Audio Interview of DE_Reb about Live Service Games & Warframe, by Planet Money

[Salenstormwing]

Rebecca Ford, aka Space Mom, did an interview with NPR's Planet Money staff, to talk about Digital Extremes, video games, live services, and Warframe. I felt some folks here might want to take a listen to it. It's about 9 to 11 minutes long. And yes, it was on the radio when I was driving home yesterday.

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/22/1197963994/indicator-from-planet-money-live-service-games-warframe

Feel free to discuss it here.

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Thank you for posting this and the link. 

[Aruquae]

Kowalski, analysis?

[TeaHands]

11 minutes ago, Aruquae said:

Kowalski, analysis?

Reb talks for maybe 2 minutes worth of the podcast? Maybe less

Reb has been behind a lot of the monetization options in the game. Getting players to pay for power made them mad, but were fine with cosmetic purchases. According to Reb about 10% of players are funding Warframe.

She has spent over $1,000 in the game so far, does not use any sort of employee discount so she can get the "raw" experience.

Game industry is looking to lean a lot more into Live Service type games and there's been some pushback from gamers, like with the new Suicide Squad.

It was pretty short and had a long ad at the beginning lol.

[Circle_of_Psi]

5 minutes ago, TeaHands said:

According to Reb about 10% of players are funding Warframe.

Ooof

[Aruquae]

16 minutes ago, TeaHands said:

Reb talks for maybe 2 minutes worth of the podcast? Maybe less

Reb has been behind a lot of the monetization options in the game. Getting players to pay for power made them mad, but were fine with cosmetic purchases. According to Reb about 10% of players are funding Warframe.

She has spent over $1,000 in the game so far, does not use any sort of employee discount so she can get the "raw" experience.

Game industry is looking to lean a lot more into Live Service type games and there's been some pushback from gamers, like with the new Suicide Squad.

It was pretty short and had a long ad at the beginning lol.

Not bad, not bad

The typical business conversation, I like how she’s open about it. 
Only 10% though? I wonder what the majority is…

[RobWasHere]

8 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

Ooof

Maybe oof, but its a standard in f2p games. A fraction of players brings most of the revenue. Attracting whales is a key to success in this field.

[quxier]

7 minutes ago, Aruquae said:

25 minutes ago, TeaHands said:

Reb talks for maybe 2 minutes worth of the podcast? Maybe less

Reb has been behind a lot of the monetization options in the game. Getting players to pay for power made them mad, but were fine with cosmetic purchases. According to Reb about 10% of players are funding Warframe.

She has spent over $1,000 in the game so far, does not use any sort of employee discount so she can get the "raw" experience.

Game industry is looking to lean a lot more into Live Service type games and there's been some pushback from gamers, like with the new Suicide Squad.

It was pretty short and had a long ad at the beginning lol.

Expand  

Not bad, not bad

The typical business conversation, I like how she’s open about it. 
Only 10% though? I wonder what the majority is…

I see new "Mesa toy" that costs me 170$. What I can buy for that? If we are talking about games, I can buy 2-3 newish games and much more (20?) some older games. Some other stuff? I can buy buy enough food for month without keeping in mind every single price (of course not some stupid high priced food). My new laptop costed 4x Mesa toy price.

Some of that 90% players just see price for anything, they see all changes (e.g. massive nerfs to frames), they laugh and they continue to grind (till they can). Who is going to pay so much money for stuff that can change or is just "meh"?

36 minutes ago, TeaHands said:

She has spent over $1,000 in the game so far, does not use any sort of employee discount so she can get the "raw" experience.

But how many years she has been spending that 1k$? We have 11th anniversary. So even 100$ per year is "not that much".  And how much she earns per year? You know if you earn e.g. 50k per year, then 1k$ is NOTHING. You earn 50k per year? Ok, pay few thousands PER YEAR. That would be more "raw experience".

[Aruquae]

21 minutes ago, quxier said:

Some of that 90% players just see price for anything, they see all changes (e.g. massive nerfs to frames), they laugh and they continue to grind (till they can). Who is going to pay so much money for stuff that can change or is just "meh"?

