Phantom Obsidian OP (Overpriced)

(Porkchopiya) #1

why are Phantom Obsidian are not in Steam Store DLC? please put Hunter and Phantom in bundled… the Aimee Obsidian Bundle are much cheaper than the only 1 merc phantom that cost $14.99

(Press E) #2

Everything in DB has a history of being stupidly expensive and inconsistently priced.

(Gire) #3

Yea they are bit expensive, but its a f2p game and they want to make money from somewhere and it wouldnt feel special if everyone would have them

(henki000) #4

15$ is small money for someone who get monthly salary. I spend 20€ almost every day, when going to grocery store buying slighty better food. And then I smoke tobacco. Car expenses. Pay rent and loans. Life is expensive.

PS.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I have a cat. And couple weeks ago I took her to vet. They said she had lost some teeths and need to be treated. You can only imagine how much this special cat dentist cost, it’s madness. 600€ annual x-ray examinations plus other expenses, ohh shit…

(Porkchopiya) #5

@henki000 said:
15$ is small money for someone who get monthly salary. I spend 20€ almost every day, when going to grocery store buying slighty better food. And then I smoke tobacco. Car expenses. Pay rent and loans. Life is expensive.

PS.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I have a cat. And couple weeks ago I took her to vet. They said she had lost some teeths and need to be treated. You can only imagine how much this special cat dentist cost, it’s madness. 600€ annual x-ray examinations plus other expenses, ohh @$!#…

uninterested fairytale stories

(henki000) #6

@Porkchopiya

Supply and demand will always correct itself. Is that a fairytale, comrade?

(ThunderZsolt) #7

@Porkchopiya I’ve made a little calculation for you:

  • The $14.99 includes VAT, which is 27% in my country, different in others - let’s say it is an average 20%. This means that only 12 dollars are paid to Valve, 3 goes to your government.
  • Did you know that Valve takes away like 15% of every transaction through Steam? That means that the devs get slightly more than 10 bucks, right?
  • Wrong! Epic games takes 30% of every profit made by any game using Unreal engine. We are at ~$7, which is less than half of the original price.
  • Then DB still uses Easy Anticheat, I bet it isn’t free either.
  • SD needs to rent servers to run the game, rent offices and buy computers for the developers, and believe it or not, devs gotta eat as well.
  • And the publisher (aka the chicken company) wants their share of profit as well, since they have invested money

Think about it, how many $14.99 obsidians do they have to sell each month to make a living out of it. And how many players play DB.

I’m not saying that it is dirt cheap, but they might simply not be able to set the price lower, no matter how many forum posts people make about it.

(Porkchopiya) #8

can you explain to me the calculation of Aimee Obsidian Bundled includes other 4 obsidian in Steam Store DLC? why are more cheaper than Phantom Obsidian only… Starrysock is correct Stupidly expensive and inconsistenly priced. thats why are phantom obsidian are expensive compare to other special loadout.

(Meerkats) #9

@ThunderZsolt said:
Think about it, how many $14.99 obsidians do they have to sell each month to make a living out of it. And how many players play DB.

I’m not saying that it is dirt cheap, but they might simply not be able to set the price lower, no matter how many forum posts people make about it.
Think about it, why can’t they just have a normal ingame store that sells items year round like every other game? Why is it other devs can make this model work, yet SD apparently can’t?

What about traditional devs? How is it traditional devs can afford to sell DLC containing enormous amounts of content ( think H:ZD, GTA4, etc. ) for the same price SD sells single skins? Don’t tell me it’s because they get $60 upfront off original sale, cause they don’t. Your expenses breakdown, while enlightening, sells the story short. It’s estimated, from very good sources, devs might get ~$18 out of $60 from a game sale ( other ~$25 to manufacturing / distribution / end reseller, ~$17 to publisher, out of which up to half goes to marketing ). Even going off your numbers, ~$18 is 2.5 SD skins. So how is it DICE, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla, etc. are making these massive, triple A, GotY-contender games off of so little money? That really puts SD’s pricing in perspective doesn’t it.

Why not have a store that sells physical goods? Players have been asking for years to purchase DB / SD mugs, apparel, keychains and toys, so the demand is there, or was there. Okay, so to be fair, the vast majority of those players who would’ve bought DB / SD kit, now being utterly fed up with how shit SD is handling DB, probably wouldn’t buy from that store today, and I can’t remember the last time I saw somebody talking about wanting to buy merch… so maybe now isn’t the best time… but there was a time when SD probably would’ve sold out. Look, just saying.

