Discussion: Featured Items at the Paragon Market - 2/14/12

We're just guessing, but Paragon is actually going to know, because they will know what the revenue stream is from the super packs and they will know what the average revenue is from costume bundles, and they will be able to reasonably extrapolate which would have been better.

Rest assured that if they determine you were right, we will see more costume bundles and less super pack-like items. This early in the development of the hybrid model, each new thing the devs sell is an experiment, one that gives them data as to what we collectively will pay for, how much we will pay for it, and under what conditions we'll pay more or less.

They were, in fact, performing the same experiments to a lesser extent with the booster packs before Freedom was announced.

No, those don't glow for me either. You say it's a rendering issue, could you tell me how to correct this? And thanks for responding to my questions.

The Electric-Knight ______ Malfaz _____ Zox'Oculox

@Zethustra

"Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew come out
and round up everyone that knows more than they do"-Dylan

www.pauldamonthomas.com - Original Music

If you haven't noticed, some portion of the playerbase is mad about anything that comes out in City of Heroes. Whether its AT changes, new content, or things in the store.

Personally I disliked their lowering of the amount of debt that players earned in death, and the change they made to blaster defiance. Thats just me.

So for the devs its not a matter of "oh x makes some players mad, lets figure out how to not make them mad." Its "how many people are mad that this now? Ok, how much money are we making on this? What is the ration of mad v. not mad? Alright, then its a success!"

While the devs will do backflips for the playerbase they have shown that just because some people dislike one thing they are not guaranteed to budge.

You'd be wrong.

I'll grab some CCG packs, or did when I played - but I also went to the store (or later ebay) to purchase specific cards other players had gotten rid of.

If I want a costume set, I have no problem buying it. (And that's really all I'm interested in.) I *do* have a problem gambling on what could be many times the cost of purchase to get it. If I wanted to gamble, I'd go to Atlantic City or Vegas. (Something I never do. I was in Vegas *once,* and that was only to get from one terminal to another for a connecting flight.)

I don't mind if the gambling is "Hey, you might get the costume set cheaper with a pack or two, OR you can buy it outright." (Though what they'd do if you already had the set, I don't know. Have code to put an ATIO in there or something.) I do mind if it's the only way of getting those costume sets - and the devs know full well that, for some of us, the costuming is important. (And yes, I *am* annoyed at having some locked behind E/A-merits... I'd be more annoyed if I didn't think the pieces were kind of awkward looking.)

As was said previously:

... I'm feeling less "VIP" with that $15/mo. at this moment than I did before Freedom's launch. Characters held hostage ("Pay us or not only are they locked for slots, but for powersets!") Powers and missions held for ransom ("I don't care how long you've been loyal to us, NO INCARNATE POWER or SSA FOR YOU!") and now stuff like this.

Blah.

What have those things got to do with being a VIP?

Stick your smiley somewhere and think about it a bit. The statement seems a bit straightforward if you're not trying to be a dev apologist like you typically are .

I actually don't exactly know, I just know that on some machines they don't glow for me and others they do. I don't know what the deal is; I assume it's a feature support issue or something. Ask in tech support, I bet someone will know.

If you look hard enough, EVERYTHING about this game is "preying on psychological habits of the customer". Random chance with uncertain outcome/rewards? That's every attack, every mob defeated in hopes of a purple drop/shard/thread, every trial completed hoping for a rare, etc. That's how all MMOs operate, it's how they keep people playing. Trying to make it sound like some sinister plot is just plain pathetic.

Well, you've just demonstrated the worth of your opinion with that last bit. Thanks, I won't sweat it anymore.

My only concern is that people are buying the Super Packs not because they like the Super Pack mechanic, but because that is the only way to get the exclusive costume set. That's one good reason to release both at once - it would give the Devs actual feedback on the Super Pack mechanic.

As it is, sales figures will be hard to parse between "I like the way Super Packs are set up" and "I don't like Super Packs, but I love the EO pieces". If the majority (or even substantial minority) opinion is the latter, the Devs have set up a system by which the only hard data they will receive is positive... that might be good salesmanship, but it's lousy marketing.

Let me put it to you this way: if you were in Marketing, and you saw the Super Packs selling well, what would you assume? That the playerbase likes the random mechanic of the Packs? Or that they are willing to deal with it to get things they can't get in any other way?
And, given that you have limited resources for working up the way content is to be released to the game, do you think that's an important distinction?

Again to answer your questions all that I will say is that you need to look at things from the Devs' point of view.

If the marketing guy saw that the Super Packs were selling well the ONLY thing he/she would care about is that the company was doing something right for them to make money. The "distinction" you're trying to draw here is only something that a player might care about - the Devs couldn't care less. What does it matter to Paragon Studios if people are buying them because they like the generic random mechanic of the packs or because they feel obligated to in order to get something exclusive? Either way people are buying them.

To use a real world example car companies these days usually try to throw in all sorts of extra features into their cars like rear view cameras, built-in GPS, satellite radio and so on to make them distinctive in the marketplace. When a customer comes in to buy they might be motivated to buy for all sorts of reasons. For all the dealer knows maybe the ONLY reason a customer ends up buying his/her car was that it had a feature that couldn't be found anywhere else. Same goes for this game's Super Packs.