Makes sense

I guess it makes sense with how F2P this game truly is… everything is obtainable through time and work, not money. 
Aside from steam tennogen (specifically on PC) and regal aya

[TARINunit9]

1 hour ago, Aruquae said:

Not bad, not bad

The typical business conversation, I like how she’s open about it. 
Only 10% though? I wonder what the majority is…

 

32 minutes ago, quxier said:

 

But how many years she has been spending that 1k$? We have 11th anniversary. So even 100$ per year is "not that much".  And how much she earns per year? You know if you earn e.g. 50k per year, then 1k$ is NOTHING. You earn 50k per year? Ok, pay few thousands PER YEAR. That would be more "raw experience".

Keep in mind this is far ahead of the curve for most love service games, which are funded on a roughly 2%. The so called "whales" (term coined by a CEO) who spend 1k$ per year. Compared to your average f2p mobile game asking me to pay $99 every single login, I've always respected Warframe for letting me go right to the missions and only asking for five bucks every few weeks

[Circle_of_Psi]

1 hour ago, RobWasHere said:

Maybe oof, but its a standard in f2p games. A fraction of players brings most of the revenue. Attracting whales is a key to success in this field.

Still oof

that number could be easily better, I mean look at the ways they tried to get money out of players, like that Pack and then nerfing Dante

[PublikDomain]

1 hour ago, Aruquae said:

Kowalski, analysis?

Here's the transcript for anyone that just wants to read it:

Quote

In 2012, Rebecca Ford was part of a team that had spent years making a video game. Problem was they couldn't sell it to a games publisher.

REBECCA FORD: We were desperate. We had to make a paycheck for our team that month. And if we didn't have a way to support ourselves, it was all going to collapse.

WAILIN WONG, HOST:

Rebecca is a creative director at the games developer Digital Extremes. And the company was kind of like a band that had spent years toiling away on a beautifully orchestrated album. And now no labels wanted to have them. So Digital Extremes went indie. They self-published this game called Warframe.

WOODS: And with this newfound freedom, they released it in a type of way that was gaining steam in the games industry. Instead of selling a one-off game to purchase, this game would be free to download.

FORD: And if you like it, you can buy some in-game currency. And, you know, we'll update the game as often as we can to make it worth your investment.

WONG: This sort of thing is known as a live service model - a game that's like a living creature. You play online - often for free - and the game gets constantly updated, funded by in-game purchases - that in-game currency.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WONG: Fortnite is one particularly successful example. Now almost every major game maker is doing it. This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY. I'm Wailin Wong.

WOODS: And I'm Darian Woods. This week at THE INDICATOR, we have a whole series decoding the economics that fuel the video game industry. And to kick it off, this gigantic shift in how games are played - the live service model. We learned why the approach Rebecca took to games has been popping up everywhere and how this has fueled a backlash from players. That's after the break.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WOODS: To understand what the game Warframe is, we asked Rebecca Ford to explain.

FORD: You're standing at the front of a spaceship. In front of you is Venus - a planet you know, but it looks a little wrong, like maybe you're in the far future. Your character - you can't see his face. They're helmets. They're muscular.

(SOUNDBITE OF KATANA SLICING)

FORD: And then you pull out a katana that is glowing, and you start slicing through robots. And that's Warframe.

WONG: Just like a regular Friday night for me.

WOODS: You and your katana blade.

WONG: (Laughter).

WOODS: I'm slightly scared now, Wailin.

WONG: (Laughter) Oh, you should be. In 2012, when Rebecca's company decided to release Warframe through this relatively new live service model, she was scrambling.

FORD: Someone had to learn really quickly how to self-publish a game with web infrastructure, community infrastructure, support infrastructure. And that was my role at the time.

WONG: That meant servers, round-the-clock chat and ways to accept payments inside the game.

WOODS: Almost like building the plane as it's running, like...

FORD: That is...

WOODS: ...To keep people - yeah.

FORD: ...Exactly what happened. None of us knew what we were doing, but we didn't know what we were doing together. So we all would compensate for someone else's lack of expertise, I'll say.

WONG: And she sought help from players of the game. Rebecca thought that there needed to be a feature for players to give ideas for updates. And this kind of player feedback was critical, especially when dealing with the sensitive issue of money.

WOODS: So in the game, maybe you could pay real dollars for a new sword that gives strange new powers. Or you could buy a special character who controls fire. Rebecca thinks back to this one particular purchase option that backfired.

FORD: A player could spend a dollar, let's say, to double the strength of their character. And then players got really mad.

WOODS: Players didn't like that there was only one way to unlock this better perk. It felt unequal, unsportsmanlike. And so they gave players a way to do the same thing but for free.

