If you buy the $5 pack?

"

Elynole wrote:

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Piggy wrote:

Just because you're not forced to buy micros that doesn't justify having a down right daft pricing system.

Adjust cost around transaction fees and be done with it or admit that providing "worthless" points in lower cost bundles is just to push people to $20. Trying to straddle a middle ground is just asking for entirely justifiable outcry.

So they change it to 5.15 like you say then. Now what? The same people would be bitching that they were having to pay an uneven dollar amount for points.

It doesn't matter how you do it, people will cry. If the shop packages really bother someone that much then just don't buy. If you're so OCD that the number 46 means so much more to you than the number 50, then I suggest seeking medical council - as that level of OCD isn't good to lead a productive life.

Why on Earth would they be annoyed by an uneven dollar amount when the alternative is quite plainly worse. Providing uneven points can be objectively criticised, uneven costs cannot - that would just be stupid.

When was the last time you saw someone from the UK bitching "my $5 pack costs ~£3.17" or a German saying "my $5 costs ~3.71 euros"? Personally it's never. It's not about OCD in the slightest. It's about having no alternative but to pay twice or more the cost of an item in points to be able to get it. (For instance needing to buy a $10 pack for a 50 point item)

This personally doesn't have any impact on me because I doubt I'll be spending more than $50 any time soon and I'd always buy the $20 pack if I did, nor does it impact you. The ability to understand that this system is clearly flawed requires only the smallest bit of sympathy for the guy that wants a 50 point item and only started PoE yesterday.

"

NastyPants wrote:

The problem isn't bitching, the problem is what is fair to the customer. This was never about making people bitch less but treating everyone fairly when it comes to spending money on this game. The system you just described would certailny go a mile in making some people more inclined to buy (Me for example!).

Will it please everyone? Of fucking course not, but at least the customer isn't being shafted as they are now over a single frog pet...

Maybe it's just the way that I look at things. That's why I probably don't agree with the majority on this subject.

I look at it as, I pay 5 dollars. I get some points, get a cosmetic, and have just helped support the upkeep of the game itself that I'm playing. I probably paid for a bug fix, or another part of a cosmetic being made, or a small fraction of server upkeep - But that's what it takes to keep this game running. I don't look at it as just the material gain that I get from it, but everything else that the price is including. Looking at it this way is probably partly due to how passionate I am about the game - as I don't walk into walmart and worry about the pricing and pay just anything just so they can keep their employees fed and their lights on - I could careless in this respect.

So again, having figured that out in my head just now - I'm sure people look at it differently from that and feel that they're being ripped off. I, unfortunately, will never look at it that way.

Kind of annoyed by the notion that the pricing structure is to try and entice more purchases. As far as the $5 and $10 tier, let's consider that it's about 40 cents for the transaction which is kind of in line with the fees at my workplace for credit purchases.

I don't see it as an attempt to discourage sales, just an attempt to not have what revenue they get via credit cards eaten by fees.

Elynole, you may love the game and you may be a Diamond Supporter, but for the love of this community, calm down. Rather than discussing this with an even head you are indeed posting knee-jerk reactions without reigning in consideration for other points of view.

Despite the notion of OCD, it is still a very subliminal thing that can work against GGG, and we as a community should naturally want to eliminate things like that.

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taekvideo wrote:

The turquoise weapon effect costs 45 points, which uses all but one point of the $5 pack.
I have a fairly odd number of points (2095) and all of mine came in increments of 100 during CB.
Just be happy that they're giving you the max number of points possible (after fees from paypal/etc) rather than rounding down to say, 40 and 90 for the $5 and $10 packs.


Perhaps it'd be better to have an option for a "custom" number of points which calculates the price on-the-fly? With perhaps a $5 minimum.

Great idea. I think this would alleviate the issue that many people have with the system. You could then pay 5.50$ or whatever to get the 50 points you needed rather than being forced into larger packs.

"

Elynole wrote:

So they change it to 5.15 like you say then. Now what? The same people would be bitching that they were having to pay an uneven dollar amount for points.

It doesn't matter how you do it, people will cry. If the shop packages really bother someone that much then just don't buy. If you're so OCD that the number 46 means so much more to you than the number 50, then I suggest seeking medical council - as that level of OCD isn't good to lead a productive life.

The issue people have with the current system is that if you buy a $5 pack you're gonna end up with a couple of points that are impossible to use for anything. 6 points gets you nothing, which means that part of your $5 will have been spent on nothing at all unless you buy another pack (and then another, and another, etc, because you'll run into the same problem again and again until you've gone through a number of them and it eventually evens out). This makes people hesitant to buy these packs at all, and maybe they simply can't afford the more expensive ones.

Paying $5.15 for 50 points would remove the problem entirely. You'd have an even number of points to use, and wouldn't be left with useless points on your account once you've bought what you wanted. Who cares if the actual price isn't an even dollar amount? People buy things for uneven amounts all the time. For me (and everyone else who isn't in the US) the amount withdrawn isn't gonna be even after the currency conversion anyway - I bought a $20 pack the other day, which turned into 131.52 SEK (I'm Swedish) withdrawn from my bank account. That's a total non-issue, because just about every time I go shopping I end up paying an uneven amount. But I did end up with an even amount of points on my PoE account, which feels good.

