The inevitable Bushwhacker price thread.

(Zenity) #101

[quote=“EvoSteven;13923”]
Everyone has a different price, just what price is the most profitable? I don’t have to be a marketing guy to know that 10$ for a single merc isn’t going to work very well and limits the audience to only those who have that money and: are very desperate to get a merc, or willing to support the game. In this stage, there are a lot more people willing to support the game than any later stage obviously.[/quote]

You do kind of have to be a “marketing guy”. How do you arrive at your conclusion? Personal feelings, or the vibe you get from the forums? SD/Nexon will be looking at actual numbers, and that always trumps conjecture.

You may believe that the price point doesn’t work well, but only SD/Nexon know the facts. Judging by the amount of Bushwhackers I am seeing on the servers, there are definitely a lot of people who got him unlocked already, whether they used credits or real money.

They are in it for the long game, so as long as at least some people buy for $10, it’s a win for them. If people buy even more later when the price is reduced, that’s an additional win. The only way SD/Nexon loses is when too many people leave the game altogether rather than wait for the price to come down to what they find appropriate.

I don’t know if I’ve even seen one person yet (let alone a critical number) sincerely claim that they are quitting the game over this. Even if I had, again only SD/Nexon would know the actual numbers and whether they are significant.

We can all provide feedback in the form of what price is acceptable for us personally. But let’s not pretend that we have a better idea about optimal pricing strategy than the developers themselves, whose livelihood is on the line. Do you not ever wonder about the coincidence that gamer “marketing experts” always recommend a smaller price point than the status quo? Funny that.

(Zenity) #102

Your numbers may be more or less correct, what I disagree about is your judgement of those numbers.

A F2P game (that isn’t made by Valve), relies on big spenders subsidizing the low spenders. That’s how everybody wins. You have a lot of time but no money? You get to grind. You have a lot of money but no time? You probably won’t mind the expenditure. You have neither time nor money? You still get to play a lot of free content, although that should perhaps not be your priority in life right now…

With that in mind, $150 for ALL the content purchased at the highest price point (that is, as soon as it is released), is absolutely reasonable. “Big spender” in F2P usually means spending in the thousands, and that’s where things get really iffy. $150? That’s nothing.

If you played any subscription based game in the past, you would pay $150 in less than a year, and that was a forced fee on everybody.

Times have changed, and F2P has made it possible for far more people to enjoy these types of games. That doesn’t mean however that making games has become any cheaper!

I’ve pointed out before that Valve is a special case, everybody else still struggles to make ends meet. The downside of the F2P model is that it must allow some people to spend large amounts if they choose so. The upside of the model is that you don’t have to.

Case in point, I don’t need Bushwhacker and I certainly don’t need him right now. If I wanted that, it would be a luxury and I would be paying a premium for it. I am perfectly happy with waiting, and it’s neither affecting my enjoyment of the game nor my ability to compete.

That’s good stuff. Things may well go haywire in the future, unfortunately it’s always a balancing act with F2P. But right now SD/Nexon has done nothing wrong, and I will continue to trust them as long as they provide me with good entertainment value for my money.

(immenseWalnut) #103

[quote=“Zenity;13951”][quote=“EvoSteven;13923”]
Everyone has a different price, just what price is the most profitable? I don’t have to be a marketing guy to know that 10$ for a single merc isn’t going to work very well and limits the audience to only those who have that money and: are very desperate to get a merc, or willing to support the game. In this stage, there are a lot more people willing to support the game than any later stage obviously.[/quote]

You may believe that the price point doesn’t work well, but only SD/Nexon know the facts.[/quote]

Know the facts?

As is, how many of Dirty Bomb’s players are sycophantic enough to pay stupid prices? How many of them are hungry for a pat on the head? How many of them are so desperate to believe in Dirty Bomb, that they would be willing to bend over and grab their ankles?

The people in charge of this game, the ones that own it? They are not gamers. They don’t care if you feel like you got value for your money, just as long as you are stupid enough to spend it, that is all that matters to them.

And as long as so many of you are willing to let them bend you over, then they will continue to make a solid profit and continue to overcharge for weak content.

WE dictate the prices, not them. If WE choose to pay stupid prices, then we deserve to be ripped off. And if we refuse? Then they have NO choice but to lower them if they want to make a profit. You can either be one of the people that force that onto them, or you can be the guy that defends them with his nice brown tongue.

