Paragon/NCSoft: Use the store's quirks to your advantage


ScottyB

 

Posted

One of the somewhat bothersome things in the store is that storage increases are "1 of 5" or "1 of 2" and "2 of 5", "2 of 2" - they're all separate items, instead of being able to buy quantities of them with a limit.

However, you could use this to your advantage: make a player comfortable with using the store by having the first in a series of expansions be significantly cheaper than the rest. 400 points seems like a good number - a VIP player can make one of those purchases each month. It gets them invested, and familiarizes them with the store, while allowing them to see their VIP subscription's value. Now that they've made a 400 point purchase if they want something else (lets say, Auction 1 of 5 and Enhancements 1 of 2) then they might be more comfortable spending an extra $5. Eventually (by waiting a month or otherwise) they'll go through the things that are 400 points, and the next purchases they can make (2 of 2 or 2 of 5 and so on) will cost more. But they'll be less apprehensive of the higher cost because they can already justify to themselves a value for what they're buying. "I know how great it was to have extra salvage space; getting more will be worth it!"

Currently the only "big" items in the store that can be purchased on a single month's points are the costume bundles, and that only appeals to players who value lots of costume pieces. (I'd even go further to say that most players will buy the pieces individually through the tailor as they find a use for them.) Thus you're only hooking a specific player demographic. By having more "big" items at (or even below) 400 points you can draw in more consumers with diverse interests, and by using the store quirk of listing inventory expansions as separate items you still have higher-priced items. In that situation, I'd say everybody wins!