I totally get that they want people to buy the bigger packs, but the best way to make them attractive would be to adjust the pricing, not the number of points you get. Make the cheap packs a little more expensive and even out their point numbers, and make the more expensive packs a tad cheaper and lower the point amount to an even number (so the $50/516p pack would instead be a $48.45/500p pack, etc).

So yes, I think this would matter. I really think it would be better both for GGG and people who might now be hesitant about buying packs at all because they'll end up with useless points.

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Freyar wrote:

Elynole, you may love the game and you may be a Diamond Supporter, but for the love of this community, calm down. Rather than discussing this with an even head you are indeed posting knee-jerk reactions without reigning in consideration for other points of view.

Sorry, despite me trying to stay calm through such, as I've done at the beginning of this thread, all I get from those arguing the opposing side are stupid comments like telling me to use your 40 brain cells.

"

Elynole wrote:

"

Freyar wrote:

Elynole, you may love the game and you may be a Diamond Supporter, but for the love of this community, calm down. Rather than discussing this with an even head you are indeed posting knee-jerk reactions without reigning in consideration for other points of view.

Sorry, despite me trying to stay calm through such, as I've done at the beginning of this thread, all I get from those arguing the opposing side are stupid comments like use your 40 brain cells.

There will always be people who fail to read or understand the conversation or argument. It is important to remain calm regardless, because in many cases, we end up with people whoa re so dead-set on their opinion without considering new information that it's not worth arguing about it with them anymore.

"

Elynole wrote:

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Astasia wrote:

All the cool kids do it, so GGG hopped on board. It has nothing to do with CCs or Paypal (this is a ridiculous claim), the system has been carefully crafted by F2P games over the years to maximize profits. Having leftover points after a purchase provides incentive to buy more points in the future, providing an "odd" number of points for any purchase below the max encourages buying the larger pack (on top of any "bonus"). It's tried and proven, it increases sales, and GGG is obviously about the $$$ more than buyer convenience.


And before the, "It's F2P go play something else!" and "it's BETA!!!1!" ... not relevant, I don't care, stop posting that in every thread containing the slightest amount of criticism.

Yup, obviously only about the money. They're so much about the money that they will never charge for expansions, the game, stat boosts, gear, etc. Their only purpose in life is to piss you off so that you don't buy from them and whine and call them liars on the forums.

Congratulations on how ridiculous your post just sounded. I love people who have been here less than a week and have everything ALL figured out.

Kind of funny, I even tried to make sure it was easy to understand what I was talking about but it still just went right over your head.

I'm talking about the store and consumer convenience, not the free part of the game. The people playing the game for free because it's free are likely never to touch the shop no matter what they add to it, any required content like expansions and people will just leave.

This is about them trying to squeeze every penny they can out of the small percentage of people that would be willing to support them with cosmetic purchases, by using methods that have been part of the F2P genre since shortly after it's inception. We know why the other games do this, we know how the system works, people in the industry have explained it countless times over the years. Now GGG is doing the exact same thing, but oh wait it's not to make more money from us but because suddenly the 5% charged by CC companies on every purchase somehow matters? Sorry, but GGG is a company, indie or not, and their goal is making money (to make more games), in this case they obviously decided they could squeeze out a few more dollars at the expense of common courtesy. You may think they are forgiven for this because of what else they are offering, but like I said, that is not relevant to the current discussion.

"

Astasia wrote:

*snip*

The fact that you keep comparing GGG to "the industry" of which most Free-to-Play games are backed by large well-negotiated publishers shows me you are so dead set on the notion that it's "pure greed" that nobody can really discuss this with you in any meaningful way. My credit card costs are actually pretty high at my work. Why? Because we're a small store. Do we charge a surcharge or give people less product? No, but we do work it into our normal pricing simply because in the end it is more convenient.

It's not greed, it's simply the cost of doing business and any costs DO get passed on to customers.

Jeez, why are some people in this thread so adamant about arguing AGAINST cash shop improvements?

"I don't have a problem with it, so it's fine and absolutely should not change."

Most (though not all) of those comments are being made by people with "Supporter" or higher forum titles, suggesting that they had a decent amount of spare cash to spend on the game and don't necessarily understand the dilemma of a player considering a $5-10 purchase.

I am lucky enough to be able to drop $20-50 without too much consideration, but I can totally understand the valid concerns that have been raised.

To those arguing that the ratio is all that matters and that there's no difference between $5 for 46 points and $5.15ish for 50 points... that's true mathematically, but has a very different impact psychologically. Imagine you're buying some new clothes. You can buy 4 shirts for $10 or 1 full shirt and a bunch of shirt scraps (almost enough to make another shirt) for $5. The shopkeeper lets you know that as soon as you collect the remaining scraps, he'll make it a full shirt. Many consumers would be happier with the option to pay slightly more ($5.15) to get 2 full shirts without any additional hassle.