Nethergoat

On this topic we're operating on a level playing field, as neither of us has access to NC's spreadsheets.

Of course I'm not the one making these sorts of concrete statements absent any meaningful data:
Readers are free to draw their own conclusions.

how about this then, you don't have access to any accurate or meaningful numbers and so your predictions on this topic carry no intrinsic factual weight.

I've been here for things that have *genuinely* enraged the populace, this little fit barely qualifies. I'm not surprised they haven't engaged on it because there's nothing to say that will placate the fringe elements who are angry that anyone is buying this, and as I've explained I think the price is inflexible for various reasons, so there's nothing for them to say there either except "uh, yeah, it's REALLY 8 bucks".

If we trim off the fringe of the anti-pack votes we're left with "well, 8 dollars is a bit much for this isn't it?" Which I'm sure they'll take into account the next time around.

This time around, they had an agenda and they stuck to it. Observations suggest it was at the very least not a financial disaster, so we'll see what lessons they drew from the whole experience next time around.

See, it's funny because hogs are notorious for their high post counts.


oh wait.

As you have no idea what those projections were, you have no way of knowing that.
Considering the number of folk I've seen rocking the emotes since the servers came back up this AM it seems to be fairly successful.

And if the devs spooked every time a segment of forumgoers whipped themselves into a tizzy about something they'd never get anything done.

that was a nice surprise.
I've been using the soccer emote while I marketeer.

why, when they can read the original a few inches up the screen?

oh wait, I see- you're upset because i missed the bit about how you don't believe the wedding pack allowed them to speed up release EITHER.

So, I apologize for the first half of the post but still think calling the devs liars based on no evidence except your own fantasies is silly.

If they project that 12% of the playerbase would be interested in Project X they can look at the costs of Project X and come up with a price that will generate the profit they need to justify going forward.


Pricing Project X less will not necessarily result in enough extra sales to make the project viable because only a small % of their customer base will be interested it as anything but a free perk of their sub.


It isn't that complicated.

It didn't.
What it did do is create the financial resources to finish it up ahead of schedule and add it to whatever issue they were releasing, instead of having development drag on for some indeterminate time.

And given how long some stuff languished in Dev Purgatory in the old days, that was a not inconsiderable benefit to the playerbase.

HAH!


I have a pal who is a Clipper season ticket holder, and their ticket prices seem to have an inverse relationship with their on-court performance...

Businesses are constantly irritating their customers for short term gain.
Happily, most of their customers are less prone to carrying on about the cost of goods than gamers*.

This can't be disputed.

/cosign

I already have in several previous posts.

Costumes and powers are central to character realization in CoH.
Emotes are not. So an emote pack has a smaller built in constituency than a pack centered around something with more perceived utility to the 'average player'.

Basically, everybody loves costumes, everybody loves powers, not everybody loves emotes. All else being equal, a well run hamburger joint is going to draw in more customers than a well run Lithuanian restaurant because it has a broader audience to draw from. Ditto for a booster like this one- the appeal is to a very narrow band of the playerbase.

They've set the price where they think it needs to be to realize their projected profit. You don't like the price, fair enough don't buy it. But it is what it is, and there's a reason for it.

it has a limited buy ceiling by its very nature and underpricing it does no favors to their bottom line.
Forum reality is that an 'all emote' pack was going to catch a lot of flack from the locals regardless of the price point.

Failed comparison fails.

It really is.
While there are some negatives saying "I'd buy it for xxx" there are more saying "emotes? WTH, gimme costume parts suckas!"

Wait, are we supposed to suddenly start taking the threats and complaints of forumgoers as some kind of gospel truth?

0.0


I ascribe to that old saying 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'. The only way for them to know how an $8 booster full of emotes would actually sell was to offer a booster full of emotes for $8.

They engaged the complaints about the Mutant pack because what was delivered was counter to longtime forum expectations. With this pack, it seems pretty cut and dried- "here's a pack of emotes for 8 bucks". If they thought it would sell better at a lower price point they'd have released it at a lower price point. If they wanted to broaden its appeal by sticking in some costume bits or a power, they'd have done so.

The way things have played out leads me to the rather inevitable conclusion that *someone* wanted to see what kind of reception a narrowly focused pack would get.

*shrug*