So FC wants 1200 crowns for 21 pieces that expand the Stormglass set. Honestly, that’s still a bit high. But what really blows me away is the fact that they want 1855 for 5 pieces of DECO…and a bathrobe. And, EVEN BETTER, they are trying to convince us they are giving us a great deal by pretending this is a SALE price from the more “usual” price of 2650!
Who is in charge of this utter nonsense?
And overall, the Bazaar is STILL just offering utter crap rather than anything that makes sense.
As I said in another thread, they said they would take input from the actual sales. It looks like the one’s buying are speaking louder than the ones not buying if the ‘changes’ in Chapter 2 from 1 is any indication.
What many may have to come to terms with is not every item in the bazaar is for them. Luxuries go to those who are willing to afford them.
Considering this game isn’t the most popular by any means, I find it hard to believe that whales are keeping it afloat. People will buy more coins if they lower prices. That new bath set should be AT LEAST half the sale price.
Full build sets in cultural styles they have yet to offer. Cimmerian! Stygian! Gunderland! Etc.!
Armor sets with CLOTHING in cultural styles they have yet to offer.
Good old fashioned horse mounts in a range of normal colors rather than rotting undead or (Crom forbid!) some glowing crap like ESO.
Elephant mounts. Seriously, of they can do a damn rhino mount they can actually do something that makes sense like an elephant.
Full furnishing sets in cultural styles. I’m not talking 5 paltry pieces for one room. I’m talking full suites for multiple rooms. Living room, dining hall, kitchen, bath, library, with non-flickering (lag inducing) lighting options. Lots of wall art, paintings and tapestries.
Farming items: plows, carts, scythes, etc. Complete with farm animals.
CAMEL AND DONKEY MOUTS AND PACK ANIMALS. Seriously, why do we have to depend on mods for these? They are FC’s assets!!!
Temple construction kits for all of the gods. Additional shrines both larger and smaller than what we have now. Statues. Fancy build items that can be used to decorate almost any build set and just make it more elaborate.
Did I mention statues? Whole sets of statues for all the cultures, no less than 10 per offering for each culture. More fountains and wells while they are at it!
Rugs, carpets and hide rugs in a variety of colors and styles!
Decorative animals. The stray cats are neat but they don’t need to be followers. Cats, dogs, wolves, all the big cats, bears, snakes, etc.
The expansion pieces for already existing sets are a step in the right direction but the pricing is too high.
More dining deco: Plates, cups, bowls, pitchers.
Decorative trees and plants.
WATER FEATURES. Pools you can actually swim in and drink from! Ponds! That you can fish in!
Yes, absolutely. At the end of the day one thing alone will determine the Bazaar’s future; whether it is seen as profitable or not.
On a personal level it’s just a little disappointing. I love decorating, and arguably if the prices were sensible I would have purchased many of the items/sets sold, and in doing so spent far more money than I have to date. But sadly there is no way I can justify spending that kind of money on two or three items. It saddens me a bit, I really wanted a few of the pieces, but one has to draw a line in the sand at some point.
I can’t help but think that if pricing was more reasonable they’d make more money. Maybe I’m missing something (I’m no economist), but in my eyes selling twice as many items at half the price is preferable, for you end up with twice as many people happy, and that has a lot of positive knock-on effects.
A decently sized RP server can have several hundred members in its community. Keeping the server quite full despite being double the capacity of typical 40 slot. So there is quite a bit more people playing than what it looks like.
Also there has been no sales on the Bazaar. The prices shown are bundled prices. The number slashed is the price you would pay if you bought each item individually. If you are patient enough you might be able to see some of your favorite items for sale in the future.
This is normally true. I’m not an expert in economics, but I’m not exactly a layman either. But there is something to be said about the philosophy of “There’s a customer for every price point.”
There is an article on Steam for sellers enticing them to participate in Steam Sales. Basically a $60 game should not say $60 forever. People who want the game at $60 will buy it at full price. Those who can’t afford it or aren’t comfortable paying $60 may pay $45. So after a while you offer it for $45 so they will purchase it. Then after a longer while you drop it to $30 so more will buy it.
The logic here is those who will buy your game for $45 is not $15 lost. Its $45 gained. As if they aren’t going to spend $60 within the first 3-6 months, chances are they never will.
I would hope that when Funcom eventually gets enough items up, that older ones will start rotating through on sale. I’ll be honest, I haven’t purchased anything in the Bazaar. I have no intention on paying those prices. There are items I really want. But no. Not at those prices. So if they want me to buy Crom Coins, they’re going to have to lower those prices.
Visually
The whole rotation thing is just bad, both for us and for Funcom.
Why not have everything ever released accessible and separated by theme and/or function, with a search bar?
Financially
The prices are absolutely insane.
