The Market. And Why, In Its Current State, Will Be Warframe's Downfall.

[Blatantfool]

Don't buy it. Thats like saying a Ferrari cost as much as a mansion so it needs to be lowered in price.. It's not made for you.

 

  "WARFRAMES ARE LIKE A FERRARI. IF YOU HATE THE PRICE IT WASN'T MADE FOR YOU!"

 

 Like hell they are. The sheer difference in the value of the things you are talking about makes that entire argument fall to pieces.

 

 A new character in Warframe is no more valuable then a new character in any other videogame on the market. They CAN and SHOULD be compared in that light. Not to cars. Not to mansions. Not to anything but the same kind of purchase. You want to buy a Warframe? The logic is no different then wanting to buy a new character in League of Legends or a similar F2P title that makes a decent portion of its profit off such purchases. You are purchasing a new character, expectations exist for that sort of purchase.

 

 You wouldn't be likely to act kindly on a Convenience Store clerk trying to charge you $10 for a Snickers bar when the place down the street charges $1.35. You have a certain level for expectation because you understand the value of the thing you are buying.

[Cleesus]

you can buy most everything. the soma is in the market for credit. The price there is to encourage you to go play for the mat.

Looking at your join date im sure you know what im talking about. Back when we started there was craftable weapons, weapons for credits and plat weapons. Weapons like the gorgan/strun/boar were all buyable with credits and were some of the things you would work to get when you first started the game. now that is mostly gone.

[UnbeBleeder]

  "WARFRAMES ARE LIKE A FERRARI. IF YOU HATE THE PRICE IT WASN'T MADE FOR YOU!"

 

 Like hell they are. The sheer difference in the value of the things you are talking about makes that entire argument fall to pieces.

 

 A new character in Warframe is no more valuable then a new character in any other videogame on the market. They CAN and SHOULD be compared in that light. Not to cars. Not to mansions. Not to anything but the same kind of purchase. You want to buy a Warframe? The logic is no different then wanting to buy a new character in League of Legends or a similar F2P title that makes a decent portion of its profit off such purchases. You are purchasing a new character, expectations exist for that sort of purchase.

 

 You wouldn't be likely to act kindly on a Convenience Store clerk trying to charge you $10 for a Snickers bar when the place down the street charges $1.35. You have a certain level for expectation because you understand the value of the thing you are buying.

Okay true, bad metaphor. But that doesn't change the fact that all the things in the game should and can be built rather easily. Im making carrier and the soma right now and this is only after a few hours of farming.

Edited September 15, 2013 by Slyty98

[NeyoWargear]

If you don't like the prices then don't buy. That simple, if people want to skip the farming, they'll buy with Platinum. You got people farming and others just spending. The farmers show the game is worth grinding for hours so you can access more content, and the spenders show that the Market is worthwhile and making money for DE. That money used to buy Platinum is allowing the servers to run, the game to be updated, the workers at DE to be paid, and knowing people are actually willing to give money for something you created.

Edited September 15, 2013 by NeyoWargear

[Blatantfool]

Okay true, bad metaphor. But that doesn't change the fact that all the things in the game should and can be built rather easily. Im making carrier and the soma right now and this is only after a few hours of farming.

 

 That is honestly a whole problem in an of itself too.

 

 Because of the way the game works it is actually equally difficult to make, say, Excalibur from scratch as, say, Nyx or Nova.

 

 So then why are they different prices? Why would these frames all be divided so randomly in price? There is no consistency.

 

 Warframe should be $10-15 at most. Perhaps the starter frames could be a bit lower. It is about time they update prices for Mag and Volt to reflect the way the game works.

 

  Weapons are honestly no different.

 

 Slots and stuff are more or less fine in my opinion. 

 

 Quite a few of these items are too expensive. They cost quite a bit more then competitors would charge. To any newcomer this game is going to look incredibly expensive.

 

 

 And sure, you can try to keep giving people that "Then don't buy." crap - but that doesn't fix anything. Newcomers will keep hating it and keep not buying because their money isn't as valuable here as it would be elsewhere (Going back to the candy bar analogy. You aren't going to buy something you know is more expensive then you've been taught its worth.)

 

 Healthy market is a good market. Consistent, fair pricing makes it more enticing to spend money the first time as a newcomer and easier to excuse spending money again as a long-time player.