(DadoPeja) #104

Closed Beta game should be for testing and not for quick cash grab, simple as that - pls explain me how will they test their bushwhacker if not many ppl can buy him… Did anyone mention how will this look to new players with so high price (30k-50k/5€-10€) and they start with 0 credits !? Also they will suck in game at start and get really low amount of credits, you think they will be satisfied with few crappy and boring missions or huge amount of bonus credits on 2nd lvl and to not get any after that or that thay will have time for grinding?

(Zenity) #105

@immenseWalnut As a game developer I feel extremely tempted to tell you what I really think about that (and what SD/Nexon would never allow themselves to tell you)… but nothing good would come out of that. So I will just not comment on that any more. Enjoy your free game though.

(immenseWalnut) #106

Sorry, but as a game developer, you are a nobody. You are one person in a large team (assuming you are being honest) and you do what you are told to do. You have little say in the direction of your game(s), and absolutely no say in the monetisation. Your company will sell the rights to whatever game you are making to the highest bidder, and you will be forced to follow their rules and game direction. If they tell you to make a class OP prior to releasing it, you will do it, whether you like it or not.

But please, feel free to elaborate on whatever point you were ‘hinting’ at, your previous post makes you look like a naive fanboy that doesn’t actually understand the difference between a developer and a publisher, so I imagine your reply will be fun to read. Do share this amazing wisdom with the rest of us, as we are obviously too dumb to comprehend it on our own.

(DadoPeja) #107

“Enjoy your free game though.” Wow u saying that like we got some kind of miricle ! I will give you LOL for that :wink: and for what u said before that - BS !

(immenseWalnut) #108

“Enjoy your free game though.” Wow u saying that like we got some kind of miricle ! I will give you LOL for that :wink: and for what u said before that - BS ![/quote]

Who would have thought a desperate fanboy would ever pretend to be someone important to try and lend weight to their weak, naive argument! ‘I’m pretending to be a developer, therefore I know what I am talking about, respect me!!!’.

I’ve been playing games since the Atari 2600, I probably have far more gaming hours than many developers have in terms of making games. I wrote my first lines of code in BASIC before some developers were even born.

That doesn’t mean I am a professional programmer, just that I am old and I had a C64 as a kid. But I do know what makes a good game from having years of experience, and from recent experience, I know what makes a successful F2P game, and what is just a blatant cash grab.

I stand by my opinion that Dirty Bomb is exactly a cash grab, using every dirty trick in the book to milk money before it inevitably dies.

(BK201) #109

One thing i have to say and yes i know its a SD game, its weird having a nexon game without a million in store items. Like special closed beta only camos and weapons like in CA, cosmentic only of course so its not P2W.

(DadoPeja) #110

Maybe not yet, but if it’s gona go this way, soon…

(EvoSteven) #111

Keep it civil guys.

You may think it’s a cash grab, but eh, whatever. Game development takes years, this game has been through alpha and beta and that took years. How much profit did they make in that time?

Apart from the founders, not a whole lot.
Could they use the money? Yea probably.
Do they have a lot of players? Not really.
$$$$? Barely

All I can hope for is that the pricing and credit rate isn’t final yet.

Not sure where I wanted to go with this, but I get that releasing a merc at a high price isn’t exactly for their own support if it supposedly still needs balancing.

Of all the games I’ve seen, I’m keen on seeing how Dirty Bomb will go. I don’t see it immediately dying, and it doesn’t look like a huge cash grab (compared to MANY MANY other games that have died).

It’ll live and survive, if not at Nexon, then somewhere else.

(riptide) #112

[quote=“Zenity;13921”][quote=“EvoSteven;13912”]I don’t expect them to be super cheap. But not this expensive.
It’s better to have 100 people buying something that costs 5 dollars, than 20 people buying something that costs 10 dollars.[/quote]

Yeah but sadly it doesn’t usually work like that. That’s the argument gamers always use to ask for cheaper prices, but some people have actually researched this stuff and figured out the “ideal” prices to sell things at.

So, is 10 bucks really excessively expensive? If you look at it only in terms of the amount of content you get for it then yes, absolutely. If you look at it as a way to support the game and subsidize the free content, then not so much.
[/quote]

Yes, that’s exactly how it works. There are also those that spends hundreds of dollars just to support the devs and for little in return.