When they mentioned the cash shop coming up before 3.0 launch, I expected prices a bit higher than the DLC in terms of amount of content versus price, but this is WAY higher.
I’m not sure how Funcom expects anyone to be willing to spend that much money. This kind of whale is on mobile games, not survival games.
Full disclosure, I bought the aesir armor and wolf skin pack as well as the stormglass pack because I’m a sucker for these kinds of aesthetics and had a significant amount of extra money, but that’s it. Nothing else since 3.0 launch.
I don’t expect to buy anything else anytime soon unless I win the lottery or something either.
I agree with Reverielle.
I would go so far as to say if they cut the prices in half, it will be more than worth it for them. Less per sale but many, many more sales.
Also agree with Alexandria, good suggestions/wish list.
Definitely expected more cultural DLCs before they moved away from that type of content, and while the BattlePass so far has definitely had some cultural stuff (Gurnahki armor, Stygian stuff, sorcery stuff), I hope for a lot more of that.
Great points, thanks. I didn’t know about that ‘customer for every price point’ philosophy. I can’t help but think that all the negative press Funcom and Conan Exiles is getting around their monetization implementation will in the long term be far more damaging to the game, than any perceived loss revenue.
Once a game gets a bad reputation, it seems almost impossible to shake off that label, and many players looking for a new game to play will just dismiss it outright, regardless of what changes/improvements are done in future. I hope Funcom know what they’re doing; bad press/word-of-mouth/reviews can swiftly be the death of a game.
I doubt that to be honest, simply because it’s not the first game to suffer this sort of controversy with regards to a battleplass/cash shop and the people with money to burn (the whales) don’t really care about the financial cost.
And they’ll be the ones carrying the thing if the bazaar continues as it currently operates.
While the illusion that the Exiled Lands/Siptah are savage backwaters is quickly shattered with how many grand castles & forts are present on nearly all servers… there’s still something to be said about keeping it more ‘primitive’.
The new bathroom pack is already a great deal more civilized than anything we’ve had in the game before.
The value of positive/negative reviews on Steam/other-sites however is pretty powerful. And we know generally a negative emotion about something is usually far more potent than a positive one (i.e. if a player is angry about something they’re far more likely to write a scathing review than if they’re happy). Fingers-crossed. Public perception (for better or worse) is everything.
I guess in the end it comes down to what kind of company Funcom is, or at least, wants to be seen as.
First and foremost, a profitable one, otherwise, the game won’t continue. Profitability while true to their IP and game concept are all that matter. If prices are too high, that would cut back on the profit due to lack of sales. Right now its called early adopter pricing. If its too high, wait if you can. It may come down. Or not. Its all cosmetics anyway so you’ve lost nothing thats needed to play the game. I’d take a bad steam review if it still garnered me hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars revenue personally.
I’m not sure I understand your objection. Certainly a Cimmerian or Vanir or Pict furnishing pack would indeed be fairly “primitive.” Other cultures ARE considerably more “fancy.” As far as “survival” games go CE has always been kind of a joke. Many of us treat it like The Sims with combat! LOL And honestly, that’s part of what I actually like about it.
To me what’s worse is they really could make use of some of the items by giving them a use in game like the new chest deco only really… same for the Mire in the Battle - Pass could have been something that worked like the Orb station to change your look around or better yet change your Thralls for crying out loud. Just pains me to see how bad they are at seeing what they could do to what they offer and expect people to pay for that crap for cosmetic reasons only at least the price could be appreciated if some items had a use.
Assuming Make Money has to come before Paying Developers (Funcom isn’t a Government with minting ability). How do you assume they will get those Developers to work for free? More specifically how to get past Norwegian and US/NC labor laws?
I can tell you this, many of us existing players aren’t exactly a great revenue flow. Hell I’ve not spent money on CE since October of last year despite adding another around another ~1000 hours of play in that time. The only way they’re getting money from me is with cosmetics.
Would you be willing to donate via Paypal to Funcom rather then buying cosmetics? Can’t say I would. The problem is players like me who are stingy little misers in this case I guess.
This is my number one gripe about it. Rotating stock I can live with. It’s not ideal, but its something I can tolerate. The prices, however, are another matter entirely. I thought such ridiculous pricing was mostly relegated to obscure titles and micro-transaction laden battle royals and mobile games.
I like the stuff that’s on the bazaar. I likely would have made several purchases already if the prices had been at least half what they are, and I’d still feel like I was overpaying. But any inclination I have to buy anything in there gets instantly obliterated the moment I look at the current price tags.
There’s not even that moment where you see the price and cringe while you fight an epic internal struggle deciding whether to buy anyway or leave the store. With the BLB, it’s just an instant “Nope.” and never look back.