 

 

 I keep telling myself the only reason the prices are still incredibly borked is because they need to bleed founders of the insanely large mountains of Platinum we were given as extra. Once they clean all that up they no longer run the risk of running out of things to sell you for months at a time after fixing everything in the market.

 

 I'm reasonably confident when I say that the bizarre and expensive pricing has probably prevented just as many purchases as its made.

 

 

 

Seriously though. The fact that these items are legitimately easier to grind for then they are to justify buying is absolutely evidence they are priced beyond their value.

[UnbeBleeder]

 That is honestly a whole problem in an of itself too.

 

 Because of the way the game works it is actually equally difficult to make, say, Excalibur from scratch as, say, Nyx or Nova.

 

 So then why are they different prices? Why would these frames all be divided so randomly in price? There is no consistency.

 

 Warframe should be $10-15 at most. Perhaps the starter frames could be a bit lower. It is about time they update prices for Mag and Volt to reflect the way the game works.

 

  Weapons are honestly no different.

 

 Slots and stuff are more or less fine in my opinion. 

 

 Quite a few of these items are too expensive. They cost quite a bit more then competitors would charge. To any newcomer this game is going to look incredibly expensive.

 

 

 And sure, you can try to keep giving people that "Then don't buy." crap - but that doesn't fix anything. Newcomers will keep hating it and keep not buying because their money isn't as valuable here as it would be elsewhere (Going back to the candy bar analogy. You aren't going to buy something you know is more expensive then you've been taught its worth.)

 

 Healthy market is a good market. Consistent, fair pricing makes it more enticing to spend money the first time as a newcomer and easier to excuse spending money again as a long-time player.

 

 

 I keep telling myself the only reason the prices are still incredibly borked is because they need to bleed founders of the insanely large mountains of Platinum we were given as extra. Once they clean all that up they no longer run the risk of running out of things to sell you for months at a time after fixing everything in the market.

 

 I'm reasonably confident when I say that the bizarre and expensive pricing has probably prevented just as many purchases as its made.

 

 

 

Seriously though. The fact that these items are legitimately easier to grind for then they are to justify buying is absolutely evidence they are priced beyond their value.

Like I said don't play. I'll let DE learn their lesson. If people stop buying stuff and people stop joining.They will feel the burn. You think you can make a company do anything? This is essentially a boycott. You are basically asking for De to take your money but just not too much. And thats the difference.

Edited September 15, 2013 by Slyty98

[Blatantfool]

Like I said don't play. I'll let DE learn their lesson. If people stop buying stuff and people stop joining.They will feel the burn. You think you can make a company do anything? This is essentially a boycott. You are basically asking for De to take your money but just not too much. And thats the difference.

 

 I can honestly say that things don't actually work like that. I'm being very serious.

 

 What changes things is DEMAND for change. Not just ignoring it and waiting for them to get the memo.

 

 It isn't enough to just not buy. It needs to be spoken about. Demanded. 

 

 I understand and respect what you are trying to say though. It isn't that you are wrong. There is just more to it then that.

[KvotheTheArcane1]

Don't buy it. Thats like saying a Ferrari cost as much as a mansion so it needs to be lowered in price.. It's not made for you.

Blatant covered/refuted this pretty well.

 

Like I said don't play. I'll let DE learn their lesson. If people stop buying stuff and people stop joining.They will feel the burn. You think you can make a company do anything? This is essentially a boycott. You are basically asking for De to take your money but just not too much. And thats the difference.

No, like blatant said (again), voicing your concerns will get it changed faster than waiting, AND might "save" warframe before it has to shutdown. (Plus, it's easier to reprice what they currently have, and make new weapons priced well, than doing more and more items all at once later on. This is something they REALLY need to look into, I'd GLADLY buy more platinum if it things were reasonably priced.)

[itsbigjon]

+1

 

It's just inflation. Turns out DE artists aren't too great with the economics.

[waverid3r]

 I can honestly say that things don't actually work like that. I'm being very serious.

 

 What changes things is DEMAND for change. Not just ignoring it and waiting for them to get the memo.

 

 It isn't enough to just not buy. It needs to be spoken about. Demanded. 

 

 I understand and respect what you are trying to say though. It isn't that you are wrong. There is just more to it then that.

 

Soo If I want Gas Prices to be a 1$ per litre, and I get 500,000 people to sign a pettion.

do you think that the Gas companies are going to listen to what the people want?

