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Cash shop in a sub game.
Now I have to be careful how i phrase things in Tera forums nowadays (cough* suspension* cough).
But I really want someone to explain how people are ok with cash shops in a sub based game. On the main Tera forums someone posted screenies of summer clothes/glasses.
http://tera-forums.enmasse.com/forums/general-discussion/topics/Summer-fun-in-JTERA
Asking for this stuff to be brought to the NA tera shops. People were clamouring over themselves to say' I'd pay 10 dollars in a heartbeat for an item!'
Doesn't it bother anyone else that rather than fixing basic issues they're more focussed on pumping out glamour items for purchase? The stuff isn't even setting appropriate!, Goodbye immersion!
I used to see all this stuff in the FTP korean/chinese mmos, which I understood as they had to generate a revenue. But they try to spin all this lore about Tera and its history etc, then you thrown in swimsuits and stunner shades. I still get that horrible image of some basement dweller leafing through all the 'fun' costumes he purchased for his Elin.
Does no one else just find this all a bit odd?
Comments
Hundereds of people work on MMO's and different people work on different areas of the game. It's not like everybody stops fixing bugs to make a cash shop item. Those things are done at the same time. Generating revenue for a game is paramount to the games longevity. If people will pay for something a smart company will sell it.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
Oh I agree, If I were BHE, I would rack out as many costumes I could as long as people keep buying them. I would swim around in that money scrooge Mcduck style while shouting ideas for more costumes to make to the design team.
It's the whole ' I've bought this item for money, and haven't done anything in game to earn it at all'. I think this is the issue now I think about it.
If I completed some long quest, or spent a while farming things or hard dungeons and then i could spend it buying those items then i'd find it easier to accept (I still think it detracts from the game environment though). When you see a guy with an amazing lookig armour you 1) Have some respect for the work he put in 2) Hope that you also will be able to get it with time spent playing/effort/skill.
With costume shops you think 'Meh, some guy payed 10 bucks for that.'
About all multiplayer games got a cash shop. No matter whether there is a sub or not.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
I'm with you that a cash shop in a sub game is a joke. I refuse to buy or support the model.
But goobye immersion in Tera? LOL please. In a game where the armor isnt even armor sunglasses or summer clothes are hardly an issue.
Edit: Also, while I do not like the model and refuse to support it I also cant blame companies for doing it. Untill more people think like me itwould be stupid of them not to take your money every chance they get. Of course I am in the minority in my feelings so my time enjoying MMO's is limited. It wont be long before all of them are sub+item shop since a majority of people clearly do not see a problem with it.
As grumpy has already stated: a company is made of numerous departments running separate processes of the same product. one cannot expect the work of department C to be put on hold while department A finished and puts out their work. Those employees are not going to sit legs crossed tossing paper planes at each other.
Besides, I can't wait to see this in the shop.
Yes ladies and gentlemen, this is a game curretnly retailing at $39.95, with frequent sales online. With none of the drawbacks of games that heavily rely on a cash shop as its main source of earnings (no character limits, inventory limits etc) and which becomes essentially F2P after you make your first 1200 gold in game.
Oh, the humanity!
Honestly, this current trend bothers me a lot. It's monotization, and it's greedy. Quite frankly, it makes me a little dissapointed to be part of the same community. The lack of logic when it comes to this subject is mind boggling.
To break it down:
- MMOs require a subcription in order to maintain costs of the game, provide content updates, and fix bugs.
- Free 2 play games are crap, and pay 2 win because they have a cash shop.
- Games that rely on a cosmetic cash shop are still pay 2 win, and are still crap.
- Games with a subscription + cash shop are awesome and perfectly fine.
Yep... it all makes perfect sense.
Honestly, not only are there a number of examples that prove that subscriptions aren't necessary, but the willingness of gamers to hand over all their money, for a product doing everything they've been criticizing, is hypocricy on a whole new lvl.
