MarbleQuiche wrote: »

They're not losing out on money because of free crates. They're losing out on money because they're not selling things people want.

Internally, I bet that's their excuse, though. "Sales are down because our experimentation with X wasn't as successful as anticipated" rather than a more honest "Sales are down because we're not offering what players want."

Very likely. Logically you stop giving away things then watch to see what sales are made to give a truer picture if it's things people want.

Maybe if they offer a small cache of gems instead of a crate, takes a while to build up enough but possibly encourage a few sales for those that want to get something faster or chance the RNG for it.

ZOS are making the same error in logic that the RIAA used to make about music downloads. Basically, that # of 'illegal' downloads = # of lost sales. When in reality, the people downloading x album are often people who would never pay for that album if there was no other way of obtaining it except through purchase.

The same is true for crates. People logging in and killing something for free crates does not equal potential lost revenue on crate sales. Just because users enjoy the free crates, that doesn't mean those same users will buy crates just because they're no longer given out for free. Most people will just go on as they did before there were such things as free crates, playing the game happily without the thing they no longer get for free. If anything, happy that they no longer have the hassle of logging in every day because the login rewards are crap, or because there is no free crate event.

Since the Xanmeer crates have become available I have seen hardly anyone with the mounts, costumes, skins available from those crates, whereas normally when they have a free crate offer these items are everywhere in-game. Purchasing behaviour isn't going to fill the gap left by free crate offers.

Paradoxically, when they offered free crates I was more likely to buy the occasional crate in order to get enough gems to top off my savings for the mcguffin I wanted. Now I don't buy any crates at all. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one.

MoTeets wrote: »

Complainers say "crown crates are a scam, gambling", but whine when they don't get them for free !?!

The same people? Really.

Vudokan wrote: »

ZOS are making the same error in logic that the RIAA used to make about music downloads. Basically, that # of 'illegal' downloads = # of lost sales. When in reality, the people downloading x album are often people who would never pay for that album if there was no other way of obtaining it except through purchase.

The same is true for crates. People logging in and killing something for free crates does not equal potential lost revenue on crate sales. Just because users enjoy the free crates, that doesn't mean those same users will buy crates just because they're no longer given out for free. Most people will just go on as they did before there were such things as free crates, playing the game happily without the thing they no longer get for free. If anything, happy that they no longer have the hassle of logging in every day because the login rewards are crap, or because there is no free crate event.

I think that this is overthinking the situation.

They are not handing out free crates right now because they are handing out other free stuff. Among other things, we get gold, AP, a DLC, pets, and a mount. They likely view all this free stuff as a "zero sum", meaning that if they add something, they have to take something away. Right now, they want to hand out other things, so they took away the free crates.

If you have history with the game, step back and take note. In the first couple of years of the game, they gave us nothing for free. We even had to work for the loyalty pets. Now, they tossing free stuff our way constantly. Literally, daily.

Personally, I think that this will backfire on them.

Anyway, I expect that if Crown Crates are what you want, they will return after the new year starts.

lordrichter wrote: »

They are not handing out free crates right now because they are handing out other free stuff. Among other things, we get gold, AP, a DLC, pets, and a mount. They likely view all this free stuff as a "zero sum", meaning that if they add something, they have to take something away. Right now, they want to hand out other things, so they took away the free crates.

*Citation needed.

Prior to this month and the Xanmeer crates, they always included a giveaway of at least a few crates when a new season was released. They included crates in every single month since they started the login rewards program. The fact that they have not given any free crates this month for login rewards and not given any free crates for the new crate season release is a deviance from their previous behaviour that seems directly related to crates in specific rather than giveaways in general.

Honestly the free crates made me consider getting crates and sometimes I did. No free crates makes me hesitant to spend any real money rather than gold on crates.