[Arlayn]

Soo If I want Gas Prices to be a 1$ per litre, and I get 500,000 people to sign a pettion.

do you think that the Gas companies are going to listen to what the people want?

pshwa... no unless Texas breaks away from the US then we can finally drop gas prices to $1... but that's the only way I see it happening.... otherwise there is too much paper work involved with lowering that gas price, and as it is changing the system might be easy in the game but they may have needed something to make more money in order to release more content, maybe they have big plans for update 11 and they want us to spend money...

Edited September 15, 2013 by Arlayn

[Blatantfool]

Soo If I want Gas Prices to be a 1$ per litre, and I get 500,000 people to sign a pettion.

do you think that the Gas companies are going to listen to what the people want?

 

 The value of gasoline is entirely different then the value of a character in a game. It is cute you're willing to grasp at straws over this - but there is no point.

[Mak_Gohae]

Alright, again, My point was, 4 weapons/frames in WF are the price of a new triple A game. That's not good pricing for WF.

 

Even compared to other successful F2Ps, the prices are bad. They should be fixed.

 

Dude, those games after they are release it's done 90% of the time for content. What you bought is what you get and that's it.

This game continuously adds new stuff FOR FREE.

And when triple A games DO add more content 90% of that time they charge you for it.

 

If this was a packaged game you would probably would end up getting half of the frames half of the weapons for 60 bucks and anything else would be DLC for 20 bucks for each package. Void Package for Void Maps and prime weapons, hek, this last patch would be a DLC.

 

You are just looking at one thing and ignoring every single factor around it.

[Slifar]

Gee, it's almost like they're trying to make you pay in proportion to the amount of work you're saving.

Heaven forbid they make 1 hour of work worth the exact same as 10 hours of work.


In all seriousness, they already give out some pretty nice coupons pretty regularly.

On top of this, this isn't even that ODD of pricing, considering that these things you're buying aren't just minor changes like guns in TF2, They're things that change a very significant portion of what you do when you play the game (I.E. a Snipetron isn't a Braton, and a Braton isn't a Hek).

They also need to balance out how easy it is to basically "buy out" of their game.

Let me use this as an example: Say you're playing the BEST MMO EVER. Let's also say that this is a F2P game with microtransactions, but for what ever reason you cannot pay a SINGLE CENT. Now, lets say that anyone who manages to get a character to the highest level, which is VERY DIFFICULT AND/OR TIME CONSUMING unlocks the ability to make characters of a class that only people who have done this have access to. Now lets also say that you REALLY want this class. What would your reaction be if they suddenly released it in the cash shop for a penny? You'd be pretty outraged, right? I mean, what's the whole point of having to work so hard for it if you can get it for basically a credit card number. How about if it was a dollar? You'd still be pretty mad, because it'd be very easy for the paying players to give close to nothing to get what you have to invest huge amounts of blood, sweat, and tears for, but it certainly isn't nearly as outrageous as a penny. Now bump it up to $10. You'd probably still be pretty miffed, because it takes a LOT OF EFFORT to get the class without paying money, and so you might feel like the game is actually a pay-to-play game that only pretends at being free to play to get people hooked. Now bump the price up to $100. Suddenly, it doesn't seem quite that bad, does it? You're still jealous of those who can afford this, and perhaps annoyed that the option still exists, but it doesn't make you feel like you work and effort is totally worthless, and you can still feel some pride when you do get that class, because YOU got it by yourself, and WITHOUT having to pay large amounts of money to do so.

Of course, these pricepoints are extreme, but you get the idea. If DE makes things too cheap, then there isn't much value to all the work players are putting into getting things without paying. This is also why rushing things is VERY VERY cheap in comparison to actually outright buying them a lot of the time, since you actually earned them, and just want to skip the wait!

 

Hell, Nekros can only be obtained from the new Derelict boss. Which you have to do MULTIPLE TIMES, with each run itself requiring(generally, if you get lucky you can get up to 12 or so orbs per run I believe) MULTIPLE DERELICT RUNS to get the nav coords for, because Golem Nav Coords only drop in derelict missions. Each requires 5 orbs and multiple resources to build, and EACH build takes an HOUR to finish.

I'm convinced the only reason Nekros wasn't priced HIGHER is because DE realizes that 375 is a good upper limit for warframe plat prices, (Or I've underestimated how harsh the RNG on nav drops is) because sweet lord.

