Navigating the perils of in-game currency

Starlock · February 2020

Aside from helping to reduce credit card fees, game developers like to use in-game currency (crowns, gems, etc) in their digital storefronts because it makes customers more prone to irrational purchasing decisions. To get into some specifics (adapted in part from https://www.psychologyofgames.com/2020/01/the-perils-of-in-game-currency/):

Buying in-game currency separates the pain of spending it from the pain of buying it. What this means is that customers are less likely to experience buyer's regret or feel the pain of loosing real money on virtual purchases.
Refund options for digital purchases are already limited, but they are especially limited for in-game currency. In the event you experience buyer's regret, customers have no option to recover their losses as they would for other types of purchases.
Spending cash is highly transparent, but spending in-game currency isn't. It is difficult for customers to accurately keep track of how much they are spending on the game, which makes it more likely for customers to overspend.
In-game currency holds the customer's money hostage and/or requires overspending. Customers are forced to buy bundles of in-game currency that rarely if ever match the cost of what they actually want to use it for.

It's a foregone conclusion game developers, Zenimax or otherwise, aren't going to adopt a more customer-friendly standard for its in-game currency unless they are required to do so by law, so I'm not going to bother even suggesting that. In the absence of being able to purchase cash shop items directly, how do you strategize your approach to the ESO cash shop? How do you navigate the perils of in-game currency obscuring the real world costs of your purchases? What tips and tricks have you used to be a smart customer and savvy spender? Do you keep a budget? Have you ever added up your yearly spending on this game to see how much you really dished out? If you did, were you satisfied or horrified? Do you feel you've gotten a good value from your purchases? How could Zenimax improve the perceived value of your purchases?

Danikat · February 2020

For me it's fairly simple: I work out what the items cost in real money, then decide if it's worth that price to me. That could be complicated by the fact that larger crown bundles and longer subscription periods reduce the price per crown and crown packs sometimes go on sale, so to keep it simple I always use the base cost of the 5,500 pack, because that's the one I'm most likely to buy. Which has the added benefit that I don't need to look it up, I know it's £29.99.

For example a character slot costs (29.99/5500)x1500=£8.18

It may not be entirely accurate, but if anything I'll have gotten crowns for less than that so it gives me a maximum price. And if I want to work out exactly what I'm paying for some reason I can check my billing history to see what I last paid for crowns.

Other than that it's the same as with any purchase - I think about whether I actually want it before buying instead of making impulse purchases and don't spend money on stuff I don't want just because it's there to spend. I last bought crowns in December and I still have a few thousand left, but I'm keeping them until there's something I want.

VaranisArano · February 2020

My SO and I bought crowns in bulk during a sales, so we were able to get a good price and know exactly what we were spending. Then we expect ourselves to ration those crowns until the next sale, mostly buying DLC and the occasional costume. I'm still working my way through the batch of crowns we bought over a year ago, so its working out so far.

Royaji · February 2020

Easy. I don't purchase Crowns.

Whatever tickles me extra fancy I can (more accuretly, could) get with Crowns from ESO+. And if something happens to be more expensive than what a month or two of ESO+ can buy, I'm completely happy to walk by.

Talking about maintaining a budget and taking a look at my yearly spending, yeah, I've done that. It's not hard to multiply the cost of ESO+ by twelve and add the cost of the chapter on top. For a long time I was more than happy with the amount of enertainment I've gotten from 200 euros/year, it has really rounded up to less than 10 cents per hour. This is not the case anymore. Which is why I have stopped spending money on ESO.

leeux · February 2020

I don't purchase Crowns, never had and never will... I used to be subscribed though, and accumulated a large amount of crowns due to that... which IMO is the best way to get them.

But tbh. there's nothing in the crown store that interests me, that's why I still have a whole stack of crowns accumulated even when I stopped paying ESO+ like 10 months ago.

But if come back to the game after this update, I'll probably spend some, I specially want the Iron Atronach for my house, that's 6K crowns gone

Though, I also don't buy crown crates... I only buy costumes and cosmetic things that I like, and only when I can buy them directly, plus the DLCs I wanted to keep.

