Pebblebrook

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  1. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Winterminal View Post
    You have to take into account how many individuals are included in each of your groups of "people."

    The number of people who purchased Going Rogue was the vast majority of the player base, and based on the spike in sales, was an obvious draw for players who had let their accounts lapse as well. Once Going Rogue had been out for about a month, it was rare that you would run into a subscriber (which all players were at that point) who had not purchased it.

    The number of people who have spent large sums of money on the Paragon Market is most likely significantly lower. Speaking only for myself, I have actually spent less money on the game since Freedom launched. I am still paying my monthly subscription fee, but in the approximate 5 months since Freedom launched, I have not spent an extra cent, using only my monthly stipend. Before Freedom, it is possible a Super Booster would have been released in that time on which I would have spent an extra $10, but with the VIP rewards, I am able to get exactly what I want without spending extra (so far, at least). So Paragon Studios has actually lost money from me.
    Which is why i mentioned it was interesting.

    It does seem to imply that more people were willing spend an extra $30-40 on GR but less people (apart from a few individuals spending those 100s of dollars) willing to spend a similar amount on the Freedom store.

    Perhaps as you say, there maybe a lot of VIPs that are fine with only using their free points to buy store items or dropped to premium and are now paying NCSoft less money.

    If this quarter's revenue turns out to be less even with super packs, i wonder what else they would come up with to convince people to spend.
  2. True, though some are putting out real numbers, it's still a PR move so they might obscure it with percentages. But not always. Some state a specific number of accounts or concurrency numbers for instance. Just might take some digging.

    If i put links to them it might get modded but here's a bit of contrast.

    If you look for Lineage 2's PR about their F2P transition, it mentions similar numbers. And since it's an NCSoft title, you can extrapolate some from the revenue numbers on their quarterly report. CoX could've done the same with their milestones.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Celestial_Lord View Post
    Honestly, a 20% income bump (especially with some of that as a result of the increased KRW value), with all of the expenditures on Freedom (new server, advertising, artwork, etc.), isn't that good. Other MMOGs that have gone free-to-play have seen increases of over 500%.
    That was my thought as well. It doesn't quite help the game's yearly revenue much which is still at its lowest.

    Code:
    Year    Avg Exchange    Sales KWon    Sales USD 
    2004    1102.17935      31,475           27,607,023
    2005    1043.65467      34,265           33,199,783
    2006      952.37930      25,016           25,770,998
    2007      922.05946      23,446           25,059,657
    2008    1365.35609      24,217           22,335,820
    2009    1172.12370      22,909           17,760,819
    2010    1135.05837      15,787           13,564,705
    2011    1147.87098      12,089           10,881,574
    And for reference, about $3mil USD in quarterly revenues is what CoX was getting for most of 2010 except for 3Q 2010 when it got bumped to about $4.8mil USD because of GR.

    Which is interesting because with GR, people would've only spent maybe $30 or $40 above their sub fees that quarter but it got higher reveneues than from the Freedom store where people state they spent 100s of dollars.

    It'll be interesting to see 1Q 2012's numbers if this is a sustainable increase instead of a single revenue boost, especially with having super packs for a revenue source.


    * Oops, disregard the exchange rates...got lazy with cut/paste. Those are actually average rates for 4Q of that year only. But the USD value is summed from each quarter so that should be somewhat fine. Sorry.
  4. Beta/test server should not be relied upon as a substitute for what should be expected features of the in-game store front. Just for the reason that only VIPs have access to beta and that is doing part of your customer base a disservice (premiums)

    It's nice to have that workaround when lacking an alternative but it shouldn't be the go to reason for not having a properly implemented store interface.

    If for no other reason that if people just let it go and say go to beta, then that gives the devs even less incentive to improve the store ui.

    The store should have a preview of all items prior to purchase especially things that animate like emotes and powersets and temp powers and it should be accessible from the store window and not have to go to a tailor in-game or something.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    A recently released MMO actually put a mathematical puzzle into their game. Not a 2+2 puzzle, a puzzle puzzle. Although you could google search a solution if you couldn't solve it, I was surprised an MMO development company had the guts to do that.