Do games have separate teams for the cash shop & the rest of the game? Yes, yes they do. But assuming that means that games are hiring additional teams in order to work on the cashshop. Hah, keep deluding yourselves. It seems to be working. Games have proven that they can survive on a cash shop and provide new content. If you want more games to do this and take 15$ from you every month, have fun. I'd rather not have my games double / tripple dipping my wallet. Especially when there is literally zero correlation between charging more money and providing more support for a game.
Don't forget your toilet paper so you don't spill it all over your desk.
Equating selling something with greed is like saying that everybody that eats is a glutton.
The issue is ETHICAL cash shops. Some games in the past failed miserably at this. The reality is that cash shops are here to stay, and this is fine with the majority of gamers as long as they are done ethically.
Here's what's happening: Nobody will be launching MMO's without cash shops except a smaller indie compnay, which probably won't last anyway since their playerbase will turn on a dime the moment they don't recieve AAA quality.
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
That aside the poster above seems to be in the belief that MMO gamers, players and forum dwellers are all the same. The fact some people criticize a model does not mean they are the exact same people who support it, therefore tossing accusations of hypocrisy around is sort of random.
At the end of the day, companies do not adopt a model if it didn't work for them. They are in it to make a profit (a company whose mission is to make a profit?! Shocking!) If it sells, it works. There cand be a group of people kicking and screaming on some obscure forums somewhere it makes no difference as long as the model works. The day the model stops workin, no matter the forum protests to keep it the same, it will change.
The market demand directs how it will go. I did not expect the firehouse to sell much at all, but darn, last Nexus it seemed like 50% of participants were cruising on a fire horse.
Perhaps you could be impressed that a person did something in real life is able to afford buying virtual items in a video game (like practically setting money on fire in an ashtray)
Yeah, cash shops in sub games sort of sucks, and I realize you despise TERA so you opened up this thread in these forums, but so many other sub games have some form of cash shop.
WOW, TSW, and several others I'm sure. If you include former P2P's that now offer a F2P with option to sub such as EQ2, DDO, LotRO etc.
Face it, the future of MMO development includes maximizing revenue streams, and pretty much all sub based games will experiment with some form of cash shop, like it or or not.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Even wow seems to have stopped growing when they opened their shop though ~10 million subs seems a good enough place to stop.
Maybe you like to include the fact that mmo takes much more money to make and substain than most game and does have limited player base to go around. Unlike single player game, people buy it play it than move on, unless title release realtivly close to each other it will not really effect sales of the game at all. while mmo is a game that keep player and most people don't play more than one. So if there are only 100m mmo player, every mmo is has to compete for that 100m people while single player game all 100m can buy both game. Back when the pool of mmo were small it was fine, the player were spread to a few games and each game did very well on subs alone. But now the pool of mmos are huge and its not realistically reasonable to try to surive on pure sub with more mmo takeing up the playerbase and increasing cost to make quailty game. So I don't see it as all that suprising to move to other ways to making more money to substain the game aka via cash shop. Ofc cash shop has to be done right or it kills the game but as of now I have no problem with it.
Pretty cheap as far as quality porn goes.
Doesn't make the game good, though.
i would buy those items in an instant...... if they remove subscription, which is why i dont play TERA.
Hundereds of people work on MMO's and different people work on different areas of the game. It's not like everybody stops fixing bugs to make a cash shop item. Those things are done at the same time. Generating revenue for a game is paramount to the games longevity. If people will pay for something a smart company will sell it.
i would buy those items in an instant...... if they remove subscription, which is why i dont play TERA.
After two months of TERA, I personally never have to pay a dime for it anymore. (someone posted two Chronoscrolls for 1050 this morning).Granted, someone else bought my GW2 copy for me so for me it will be equally free. Except I'll be limited by character and inventory numbers, whereas in the former I won't.
I can't explain to you how "people" are ok with cash shops, but I can't explain to you why I'm ok with it. I keep hearing people bitch about sub games with cash shops speaking as if you NEED something from the shop. The fact is... you don't. You don't NEED additional clothing. You don't NEED to spend a dime in a cash shop.