Kittytravel · February 2020

Starlock wrote: »

Do you feel you've gotten a good value from your purchases? How could Zenimax improve the perceived value of your purchases?

Yearly spending I only do the sub as it gets me what I want in the game with few problems. However no matter what deals I get I always calculate everything as 100 Crowns = 1 Dollar.

So everything in the crown store gets weighed against that and I determine if something is worth X amount of dollars as a digital product. I do end up sitting on crowns far more often than I end up spending them because of that fact as it doesn't fit my mentality of "micro transactions" for gaming. I'd say if I spend crowns it's most often on crown-exclusive homes and even those get weighed very heavily, I haven't bought a crown exclusive since last Moon Sugar Meadow and prior to that was Grand Topal; I'm not a fan of "ruined" houses and since that's very much their style it discourages me pretty often.

To improve my perceived value they would have to lower prices overall; 4000 crown statues would have to stop existing. I'd be much more willing to blow 3-5$ on a stupid digital statue than I am $40 on something that in 3-5 years will cease existing.

Starlock · February 2020

Danikat wrote: »

Other than that it's the same as with any purchase - I think about whether I actually want it before buying instead of making impulse purchases and don't spend money on stuff I don't want just because it's there to spend.

What's interesting about in-game currencies is that they hinder this thought process. I certainly notice that with myself. When it comes to the money I have in the bank, I don't feel any need to purchase stuff I don't want or need because the money is there to spend. At times crowns feel like money in a bank, except what they really are is a credit to purchase some specific something and if you don't use it the money is completely wasted. That creates a weird psychological pressure to use it that doesn't exist for me with actual money. Fortunately, I'm pretty fussy about what I buy with actual money so that transfers over to in-game currency schemes as well, but not everyone is like that.

VaranisArano wrote: »

My SO and I bought crowns in bulk during a sales, so we were able to get a good price and know exactly what we were spending. Then we expect ourselves to ration those crowns until the next sale, mostly buying DLC and the occasional costume. I'm still working my way through the batch of crowns we bought over a year ago, so its working out so far.

That's how I used to do things too. I only ever got crown packs during sales, because that was closer to what they should be priced all the time. Even doing this it's possible to loose track a bit of what you're actually spending and where. I don't think there is any way to check your cash shop purchase history. That would be a nice added utility - a list that actually shows you what you got out of the cash shop.

Royaji wrote: »

Easy. I don't purchase Crowns.

Whatever tickles me extra fancy I can (more accuretly, could) get with Crowns from ESO+. And if something happens to be more expensive than what a month or two of ESO+ can buy, I'm completely happy to walk by.

That's probably the best thing to do. A subscription-based contribution is a healthy form of monetization and a good way to budget yourself. It's too bad the crowns from ESO+ don't go very far with how expensive everything is in the cash shop, though.

leeux wrote: »

But tbh. there's nothing in the crown store that interests me, that's why I still have a whole stack of crowns accumulated even when I stopped paying ESO+ like 10 months ago.

But if come back to the game after this update, I'll probably spend some, I specially want the Iron Atronach for my house, that's 6K crowns gone

I have to wonder what their thought process is behind the scenes for pricing these things. That's so expensive for just a single item to put in a virtual house it blows my mind. Sometimes, I wonder what the cash shop would look like if it wasn't a monopoly and instead an actual free market. You know, if someone could sell things in their cash shop other than Zenimax? We'd probably see prices for things drop like a leaden stone.

Kittytravel wrote: »

To improve my perceived value they would have to lower prices overall; 4000 crown statues would have to stop existing. I'd be much more willing to blow 3-5$ on a stupid digital statue than I am $40 on something that in 3-5 years will cease existing.

That's how I tend to feel about their pricing too and what's interesting is that they've deliberately moved away from more reasonable price points on content in the cash shop. I remember when I first started playing, the cash shop was bad, but not really that bad, you know? There were costume packs that came with three things in them that you could get for 700 crowns (approx $8) so that worked out to about $2-3 per costume, which is a pretty fair value. Then they took all of the costume packs out of the store and started selling them individually, more than doubling the cost of getting three costumes themed for a zone. It's trends like these that really bug me about the cash shop. They keep making it a worse value for the customer over time.

