The Warframe Market Is A Joke And Actively Discourages Impulse Purchases (Updated, Includes Solution To Installed Catalysts/weapon Slot On Weapons)

[Allajh]

OP has an incredibly solid argument, as well as the supporters (gave up reading on page 3, 19 pages holy hell) and I just want to add these examples if there was any doubt as economics has as much, if not more, to do with psychology than mathematics.

 

Example 1:

 

Someone views the $50 price tag for a platinum purchase as pretty steep but also realizes if they buy in the 75 increments they're screwing themselves due to the scaling with the more money you spend.

 

Same person also shops at Starbucks everyday and spends $3 (or whatever discount deals they have) everyday on their drink in a morning ritual before work not realizing they're spending around $90 a month (give or take for weekends) on an impulse buy.  If you told them they had to pay for that upfront they'd probably tell you to eff off.

 

Think of MMO subscriptions as another way.  People pay $15 a month and over the years a company nets hundreds, if not over a thousand, dollars from one individual.  Anyone that thinks the majority of that money goes to overhead cost is smoking crack.

 

This is where the psychology bit comes into play, people feel better about spending in tiny increments not realizing via microtransactions they're actually spending MORE than if they bought in bulk or paid up front.

 

Example 2:

 

I bought the Hunter pack and stretched out my initial platinum over two and a half months and was left with 117 platinum as a sort of rainy day fund for catalysts or forma.  Since I discovered there was the 50% off coupon on a daily login reward I've been patiently waiting to roll it and as luck would have it I got it yesterday and dropped $25 I wouldn't have if there wasn't a sale.

 

Case in point; if there had not been a 50% sale on platinum I wouldn't have purchased anything.  Period. 

 

Now retail stores like to mark items up maybe a week in advance to a "sale" and a lot of people don't realize when they go into the store they're actually paying full price in many circumstances (again, psychology) when they happily snag items off the shelves under the guise it's 50% off etc not realizing the price had been intentionally hiked up a week or more ahead of time in anticipation for the sale.  Luckily gaming companies can't pull this sort of trick given the gaming communities, erm, constantly aware nature!

 

Example 3:

 

People aren't going to spend $10 on a gun over and over again when they can *gasp* wait for a Steam sale and buy an entire game for that same price.  End of story.  It might happen once, especially if they were a founder, but looking at the disparity a good deal of people will stay F2P and just spend their money else where.

 

 

Summary:

 

The 20% and 50% coupons are a decent start but there need to be similar sales on individual items, not just the craptastic dual skana.  A lot of people, for whatever reason, dropped $250 for a GM Founder package and who knows, maybe they'll feel like doing it again in the future, but a reliable and EVENTUALLY larger stream of income will be from REASONABLE microtransactions.

[Fleetwing]

The problem is right there. People should not feel like they WASTED their money, DE. Microtransactions would make people feel less guilty and more likely overall to purchase in-game items.

Do you know how often I wanted to buy Vauban? Or Frost when his parts just wouldnt drop? I would look at that market every day, looking at those 20$+ price tags, sighing, knowing I'd rather grind my damned &#! off with friends than pay that much.

Not to mention that farming for frames and weapons are the entire game atm. Paying for frames and weapons are basically using cheats to get to the end of the game. It gets boring, and it makes me want to leave

This. Especially the "wasted money" part. I bought a Dragon pack and pulled three ability mods, a vitality, and some other common mod. After that, I'm not buying anything other than potatoes.

[Elibae]

Devs, listen to this man's words, he SPEAKS THE TRUTH!

[.Monarch]

LOL The thumbs up you got.

 

But here's a solution you did not provide.

 

If ever, DE decides your idea is great and benefit them at the same time. How will they reimbursed the players that already payed a ton?

 

It's no doubt, if market prices gets an overhaul, not credits, but platinum. People who purchased with Platinum will certainly rage.

 

Should DE refund players who bought with Platinum the difference? Or what should they do? You tell me.

 

Because honestly, I believe the money I've spent to support this game should come to nearly $800. 

 

I spent those money to support the game, so I'm ok even if the market price change.

 

But what about those who spent just solely for the purpose of Market and Speed building?

[Fleetwing]

LOL The thumbs up you got.

 

But here's a solution you did not provide.

 

If ever, DE decides your idea is great and benefit them at the same time. How will they reimbursed the players that already payed a ton?

 

It's no doubt, if market prices gets an overhaul, not credits, but platinum. People who purchased with Platinum will certainly rage.

 

Should DE refund players who bought with Platinum the difference? Or what should they do? You tell me.

 

Because honestly, I believe the money I've spent to support this game should come to nearly $800. 

 

I spent those money to support the game, so I'm ok even if the market price change.