    On the one hand, it was interesting for me. On the other hand, I wonder what percentage of players *didn't* need to google search a solution? If most of your players are googling a solution, I'm not sure what the point is.
    Perhaps the point is to give players such as you something "interesting". You can google past any puzzle, mystery or other such in-game challenges for every game out there.

    I would be more concerned if game developers stop doing things like that.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by MajorDecoy View Post
    It wasn't hard at all to buy SOs, as long as you wanted one of the ten varieties that your contacts sold. Well, you also needed to do missions for contacts that sold the appropriate origin enhancements.
    When those vendors didn't even appear on the map and i wasn't directed to them, it was somewhat challenging.

    I distinctly remember it was a revelation to me that there are actual vendors you buy DOs from. That was actually a fond memory since i liked a sense of discovery in games.

    Though i should say, if there was a mission that directed you to those vendors back then, i might've missed them since at the time, door/contact missions weren't really the thing to do.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    You couldn't buy SOs in this game unless you were the miserliest player and perpetually debt-capped (go blasters) at launch.
    Also couldn't buy SOs unless you happen to stumble upon people entering a building and followed them to find out it had an npc vendor that didn't show up on the map until years(?) later.

    Heh brings back memories of me broadcasting "is there a store here?"

    But yes, launch coh is very different than current cox. Interesting what a little time (measured in years) does to a game.
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Todogut View Post
    Can someone verify, you were a subscriber and had a Warshade or Peacebringer and, when you switched to Premium, you could unlock and play your hero epic archetype toon?
    I can verify that my main account is premium and i am able to create new HEATs/VEATs.

    I can't, however, verify what requirements are needed to make that happen. It doesn't say anywhere in the reward window you unlock Epic ATs at a certain level. It might be a bug or maybe i've just been here too long that whatever qualifications needed i have.

    As for the VIP vs Freemium question...no one can really say if it's worth it for the OP to go to freemium except for the OP...you have to evaluate the entertainment value you're getting yourself. But if it's worth anything, for me it's not much of a debate.

    Incarnates isn't something i'll miss and i've already built up 6 personal bases (3 on each side) so i don't see making any new ones. I will have to get rid of the storage on my main to remove rent so i'd still be able to use/decorate it but i think i can get by without storage. The monthly perks, well, i've stayed on the same server for 7+ years so server transfers don't mean much to me and the stipend can be replaced by paying $5/mo on points instead of a $15/mo sub.

    The slots is the big thing but i have a lot of alts that i haven't used in a while so instead of unlocking existing alts with the server tokens, i just open new empty slots.

    Of course you might also want to put into perspective my state of mind towards the game to properly judge how i'm valuing CoX's entertainment worth, so some background...


    [WALL OF TEXT WARNING]


    Since CoH headstart and for a couple years after that, my enthusiasm level for this game was such that i literally logged in everyday for the first couple of years and at the end of that day's session, i was eager for the next time i can log in.

    Fast forward to today, my level of enthusiasm for logging in has dwindled to about 1 day a week, maybe 2. And i'm only able to do that because my friend was logging in...meaning i wasn't mainly logging in to play but to log in to interact with my friend. If my friend can't make it that week, i can't get myself to log. I wanted to cancel my sub for a while but couldn't because of that.

    For some time i thought i just outgrew MMOs in general as an entertainment source since i've tried other games and i couldn't get that same enthusiasm i felt years ago. That is until i was able to try a new sci-fi game and found out i couldn't stop playing, and when i did stop, i was eager to play again.

    So, having that comparison in my mind...i'm not feeling i'm getting as much value from CoX that i can get elsewhere.

    I can still leech...err i mean...play that once or twice a week here thanks to Freedom (this account expires in january), but i think i get more value if i use my entertainment dollars elsewhere.

    And that's my view about VIP vs Freemium. As i said, everyone's situation could be different so determining an entertainment source's worth is a personal matter. For me, i think maybe my personal limit on staying with a game is around 7 years since the only other game that had me as long was my first MMO Everquest and i stayed there for 6.5+ years.