WONG: And this ability to change paths is the advantage of a live service model game. You don't need to spend years working on an update and hoping players will like it. You can be constantly tweaking and iterating. This means that Rebecca is in constant dialogue with players.

FORD: For 11 years, once a month, at least, we've sat on the couch doing developer live streams.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

FORD: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to dev stream 152, or home...

We kind of cracked open a beer and been like, hey, we know we screwed up with this decision, but we're going to change it in the next update. See you next month for more news.

WONG: And while adding features, the company noticed one paid category was taking off - changing your appearance. They added more ways to pay for this. And this is in a way that doesn't affect gameplay at all. It's just what players think looks cool. The term for this is cosmetics.

FORD: We didn't have a lot of cosmetics initially. But when we started adding things like scarves or alternate helmets or a total reskin - so your character that looks like a fire wizard now looks like a phoenix - Those are the types of things that really do impact our ability to be a stable, stable, stable place that can have a payroll department.

WOODS: Pretty scarves or helmets might seem kind of trivial. But for a lot of games, cosmetics are one of the biggest sources of revenue.

WONG: And that revenue comes from just a few players. In Warframe's case, only about 10% of Warframe's players pay anything at all. In the gaming community, the top spenders are called whales. They sustain this large ongoing production team, which can be expensive. Jason Schreier is a reporter on gaming at Bloomberg News.

JASON SCHREIER: We're talking hundreds of millions of dollars to make these games.

WOODS: This is like a blockbuster movie.

SCHREIER: I mean, way, way more expensive than a blockbuster movie when you account for marketing and such. I mean, we're seeing some games that are really taking, I mean, half a billion to make.

WOODS: So that's on the expenses side. And on the revenue side, there is this advantage. Money comes in more consistently, or at least in theory. Warner Bros. Discovery publishes games like Hogwarts Legacy and Mortal Kombat. And this year, its boss said that they want to lean more into live service games because it reduces volatility for the company. That said, they have one title that is doing particularly poorly at the moment. That is Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League.

WONG: And that might speak to a growing fatigue with live service games from gamers, maybe because there's only so many hours in the day to play these ever-evolving games.

SCHREIER: The problem is that each time a game comes out and it's kind of existing on the market forever, it's just more competition that never goes away. And so you get to this point that we're at now where the market is totally oversaturated with these live-service games.

WONG: In fact, Jason sees signs of a consolidation in the industry, with the recent layoffs from companies like Epic Games and Riot Games.

WOODS: Rebecca says criticisms of the live service model are fair, especially when these games haven't been done well by companies simply trying to make money. And she explains it like this. Think about other types of games. You might pay $80, and that's all the company will ever get from you.

FORD: But for a free-to-play game, there is no limit. Like, if I look at my lifetime spend in Warframe, the game I make, I have spent over $1,000 in my own game. (Laughter) So...

WOODS: You don't get, like, a staff discount code?

FORD: No, I really try and deal with it raw. So if you're a business person and if you only care about the bottom line, you're going to try and figure out a way to raise the ceiling on how much a single person can spend on your game. And I believe a lot of gamers can smell when that is happening.

WONG: And the Federal Trade Commission is sniffing out when that monetization becomes outright predatory. In 2022, the FTC accused Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, of tricking users into paying money inside the game. Epic Games agreed to pay $245 million in refunds.

WOODS: So while it can be tempting for a game maker to look at that 90% or so of gamers who might be playing for free and wonder, how could we get them to pay? - you know, this is tough. The lesson seems to be that too much obsession with money can backfire.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WOODS: We would love to hear your thoughts. Email us at indicator@npr.org. This episode was produced by Corey Bridges, with engineering by Cena Loffredo. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate Concannon edits the show, and THE INDICATOR is a production of NPR.

Tomorrow, as we continue our week-long series on the gaming industry, we'll take a look at accessibility. What for decades was somewhat of an afterthought for major game developers is now an expectation. Tomorrow, our exploration into video game accessibility.

 

[PublikDomain]

7 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

Keep in mind this is far ahead of the curve for most love service games, which are funded on a roughly 2%. The so called "whales" (term coined by a CEO) who spend 1k$ per year.

Also keep in mind the actual wording:

Quote

WONG: And that revenue comes from just a few players. In Warframe's case, only about 10% of Warframe's players pay anything at all. In the gaming community, the top spenders are called whales. They sustain this large ongoing production team, which can be expensive. Jason Schreier is a reporter on gaming at Bloomberg News.

It's not "10% of players are whales", it's "10% of players spend any money at all". I'd be really curious to see how that actually breaks down.