The Super Packs of this game offer an array of features any one of which might motivate someone to buy them. Some people might like the ATOs, others the costume items, still other might only want to chase the Wolf. Some of these things you can get via other methods, some of them you can't. Your quaint idea that one of these various features (the costume set) has no place being an exclusive is flawed because for a certain subset of people that might turn out to be the only reason they'd buy the packs. Sure a given player X might find that "annoying" for whatever reason, but again from the the Devs' point of view all they'll care about is that they sold a Super Pack to player X for SOME reason regardless of what that reason was positive or negative. Paragon Studios can't force anyone to buy anything. What excuse do you really have to complain if you decide to buy something even if you for some reason don't like WHY you are buying it? You vote with your money - either stick to your guns and don't buy the packs or buy them with a smile on your face.

Basically the company is going to make more money off of selling his new costume set via super packs than they ever would via direct sales. It worked for Wizards of the Coast - it'll work for Paragon Studios as well. The people who hate Collectible Card Games don't buy them and WotC still laughs all the way to the bank. *shrugs*

First off, I'm not a lawyer. The following is simply the opinion of a professional computer technician and programmer.

I think part of what needs to made clear in our discussions is that 'conceptually' the Super Pack cards are no less legal in terms of gambling than over the counter Pokemon cards.

An adolescent looking for a... Charizard will spent an unknown amount of money to obtain it as will the players looking to collect 'specific' EO costume pieces.

One of the major complaints regarding the Super Packs is that some individuals would rather have a 'sure' way of obtaining the same costume pieces instead of paying for the 'chance' to obtain said pieces. I, myself, am in that camp and I have replied with numerous ways in this thread that they can provide both the costume pieces and the Super Packs in a way to appease both camps. Many people have, in fact.

Another concern raised, which I think you agree with, is that some individuals do not like the direction the company may go with random packs because of the bad habit it can form in others in terms of gambling for what you want.

Yesterday, I was logged into the game, went to the store, and debated whether I should purchase the packs or not in an attempt to acquire the EO set. In the end, I decided no. Partly because I wasn't assured to obtain the set with the birthday money I had to spend, but mainly because I didn't have another available costume slot for my character to use.

EDIT: Perhaps they should have added that to the drop list.

Wizards of the Coast has been selling Collectible Card Games (CCGs) to people (including minors) for 20+ years. The Super Packs in this game are far more analogous to CCGs than to slot machines. Perhaps you should consider the differences between the two before you try to make the leap trying to equate Super Packs with some form of pure gambling.

Because the company might want to know what will happen the next time they introduce a Super Pack. The distinction is important to the Devs, because they would be well-served by knowing if they must include a much-sought-after exclsuive costume set in every Super Pack offering to get them to sell. Right now, they don't know that.
Paragon doesn't know if people are buying them with a smile or a scowl... which wouldn't make any difference if they weren't planning on doing it again. If you don't know the reason behind your success, it's hard to replicate.

I'm not questioning if they will make more money off of Super Packs versus direct sales. I'm questioning if they will make more money off of Super Packs versus Super Packs and direct sales. I don't know the answer to that question, and I don't honestly think you do either. I suspect Paragon doesn't, either.

If we drop the 'quaint' assumption that Paragon cares about pleasing their customers, this is still a matter of income efficency. The question is: are the Super Packs competitive with our currently-in-place method of delivering content? In the interest of maximizing future profits, how much content should we release this way? All of it? Half? None?
Without an apples-to-apples comparison, I'm not sure they can intelligently answer these questions.

Actually, marketing is a lot more than the hit-or-miss tactic that you are describing. Terms like Insight, Competitive Framework, Target Audience, Key Brand Associations, Rational Benefit, Emotional Benefit, Performance Discriminator and Personality Discriminator are regularly used to decide the direction of marketing of a brand.

If Marketing know their stuff, the reason why the consumers buy their products matters a lot, because that determines the direction they will market the brand into the future. In the very least, one of the things you do not want as marketing is alienating your customers, to make them feel that they can't identify with the brand anymore. That happens very easily if you go for short term profit, and it can very easily lead to long term loss.

Possibly. Because it also didn't work for Wizards of the Coast. It worked on that brand (you know which), but not on a whole bunch of other brands. And they were not the only ones. The majority of the trading card games were quietly dropped after at most a year. A few survived.

You're right in one respect: they might not know exactly which element of their multi-featured Super Packs was more important to their overall sales than another. I simply contend that that kind of elemental information might not really be as important as you think it is.

The Devs are going to look at the overall sales of these Packs as an indicator as to what will come in Super Packs set #2, #3 and so on. If they determine that this first Super Pack set is a failure they will obviously go back to the drawing board and try some other formulation. But if they determine that this Super Pack was a success (by whatever criteria they measure that by) then you can rest easy that the next Super Packs will once again incorporate both exclusive and non exclusive features.