There's other reasons to have pricepoints where they are now, but Im tired and need to sleep lol

[jpstahl]

Just some thoughts on the subject of pricing and economics in general.

 

What usually decides the price of the good are the supply and demand curvies of said item. Now, since all goods in the Warframe market are digital and therefore infinite, we can't use that as the supply line. Instead, we'd consider the supply of time and rarity in farming up materials/parts to craft said item. So the rarer and harder an item is to farm for, the higher the price, and the easier it is to farm for, the lower the price.

 

Then we consider the demand curve of the item. That usually depends on its looks, its statistics, and the buyer's personal preference of weapon/warframe type.

 

DE knows how rare each item is and average time to farm to craft each item, so it knows the basic supply curve. They can also roughly figure out where the demand curve is since they know how many of each item is sold for platinum and even how many of each blueprint is sold for credits. And so, it wouldn't be hard for them to find an optimum (mind you not fair to the buyer) platinum price for each item.

 

The interesting predicament their pricing gurus are in is that as the game ages and patches are implemented, demand for older weapons and frames can drop off. Eventually the only ones buying old frames and weapons are either people swimming in platinum and don't know what to do with it or are OCD, but don't have the time to farm for everything. And yet, despite the drop in demand, they can't really change the platinum prices because constantly fluctuating prices mean that people will SAVE their platinum until a predicted price drop. And so, we get results like the Vulkar having the same price as the Miter.

 

Their solution to this problem are bundles and platinum discount coupons. Regular players with money and time to spend will see how much it costs to buy a warframe like the Banshee and see it costs 225 platinum which is the equivalent of $15 (without discount) and scoff at how terrible a price burden that is on a digital item that they can farm for. Two weeks later they still haven't found the Banshee helm on Xini, and find themselves with a 50% off coupon from their daily reward. They also take notice of the Femme Fatale bundle for 500 platinum that contains 2 other warframes (Saryn and Nyx) that they haven't even started to farm for yet. And so, armed with their 50% coupon they decide to buy the $30 pack for $15. They buy their bundle, and maybe save the rest or spend on formas and they feel happy they've "beaten the system".

 

While DE has earned only $15 instead of $30, if they had done nothing it is likely they would've earned $0 from the customer because of the exorbitantly high prices on individual items. But not only have they made a sale, but they also created a satisfied customer who will most likely buy platinum from them again when they feel like a)their time is too valuable to use on farming or b)are too frustrated with their farming and decide to just buy the item they desire. The goal of the bundles and the discount coupons aren't just to give the player/customer a break, but to make them feel like they "won" over the system and when they feel like they've "won" again with another coupon they will be more likely to pay again.

 

EDIT: By the way, if they were really out to price gouge us, they'd sell clan weapons and prime gear in the market for platinum, because those are generally the hardest to farm.

 

TL;DR: The individual market prices are all an advertising ploy. Only those flush with money (or platinum from founders packs) and don't care about the cost buy from there. They make their money off of Orokin catalysts/reactors, formas, bundles, and vanity items you can't farm for like color packs and scarves. Those individual price markings are just to show how much the customer/player how much they are "saving" by buying bundles.

Edited September 15, 2013 by jpstahl

[NalkorRN]

I have a 20 dollar UGC and..I want to buy something so that I would have the plat for nekros....but the disciple pack only gives 370 plat...:/

Just wait for a 75% off coupon from login and then spend all that extra plat on slots (warframe and weapon) along with a few taters. No Warframe+Slot+Tater is worth almost $25.

[Silvershadow66]

Come on, DE!

WTF is going on with your market pricing??

It's getting worse, and worse. There's a reason the business model is called F2P with microtransactions.

 

Nothing is wrong with the Market pricing. You just don't understand how F2P market pricing works.

 

Warframes and Weapons are mainly on the market for the portion of the player base who work full time and play occasionally. They can't spend the time grinding for lots of drops but they can, and will, spend 200+ plat on something that they want.

 

For the people who have lots of time but not so much money these things can be farmed, and lots of people will farm them. The items above are not aimed at them, in fact they are priced high so that people will farm them or only buy 1 when they get a 50% or 75% plat discount.

 

For all players the cheaper items are there, slots, potatoes, formas. Lots of 20% discounts to encourage people to spend a little.