 

But what about those who spent just solely for the purpose of Market and Speed building?

You go to Macy's and buy a shirt for $50.

Two weeks later, they announce an upcoming sale that will cut the price of the shirt to $20.

Do you go and demand your $30 back? No. You (and I) made a purchase of a commodity (plat) at a listed price. If they choose to lower the price, that's up to them. It's on us as consumers to be canny and not overspend. (or buy Founder packs)

[.Monarch]

You go to Macy's and buy a shirt for $50.

Two weeks later, they announce an upcoming sale that will cut the price of the shirt to $20.

Do you go and demand your $30 back? No. You (and I) made a purchase of a commodity (plat) at a listed price. If they choose to lower the price, that's up to them. It's on us as consumers to be canny and not overspend. (or buy Founder packs)

 

It doesn't matter. Look at the Void Key problem.

 

People bought Void Key packs, items aren't dropping.

 

DE decides to boost the drop rate up, whether or not they're boosting it up, or FIXing it.

 

Now explain to me why did DE reimburse all players who previously purchased Void Key Packs

 

- The amount of Key packs they got, they were given back that amount of Tier 3 Void Keys

 

- On top of that, adding the same amount - with Forma.

 

The Void Key "refund" could be a courtesy, but why adding Forma on top of that to sweeten the deal?

 

Forma BP doesn't drop easy, Alerts for it are rare. They costs 20 Platinum to purchase in Market.

 

Now. WHY did DE do something that made them lose money? AKA. For my example, they gave me 30 Forma. That's basically 600 Platinum.

[dEEkAy2k9]

right now you got about 562 upvotes... i really hope your suggestion makes it into the game as prices like 800 for 3 weapons is just insane.

[Un1ted]

It doesn't matter.

 

Of course it matters. Who do you think you are, Hillary Clinton?

[.Monarch]

Of course it matters. Who do you think you are, Hillary Clinton?

 

All you quoted was my first line.

 

Obviously you didn't read, or don't know how to read.

 

What are you, plain stupidity or typical forum troll?

[Hayden11121]

It's true.

 

DE is coming off as stubborn and greedy because of the prices of plat and the inability to get the items.

 

I think fixing the price would def bring me to give more money *Would love to buy Vauban but over 10$, hell no*

And I am not the only one.

[Hafilgar]

Just make all warframes $10.  I think that solves quite a large portion of the problem. I don't understand how they're all priced differently when the devs want them all to be equally balanced. If you're going to balance something, at least make them equal in price and start from there. Of course "utility-wise" some are better than others, but the market pricing for them makes it blatantly obvious whats worth it and what's not.

[Mazimer]

all i saw was "what stalker is a bad deal" and i stopped reading

[Ayalin]

The problem that DE is afraid of (to my opinion) is the fact that if all the (desirable) content becomes 'easily' (lower prices) available through the money, even if they will make more profit after one week players will not really have a goal anymore in the game- no reason to play.

 

This being said, I would like to add a few points:

- I have seen that someone has argued that this way of monetization is typical of the F2P industry. Actually this statement is true for Facebook games and eventually mobile games and bad browser based games, but, moreover, this statement is quite true for casual gaming, where the so-called 'whales' (0.1% of the player base, if not less) enjoy spending huge amount on a stupid pay-to-win.

 

But this is the casual gaming model, and other models have emerged since a few years, especially in the 'hardcore game' category;

 

Maybe we can have a look to League of Legend? Or World of Tank? There are exactly the examples that DE should tend to reach, instead of having the current price policy. They make TONS of profit !

 

- I tend to strongly agree with the OP, but under one condition: DE needs to improve the end game challenge as well as the diversity of ennemies and missions (someone said it a few pages ago: to monetize with the core game design content), let me explain:

 

- Let's say new ennemies have appeared who are efficient against warframe like Frost or Vauban (invulnerable to magic abilities?), and the best way to deal with them is to have a Loki or an ash that can murder them quickly and then disappear... the assassination role is promoted and new warframes come in front of the scene, new desire from players to have them because they are right now useful, not only fun to play with. So more purchases if prices are 'ok' and more objectives in the game.

Notice that this is just an example, but renforcing the end game content and the challenge as well as balancing current warframe with the adding of special ennemies strong against current most popular ones would be the best solution to solve all the problems, from my point of view. (plus the fixing on prices)

 

I apologize for my english - I am not a native speaker.

Edited June 17, 2013 by Ayalin

[Allajh]

It doesn't matter. Look at the Void Key problem.

 

People bought Void Key packs, items aren't dropping.

 

DE decides to boost the drop rate up, whether or not they're boosting it up, or FIXing it.

