Merc Pricing...

(montheponies) #21

agreed. seems a bit naughty to trail the new merc release and then sell it 40% more expensive than the standard - also seems a bit odd to be going for monetisation on a game that still isnt out of closed beta - i get paying to get into the beta, but something feels off when ur then expected to pay more to unlock features on a game ur play testing.

(Zenity) #22

Of course that is exactly not how F2P works. If you only paid what the content you are paying for is worth by itself, there is no way you could get all this other stuff for free.

F2P relies on a few big spenders subsidizing the majority of low spenders and freeloaders. This works, because like Pixel is saying, for some people money is less of a concern than for others, especially when it comes to entertainment. When done right, F2P is essentially a socialist scheme. :wink:

I understand how you feel about Bushwhacker itself not being worth 7 pounds. But ultimately it is a donation to some extend, the merc is there to give you a good reason to support the game financially.

Many F2P games allow (and incentivise) you to spend thousands as a big spender, and these games tend to be far crappier than Dirty Bomb is. So far I find the business model extremely fair and generous. I’m sure there will be deals and promotions in the future so you can get the content you really want at better prices (if you don’t want to wait and get it for free), but if you want all the new content instantly, then you will have to pay a bit more. And even then the price you pay is still well below what we have traditionally paid for such games (including models such as full price, monthly subscription, DLC fees).

Personally I think I will wait for some kind of promotion or bundle deal with Bushwhacker, only because I don’t think I’ll want to play him anyway. But give me a ton of crates or something in addition, and I’ll probably have enough of an excuse to support the game again. I’m actually really tight on money at the moment, but it’s really not a big deal to spend a little bit every once in a while on a game I may be playing for years on end.

(DarkangelUK) #23

I know how it works, i’m commenting on how the (cheapskate) masses will perceive it.

(Zenity) #24

Yeah I got that, was adding some thoughts and mostly addressing PixelTwitch (and those who agree with him).

(Rémy Cabresin) #25

Does anyone here realize that this is how this business model works? LoL does the exact same thing with new Champions. Release a new merc at a high price because it’s new. In the free rotation the week after that. Third week and after its to the normal highest price range. It has nothing to do with how good a merc or champ is, just that it’s the new thing on the market. You pay more to have it first. This is how all market economy works, you want a new PC with the latest parts you pay the higher price, you want things that were already out there you save a few bucks or you can wait a year and the parts you wanted are cheaper.

Just because you aren’t willing to spend the money they ask doesn’t mean their system is flawed. You can wait till they go cheaper and if you’re lucky there will be ‘merc-sales’ down the road as-well.

(DarkangelUK) #26

[QUOTE=adeto;524297]Does anyone here realize that this is how this business model works? LoL does the exact same thing with new Champions. Release a new merc at a high price because it’s new. In the free rotation the week after that. Third week and after its to the normal highest price range.

Just because you aren’t willing to spend the money they ask doesn’t mean their system is flawed. You can wait till they go cheaper and if you’re lucky there will be sales on mercs down the road as-well.[/QUOTE]

The system is potentially flawed because of the group they’re aiming at. The fps crowd aren’t used to this type of pricing, especially since in most fps games you get the players as part of the package, where as the moba groups are used to the prices and what they’re buying. The whole reason I mentioned map packs is because this is mainly what the fps market is used to buying, and they WILL look and see that they can get 5 of one thing for their money where as with this they’ll get 2 of one thing. Breaking it down rationally and comparing it to mobas is sound logic to the individual, but the masses are silly and easily put off.

(Protekt1) #27

The FPS f2p market is used to paying for weapons, cosmetics, armor, and sometimes other accessories. I recall that a single weapon, decked out, cost way more than 10 bucks in blacklight retribution. Maybe even 10 bucks for the receiver alone. The premade but non-customization versions were slightly cheaper but still above 10 bucks.

As far as I can tell, the pricing doesn’t seem bad, especially since you can earn content for free fairly easily. When I am thinking about buying into a multiplayer only game, I am more concerned about community size and strength and quality rather than price tag. I’ve enough multiplayer games that have dead communities. With f2p that happens a lot less, so the pricing can be higher and still be acceptable… and certainly not mandatory as you can earn on your own for no cost.

(NeroKirbus) #28

[QUOTE=tangoliber;524275]
Does anybody know what the LoL characters were priced at in the early days of the game? (Over time, older content usually goes down. You are paying a premium to have the character when it isn’t as common.)[/QUOTE]

For new characters it is 975 RP, which is 10 US dollars. older characters range from 5 to 8 bucks. For characters on release, they have bundles with skins that are about 15 dollars. The pricing is somewhat reasonable, but it would be nice if a dollar or two is knocked off. What would be best is if they only made the new merc 50k for the first week or two he is released, and then have it drop down to 30k after that. This would be done to prevent everyone playing the new character and for people who truly want the character that early can drop the credits on him.

(Mustang) #29

Just thought I’d throw in my two cents, figuratively :tongue:, when I saw the mercs were £5 I was shocked as I was expecting £2-3, when I heard some mercs were priced at £7 I didn’t believe it, couldn’t check because my founders pack had already unlocked Fragger, until Bushwhacker came along and I saw it was true :eek:! This isn’t based on any research of the market or anything, just purely on what I’d be willing to pay were I to drop cash on them.

