MORE:…I mean we are saying something that costs $5 dollars at the highest conversion rate is gouging. Let me ask you this. Do you hold that double cheese burger from McDonalds with the same caliper of quality as you do FC and their content? It’s the same price so I am curious if the expectations are the same based on said price as you are hinting at.
No offense there @erjoh but before you try to make a post there that’s entirely composed of you trying to ridicule me simply because you disagree with part of an observation I made…
I would like you to consider the possibility that maybe you have no f-ing clue whether I eat McDonalds cheeseburgers or not… and given how every second public post about the Bazaar anywhere is hinting at the prices being too high and not worth the actual products… maybe it’s you who is in a minority in this…
Funny how you also missed the part where I specifically said the prices are NOT high in absolute terms, they are merely high for what you get for them… It’s amazing how some can supply themselves with entertainment by cheery-picking 
I didn’t mean to offend. Just found it funny about the comment people won’t complain as much because I don’t believe the complaints will stop…ever.
Also I put in there that the quality expectations with price need to be vetted against what we commonly accept for something comparable in price…like a double cheese burger from McDonald’s. Anymore, consumer goods from Amazon that cost $20 are things I expect to break in a year. Wish I could say that isn’t the case but it is.
You bring up some valid points, but my analogy was about affordability and how it is handled by some on these forums, period.
I absolutely agree that some of the content pricing seems a bit much, but like anything else that is for sale, supply and demand dictate pricing. Saying FC is price gouging when obviously people are willing to pay the prices shows a lack of business acumen, and some ( unlike you and a few other rationale human beings ) have made it their mission to cry about it on these forums 24/7.
I get what @CodeMage says now about the fomo thing, because they take these items off the board and people still want them, which to me is just poor decision making on FCs part, but it is their business to succeed or fail with.
When I see these “I am taking my ball and going home” posts, I roll my eyes and try to ignore them, but I still love this game and I hate how they twist the facts and truth in them.
Maybe I should just stay away from this forum until the “BP killed the game” salt goes away.
This one does not always agree with you.
However, that amounts to permanent self imposed exile.
We already play a game about inescapable exile, no need to inflict it on the self in the forums about said game.
The eternal seas will lose their sodium content before the salt around this topic (or another in it’s lineage) disappears. Even if the BP was as perfect as it could be and the Bazaar the very paragon of transparency and reasonable value/cost this would come up. Mind you, if things were more universally amenable, it would be easier to seperated the legitimate complaints from those who legitimately cannot stop complaining… But that’s a future to hope for, not bet on.
This one thought, in a haze of naivety, that their antipathy for Battle Pass systems was peak loathing. But at the end of the day, at worst, this BP is an undesirable aspect of an otherwise enjoyable (when the jank is at a nadir) game. What a fool this one was. There are others with such hate that they would cease playing the game they enjoy because of the disliked monetization… rather than simply refuse to participate in the monetization and keep enjoying the game.
Further distancing themselves from humanity, this one does not care for fried potato lancelets (unless completely drowned in chili, cheese, crema, onions, gar- ok, no one cares, moving right along). But this one cannot fathom discarding a perfectly good burger just because there were fries on the side.
TLDR; Take a break if you feel it healthy, spare time should bring amusement rather than anxiety, but please don’t pinion a return date to a situation unlikely to come to pass.
Makes me thing of a line from a trilogy about knights and whatnot. The Elenium.
In which a woman, commenting on her own time working in a brothel, said that she could make a lot more money selling herself cheaply to the masses, versus selling herself to a handful of wealthy.
Not the exact wording, it’s been a number of years since I read it, but honestly I think it holds true in this case.
Selling a few overpriced items to whales might generate some profits, but it seems like you’d generate far more profits selling those same items at a much lower rate, to many more players.
1,000 players purchasing an item for $10 is all well and good. That’s $10k bucks you’ve made on a digital item.
10,000 players purchasing that same item for $2 would get you $20k.
It would also generate considerable goodwill for your player base, encouraging them to stick with you even more, and bring in new players in the process.
Those same 10,000 players would also be more inclined to purchase other items. If you had another $10 item, that could push you to $20k.
If instead you had four other items at $2, those 10,000 could generate you $50k.
Can supply and demand really be used to describe this, however?
Supply implies that quantities are limited. They aren’t. They are digital assets. There is a never-ending supply of them.
I think that is what most object to, with the pricing. It’s too high, because they are objects that are one-time creations. They are largely finished. They won’t get adjusted or new elements.
It’s something that took likely a short time to make, as everyone keeps saying stuff seems rushed from what I’m reading.
And yet, the pricing is inaccurate because it’s a digital item and not a premium or highly worthwhile item.
FC is relying on the people who suffer FOMO to pay these prices because they can’t bear to not get the items, as well as the whales who will pay it simply because they don’t really value their money, so it’s easy to spend and not care.
I financially supported the game from launch, every DLC, until now. The Bazaar is okay (needs lower pricing), but the Battle Pass, in its current state, just makes the game ‘not fun.’
Battle Pass needs a rework or complete removal. Sorry, Funcom. Wallet closed.
That is the issue though is it not? They are all on timers, so supplies ARE limited. This is the FOMO gimmick that people are rightly complaining about.
Versus those of us that simply want the items? Are we lumped now as either whales or basket cases?