    TL;DR - Maybe i've been here too long hehe.
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rabid_M View Post

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Ultimus View Post
    So Zwil is in the help chat channel on Freedom as I post this. He is answering some questions:

    4) They still want more feedback on Super Packs before making changes.
    I can't help but wonder what feedback they're missing. The reactions most testers are having to the Super Packs is pretty damned clear, I think. I've seen feedback on the value of the various inspirations, costume parts, and boosters. About the only thing I've not seen a lot of feedback on is the pet, but that's because so few people have it to look at.

    What more are they waiting to hear?
    Maybe they're waiting for something that gives them an indication that if superpacks go live as-is, it will negatively impact their bottom line. Perhaps they're still convinced they'll make more money with it than without despite a handful of dissatisfied forum posters.

    A wait (till it goes live) and see (if people buy enough of it) approach. Then maybe they'll adjust or offer alternatives like putting specific items for straight up purchase if their revenue doesn't show it was worth it.

    Or it's something completely different, eh just covering all bases hehe.
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
    Remember, we want for these sets to be compelling reasons for a free/Premium player to decide to become VIP, so we have a definite interest in making them appealing.
    Using powersets to give free/premiums more reasons to become VIPs, perhaps there should be a higher ratio of VIP-included power sets versus paid extras. So far i think there's 1 VIP unlocked set to 3 VIP paid sets.

    I mean, if the F2P crowd seeing that there's more paid extra sets than there are freely unlocked with a sub, then they might decide to just use that $15 sub money to buy points instead.

    Not sure expecting them to wait 2 months to bank the VIP stipend to buy one powerset would be enough. They could buy $10 worth of points every month and end up paying less than a VIP who would've spent $30 and 2 months waiting for that $10 worth of stipend points.

    Maybe?
  11. Pebblebrook

    Proof of perqs?

    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Brillig View Post
    Two more things you lose by dropping to Premium - some number of character slots and access to HEATs and VEATs. Both can be bought back with points, though.
    There's an inconsistency with that.

    I let my main account lapse and i can still not only play my existing warshade (after unlocking the slot), but i can still create new veat/heats as well.

    I'm not sure what enabled it for me but i am certain i didn't purchase them in the Freedom store.

    EDIT:

    The time manipulation powerset that is free for VIP does get locked behind a purchase once you become premium.

    Also, i still see the Tier9 VIP only paragon reward celestial armor in the costume editor as a premium. You get to keep that as long as you spent paragon reward tokens to claim them before dropping. You don't even have to have an alt using it prior to dropping.

    Oh, you also lose the option to hide the store icon...guess they don't want you to forget you can spend money here hehe.
  12. Quote:
    Originally Posted by thedarkeone View Post
    The one thing you guys arent accounting for is I never said this as a tier 9 VIP. I would apply the 20% discount across the board for all subscribers during their active subscription. I feel this would more than entice more people to be subscribers.
    To entice people into a purchase is essentially marketing (but i just think of it as manipulating perception of value or other things) so it would be interesting which one would entice people more regardless of practicality...the 20% discount or 150 extra points.

    I'm no math wiz so i could be off on this but here's how i'm seeing the two scenarios:

    Code:
                                    Months    Banked PP     Buy        Leftover PP    
    PlanA    400   +20%     1            400        -     320  =       80
    PlanB    400   +150      1            550        -     400   =    150
                                
    PlanA    400   +20%     3           1200       -     960   =     240
    PlanB    400   +150      3           1650       -    1200   =    450
                                
    PlanA    400   +20%     6            2400      -    1920   =    480
    PlanB    400   +150      6            3300      -    2400   =    900
                                    
    PlanA    400   +20%    12           4800      -    3840   =    960
    PlanB    400   +150     12           6600      -    4800   =  1800
    The 550 pp plan will of course show more points banked at the end of the period but since your 20% discount plan wouldn't show its effect till you buy something, the Buy column shows the largest single purchase order in points you can make with the discount for simplicity (it doesn't mean a single item) and then compare that with the undiscounted price with the +150 plan.

