Elder Scrolls Online Preorder out, rage incoming

[Byrjun]

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's a collectors edition, it's a different box price but it's still a box price. There's nothing shady about it. It might put a bad taste in your mouth or whatever but it's 20$ for some extra goodies because you paid for a digital collectors edition. It's the same as getting a statue or whatever, it's all pretty meaningless. There are people who don't even care to be an imperial getting all whiny about it, it really doesn't matter in the long run. But you can call it shady if you want, it has nothing to do with the above scenario of buying a game only to have extra content being hidden behind a price tag after purchase. This is upfront and clear.

It's basically $20 for an extra race, better mount, and exp bonus. That's essentially what we call a cash shop.

Box price + subscription fee + cash shop = shady fucking cashgrab. All these new WoW clones are the same - they care more about siphoning as much $ from you than they do about creating a quality game.

This is like a huge red flag. Anyone who felt like they made a quality game wouldn't tarnish it with these kinds of awful business practices.

This shit will be free to play within a year.

[Grimfan]

Originally Posted by Byrjun [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's basically $20 for an extra race, better mount, and exp bonus. That's essentially what we call a cash shop.

Box price + subscription fee + cash shop = shady fucking cashgrab. All these new WoW clones are the same - they care more about siphoning as much $ from you than they do about creating a quality game.

This is like a huge red flag. Anyone who felt like they made a quality game wouldn't tarnish it with these kinds of awful business practices.

This shit will be free to play within a year.

This is a modern day digital collectors edition, if you haven't been playing MMO's since 2004, I understand, so I will lay it down for you with a few recent examples.

Rift: http://biobreak.wordpress.com/2011/0...tion-worth-it/

This is before it went Free to Play.

SWTOR: http://techland.time.com/2011/12/20/...-old-republic/

This is before it went FTP, the digital deluxe version had all the in game goodies without the cool stuff in the box.

TERA: http://store.steampowered.com/app/212753/?cc=nl

This shit is still available and was on day one. This is the same edition from before it went FTP.

The idea I'm trying to get across to you is that this is the normal thing now. Almost every game launches with a digital add-on package of mounts and such that you can buy. Most of these games did not start with a cash shop, in fact none of them did. Yes they found the FTP model more lucrative in the long run but that's just how things have evolved.

Mounts and vanity pets are in almost every digital collectors edition for an MMO out there. This time it included a race, but it's no more shady than any of the other games offering incentives for paying a little extra for a slightly easier experience.

Believe what you want however.

[Uteunayr]

There's a reason why all of those games are meh.

Free-to-Play Microtransaction came around as a means for new MMOs to be created without having a barrier to entry, as a way for new MMOs to survive with WoW out.

However, since then, it has changed the core of MMOs. It isn't so much about what you earn, and what you work for, because now you can pay for extra advantages so that your same amount of work nets more result, and exclusive items.

Most people see this, and go "Well, alright. So long as it is cosmetic." (as in TF2, DOTA 2, etc.), but when you go beyond that into things that have a direct effect on game play, rather than just cosmetics, it makes it so the game isn't giving back what you put in in terms of effort, but effort + real life money. That's an issue.

[Byrjun]

Originally Posted by Grimfan [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This is a modern day digital collectors edition, if you haven't been playing MMO's since 2004, I understand, so I will lay it down for you with a few recent examples.

Rift: http://biobreak.wordpress.com/2011/0...tion-worth-it/

This is before it went Free to Play.

SWTOR: http://techland.time.com/2011/12/20/...-old-republic/

This is before it went FTP, the digital deluxe version had all the in game goodies without the cool stuff in the box.

TERA: http://store.steampowered.com/app/212753/?cc=nl

This shit is still available and was on day one. This is the same edition from before it went FTP.

The idea I'm trying to get across to you is that this is the normal thing now. Almost every game launches with a digital add-on package of mounts and such that you can buy. Most of these games did not start with a cash shop, in fact none of them did. Yes they found the FTP model more lucrative in the long run but that's just how things have evolved.

And all those games were complete shit. They found the FTP model "more lucrative" because their shitty cashgrab MMOs failed and they didn't have a playerbase to get subscription $ through anymore.

Thanks for proving my point though.

Can TSO even last through the summer before crashing and burning and going FTP?

[Psionide]

[QUOTE=Byrjun;1298063]

they care more about siphoning as much $ from you than they do about creating a quality game.

QUOTE]

This is pretty much the business practice of every buisness out there these days. This is like when I buy a ticket that is supposed to grant me entrance into a venue but then also have to pay a "facility fee." Back in the day companies and salespeople used to care about a relationship with their consumers; today it's all about sucking that last possibly dollar they can get no matter what kind of bad taste they leave in the consumers mouth.

[Grimfan]

Originally Posted by Psionide [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

they care more about siphoning as much $ from you than they do about creating a quality game.

QUOTE]

This is pretty much the business practice of every buisness out there these days. This is like when I buy a ticket that is supposed to grant me entrance into a venue but then also have to pay a "facility fee." Back in the day companies and salespeople used to care about a relationship with their consumers; today it's all about sucking that last possibly dollar they can get no matter what kind of bad taste they leave in the consumers mouth.

Nope, not the same thing. This is like giving you an option to have a ticket into a venue that gives you a seat with a partial view with the option of upgrading for 20$ to a front row seat with an unobstructed view. What you just described is a hidden surcharge, there is nothing hidden about this. I really do wish people would figure out what they are angry about.

[Tecmos Deception]

You guys won't have time for other MMOs when you're beta testing Velious in a few months, anyways.

[Dr. Edge]

pass

[Tradesonred]

lol they know its gonna be a failure so try to milk as much money as possible from people before the titanic sinks

[Uteunayr]

Originally Posted by Tradesonred [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

lol they know its gonna be a failure so try to milk as much money as possible from people before the titanic sinks

Yup. And with the game having a price tag of over 200 million now, they are going to want to milk it hard to make up for it. So, if each person buys the game (50), and pays for 1 month assuming no free 1 month, that's $65 per person for the first month to learn the game. 200,000,000 divided by 65 is 3,076,923 players to make up costs the first month. If they only get 1.5 million people (using TOR's first month value), they'd make $97,500,000 in the first month.

From there, they will make at best, $22,500,000 a month after the first month. If they retain their full player base rather than dropping off (as is the general trend), that means they need to have $200,000,000-$97,500,000, or $102,500,000, they will need to keep the 1.5 million people for roughly half a year to break even on development costs.

By 6 months in, a sizable chunk will have broken out of the game content, and make it take longer, and longer. If the game is actually a success, and the population grows, then it will drop to breaking even shorter.

So clearly they will want to up the price of buying in and micro transactions to extract the most resources in those first few months when they have their huge population. Plus, the $200 million figure is only a threshold from a few months ago, that cost is still rising.