 

F2P games need people who spend money in large amounts but they have a greater need for lots of people who spend a little money but play a lot (and also the people who play for free and spend a lot of time farming drops). A F2P game needs revenue but it also needs players, if the population gets low enough the money will move to another game.

[Luart]

Do we have proof? I think we do.

 

The average triple A game   >profesional thief game<  i.e. CoD, BL2, etc costs $60.

 

4 weapons or frames in warframe average out to $15, or $60. (this was around 9.6ish, probably higher now by a bit)

 

How is that well priced?

And thats why ppl like me are pirates with x3 A games xD

Edited September 15, 2013 by Luart

[Gekker]

Good that you pointed out the extra credit video because you are ignoring a very, very important fact.

 

Warframe players are paying for convenience. Exclusively!

 

 

You are not forced to pay to enjoy all the content in Warframe. You will unlock it at some point. If you are ok with farming and grinding (the game is all about grinding).

The thing I would highly recommend to buy are slots! Thats it. Everything else is up to your personal preference or your patience.

 

And then there are sale tokens as login rewards. You could somewhat call it a convenience token if you like. Because when you use one of these to buy platin all the prizes go down drastically. All you need is patience.

You just have to skip your login reward for one day and claim day 1-3 login rewards until you get lucky. In one or two weeks you can get a 75% token and buy 4300 platin for 44,99€ (probably around 50$).

 

Thats less than 4 bucks for Nekros!

If you are unpatient and have enough money at hand you can do it immediately but you have to pay more. Its simple.

 

Your worries are unfounded.

[Silvershadow66]

Do we have proof? I think we do.

 

The average triple A game, i.e. CoD, BL2, etc costs $60.

 

4 weapons or frames in warframe average out to $15, or $60. (this was around 9.6ish, probably higher now by a bit)

 

How is that well priced?

 

Lets see, I can wait for discounts, spend $30 and get a frame and a stack load of slots and potatoes. I can then play the game for far longer than I play any AAA title. While I am playing I get another 5 frames and 30 weapons for free.

 

That is how it is well priced.

[slappy330]

I want Nekros...I need to crank out ATLEAST 25 dollars to get him....WTF?

 

I could just go buy Natural Selection 2 for that price..

[Silvershadow66]

Those never and ever cost same as a NEW GAME unless you buy them a lot.

 

Your argument is (maybe) null. haven't ever seen it goes over 30$ for one item which is not bundle or something 90Days boost.

(And haven't ever seen someone buy it excepting those man buying them just for lulz)

 

 

Go play World of Tanks. Most expensive single items cost over $51. And they have sold over half a million of 1 of those tanks just on their largest server.

 

And yeah, I have a Löwe (and a Type 59). But I have spend over 2,000 hours playing that game so a couple of hundred bucks was a cheap sum to give the developer for that much fun.

Edited September 15, 2013 by Silvershadow66

[ZukaBazuka]

There are a lot of titles on Steam that goes under 15$ that would give fun for me than spending that money on Warframe. When most of you people say "I will buy platinum when I get 50%-75% off" Its broken and you would never buy it at full price. Because if the free version just look so much better option to pick than actually paying for it, the market is actually hurting the game in return.

 

You want to get people to buy platinum and spend on the stuff but right now people buy plat at discount and only spend it on slots, forma and Orokin Catalyst/Reactor. Because those are the hardest thing to get in the game and slots can only be bought with platinum. The platinum I bought have never been used to buy a weapon or warframe, only slots and orokin catalyst. The rest I have farmed.

 

It should be MICRO transaction, not I'm buying a warframe that cost more than a damn game.

[Silvershadow66]

I have to agree with the OP here.  The entire purpose behind micro-transactions is to get people to buy on impulse

 

No its not. The purpose is to allow people with less spare cash to spend small amounts regularly. This is particularly attractive for people who play casually. Their $5 per 100 hours of play might only come in once a quarter but there are a huge number of players in that bracket.

 

Impulse buy items are very cheap and you can spend only the amount you need to get it. If you could buy 6 plat for 1 weapon slot that would be supporting impulse buying.

Edited September 15, 2013 by Silvershadow66

[Silvershadow66]

Its broken and you would never buy it at full price. Because if the free version just look so much better option to pick than actually paying for it, the market is actually hurting the game in return.

 

No its not. The discounts allow you to get better rewards for money that you can spend anyway. You argument is like saying that a 50% sale offer at a shop is hurting the shop.