Regarding credit prices I was expecting around 5 days to unlock a merc, by my maths its looking more like 10 days for the cheaper mercs and 16 days for the more expensive ones. I don’t know how many mercs there are planned to be, so lets just say 30ish to have a number to work with, at the current unlock rate this would take 13 real life months to unlock all the mercs, or nearly 1200 hours of gameplay. This seems way too high as I was expecting more like 400-500 hours, which would be more inline with my initial thoughts of 4-5 days per merc.

Any devs in the know care to share their maths?

(BomBaKlaK) #30

[QUOTE=Mustang;524330]Just thought I’d throw in my two cents, figuratively :tongue:, when I saw the mercs were £5 I was shocked as I was expecting £2-3, when I heard some mercs were priced at £7 I didn’t believe it, couldn’t check because my founders pack had already unlocked Fragger, until Bushwhacker came along and I saw it was true :eek:! This isn’t based on any research of the market or anything, just purely on what I’d be willing to pay were I to drop cash on them.

Regarding credit prices I was expecting around 5 days to unlock a merc, by my maths its looking more like 10 days for the cheaper mercs and 16 days for the more expensive ones. I don’t know how many mercs there are planned to be, so lets just say 30ish to have a number to work with, at the current unlock rate this would take 13 real life months to unlock all the mercs, or nearly 1200 hours of gameplay. This seems way too high as I was expecting more like 400-500 hours, which would be more inline with my initial thoughts of 4-5 days per merc.

Any devs in the know care to share their maths?[/QUOTE]

This is also my point of view.

(PixelTwitch) #31

Just throwing in an addition 2 cents… I would not care about this if loadout cards were not a thing.

(spookify) #32

Make it simple! $5 USA Dollars a merc!

We have the $5 foot long and $5 Hot N Ready Pizza’s!!!

AND Think about it. If there are many many more mercs coming and a large player base most people on average would need to buy 12 mercs at $5 to equal $65 ish dollar for a box game. Plus money that will roll in from trade ups! IF AND WHEN THEY FIT IT!!!

(PixelTwitch) #33

When comparing to games lol LoL and other MOBA games its important to remember the amount of variation a hero adds is much more than a Merc who simply has 1 change on the Q key… the rest is as generic as every other Merc.

(Zenity) #34

Yeah but on the other hand it is unlikely that there will ever be nearly as much mercs as there are heroes in LoL. Partly because there is only so much you can do with FPS characters without affecting the core gameplay too much, and partly because full FPS characters require a ton of resources to create.

LoL has what, over a 100 champions? Of course you don’t need all of them, but the same is true for mercs (even more so, since like you say the variety is limited). I may or may not buy Bushwhacker at some point, but so far I see no reason why I would have to.

It is pointless to compare value of content directly to what you pay in F2P. Heck, most F2P games want to sell you stupid items which cost a lot of real world money and provide nothing new really other than better stats. The secret to successful F2P is to give those with disposable income an excuse to spend it on the game, without making the experience significantly worse for anybody else.

Dirty Bomb seems to be treading some kind of middle ground, with a reasonable fee if you want to have access to all the latest content, but aside from that there is really no incentive to spend a lot of money on the game. I think this is healthy and more wholesome than most F2P approaches.

Another thing about pricing new content a bit higher is that it makes it easier to provide bundles or deals and make them look like really good value. I think I will wait for the first proper bundle or deal with Bushwhacker and I’m looking forward to seeing what SD comes up with. :slight_smile:

(Runeforce) #35

€10 for Bushwhacker. WTF?!?! Why do euros always have to pay more compared to everybody else? That is discrimination!

BTW. I think the 6500 in-game credits you used during the stresstest, is a much more reasonable price for mercs. Just sayin’.

(BioSnark) #36

I agree with spook. 5 USD, or $4.99 as it’s called, doesn’t feel like a lot. Prices above that feel like much more. If mercs are the only rev stream, however, I can understand why they’re high, even if I won’t go anywhere near them.

(tokamak) #37

Yeah. The prices are comparable to HotS but the value is not. In HotS each new hero is an entirely new play experience requiring you to really learn the hero and get into it for tons of matches before you fully understand it. Especially when you consider the myriad of talent combinations.

For a beta however, it’s worth for a company to err on the expensive side than on the cheap side. Lowering prices is always received well while raising them is not.

Blizzard’s prices were also way too high at first but they mitigated it by letting older hero prices decay over time and increasing the frequency of sales.

(slanir) #38

Making mercs difficult to attain is in my opinion not good for gameplay, especially if you implement some sort of drafting system. I feel that mercs should be easy to unlock with ingame credits and that splash damage’s revenue could come from somewhere else, be it early access to new maps (before they get released to the public), cosmetics, titles or other fancy things that are not affecting gameplay.

(DarkangelUK) #39

If they’re too easy to obtain then people will just grind a lil and not buy them, IMO 5 days to get one is too short, but also 14+ days of solid play is too long… would be happy with 8 - 10, maybe even 12.

(spookify) #40

Add my super perks into the game and that might give you the diversity people are looking for!

Step 1: Fix Cards aka Augments and Trading and Crafting. Make skin random and not the perk let us craft and create the.
$
Step 2: Every Merc is the same flat Cost $4.99 US…

Step 3: Bring in balanced super perks that add depth to the game and of course do not make a merc op!

Step 4: reevaluate everything and balance again so it doesny feel play to win with the crafting. People need to be able to pick almosy freely their 3 perks. Then come up with something creative for the super perk like their own card but again not random…