It's starting to sound to me that the issue is some people want items from the shop but can't afford to pay for the sub and the items they want from the shop. If this is the case, that's not anyone's problem but your own. Word Harder, get another job, make more money.. [mod edit]
If the above doesn't apply to you, then I don't see why a completely option cash shop in a game would bother you. It's optional. It's as bad as complaining about different subscription options and prices.
It doesent have anything to do with anything you just said. All you managed to do was insult people. whats pissing people off is not only to people have to pay for for game its self, they have to pay a sub fee to gain access to the game they just paid for.
With that subscription fee, people SHOULD be able to have access to everything the game has to offer. But with the addition of cash shops, there removing the option for those that pay a sub fee to get ALL the game has to offer. And that, no mater your reasoing for it is not right. If i pay a sub fee then i should be able to have access to EVERYTHING in game.
Adding mico transactions for items one may want in a subscription based game is unethical and underhanded. If there is a costume hat or pet that i want, dont make it a cash shop only item. Let those that dont want to buy from the shop have the option of finding it ingame. let those that want to work for it do so.
I dont understand why they cant seem to make hands the right size... everything else seems to be the right proportions. Why not the damn hands.
[mod edit]
Here's the thing. The cash shop is to appease the LARGER crowd of casual gamers. There are more casual gamers that hardcore content locust. That's it. End of story.
I'll explain. Casual players don't play a whole lot. I play about 6 hours a week if I'm luckly. Casual gamers also tend to have more money [mod edit]. Anyway, since we have money, but not a lot of time, we don't mind buying items that look cool. As, otherwise it would take us forever to get into the raids and gear grinds that give simular "LOOKING" gear.
So don't give me that, I deserve all the game has to offer bullshit. Just because you WANT something doesn't mean you need it. If it's a cash shop only item, oh well. It doesn't really affect the game in anyway. Now, I would get your argument if they started to offer pay dungeons and real content.
Everything in the cash shop is additional shit you didn't pay for yet. Think of them as tiny lil non function expansion packs.
Let me grab 2 old blog-posts I made back in 2010 about a cash shop in TERA:
http://www.pagesfromsages.com/?action=showentry&entry=636
Noo, I was wrong, ppl bashed me for posting this, and even EnMasse made an official statement about NOT ADDING a cash shop to TERA:
http://www.pagesfromsages.com/?action=showentry&entry=638
It's always funny to see that I'm right 2 years later, when we're not even half a year after TERA's release... Any (MMO) publisher using Digital Rivers is gonna use cash shop / micro payments....
ER...that 2nd link you posted, has the following statements clearly in it (despite the title/contradictory statements)
"TERA will have paid services, which could include character transfer, name change and gender change. We do not have a complete list of these services yet, but we will let you know as we confirm them - those services will likely be available inside the game.
There may be a point in time of TERA's lifecycle that we offer "vanity item" sales, pets, and other items that players have enjoyed in other AAA+ titles."
So these both point to what was actually delivered.
I think they have a different defintion between what they consider to be a "cash shop" and what they term as a microtransaction payment model.
Hence their comment about requiring major changes to support microtransactions, meaning changing the game mechanics to strongly encourage players to purchase from the cash shop via items of power or faster leveling.
So in their mind, having an in game store does not equate to a microtransaction payment model, even though both use a shop to sell additional items to their customers.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Would it bother you if they added cash shop items to the game for those of us that dont want to pay more then we feel we should? if we bought the game and pay a monthly sub shouldent we get the right to access to everything in the game?
i dont understand what the differance is? If im missing something please let me know but imo there is no differeance.
If it's items that have no clear advantage other than cosmetic then I don't really see an issue. If it becomes that the items in the cash shop give an advantage over the sub alone then I'll join whatever picket line is going on, since I'm a newcomer to Tera.
The way I figure it and know it to be the team that makes items for the cash shop won't be taken from the team that maintains the game, so therefore have no issue. It's up to other ppl what they want to spend their money on. I don't have to buy anything. It's a simple matter of choice.
Hmm, so long as the cash shop only offers fluff goods and nothing more, I'm ok with it. At that point it'll either have limited or no effect on playing the game.
You know what's fun about chaos? I do, but I won't tell.