In my opinion we can thank those who used to buy 40k crowns while they were on sale and sit on them. If there are too many crowns in circulation ZOS will not make any money from new crown store purchases. This leads to ever increasing prices in CS and abscense of new crown sales.

ZOS has all the tools to monitor how many crown players have on hands and I bet they try to utilize them to the max.

yodased · November 2018

My opinion the realistic reason that crowns did not go on sale is because they are trying to measure a specific metric, maybe that is the amount of people that buy crowns for gold during this sale vs the months before.

Maybe thats the amount of people that buy crowns solely because items are on sale.

Maybe they want to see how many people spend crowns out of their pattern because of the sale.

They obviously have designed a system where the feedback is more important than introducing more currency into the game.

Don't forget, with the addition of gifting, they have now given the players another market to manipulate and control, adding massive amounts of crowns to the very new economy of crown gifting very well could throw off the metrics they are monitoring.

Also, they are not required to introduce lower cost currency because they did so at a different time. This game is very different than it was this time last year, there are innumerable variables that have changed during that time and we don't know what they actually use to measure success.

Acrolas · November 2018

There was no Black Fredas crown sale in 2017. They deferred it to December's Winter Sale.

But based on some of the numbers I've seen, this year's refresh-and-discount strategy was successful in pulling a lot of crowns out of circulation. How ZOS chooses to put crowns back into circulation is yet to be seen.

But people who bash ZOS for not appealing to their personal spending styles - or lack thereof - are definitely not driving decisions. If you don't want to buy crowns, fine. Step aside for the people who do, are, and refuse to let some Internet negativity cloud their enjoyment of something that obviously has adequate entertainment value for them.

Maybe enjoy the movie and stop *** at the concession stand for being a concession stand.

PS If there is a crown sale planned for December, that increases the likelihood of the Xanmeer house going on sale on either the 6th or the 13th. Just fair warning because we might not even get the December Showcase until the 3rd or 4th.

nerfworthy · November 2018

Kittytravel wrote: »

I really don't understand ZOS's marketing team because they all seem to be idiots.

Lost me here, you can't try to make a serious post then start calling people idiots. Are you in the sales and marketing field? If not, I'd refrain from slinging insults around.