Commentary on Micro-transaction Pricing

I want to support this game and understand that shop items are meant to be cosmetic for supporters and to show off. The items will not have value equal to what you pay for them. That's fine.

I was happy to support during closed beta and given the current purchase prices, I wish I had upgraded to Bronze.

But, their pricing model has reduced my desire to support the game. They say that they want $1 to be equivalent to 10 points. Great. Then why don't the $5 and $10 options meet that? These points don't cost anything to make. All the work is done. They're going to let the cost of a credit card transaction lose potential purchases?

I want to make a $20 purchase and probably will when something cool comes up on the shop. But I'm going to be a lot more selective, because my $20 is giving me exactly the 200 points that I feel it's worth.

The closed beta packs were great because you were getting extras with your points, making us feel like we were getting a deal. The more we payed, the better the extras.

That's not the case here because the extras are so minor. A $50 purchase gets 516 points? That's a 3.2% bonus from $1=10pts, but it's a 12% bonus from the $5 pack. What if it were a 12% bonus from a 50 point $5 pack and $50 gave you 560 points?

I'd be seriously considering buying a $50 pack. I'd also be more likely to make cosmetic purchases if I had a lot of extra points sitting there. As it is, I see no reason to make the one large purchase for only 16 extra points when multiple $20 purchases will be easier to do and get me a nice even 200 points each time.

But it's going to take a lot longer for me to make those $20 purchases, because I'll be considering the monetary cost rather than the point cost. With better point costs, players would be more willing to spend money and once they only have a virtual currency, they'll be more likely to make item shop purchases and then need to buy more points.

I want to support the game, but would be much more likely to do so if I felt like I was getting value from my support like I did during closed beta.

the problem here is simple.
everybody wants everything under $5.
lightning scorpion and everything under $5.


maybe the best way is to release a gacha style shop.

where you can use 1 dollar(10points?) to draw and wish to get that expensive scorpion.
of course chances are 0.000000000000001 so you might end up spending $500 just to get it.


some people will get it in under $10 some will never get it even after $1000.

I also think more people would buy the cosmetic effects if the prices were cheaper. (Who is gonna pay $7 for a dance animation?). However I can't complain too much since these items are optional. There will be more cosmetic effects that are added in the future, and I'm glad that GGG is offering a cheaper option and an expensive option for all of the effects.

Much like real world products and services, there are different target markets and demographics that aforementioned products and services are catered towards. The Ferrari analogy is correct in this case.

By lowering the price of luxury goods, you will essentially dilute its "value" towards the market it is designed for (in this case, whichever market can afford these luxury designs).


There's more to microtransactions than arbitrary pricing schemes. You may want to read some journal articles about the matter, especially about perception of value, virtual consumerism and the like (articles by Vili Lehdonvirta are particularly interesting to read.).

P.S: You do realise that Chris has a degree in Finance right?

PoE is a free game. OP complaining about pricing of cosmetic stuff is like a panhandler getting two ten dollar bills and whining about not getting a 20.

i fucking drive honda.

i WISH i could drive lamborghini.

why is lamborghini so fucking expensive. its not fucking fair. lamborghini should feel bad about it.


if scorpion pets were all $90, then yea,,,i might have a word to say too.

but there are 3 under $5 man. keep your mouth shut man.


if the world only allows people to drive car like lamborghini , then we can complain. but we got cheap car like kia or hyundai bro!

"

Dudebag a écrit :

i fucking drive honda.

i WISH i could drive lamborghini.

why is lamborghini so fucking expensive. its not fucking fair. lamborghini should feel bad about it.

I bought Honda, why is stupid bank charging me interest on my payments?? The guy who just comes to dealership with suitcase of money and outright buys the car gets better deal. NOT FAIR!

i love my honda btw.

Come on guys....their microtransaction isn't really meant for the "value for the price", they just need your support to fund for their development so that we can continue to play such great game. This is better than pure donation as they also give you some cosmetic effects just to show their appreciation on your "donation through microtransaction purchase":

You donate for $10:
- You get nothing.
- You continue to play the game.

You purchase from microtransaction for $10:
- You get some special effects (Thank you from PoE team)
- You continue to play the game.

So this is just a method of showing their appreciation to you, nothing else. PoE is not a pay-to-win game, just don't disappoint them and force them to convert it to a pay-to-win game. Just take a deeper thought: How can you give people a reason to buy the effects in PoE? -- Make every player looks normal and nothing special, right? ;-)

Everybody needs money to survive in this realistic world. The trade-off, drawbacks, compromise etc, can never be avoidable unless monetary system has no longer exist -- like the world in PoE, no gold. ^^

I'm not a fan of the 'get less if you buy the lower package' system though at least here it's not as bad as another game I play. I don't really mind the higher end packages getting a bonus as long as the lower end ones remain $1 for $1.

I also play Mechwarrior Online and I've bought a lot of things there, though they do have the same system where you buy the lower end packages you get less than $1 worth for ever $1 you pay.

I prefer how Blizzard and Steam do their pricing where I simply get $1 for $1. I'll probably still buy some stuff here though. Just like Mechwarrior Online, I like PoE so I'm more than willing to shell out something for it, though I'd be happier if there weren't any penalties on the lower packages.