Ultimately I think your only chance to convince them that putting an exclusive costume set in these Super Packs was a mistake will be if the the Devs conclude that the overall sales of the the Packs were dismally below their expectations. Unfortunately for you I simply don't see that happening.

Your points might make more sense if we were taking about having actual competition amongst competing brands of Super Packs that all would apply to this game.

In this case all Marketing has to care about is whether they've produced a product that the players of this game are buying. If what they are selling is selling at or above their expectations what motivation would they have to change that formula when they release Super Packs #2, #3 and so on?

Sure WotC became the elephant in the room and pretty much survived as one of the "last men standing" in the CCG market. But that doesn't invalidate that they managed to use the generic CCG concept to build a highly successful business on.

Yes - and wouldn't it be a stupid decision if they could have both pleased a greater percentage of their playerbase and made more money by doing it a different way?

As it stands, nobody knows (I suspect) if that would have been the case. I don't blame Paragon for being willing to select income over player desires - that's fine, they're a corperation and have to make the rent. I just think that they might want to at least see if they can have their cake and eat it too.

Exactly.

We've debated the semantics of the word "gambling" enough here and I'm not about the dredge that up again, but in a legal sense, these are no more "gambling" than... you know what, let's forget CCGs for a minute. Baseball cards have been around over a century, and I used to buy whole display boxes of those things. Despite not being guaranteed to get a complete set. Despite the fact that more than half the packs I bought didn't include the players I wanted, or players from my favorite team, or players I'd ever even heard of. And nobody accused Topps or Fleer or Donruss of being predatory or underhanded for distributing their cards in sealed packs, nor the guy who ran the baseball card shop for not opening each one and selling the cards all as singles. And they certainly didn't try to imply that any of those parties were violating the law by selling those sealed packs to kids who came in asking for them. The things came in packs, and not knowing what you were getting was part of the fun. Friends would crowd around as I opened my cards because they wanted to see what was inside, and I'd do the same when they opened theirs. "I bought three packs today -- I wonder who I'll get? I hope its...."

(Incidentally, while I'm not buying these packs for the inspirations or temp powers -- not even close -- I can guarantee I'll get at least get some use out of every XP booster or self-rez I end up with, no matter how many I accumulate. More than I ever got out of my fifth Greg Vaughn Future Star card, at any rate.)

I mean, this discussion is getting to a point where I wonder when people are going to start accusing cereal manufacturers of actual, legitimate crimes for putting prizes at the bottom of their boxes: "'Collect all four?" How dare you, Kellogg's... how dare you."

Clearly you don't recall the history of this game. The Devs here have made a number of decisions that have probably hurt their bottom line profit-wise simply because they they didn't want to do something regardless.

For instance Positron has firmly established that he considers Super Groups to be "group content" and that he doesn't want to make it any easier for people to be able to perform offline invites despite constant promises by the players that they'd even be willing to pay for such a feature. The Devs have also said they would not be willing to offer "powerset respecs" again despite people being so desperate for that that they'd be willing to pay money for it.

Sometimes the Devs arbitrarily decide on the vision of their game even if those decisions might run contrary to their profit margins. I have great respect for them in those cases, even if i don't agree with them on particular individual issues. The Devs WANT exclusive things in this game and they'll likely continue to sneak them in despite us.

I'm aware of the game's history, and I know that the Devs have made decisions based on player desires that damaged their bottom line, and decisions based on their bottom line that angered their playerbase.

They've made decisions based on payer feedback and decisions ignoring player feedback. But the only way they can or will make decisions based on player feedback is for players to provide intelligent, opinionated feedback. That's what I'm trying to do here.
I understand it's an outside chance that they'll change their decision based on what I'm posting here. Even if I manage to convince a decent number of players that I'm right.

That, unlike the Super Packs, is a gamble I'm willing to take.

Well at least you realize you're probably spitting into the wind with this.
I did like how you nicely worded that was the "gamble" you were willing to take.

For what its worth I can at least sympathize with your cause here, hopeless or not. On Tuesday I bought 96 Super Packs and was admittedly hoping to get the Black Wolf but alas I didn't get it. On the upside I got the entire Elemental costume set within the first 17 packs (I actually got almost all of the eleven items within the first 7 packs) and I got so many extra ATOs that I made several billion Influence selling them for my trouble so I really have very few grounds to complain.

Do I hope or wish there will be another way to get the Black Wolf in the future? Of course I do. But I think the difference between you and me is that I don't see it as an "outrage" that the Devs chose to offer it this way. I'll live whether I get it or not. *shrugs*

For the record, I don't consider it an outrage, it's just a decision I do not support and therefore will not support. I suspect it is a marketing decision that will become more unpopular the more it is implemented, and so I am doing my tiny bit to discourage it from being implemented.

Let me be clear, however - if it could be demonstrated that the playerbase prefers, or that Paragon profits more from the Packs without the direct sales, I'd drop my public objection and quietly decide for myself if I was willing to overcome my distaste for the system to get the pieces.
Of course, the Devs don't 'owe' me this, and it can hardly be worth their time to do so. So that's where I am.

In any case, thanks for engaging, Lothic (and all).