10.00 is a horrible price point for a merc. There is going to be another 10-15 mercs. That’s already a potential 180.00 people have to shell out. People are going to assess the potential cost both through time invested and money spent. They’re also going to realize that it has a potential cost of more than 3 AAA titles combined.

It reeks of cash grab and forcing my hand to do something I would have probably done had you not forced me to. It’s all about principle and perception. Honestly, they would be much more successful if paying anything was 100% optional and not encouraged whatsoever. Charge for server rental and cosmetics.

I’ll give you an example GGG the makers of Path of exile a TRULY free to play game with no strings attached has got roughly $800.00 from me. I played the game a whole 3 months and I enjoyed it immensely. I haven’t touched it in well over a year now. It was worth every penny though. Because I felt like I contributed to their success and they didn’t try to pry it out of my hands.

(srswizard) #113

My biggest issue with the pricing is the multiple “tiers” of mercs.
10€ for a single playable character is ridiculous enough, and there are rumors, saying that there’s going to be even more expensive mercs in the future, a third tier.
If you have to spend silly amounts of money, just to be able to compete, then that’s a really poor design in the long run, and many competitive players are not gonna put up with that.

(Zenity) #114

[quote=“srswizard;14024”]My biggest issue with the pricing is the multiple “tiers” of mercs.
10€ for a single playable character is ridiculous enough, and there are rumors, saying that there’s going to be even more expensive mercs in the future, a third tier.
If you have to spend silly amounts of money, just to be able to compete, then that’s a really poor design in the long run, and many competitive players are not gonna put up with that.[/quote]

Why don’t we cross that bridge when we get there? Right now the cost of total ownership is 20 bucks, since you should easily be able to afford Bushwhacker if you saved the merc pack credits and starter bonuses. Of course you will have less loadouts then so that’s something to consider, but it’s still all very reasonable.

To sustain long term development, it’s vital that existing players spend a bit more every once in a while, but the most important thing is that the cost to “buy in” does not run out of control. That’s probably the biggest danger to the long term success of F2P games, but it can easily be avoided by reducing older content in price massively and/or offering attractive bundles to get started.

(riptide) #115

[quote=“Zenity;14027”][quote=“srswizard;14024”]My biggest issue with the pricing is the multiple “tiers” of mercs.
10€ for a single playable character is ridiculous enough, and there are rumors, saying that there’s going to be even more expensive mercs in the future, a third tier.
If you have to spend silly amounts of money, just to be able to compete, then that’s a really poor design in the long run, and many competitive players are not gonna put up with that.[/quote]

Why don’t we cross that bridge when we get there? Right now the cost of total ownership is 20 bucks, since you should easily be able to afford Bushwhacker if you saved the merc pack credits and starter bonuses. Of course you will have less loadouts then so that’s something to consider, but it’s still all very reasonable.

To sustain long term development, it’s vital that existing players spend a bit more every once in a while, but the most important thing is that the cost to “buy in” does not run out of control. That’s probably the biggest danger to the long term success of F2P games, but it can easily be avoided by reducing older content in price massively and/or offering attractive bundles to get started.[/quote]

Or we could just remove the buy-in entirely. Because “HEY GUIS ALL MERCS ARE ON SALE EXCEPT OUR NEWEST” “GET ALL MERCS FOR OVER 300.00 off! Only 80.00 for this free to play game if you act fast!” “GET OUR NEWEST MERC HE-MAN FOR ONLY 19.99 this week only!” “SURE THE PRICE PER CONTENT SEEMS HIGH BUT IF YOU FACTOR IN SUPPORTING THE DEVS” Is the dumbest thing ever.

(ivoryQuestion) #116

33% price reduction :wink:

(immenseWalnut) #117

[quote=“Zenity;14027”][quote=“srswizard;14024”]My biggest issue with the pricing is the multiple “tiers” of mercs.
10€ for a single playable character is ridiculous enough, and there are rumors, saying that there’s going to be even more expensive mercs in the future, a third tier.
If you have to spend silly amounts of money, just to be able to compete, then that’s a really poor design in the long run, and many competitive players are not gonna put up with that.[/quote]

Why don’t we cross that bridge when we get there? Right now the cost of total ownership is 20 bucks, since you should easily be able to afford Bushwhacker if you saved the merc pack credits and starter bonuses. Of course you will have less loadouts then so that’s something to consider, but it’s still all very reasonable.

