improving the Tennogen economy

[zoobmer]

Tennogen recently came to console, where it is bought with platinum rather than cash. this allows it to take advantage of the genius implementation of plat economy (things such as platinum being the trade currency and regular sales) that go a long way in making Warframe a fair game. however, on PC, Tennogen is only available via a direct purchase. this creates a discrepancy between the PC and console version, as PC players can not take advantage of these features for the plat market. here are a couple possible ways I propose for fixing that:

• the simple solution: any Tennogen item that becomes available on console also becomes available through plat on PC.
• the intracate solution: selling a 25 pack of tennogen vouchers for $25 in the market
  • vouchers can be traded in the same way plat can be traded, allowing free players to obtain them.
  • each voucher will take $1 off any tennogen item, with the maximum number of vouchers per item being the number required to make it free
  • if platinum is on sale, buying a voucher pack will also give $25*(n/(100%-n)) worth of platinum, where n is the percentage discount that the player would receive had they simply bought platinum.
  • each voucher can be traded for 19 plat in the market, in case someone needs plat and has the vouchers but no more money

[Skaleek]

The voucher solution is interesting. I'd be interested to hear or know if that gets DE off the hook from any legality, and it would provide a tennogen method of acquisition for free to players. 

 

Although we are starting to get a lot of currencies to keep track day to day. Focus, syndicate, endo, kuva, credits plat, and whatever else may have slipped my mind.

[Potato]

I see a huge problem with this. People from some countries (say, India) get things cheaper than the U.S. The major issue would be the conversion since $1 = $1 off tennogen but how would that equate to a country who gets things for half the price as the U.S.? (regarding Steam's different prices and conversions)

 

 

But anyways, great idea. lovely concept. 

Edited June 6, 2017 by Potato

[ZenDash]

15 minutes ago, ZBanx said:

Tennogen recently came to console, where it is bought with platinum rather than cash.

Wow, and they complain about getting their updates delayed and etc. lol

[Tsukinoki]

You are aware of why they can offer tennogen items on consoles for plat right?

When DE wants to move a tennogen item over to consoles they approach the content creator and give them an offer: DE pays them a flat lump-sum and in exchange they get all rights to sell the items on consoles and all profits from said sales.  The tennogen creator gets nothing from console sale of their creation.  They still make money off of the PC sales though.

With that in mind:

20 minutes ago, ZBanx said:

the simple solution: any Tennogen item that becomes available on console also becomes available through plat on PC.

This will not happen in most cases as it would require the creator to agree.
And honestly tell me how many creators you think would agree to giving up all profits going forwards for their items?

Fact is that not every creator agrees to have their items ported to consoles, and DE only approaches the ones that are popular enough to ensure that they make the money back from plat sales on consoles.

22 minutes ago, ZBanx said:

the intracate solution: selling a 25 pack of tennogen vouchers for $25 in the market

• vouchers can be traded in the same way plat can be traded, allowing free players to obtain them.
• each voucher will take $1 off any tennogen item, with the maximum number of vouchers per item being the number required to make it free
• if platinum is on sale, buying a voucher pack will also give $25*(n/(100%-n)) worth of platinum, where n is the percentage discount that the player would receive had they simply bought platinum.
• each voucher can be traded for 19 plat in the market, in case someone needs plat and has the vouchers but no more money

Problem with this idea: Grey market trading.

For example: Say I live in a country where things are relatively cheaper than they are in say the US or UK or Canada.
I buy a bundle of vouchers and transfer that to someone living in the US.
The vouchers that I just transferred over have now increased in value.  Quite a bit in some cases.
That brings all sorts of legal questions.

Also it makes it super easy to engage in RMTing, which is something that I don't think DE wants to open the door to.

Also makes it a bit questionable how much money is going to the content creators and steam cuts depending on where the voucher was bought.

Interesting idea but needs more thought into it and safeguards.

Also would need quite a bit of works done between DE and Valve to set up such a program in the first case.  ANd I just don't think that DE is large enough to negotiate something like that.

[zoobmer]

2 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

This will not happen in most cases as it would require the creator to agree.
And honestly tell me how many creators you think would agree to giving up all profits going forwards for their items?

Fact is that not every creator agrees to have their items ported to consoles, and DE only approaches the ones that are popular enough to ensure that they make the money back from plat sales on consoles.

4

well DE could use a different licensing agreement that would give less money to creators per sale to account for plat sales, but have the regular cash purchase in place for people who want to make a smaller up from payment. converting each dollar of the price to say, 50 plat means people would have to consider both options if they want to save money, and DE could give the developer say, $1 per 100 plat spent on the tennogen. that means more people have access to tennogen, the creaters still make money, and each payment option has its seprate benefits for the buyer.

