Dev Chat Highlights, August 4: Paragon Market

They're not going to be making large groups of similarly themed costume pieces, emotes, and powers anymore. So once Freedom hits even if they did keep in the Booster packs for the same price, there would (barring sales perhaps) not be any similar packs for sale in the future.

They're also figuring that not every player is going to want to buy every item from every pack. Taking myself as an example given the ala carte option I wouldn't have picked up any of the emotes or the costume changes from any of the previous packs. I hardly ever use them, and even then only to momentarily amuse myself while waiting for missions on teams. If I didn't have the emotes from the packs, I would likely be using other emotes.

From the looks of things the costume aspect of the Magic Pack costumes 400 points ($5) and though I don't know how much the Mystic Fortune power costs, I doubt it would be another $5. So in breaking up the booster I would pay less for what I want and will likely go and still spend a few more bucks to get other things I want.

Since now that they don't have to make theme-specific packs they can just make individual items to toss up in the Paragon Market. The additional revenue from the sales of these items will also help to fund additional future items and content.

So by buying costume pieces I can, essentially, encourage and help fund the development of further costume pieces.

Look at it this way, CoH is a restaraunt and the booster packs are like a packaged deal meal. I get a nice hamburger and some french fries (powers and costume pieces), but I also end up with some macaroni and cheese (which I can't eat due to lactose intolerance, these represent emotes). With the Booster Pack method for $10 I have my hamburger and fries, and while yummy there is going to be mac and cheese left on my plate that I don't eat. So with the Paragon Market rather than getting some mac and cheese, I can swap that mac and cheese out for another side dish. With the Paragon Market and all the new things being offered I have a whole pile of different side dishes that I could get with my meal for the same price I was getting before.

Sure, the portion sizes might not be as big as that big bowlful of mac and cheese, but that doesn't really matter considering I didn't really want it in the first place.

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

THAT is the very definition of pawning noobs

Ditto

Hmmm.

*Jagged divides 20 by 5*

Hmmm.

*Jagged divides 20 by 5 again. Just to be sure*

Which makes them still $4 each. :P

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

Oh dear.

Extrapolating from the announced individual prices of full costumes, emotes, and extra powers suggests that this will almost certainly be the case. Perhaps the Paragon Marketplace will have occasional sales on bundled sets of individual items, but it's clear from Positron's suggestion to buy the Boosters now that they are not going to have an equivalent in CoH Freedom.

That is of course exactly how an a la carte menu is supposed to work. Making more money off the most dedicated customers is similarly explicit in the business model. For those who want prix fixe, reservations at Le Périgord should be made well in advance.

I thought I covered it well enough in my last few posts but I'll try again.

First of all the concept of the "bundled pack" is going away. We will not longer be forced to buy collections of things. If for some reason you want to buy all the items that used to be part of a single legacy pack in the Paragon Market you'll have to pay, in total, more for them. But again it'll be your choice if you want to buy all those items or not.

As to WHY the Devs are effectively raising the price on things that's pretty clear as well. It's business 101 really. The new Paragon Market (if it's like most MMO microtransaction stores) will be organized around a rotating series of sales and discounts. The Devs are simply raising the individual item prices so that when they "lower" them during the sales they'll still make the same amount of money as before. There's nothing really evil or surprising about that - just about every business on the planet structures their prices to entice people to buy -and- maximize their own profits.

Clearly this microtransaction scheme will maximize profits for the company regardless of which segment of the playerbase a particular player falls into.

Mmm I didn't catch that either. Agreed and I don't even use all my slots. Just the fact that if I so choose I can make more costumes without running silly missions is great.

I'll admit that $50 would have been a bit steep for this but I probably would've paid that anyway. I've wanted extra costume slots (and as many of them as I could get) for so many years now I was willing to deal with that cost. But if it turns out the total cost will only be $20 I'm totally fine with that.

Since we've seen no details about special sales deals at the Paragon Marketplace, there's no compelling reason to suggest that CoH's MTX model will be uniquely adjusted to "make the same amount of money as before". Traditionally, special sales on individual items are loss leaders intended to stimulate purchases across the whole store or are fire sale or clearance specials, which aren't really relevant in terms of virtual goods (except maybe to get a fast injection of cash).

Like most games' item shops, CoH Freedom's a la carte market place is designed to make more money overall from players than the prix fixe-style Boosters, not the same (or less). This is just one reason why MTX-supported F2P game models wind up costing regular players more, even the VIP subscribers.

The real problem is when devs get greedy and charge $70 for a monocle or become desperate and start offering play-to-win services.

I think our Devs have demonstrated a long history of not doing overtly "greedy" things. On the other hand I can't really begrudge them the opportunity to adjust many of their "per item" prices up a bit under this new microtransaction system. Once again as a business they certainly have the right to do systematically reasonable things to maximize their profits.

Oh, don't misunderstand me.

I "get" why the individual prices were being readjusted.

I was just commenting on the initial impact of "wait? what?" that the announcement generated.

Woah. Not expected, but totally agreed.

Quite so. The a la carte system just kills off bargain-hunting by buying in bulk - unless of course the Paragon Marketplace does wind up offering bundled special sales. The soundest method for dealing with the system is to set a budget once the final prices and selections have been announced and make purchases on that basis. (I've been mentally amortizing the Boosters I've picked up and budgeting my subscription accordingly for ages.)

After the recent $70 monocle debacle in another MMO, most game studios have been cautioned against price-gouging virutal goods, at least one would hope (social network games continue to set a horrendously bad example).

Actually, it will encourage buying in bulk. Not bulk items, bulk currency. They have said that while the basic price is 400 PP for $5.00, buying more at once will get you discounts. With each 1200 PP getting you a Reward Token, I will be that you can pick up 1200 PP for say, $12.50 rather than $15.00. Not as good a deal as subscribing, but close.

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

We are talking about Costume Slots here. The sample price list gives them as 5 for the equivalent of $20 of PPs. Someone mentioned in another thread that as ComiCon, they can be purchased individually, which makes them $4 each.

That would be encouraging. Do you have a link to the exact quote or some kind of citation. At this stage, it's probably too much to hope for seeing a complete schedule for where the breaks for price discounts lie, but maybe we can get some idea.

That's only for each 1200 PP purchased at the store, though, not accrued as a VIP subscriber. At that rate, the additional Reward Tokens make only a fractional discount when applied against the new veteran rewards.