To sustain long term development, it’s vital that existing players spend a bit more every once in a while, but the most important thing is that the cost to “buy in” does not run out of control. That’s probably the biggest danger to the long term success of F2P games, but it can easily be avoided by reducing older content in price massively and/or offering attractive bundles to get started.[/quote]

You completely ignored his very valid comment about competitive players though.

This game will never develop a strong competitive community if every player that wants to take part is forced to shell out over £100 to unlock the mercs they need to be viable competitive players.

To date I have seen nothing to suggest that the devs intend to open up every merc and loadout for competitive matches.

And as a result, comp players will stand back and wait instead of getting involved, because the price point is so high, so they will take a wait and see mentality. And because of that, there will be a lack of players to flesh out comp play, and it will die very quickly.

IF SD/Nexon truly want this to be a competitive game, played at the highest levels between the most skilled players, they need to remove the barrier of entry so these players don’t have to fork out a lot of money just to take part.

(Amerika) #118

The entitlement in this thread is strong. I think a few of you need to think about what you’re saying and look at it from another perspective beyond your own. There won’t be a competitive community if the game doesn’t make money since there won’t be a game.

Talk about changing monetization is good. I think it could be way better and making loadouts be removed from any form of monetization and simply being treated as fun RNG unlocks that are somewhat easy to get while also adding in steam trading (so they can still make money off of the cards) would be great. Also, adding in cosmetics would the best thing for the game. Paying for the classes is fine too. The price is too high considering fighting game characters don’t come close to costing $10 and they are a lot more detailed and harder to create. So a price drop would be good there.

(Zenity) #119

[quote=“Amerika;14705”]The entitlement in this thread is strong. I think a few of you need to think about what you’re saying and look at it from another perspective beyond your own. There won’t be a competitive community if the game doesn’t make money since there won’t be a game.

Talk about changing monetization is good. I think it could be way better and making loadouts be removed from any form of monetization and simply being treated as fun RNG unlocks that are somewhat easy to get while also adding in steam trading (so they can still make money off of the cards) would be great. Also, adding in cosmetics would the best thing for the game. Paying for the classes is fine too. The price is too high considering fighting game characters don’t come close to costing $10 and they are a lot more detailed and harder to create. So a price drop would be good there.[/quote]

Regarding cosmetics, I think a problem is that the cosmetics in the game aren’t too visible, and it’s going to be difficult to change this (due to the speed and all). I don’t think people would want to spend on the typical Silver or Gold skin, but for a bit of RNG fun they are still useful. I could imagine that there will be more dramatic skins later (more like the Obsidian skins), which can be purchased.

Comparing price of content with the effort it takes to create it never works out well in F2P. In most F2P games, you pay horrendous sums for things as trivial as a custom weapon or even a completely immaterial perk. This is about giving players with disposable income an excuse to spend money on the game and subsidize the free content for everybody.

Also fighting games (or even MOBAs) don’t have complex maps for example which need to be subsidized but you can’t charge for them directly, because you need all players to be able to play on them (unless you try anyway, like Quake Live, which is a bit of a fail IMO). It’s all apples and oranges, and the only thing that really matters in the end, is whether the game is affordable one way or another to most people who are interested in it.

(Amerika) #120

I’m not talking about loadout card skins. Those are extremely boring and kind of lame and I never notice them. I am talking about character skins and gun skins. Not quite TF2-wacky but more like CS:GO. Something that players can see easily on themselves and other players.

I disagree that monetization practices can’t be compared between genres. There are F2P fighting games that you can also purchase with packs (Killer Instinct) that is very much like what Dirty Bomb is right now. Each new character also comes with a new stage as well. You can buy the characters and buy cosmetic items for the characters and they have a free character to play as every week as well. There is absolutely nothing at all that allows a player to gain an advantage via money paid unlike the current loadout card system. KI is thriving and I think it’s something that could be looked at even if you can’t compare systems directly. Players get zero advantage and only pay for what they will use and there is almost no complaints at all about the system.

My issue is with some of the people in this thread who feel as if everything should be free for some reason. And I also don’t like the current monetization system as I believe it’s focused on the wrong things and is going to great discontent and animosity. However, that is my opinion and I am OK with it being debated.