• 10% of who? The 60-million registered losers users? Because a lot of that total figure is going to be abandoned accounts who played a little and never continued.
• How much of that 10% are actually whales?
• What percentage of players spend plat? How many players are totally F2P but still engage in premium content like the market?

Edited April 24 by PublikDomain

[Chewarette]

5 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

Still oof

that number could be easily better, I mean look at the ways they tried to get money out of players, like that Pack and then nerfing Dante

10% of paying players is a crazy good number for a F2P game though

[Circle_of_Psi]

1 hour ago, Chewarette said:

10% of paying players is a crazy good number for a F2P game though

If you say so 🤷‍♂️

Again, it seems so small but is any % is good?

Edited April 24 by Circle_of_Psi

[SneakyErvin]

36 minutes ago, quxier said:

I see new "Mesa toy" that costs me 170$. What I can buy for that? If we are talking about games, I can buy 2-3 newish games and much more (20?) some older games. Some other stuff? I can buy buy enough food for month without keeping in mind every single price (of course not some stupid high priced food). My new laptop costed 4x Mesa toy price.

Some of that 90% players just see price for anything, they see all changes (e.g. massive nerfs to frames), they laugh and they continue to grind (till they can). Who is going to pay so much money for stuff that can change or is just "meh"?

I'm just really curious what a seperate collectible has to do with the game and the pricing in the game. Like I cant really follow that thought process at all. Do you complain about the price of an Alien movie bluray being too high when you go out and grab a $100 Alien collectible statue? 🤷‍♂️

40 minutes ago, quxier said:

But how many years she has been spending that 1k$? We have 11th anniversary. So even 100$ per year is "not that much".  And how much she earns per year? You know if you earn e.g. 50k per year, then 1k$ is NOTHING. You earn 50k per year? Ok, pay few thousands PER YEAR. That would be more "raw experience".

"Raw experience" refers to how much she gets out of it per dollar as opposed to if she had a discount. The amount spent doesnt matter. $1k is only nothing if you have the money and want more, if you've gotten what you want the $1k is enough for the time being no matter what you earn. Spending for the sake of spending seems rather uhm idiotic. It would also kinda scew the "raw experience" since you'd spend on things you neither want nor need.

$1k is also roughly comparable to a sub based game over the same period, and even comes off cheaper with more bang per buck compared to a sub based game. 8 years of WoW roughly cost me $1300. So being able to pay $1k in order enjoy a game throughout 11 years seems rather fair and indicates the game has a good F2P setup.

[TARINunit9]

Just now, SneakyErvin said:

I'm just really curious what a seperate collectible has to do with the game and the pricing in the game

It's fairly normal these days, actually. Game merchandise. Activision and EA do it, Valve used to do it, Korean f2p mobile games do it. And Warframe does it

The $170 price tag is sadly also normal. The overhead on a resin statue sculptor isn't cheap, so a lot of that price tag is just making sure the company can break even

[SneakyErvin]

Just now, TARINunit9 said:

It's fairly normal these days, actually. Game merchandise. Activision and EA do it, Valve used to do it, Korean f2p mobile games do it. And Warframe does it

The $170 price tag is sadly also normal. The overhead on a resin statue sculptor isn't cheap, so a lot of that price tag is just making sure the company can break even

Yeah I just mean I cant see how it impacts the experience of the game. "Boo-hoo! I cant afford the Toy that does nothing for me in the game". It's a collectible to get if you really like the game and really like collectibles tied to things you like. And yeah, the tag seems high since the price to make them is likely also high in the first place. I personally think it is great that companies/bands do these things. I'd kill for a Norse Stone Troll sculpture back in the day when I played Dark Age of Camelot, or a little Kobold maybe. Got so happy when Amon Amarth had a Surtur sculpture availble through a limited edition release of the Surtur Rising album.

One thing I wonder about what was said is the 10% of the players funding the game. Does that account for only active players or total players. Since that is a huge difference in the end.

[0_The_F00l]

1 hour ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

Ooof

That's number may need to be taken with a grain of salt ,

Although there does tend to be a general observation in business of a 80:20 rule for service provider industries.

80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your customers and 20% business will come from 80% of your customers.

[C11H22O1]

49 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

If you say so 🤷‍♂️

I mean, if you think about it for a bit then 10% is pretty good. You can get every equipment without spending money and you don't even have to participate in trading either.