 

Now explain to me why did DE reimburse all players who previously purchased Void Key Packs

 

- The amount of Key packs they got, they were given back that amount of Tier 3 Void Keys

 

- On top of that, adding the same amount - with Forma.

 

The Void Key "refund" could be a courtesy, but why adding Forma on top of that to sweeten the deal?

 

Forma BP doesn't drop easy, Alerts for it are rare. They costs 20 Platinum to purchase in Market.

 

Now. WHY did DE do something that made them lose money? AKA. For my example, they gave me 30 Forma. That's basically 600 Platinum.

 

You've never worked in customer service or retail, have you?

[RevengentSoul]

I really like these ideas, it's true that things are over priced in this game i for one have spent about twice as much as i would pay for a new xbox game here. What I really enjoy about what you did with this post though is instead of complaining you came up with a well thought out solutions and a good one at that. DE needs to take a serious look at this at see what they can do to improve the market more. So I applaud you on a job well done I hope that this actually gets DE's attention

[Hayden11121]

Anything that proves DE wrong or gets big time attention is usually threadlocked. Surprised this isn't yet.

[KJay1010]

Anything that proves DE wrong or gets big time attention is usually threadlocked. Surprised this isn't yet.

Maybe they are considering lower the prices...?

[DAWGUNITALPHA]

It doesn't matter. Look at the Void Key problem.

 

People bought Void Key packs, items aren't dropping.

 

DE decides to boost the drop rate up, whether or not they're boosting it up, or FIXing it.

 

Now explain to me why did DE reimburse all players who previously purchased Void Key Packs

 

- The amount of Key packs they got, they were given back that amount of Tier 3 Void Keys

 

- On top of that, adding the same amount - with Forma.

 

The Void Key "refund" could be a courtesy, but why adding Forma on top of that to sweeten the deal?

 

Forma BP doesn't drop easy, Alerts for it are rare. They costs 20 Platinum to purchase in Market.

 

Now. WHY did DE do something that made them lose money? AKA. For my example, they gave me 30 Forma. That's basically 600 Platinum.

They didn't reimburse players because they upped the drop rate or anything. They gave people free keys and forma because they key packs were broken and people were buying packs and getting nothing but rank one keys even though they were supposed to be getting at least one guaranteed rare key. It was an apology and peace offering.

[Ayalin]

Up!:o

[Mokuton-]

Aside from the argument about what DE's spreadS#&$s might look like, it might help to take a step back and consider the fact that up until now, a big part of the end game consist of collecting and enhancing your frames/weapons/clan dojo. This implies that making those items more affordable might make them less difficult to obtain (although I do agree that crafting is currently way more interesting/efficient than buying)

 

So maybe, the prices are set pretty high right now to protect one of the appeals of the game whilst getting some income from the (few?) players buying S#&$loads of plat. That could be a temporary state of things, evolving towards more affordable prices when other objectives will be available, don't you think?

[Ayalin]

Aside from the argument about what DE's spreadS#&$s might look like, it might help to take a step back and consider the fact that up until now, a big part of the end game consist of collecting and enhancing your frames/weapons/clan dojo. This implies that making those items more affordable might make them less difficult to obtain (although I do agree that crafting is currently way more interesting/efficient than buying)

 

So maybe, the prices are set pretty high right now to protect one of the appeals of the game whilst getting some income from the (few?) players buying S#&$loads of plat. That could be a temporary state of things, evolving towards more affordable prices when other objectives will be available, don't you think?

Agree. Well, more precisely, I really hope this is the case.

[Dude_on_the_Moon]

+

[Cleverbird]

A million +'s!

 

I still have my platinum from my Founder package and simply refuse to spend it simply because everything is so insanely expensive... I'm only using my plat for inventory slots :/

[D3ST]

Bump, agreed 100%

would personally spend alot more plat, on buying stuff from the store, if it were alot cheapere,..

 

we have a very smart buisness man here in Denmark, who became a millionare by selling his items for half price of what everybody else charged for the same items, people went crazy and bought 3X what they would have usually spendt in his stores..

 

within a few years he opened his franchise all over the country, and today makes buisness classes, teaching small compagnys how to be sucess full..

 

Its a proven fact, that by selling items at a lower price, you will earn more than 100% of theyr original price,

becouse many more will buy them, -than would originally have bought the items.

Edited June 18, 2013 by D3ST

[Venus-Venera]

right now you got about 562 upvotes... i really hope your suggestion makes it into the game as prices like 800 for 3 weapons is just insane.

he got 5xx votes and there are more then 300.000 accounts. i am not sure if you are serious.

if you want a real change you must visit the owner. only employers read this forum. they get their chupa chups every month. not more and not less. they don't care.

welcome to reality.