    It seems like that extra 150 gets people more banked points sooner and also have more points leftover after purchases compared to just a flat 20% discount on purchases.

    So from a practical standpoint, it's better if you just ask for more points for all VIPs, not just the T9s. Or go all out and ask for across the board points increase and price discount.

    I don't see them doing either but you never know hehe.
  13. Ah, it's helpful for marketing. Got stuck thinking only on possible negativity like notions of elitism, but advertising is another matter.
  14. So i guess it's too much to put a page that said "Posting in [forum x] is reserved for VIP's only".

    EDIT: Hmm, that sounded snarky...no snark intended.
  15. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Obsidius View Post
    The first answer that comes to mind is: the moderation team.
    Don't know much about forum moderation, but can they not come up with something for account identifiers to only show up on a moderator's screen instead of the customer facing interface?
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
    We plan on allowing Free/Premium a bit more access to the forums than they currently have, and it's extremely helpful (for many reasons) to be able to distinguish a VIP player from a Free/Premium player at a glance.
    I guess a follow-up question would be...to whom would this be helpful?

    Whenever i think of identifiers such as this, it makes me think of someone's forum reg date/post count or that ranking thing that you removed a while back.

    I don't think it will cause an uproar or outright discrimination towards non-subscribers but it might color some people's perception of that poster/poster's message.

    Yes i know, it's not much of a problem, but if you can help it, why tempt it?
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zwillinger View Post
    What can we do to add even more value to our VIP subscription?
    Heh, well i suppose you can ask less money from your VIPs by having less store item additions require subscribers to pay extra for them.

    That'll definitely add more value to my sub. Or is a lot of that increased revenue you mentioned coming from VIPs?
  18. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bosstone View Post
    Now as an aggregate, whether VIP accounts or premium accounts make more money for Paragon is yet another question. If the average amount per month a premium spends is $7.50 and the average a VIP spends is $17.50, but there's three times as many premium accounts as VIPs, they'll make far more money off the premiums than VIPs as a whole.
    Heh true that is an ideal possibility when integrating F2P...volume. I think i saw somewhere that only a very small percentage of F2P crowd actually spends money so to get that small percentage to translate to a large enough number of paying players, will require a whole lot more F2P accounts...probably in the hundreds of thousands or a million or two.

    Not sure if Freedom got that many. I usually saw concurrent users pre-freedom to be around 5000 unhidden players. On freedom headstart it was around 6000 and when it was opened for F2P, it was over 8000. It's getting less now with the rush over and/or the holidays, but i would be expecting a lot more than that from F2P crowd.



    * Caveat: /search is an inaccurate tool and concurrency doesn't directly translate to account numbers.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bosstone View Post
    A VIP account unlocks a whole ton of crap premiums don't get, even when the premiums buy their way up the Rewards ladder. $15/mo for VIP + 400 points is a better deal than $15 for points alone.
    Well the question i quoted was not about the value of content acquired but rather which account type would NCSoft get more money from and that's dependent on the person not the account.

    Your question as to who gets more value for that $15 per month spent is quite different and would depend on how much value you put on the perks and the vip exclusives.

    But if you want to discuss that we could.
  20. Quote:
    Originally Posted by cohRock View Post
    Could NCSoft be making as much money from the free accounts as the do the pre-existing subscriptions?
    I would think that would depend more on the person's spending discipline rather than the account type.

    If a subscriber only spend $15/mo on their sub and only use their free points to spend on the store...as long as they only need $5 worth of points then NCSoft would make just as much money from them as a premium player who only pays $15/mo on points.

    Difference would be is that on a monthly basis, the premium would accumulate $15 worth of points per month while a vip only banks $5.