[Circle_of_Psi]

26 minutes ago, C11H22O1 said:

I mean, if you think about it for a bit then 10% is pretty good. You can get every equipment without spending money and you don't even have to participate in trading either.

That's fair

[(PSN)slightconfuzzled]

Now that I have gotten to listen, there were some interesting tidbits and reveals. 

I really do wish more info was readily and freely available and just generally more transparent, as far as game costs, strategies and so on, and some of it is, just you know, not all of it. For various reasons. Plus I don't have as much time or energy to really investigate and understand game business/development, even if I find it interesting. 10% is an interesting number as far as players contributing to the game directly as far as paying. The other day I remembered a Swvre study that Forbes referenced, thats very dated now, and I am not sure about all the variables they accounted for, but a rough conclusion was around the time of the study (I think about 10 years ago now), they put like... 0.15% of mobile phone gamers were responsible for 50% of the revenue. 

So when I hear a number for Warframe like 10%, I wonder about more specifics, like they counting every player that downloaded the game, or play regularly. Do they strictly mean pay real currency at all, or like more those that pay past a certain amount. Then out of that 10%, like whats going on in there. Is it like 1% of that 10% responsible for 50% of paying? What's the additional break down there. Also am I considered a whale? I'm not actually sure, I have probably definitely spent more than the average Warframe player, but I have also probably definitely spent more time playing the game over the years more than the average player as well. I mean, I have max standing with Ventakids. Every few years I might but a Prime Access or two, usually for the accessories/cosmetics and to support the game. I like grinding for Prime stuff. In my mind, whales are the kind of players who just but Plat without ever waiting for a discount or the kinds of players who buy plat just because they want to buy Rivens for 2k plat or engage in that sort of thing. 

Anyway I am glad that Reb seems pretty aware of the backlash that can happen, as well as burn out, player thresholds and tolerances for certain practices/money grabbing and navigating that with players interests in mind. Warframe is the only game I play with this sort of monetisation, I couldn't even imagine playing multiple types of games designed this way. 

[quxier]

20 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

21 hours ago, quxier said:

But how many years she has been spending that 1k$? We have 11th anniversary. So even 100$ per year is "not that much".  And how much she earns per year? You know if you earn e.g. 50k per year, then 1k$ is NOTHING. You earn 50k per year? Ok, pay few thousands PER YEAR. That would be more "raw experience".

Keep in mind this is far ahead of the curve for most love service games, which are funded on a roughly 2%. The so called "whales" (term coined by a CEO) who spend 1k$ per year. Compared to your average f2p mobile game asking me to pay $99 every single login, I've always respected Warframe for letting me go right to the missions and only asking for five bucks every few weeks

Don't get me wrong. I like that you can acquire majority of things. Big part of it is in reasonable time and/or you can buy for ~350 plat max. It's just when I want to spend some money on something I just don't see reasons to do it with WF.

20 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

21 hours ago, quxier said:

I see new "Mesa toy" that costs me 170$. What I can buy for that? If we are talking about games, I can buy 2-3 newish games and much more (20?) some older games. Some other stuff? I can buy buy enough food for month without keeping in mind every single price (of course not some stupid high priced food). My new laptop costed 4x Mesa toy price.

Some of that 90% players just see price for anything, they see all changes (e.g. massive nerfs to frames), they laugh and they continue to grind (till they can). Who is going to pay so much money for stuff that can change or is just "meh"?

I'm just really curious what a seperate collectible has to do with the game and the pricing in the game. Like I cant really follow that thought process at all. Do you complain about the price of an Alien movie bluray being too high when you go out and grab a $100 Alien collectible statue? 🤷‍♂️

I've just picked this toy as the price struck me as high. Platinum prices are not very far from that 170$. In dollars (using google to change currencies): 154, 76, 38, 15, 7, 4.

20 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

21 hours ago, quxier said:

But how many years she has been spending that 1k$? We have 11th anniversary. So even 100$ per year is "not that much".  And how much she earns per year? You know if you earn e.g. 50k per year, then 1k$ is NOTHING. You earn 50k per year? Ok, pay few thousands PER YEAR. That would be more "raw experience".

"Raw experience" refers to how much she gets out of it per dollar as opposed to if she had a discount. The amount spent doesnt matter. $1k is only nothing if you have the money and want more, if you've gotten what you want the $1k is enough for the time being no matter what you earn. Spending for the sake of spending seems rather uhm idiotic. It would also kinda scew the "raw experience" since you'd spend on things you neither want nor need.