There was a time when new skins came so rarely, $12 seemed reasonable. Now, SD makes a new skin every month. So why does SD have to pretend like every item is special, thereby warranting a higher price on implication that the item is exclusive / will never again available in the future? I get it, if they sold the item continuously into the future, they’d probably have to reduce the price and whatev, but you know what else would happen? They’d sell more. So why these hard sale tactics?

Making limited edition stuff is a gamble on whether you will make enough profit during a short sales window to offset cost. If you don’t promise exclusivity in the first place, well, there’s no gamble anymore is there? And since you won’t be making any promises of exclusivity, you won’t be pissing off their players when you resell that item. No promises broken.

Heck, this shit isn’t even good from an internal perspective.

@stayfreshshoe, as the face of SD, how does it feel to deliver a sales pitch for skins worded as to imply exclusivity, then walk that it back? Because I believe you’re a good guy, but I also know you know, even if you never say an item is exclusive, you’re selling those items under that implication.

See what I mean? Most people want to be seen as good people, and when you throw them under the bus like that, it makes them feel like shit. It is demeaning and demoralizing, and often makes other people in the company feel like shit too. Company morale is important.

Btw, if SD continues at its current rate, selling a new skin ( or rerun LUL ) every month for minimum $15, and you bought all of them, you would be paying $180. That’s three of the above mentioned, full fat, triple A games. You tell me. Horizon: Zero Dawn, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Nier: Automata or twelve skins. QUIK MAFFS.

@ThunderZsolt, Horizon: Zero Dawn is on sale for $30. Should I buy Horizon or angry, KPop Arty and weird, moist, boyband Aimee obsidians?

(Press E) #10

@henki000 said:
15$ is small money for someone who get monthly salary. I spend 20€ almost every day, when going to grocery store buying slighty better food. And then I smoke tobacco. Car expenses. Pay rent and loans. Life is expensive.

PS.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I have a cat. And couple weeks ago I took her to vet. They said she had lost some teeths and need to be treated. You can only imagine how much this special cat dentist cost, it’s madness. 600€ annual x-ray examinations plus other expenses, ohh @$!#…

If someone can buy a triple A game on sale for the same price as a couple fancy cards, what do you think most people are going to choose?

The only real reason to buy anything in DB is to support the devs. Otherwise there’s just better sues for your money. Doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, the same applies.

(Darkwolf3802) #11

Honestly $6 sounds about right for a card. Now if the card had better skills on it maby I could see it for a $12 card. Like lets say for Bushwhacker instead of lock on doing 30% quicker reaction time its 40 or 45% or aura healing reach is increased by 25% instead of 15. $12 and $14 for cards that are just looks is overpriced. The cards dont even have the best skills and weapons on them which makes them not as viable while playing vs the gold or cobalt cards with the best stuff.

(Mr.Cuddlesworth) #12

It’s not overpriced. It’s just an ugly skin. It won’t magically increase your skills.

(Porkchopiya) #13

i want to support dev, but this is unfair and uninteresting to support with…

think about the price of Hunter Pack include default card and special ed. that cost $15 and Hunter Special Ed Card Loadout that cost $9.99 its a fair price for introducing brand New merc.

while the Phantom Obsidian Merc that cost $14.99 that is too expensive compare the Hunter.

which one are you trying to feature us i dont understand. the Brand New Merc Hunter or the Old Phantom Reissue?

(Press E) #14

@“Mr.Cuddlesworth” said:
It’s not overpriced. It’s just an ugly skin. It won’t magically increase your skills.

Hence the definition of overpriced, lol. When the value of something exceeds how much it should actually be worth.

(Zalamael) #15

@STARRYSOCK said:
Everything in DB has a history of being stupidly expensive and inconsistently priced.

Not sure if this is true or not, but I do have my own examples. For one thing, paying £7 per merc is laugable, I thought that to be Nexon trick, but the prices remain the same since the break. I have around 15 mercs, all of them bought with F2P currency, because that dumb pricing put me off.

Not only did it put me off buying a merc, it was so laughable, that I naturally assumed the Devs were dumb and greedy (or maybe Nexon), so I just played and ground out the currency, to the point where I don’t really care about new mercs, and that goes double for the loadout cards.