Personally I am offended to be put into either category just for buying something online.
Perhaps Funcom is just relying on age old marketing practices to make sales, they did not invent them. Nor do they vary much from other online games that sell digital content.
My own brother and my current BF are into a game called World of Warships, and spend hundreds of US dollars on P2W warships. If you think FC has high prices, try playing that game.
Hmmm so how is this gimmick any different than say Saudis stopping oil production to keep oil prices high? Creating an artificial supply issue to increase demand?
Hey. I’m just as surprised as you with this question…I just do what my brain tells me to do. Blame it for going on devil’s advocate.
The young don’t understand that. They think everything should be handed to them on a golden platter. God forbid they should actually work for anything. Just imagine their whines if free to play games actually went back to paid subscriptions instead of shops and battle passes.
You would be wrong FC has no say in the pricing of items. That honor falls solely on Tencents marketing department.
Welllllll…this now has gotten awkward.
Not really the only person whose opinion matters is your own. Buying soley to support a game is a whale. If you buy because you want the item then nobody else matters.
This analogy doesn’t really work.
I’m old enough to remember when Subscription games were new, when the only subscription games were EverQuest and Ultima Online, when said subscription was $9.99/month.
What did we get for subscription? The right to play on the servers. That’s it. You paid $30-40 to own the game. But you paid the monthly fee to play it. But for years cosmetics were unheard of. If you played EQ for example, your character’s look didn’t change much. Cloth/Leather, Chain, and Plate all looked the same, just having a different style based on what race you played. Eventually we could tint the armors with dyes, if you bought the requisite expansion.
Tint your armor for a $30 expansion. Twenty years ago. That was our cosmetic pricing in sub games folks.
And this goes for many subscription based games. Developers quickly learned that the effort to put in loads of cosmetics are not worth the enticement of new players. Without cosmetics your subscribers are still subscribing. You get no more, no less by offering cosmetics as part of the game.
Adding cosmetics to the game as part of the game, doesn’t entice more players to join. It doesn’t keep players from leaving. So why bother?
When you can charge for cosmetics to people already subscribed to the game, then you make MORE money off the subscribers and no more and less are subscribing, its a net win. The only thing you have to worry about is adding more content like normal to keep the subscribers subscribed.
Thus subscription models don’t really work in this argument. All subscription based games currently have paid cosmetics and will likely introduce Battlepass like mechanics if they haven’t already.
What FC is trying to do here is use the cosmetics to pay for themselves with profit and maintain content updates for the game and still get a profit on top. Key thing to note, yes they are being greedy and working for a profit. That’s the incentive. Without the incentive, they won’t bother with the updates. It’d be better to take the staff and dump them or reallocate them to other projects.
I do agree that people just clamoring that prices are too high are just whining. It is, because its not constructive. We get it, everyone wants something for nothing. That’s default human desire. Everyone has it. But now let’s think with the logic thinking brain and negotiate prices we’re willing to pay and maybe potentially FC can use that information in the future.
Because lets face it, when people simply say prices are too high for a 1800cc item. How does FC know what isn’t too high for that individual? 1200cc may still be too high, or 600cc, or even 100c. How does FC even know said person will buy anything, or even owns (or will ever own) the game for that matter?
I would disagree. Expansions were $15 for this game however via the battle pass and store they have at least made ten times the money. Funcom has become lazy which is why it was sold to Tencent. The game is on life support because of mismanagement and a lack of story and content. They tried to duplicate ARK and failed. Ask yourself where’s the Atlantean content or homage to Thulsa Doom. Where’s the werewolves, witches, and vampires? Where’s the land expansions now that the did away with DLC’s to focus the skeleton crew on Dune?
Basket whales! 
Would you care to share the source of such inside information with the rest of the class?
Lack of story?
https://freeread.com.au/@RGLibrary/RobertEHoward/REH-Conan/@Conan.html
There’s been plenty written already.
I really hate it when people use the word “whale” as some kind of an insult and link it to judgmental descriptions like “people who don’t value their money”.
It doesn’t mean that, and using it that way makes it harder for people who like to use it properly.
Bingo.
And just like that, for the first time in my life, I understand why some people reply with “okay boomer”. 
I mean, for all I know, you might have been in WW2, or have grown up in a poor country, or something that made you go through actual hardship, but why should I assume the best about you when you can’t be bothered to have the modicum of decency to do the same about others?
Besides, in my personal experience, the sentiment you just spat out tends to be espoused much more frequently by older people with an overinflated sense of their own accomplishments and the effort they had to put in achieving those, than by older people who suffered actual hardship and had the chance to develop some empathy
I meant more that they are pushing things to profit off those two categories. Those who just want the stuff are somewhere in the middle ground of those two extremes.
Brilliant.
I buy what I want from the bazaar. Same as in any of the games I play. I have self control to not need to buy everything. People need to take responsibility for their own actions. I’m beyond exhausted with the virtue signalling over exploiting those poor people that just cant HELP THEMSELVES. Take responsibility for your own actions.
I have skipped many items in the bazaar. Because I don’t want them.
Do you know how much sleep I will lose because someone calls me a “whale” that “doesn’t value my money” (aka doesn’t have the same values as you)?
That would be zero sleep lost. And I had a blast putting up severed sorcerer heads in my fortress last night from the bazaar.