12 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

Problem with this idea: Grey market trading.

For example: Say I live in a country where things are relatively cheaper than they are in say the US or UK or Canada.
I buy a bundle of vouchers and transfer that to someone living in the US.
The vouchers that I just transferred over have now increased in value.  Quite a bit in some cases.
That brings all sorts of legal questions.

 

can't people already do that with their steam purchases then?

14 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

Also makes it a bit questionable how much money is going to the content creators and steam cuts depending on where the voucher was bought.

Interesting idea but needs more thought into it and safeguards.

 

tracking where each voucher came from should not be hard. DE could just pay based on where the vouchers were bought, and use the most expensive vouchers avalible first.

16 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

Also would need quite a bit of works done between DE and Valve to set up such a program in the first case.  ANd I just don't think that DE is large enough to negotiate something like that.

2

oh, that's a simple one. use the steam inventory system instead of the warframe inventory system if a voucher was bought on steam.

[MudShadow]

I dont' see how DE can start giving Tennogen away for platinum. When players have been spending their RL money on it over the last four years. 

Edited June 7, 2017 by MudShadow

[Voltage]

6 hours ago, MudShadow said:

I dont' see how DE can start giving Tennogen away for platinum. When players have been spending their RL money on it over the last four years. 

Tennogen for Steam wallet did not start 4 years ago bud lol.

Edited June 7, 2017 by --Q--Voltage

[(XBOX)DeluxeKnight831]

12 hours ago, ZenDash said:

Wow, and they complain about getting their updates delayed and etc. lol

you realize this is a new thing right ?  we also dont "complain about our updates getting delayed" 

[(XBOX)DeluxeKnight831]

13 hours ago, ZBanx said:

 

• the simple solution: any Tennogen item that becomes available on console also becomes available through plat on PC.
•  

that would mean all tennogen 

[TaylorsContraction]

Just make tennogen tradeable / giftable. It will create a market for it where people will trade it for plat. I don't see any other way tennogen items on PC can be acquired by people with no money. At the end of the day they are cosmetics and don't influence gameplay.

What I would like to see if some kind of api implemented into the stand-alone client that connects to steam and allows us to purchase tennogen without using a steam client. I don't know if such a thing even exists though.

[Nezha_Rose]

That would also mean less quality tennogen because profits will be drastically reduced.  I see that as a turn off for these content creators that would give the extra effort for a measly penny. 

Also these are skins, costmetics. Why are skins so important to cause a fuss about when DE makes deluxe skins? And what about those people that spent their money already?  What about content creators that won't agree to new terms,  would their skins be taken off the market making the currently owned skins even more valuable... Like the ones I have....

Actually,  no it sounds like a fantastic idea,  please keep going! 

[ZenDash]

6 hours ago, (Xbox One)DeluxeKnight831 said:

you realize this is a new thing right ?  we also dont "complain about our updates getting delayed" 

may I ask how were you guys buying tennogen stuff before then? lol

[(XBOX)DeluxeKnight831]

17 hours ago, ZenDash said:

may I ask how were you guys buying tennogen stuff before then? lol

we did not have tennogen . it recently came to consoles. 

[LuckyCharm]

Dont consoles have like.. no discount coupons for plat? Meaning that any plat has been bought at 100% retail price by someone. Stands to reason if thats the case de would be okay with this.  That being said.. de is tied behind steam on pc so they couldnt even if they wanted to

[Shockwave-]

Making Tennogen tradable for plat in game would be great but I don't see this working. Why would I anyone trade a tennogen item for plat, unless they were trading it for more plat than they could get by just buying plat, instead of buying the tennogen item and trading it.

 

From the person purchasing the tennogen item, i'd have to receive more plat than i could buy with the same dollars (including any 50% discounts if i'm the type to only buy on a discount).

From the person trading for the tennogen item, i'd have to trade less plat in real dollar terms than it would cost to buy the tennogen item, otheriwise I should have just not bought that much plat and bought tennogen items instead.

 

This only serves a small niche of players that have never bought plat, and yet have tons of plat to spend on tennogen items (as they would be "overpriced" in terms of plat to make it worth it to the buyer - likely more than DE built cosmetics. Maybe there are a ton of those players out there but not sure.

 

I just wish DE sold them for plat, and just paid the money themselves to the Tennogen creator for each plat-bought purchase. Even if they make them super expensive in terms of plat, there must be a level where returning that plat back to DE (and getting it out of circulation - which leads to more plat sales) is worth it tor DE.