The mercs are not impressive enough to warrant £7 per merc, and the loadout cards even less, and especially not when I can pay around £15 in Rainbow Six Siege (a game that knows what it wants to be) for 8 mercs. Something is rotten in this thought process.

Now here is the fun part; every time I look at a merc pack, I either have to say no because I already have 1-2 mercs in that pack, or because 1-2 mercs in the pack are not ones I care about, and want to ever play. Being able to just pay, and pick 3 mercs would be so much more enticing, and yet, I have never spent a penny on this game, despite 504 hours playing it on Steam.

And even better, the new merc bundle, letting us have every merc, now and for ever, is still a weak deal for any long term player who already has enough mercs in their team. There is no point, unless refunds, and apparently we don’t get refunds for mercs we already own. So again, there is no point. I remember HiRez did this with Tribes Ascend, as a last ditch effort to rake in some money before they abandoned the game. You are not making this easy for us.

The sad part is, despite my reservations with this game, I do actually enjoy it, and would be happy to spend some money on it. But the options available are all garbage, I would feel like a gullible fool to spend money on this game.

(arharr3) #16

@Porkchopiya said:
i want to support dev, but this is unfair and uninteresting to support with…

think about the price of Hunter Pack include default card and special ed. that cost $15 and Hunter Special Ed Card Loadout that cost $9.99 its a fair price for introducing brand New merc.

while the Phantom Obsidian Merc that cost $14.99 that is too expensive compare the Hunter.

which one are you trying to feature us i dont understand. the Brand New Merc Hunter or the Old Phantom Reissue?

Hunter is just a reskin. Theres literally no difference between the default model and this “special” edition except a bit of color.
Really, if you ask me you are better off just buying the merc (if you dont have the credits) and a bronze you like. Or craft a cobalt for a high chance of getting a mediocre loadout.
The only good release pack for a merc they offered was the turtle obsidian (which you can expect to come back soon with a new photoshopped symbol on the card) since that offered both a mesh change and new skin AND you knew which card you would get.

(azz_abdr) #17

In my country, Steam obsidian bundle DLC is ~15USD, and I feel bad.

(Sorotia) #18

@STARRYSOCK said:

@“Mr.Cuddlesworth” said:
It’s not overpriced. It’s just an ugly skin. It won’t magically increase your skills.

Hence the definition of overpriced, lol. When the value of something exceeds how much it should actually be worth.

Lots of fashion that is overpriced in this world, doesn’t stop it from being bought :stuck_out_tongue:

(ThunderZsolt) #19

@Meerkats no doubt, you make a valid point here. I also don’t think that the obsidians are “worth” it, and only bought the Arty one to support SD. (TBH I don’t even like the others)

However, I can answer this question:

@Meerkats said:
Think about it, why can’t they just have a normal ingame store that sells items year round like every other game? Why is it other devs can make this model work, yet SD apparently can’t?

What about traditional devs? How is it traditional devs can afford to sell DLC containing enormous amounts of content ( think H:ZD, GTA4, etc. ) for the same price SD sells single skins?

According to steam charts, DB only has a few thousand players. Some of the companies you mentioned (didn’t google all of them) has way more players:
Battlefield 1, GTA V close to 100k peak player count, which is 40 times more than DB. Rainbow 6 siege had 125k players at the same time last month.

If they have 10x bigger staff, they can set the price to 1/4 compared to SD to have the same income per person.
Not to mention, that DB is F2P, and it also suffers from heavy player fluctuation, so a huge portion of players just comes and goes without spending a dime, but SD needs to store their data as well.

What I do agree with:
If they would set the price lower, I wouldn’t spend less money, but I’d get more for the same amount, so I would be more happy, and maybe some players would buy a few things who find the current prices too high.

(henki000) #20

@STARRYSOCK

Obviously most of the people are going to get that Triple A game even if they could buy both. Thing is, we are all rich here and mostly rich people play Dirty Bomb anyway. We have computers and apartments with high tech internet connection. We are living in safe area, where you dont have to worry about starvation, diseases or war. There are billions of people out there who live without western luxury.

If SD wants to increase their card sale. They should build more advertisement, create more compelling products and extend to new countries. If they suddenly start selling same cards with lower price, it would irritate veterans that already bought them as “exlusive”.

Point is. Most people here dont spend their money with reason, instead they trust their sentiment.