I don't mean to literally spend 1k$ "just because". I meant let her calculate if she would still want to pay more money for the same goods.

 

Say, now she buy pack for 100$ that give you 2100 plat (I've changed values just for simplicity of calculations). Let's say that she earns 50k$ per year. That's 0,2% of hear yearly income. That's not even 1%. That's pocket change.

Now take income per year from other country. Now she earns 12k$. That 100$ becomes ~400$.

20 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

The $170 price tag is sadly also normal. The overhead on a resin statue sculptor isn't cheap, so a lot of that price tag is just making sure the company can break even

Ok, but how much resource does it need in kg? And what about work price and other prices? I've found 1kg of materials is roughly 40$. I took more or less missures of that statue, build cuboid of it and I've calculated how much KG it will take. It took something bellow 3kg. That's ~120$. Companies probably can buy it cheaper. Then it would be less than 3kg. Of course, my knowledge is almost nonexistent so I bet I missed something.

 

21 hours ago, SneakyErvin said:

21 hours ago, TARINunit9 said:

It's fairly normal these days, actually. Game merchandise. Activision and EA do it, Valve used to do it, Korean f2p mobile games do it. And Warframe does it

The $170 price tag is sadly also normal. The overhead on a resin statue sculptor isn't cheap, so a lot of that price tag is just making sure the company can break even

Yeah I just mean I cant see how it impacts the experience of the game. "Boo-hoo! I cant afford the Toy that does nothing for me in the game". It's a collectible to get if you really like the game and really like collectibles tied to things you like. And yeah, the tag seems high since the price to make them is likely also high in the first place. I personally think it is great that companies/bands do these things. I'd kill for a Norse Stone Troll sculpture back in the day when I played Dark Age of Camelot, or a little Kobold maybe. Got so happy when Amon Amarth had a Surtur sculpture availble through a limited edition release of the Surtur Rising album.

The thing with that Statue is just look very cheap compared to the price. Look at amazing details in game. Take Voidshell skins for even better results. Here you have just few colors, not mixed. Details are not very good. If you could at least pick colors then it would be better.

ps. I know that's not DE fault. It's just as potential customer of DE see them not other factors.

 

[SneakyErvin]

18 minutes ago, quxier said:

I don't mean to literally spend 1k$ "just because". I meant let her calculate if she would still want to pay more money for the same goods.

 

Say, now she buy pack for 100$ that give you 2100 plat (I've changed values just for simplicity of calculations). Let's say that she earns 50k$ per year. That's 0,2% of hear yearly income. That's not even 1%. That's pocket change.

Now take income per year from other country. Now she earns 12k$. That 100$ becomes ~400$.

But that isnt something that should concern DE, not one bit, since it isnt realistic. DE is in the end located in Canada, the prices need to be set in a fashion so it makes ends meet for them. They are for instance expected to pay that 50k a year and not the 12k a year to an employee.

Here in sweden for someone with even a low paying job $100 would be nothing in a year (if we dont include a need to support others). For me $100 would be nothing even if it was on a monthly basis, and that would be with a low paying job. Say I'd get $1500 (well below avarage or a part time job with avarage pay) after tax, I'd still be able to save around $600 per month since my expenses are so low. Food+rent+electricity+internet comes out at around $800 for me in a month, it gets slightly higher during march, since the new rent comes around at that point, with some adjustments for jan-march on that bill, so that month my expenses are likely $900. Still even with that I could spend on WF and still save around $500.

I could technically get away with 12k per year and still manage to spend 100 on WF a few times per year without feeling it impacting me.

[quxier]

41 minutes ago, SneakyErvin said:

1 hour ago, quxier said:

I don't mean to literally spend 1k$ "just because". I meant let her calculate if she would still want to pay more money for the same goods.

 

Say, now she buy pack for 100$ that give you 2100 plat (I've changed values just for simplicity of calculations). Let's say that she earns 50k$ per year. That's 0,2% of hear yearly income. That's not even 1%. That's pocket change.

Now take income per year from other country. Now she earns 12k$. That 100$ becomes ~400$.

But that isnt something that should concern DE, not one bit, since it isnt realistic. DE is in the end located in Canada, the prices need to be set in a fashion so it makes ends meet for them. They are for instance expected to pay that 50k a year and not the 12k a year to an employee.

If they have enough money and I can still farm stuff in reasonable time then I don't care. It's just they won't get money from some people. Whatever.