YE4hR1GHT · February 2020

When you don't have a working brain, isn't the "perils of In-game currency" you have to worry about, as you are able to damage yourself or your economy with literally anything in life, tap water included.

Honestly I am having issue understanding what's the point of this thread.
A warning about the "hidden" danger of spending money on virtual goods ? Should we go on alcohol or worse ? so that we could feel the regret for something tangible, like watching the empty bottles !
Should we have a money-wise reminder about the hidden danger of the marriage as well ? or the hidden danger of crossing the street every morning, related to the accidents that every day claim hundreds of lives ?

By the way, are you warning us or did you write this post as reminder for yourself ?

Anyway, the game is supposed to be rated 18+ if I am not mistaken, and I know for a fact (the fact that I am in game since 6 years) that the vast majority of players are actually WELL over 30/40+, not exactly children easily lured into money schemes then.

Thank you for your warning about the evil of the world, though, will print this and read it every night before sleeping to keep the evil away, right after my daily prayers and have brushed my teeth.
That's what good kids do ! or not...

Starlock · February 2020

YE4hR1GHT wrote: »

Honestly I am having issue understanding what's the point of this thread.

If you are not interested in learning about psychological tricks used to market and sell products, or how we can safeguard ourselves from them as customers by raising awareness and sharing tips/strategies, you are welcome to simply not participate.

SirLeeMinion · February 2020

As others mentioned above, I convert the price into real currency. Beyond that, I compare in-game hours to earn something via grinding versus real world hours to make the currency I'd spend. Then if I actually want it, I buy it with real or virtual currency. The end result, oddly enough, is that I've stopped grinding gold and rarely purchase items with real currency. That US$40 statue or US$100 house just isn't worth it- not to me anyway.

TigressCreed · February 2020

Crowns aren’t meant for everyone. So don’t complain. You’re not forced to buy them to play the game. Just as we all don’t have a Ferrari doesn’t mean other people can’t buy them. Rather focus on game quality improvements.

Starlock · February 2020

SirLeeMinion wrote: »

As others mentioned above, I convert the price into real currency. Beyond that, I compare in-game hours to earn something via grinding versus real world hours to make the currency I'd spend. Then if I actually want it, I buy it with real or virtual currency. The end result, oddly enough, is that I've stopped grinding gold and rarely purchase items with real currency. That US$40 statue or US$100 house just isn't worth it- not to me anyway.

This brings up another related albeit somewhat tangential point - why grind is introduced into games-as-service titles. Gameplay loops are not inherently a bad thing, but they are utilized by game developers in ways that condition players into looking to the in-game currency shop for solutions. This gets called a number of different things - solution selling, pay-for-convenience, pay-to-win, what have you - but it's good to be guarded against those sorts of mind games too. If something is really grindy and a solution is being sold to us, be very, very skeptical of it. It's classic bad game design - create a flawed mechanic that you could easily fix but instead allow the customer pay for the solution to profit off them. That's just all kinds of icky.

TigressCreed wrote: »

Crowns aren’t meant for everyone. So don’t complain. You’re not forced to buy them to play the game. Just as we all don’t have a Ferrari doesn’t mean other people can’t buy them. Rather focus on game quality improvements.

Did you know that game design - including but not limited to game quality improvements - is directly impacted by in-game monetization systems? Well, now you do! If you want specific examples, I or others can provide. The grind game I talk about above is one such example, though - grind in games excuses bad game design and selling solutions to the customer at a premium.

In any case, I'm not sure you are understanding what this thread is about. Nobody is saying players are "forced" to use in-game currency and income level is rather irrelevant here. I am pointing out that in-game currencies have inherent psychological pitfalls we need to navigate as customers and offering the opportunity to share strategies for safeguarding ourselves. Who doesn't want to make smart and informed purchasing decisions?