    If a vip needs say $15 worth of points for that month and only have $5, then NCSoft would make more money from the vip since they effectively would spend $25 for that month while a premium only paid $15.
  21. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    Personally, I'm not thrilled. But I'm also morbidly curious to know how that sale goes as well. Its always useful, if not always heartening, to know in which direction the majority leans.
    I don't even think it has to be a majority. Just like anything in the store, they might just need a significant enough number to justify it.
  22. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Indiramourning View Post
    How about this scenario, the cost of the dog drops low enough that practially everyone buys it. Now imagine dogs...everywhere, by the hundreds! It will be City of Dogs! Ahhhhhh!
    That scenario does happen with a lot of things not just temp pets. When they introduced vet rewards with the wings, i saw crowds of people flocked to steel canyon tailor (i was one of them) and yes when that phenomena occurs whatever the content/item, there are cries of "enough already"

    But what always happens shortly afterwards is that people once again disperse and/or the content/item gets used less.

    If they gave the dog as a free issue item, yes there could possibly be a very huge dog show convention in atlas park, but it will pass shortly.

    The effects of supporting such development however, is more lasting.
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tyranny_NA View Post
    While I agree with everyone here that for a vanity pet the pricing is a bit too steep I will probably get it to support the development of the 4 legged rig as well.
    Supporting a hobby you enjoy is admirable, but not sure doing that would result in exactly what you hope. Every idea they come up with now, they will ask the question "would people pay extra for this?" If things like a beast mm powerset comes up with a yes, then probably expect to see that in the store for VIPs to purchase extra.

    Seems like a more direct effect of buying vanity pets in hopes of something else, would actually end up with more vanity pets instead. Or at least the price for it would not be lowered when they see they made enough money to justify it at the current price.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Oliin View Post
    Also it's worth considering that there were a lot of sales leading in to Freedom going live. For instance the base CoH going for $2 for a while before the boxes were removed from the store.
    Not sure how visible of an impact $2 purchases for something that most people interested in CoX couldn't use. The $1.99 promo was for new accounts only and it was well...$2 each.

    In 3Q there was that promo and the $10 sale on Steam (not counting the Freedom store item adds/sales). The "many" leading sales you might be referring to happened in the quarter prior.

    In 2Q there were:
    April 26, 2011 GR $15 sale promo gamestop
    April 28, 2011 7yr anniversary 50% sale GvE item pack, Mac pack, Wedding pack, jet pack mini-booster, char rename, server transfer
    May 3, 2011 character slot 50% sale promo
    May 11, 2011 magic pack 50% sale promo end 5/18
    May 18, 2011 GR NCStore digital download 50% sale promo end 5/24
    May 23, 2011 GR complete Valve Steam digital download 50% sale promo end 5/30
    May 25, 2011 character xfer 50% sale promo end 5/31
    June 1, 2011 steampunk pack release
    June 2, 2011 martial arts pack 50% sale promo end 6/7
    June 8, 2011 mutant pack 50% sale promo end 6/15

    And worth noting even with those, 2Q revenue was still lower than the quarter before and after it.

    Even with the exchange rate fluctuation, i think the Freedom store did make a significant impact, though it might have been offset by declining subscription revenue.

    But as pointed out, 3Q is likely to be mostly revenue from existing subscribers, since the F2P crowd was only let in 4 days before quarter closing. Actually could be only 3 days if NCSoft goes by Korea's time zone which makes sense.

    We'll see how it goes when everyone's revenue is counted next quarter.
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    And I don't think they are paying Cryptic royalties for CoH, since I thought at the time NCSoft bought out Cryptic's stake in the game completely.
    Unless i'm misremembering or i missed more recent info, they did buy it out except for the Cryptic Engine. Not sure but i think NCSoft still licenses that from Cryptic. That's why the Cryptic logo is still on the login screen.

    The quarterlies don't really define what royalties are but i'd imagine it's what it sounds like...payment by other companies that has agreements to use/license NCSoft prodcuts.

    There is a clue in page 5 of the quarterly report:
    Quote:
    Royalty edged down QoQ from reduced micro-transactions for Lineage 1 serviced in Taiwan through Gamania
    And it does separate royalty from royalty expense.