FireSpark claims the shop design is predatory because it has a timer… so when the clock tells me a train departs in 5 minutes which I will reach too late its considered “predatory”?
I can take the next train, same applies for the shop you’ll get it in the next rotation. Nothing predatory about it. They could describe items will return in another rotation though.
Lot’s here use the word predatory in the worst sense possible just to make thing look/feel evil, like funcom is a bad dark company we need to stop, so we gotta shout some predatory here and there.
Predatory is evil, the practises stated by Funcom isn’t.
It is if prices remain the same as shown in the video. I would have a huge issue telling customers who have.supported me for 200$ that now i can hand them 1/32nd of what they supported me to do for the same price. This may not be by definition predatory but its the same as, hey guys if you buy into this business youl get x much back, and them me saying a year later… okay so i understand you all bought in but now the price to get the same return is 32x that… how would you react if you invested in me made out well and i said im keeping your money… heres a dollar menue item each year?
I get it its not legally the same as investing, but it pretty much is the same concept and only people using the literal sence seem to be in the wrong.
The worst part is this is gaming. They made every item 1 time, theres no resource cost to maintain. Theres no incurred costs after… creating luxury items ig in a game thats not an mmo restircts access even more so than in an mmo, atleast everything can be found in an mmo for ig currency. CE is NOT an MMO… and going from low to extremes is sure a way to kill playerbase, atleast ones who are willing to burn a wallet in support
EDIT: I apologise if i come off as hostile, but prices as outlined is a dumb idea to create a future
The major flaw in you “logic” is that you KNOW when the next train will be. It is clearly scheduled. With this shop, you have no idea. It could be next month, it could be 6 months from now. Thus, if you don’t get it now, you have no idea WHEN you will be able to get it next. Hence, it is a predatory tactic to place a timer on these items with no indication when they may possibly be available again, just some vague and nebulous “they will rotate back in at some point”.
I am sorry that you cannot seem to understand this very simple concept that so many others clearly grasp.
Some people probably do. And on the flip side some people are willing to defend things at all cost regardless of how bad the idea / concept is. This battle pass / bazaar is a horrible practice and there is absolutely no reason anyone should just roll over and accept it when it is so very obvious that they are only there for greed. Even their own stream has made it clear that they did this on the word of some financial guy and not anyone really attached to the game. Probably someone from tencent though they are really not going to say that. That does not mean that we should be happy about it or just simply hand over our money like mindless dullards while we are in the middle of a gas crisis and world wide recession. Nor should we accept it at any point in time when they have clearly stated over the last 4 years what the value of their items are. I am sorry, but your are just wrong. This entire shop is predatory in it’s very nature.
Interesting. To me a different connotation unfolds. To me a “whale” is someone, typically a dot-com or stock market millionaire, very likely retired, and without much of an off-line life, who likes the digital products and fare enough to outspend almost everyone. By my interpretation it has nothing to do with the company - who only offered their goods and wares for sale. And I can’t think of a whale as a victim either although I suppose in some rare cases that might just be. I think that if the whale in question was intelligent enough and wise enough to have accumulated that much dough then they are certainly intelligent and wise enough not to be suckered helplessly and unknowingly into some undesirable exchange.
No, I believe they know what they’re doing and really do actually WANT to do it. Although I’m not, my parents are mega-wealthy and so are most of their friends - lots and lots of new-money intrapreneurs and one common thread among them is that they just love - feverishly love, to reward new people, companies, and products they have recently learned to appreciate. Sometimes by stock investments and such but also by making the company successful and having a laugh or getting some kicks doing it. I could give you a bunch of examples - like buying so many copies of a particular book and then having the 18-wheeler it took to deliver them all, drop them off at a charity for distribution, etc.
To me, that’s what a whale is… nothing to do with any particular type of marketing or marketing mindset.
If you think gas prices are bad in the US you should try getting gas…just about anywhere else. Heck when it hit just shy of $5.00US here in NJ it was running just about $10.00US in most of the UK. Around $8.00US in Hong Kong. Just…gross.
I was with you up to this point, but here you’re misguided. Sure, a virtual item only requires development effort once and then you can have infinite copies of it. That’s not what they’re charging us for.
Think about it this way: you paid for the game once, but you keep receiving new content, and QoL improvements, and bugfixes, and balance tweaks, and all the other stuff that also requires development effort. And you’re not paying for that. Or for the official servers, either. So where does that money come from?
If your answer is “the base game sales”, then you’re not doing the math
Okay, so I realize I didn’t articulate what I was trying to say with enough context and details. Before I try to rectify that, I’ll say the same thing again: these are my personal opinions that reflect my own values. I don’t claim everyone shares them, and I also don’t think that those who don’t share them are automatically “bad people” or anything like that. I’m emphasizing this because my impression is that your values are radically different from mine, and I don’t want you to take any of this as some kind of an attack.
For context: I was talking about the usage of the term “whale” in the video game industry. Outside video games, “whale” has an established meaning that doesn’t necessarily involve any predatory practices, at least not if we’re sticking to conventional definitions of “predatory”. There are people who tend to think that most, if not all, marketing is predatory, but let’s not go there.
However, the term “whale” found wide adoption in the game industry around the time mobile games first experienced their monetization boom, an era rife with dark patterns and predatory practices. I’m still in touch with plenty of people in the industry, and those who regularly use terms like “whale” are always in the companies that specialize in gacha crap and other gross stuff like that.
So when I objected to the usage of “whale”, it was because of that. But like I said, the lingo is only half of the problem. The other half is intentionally structuring the prices so that the average player isn’t expected to be able to afford everything.
There are several reasons why I personally call that predatory behavior. Only one of those has to do with whether a whale is a “victim” or not. Since that’s the one you’re most interested in, let’s examine that one first.
I disagree on two counts, but I’ll examine only one. Going into the other one would turn this into a rather heated political discussion.
The thing that I disagree with and can talk about is your belief that a person who was capable of accumulating wealth is somehow immune to all kinds of manipulation. No offense, but I find that naive. Yeah, they specialized in making money and they should be able to recognize a bad deal, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be manipulated by targeted marketing.
But let’s assume that either most whales aren’t “victims” or we don’t really care if they are, because that’s just the tip of the iceberg of my objections.
The rest of the iceberg deals with non-whale customers like myself. I have two objections to changing the Conan Exiles monetization strategy to “only whales should be able to buy everything”. At this point, I feel like I should point out – for other readers – that I’m not saying that’s what Funcom is doing, I’m just discussing your idea that they might be doing this
My first – and simplest – objection has to do with the people who have supported this game so far, including myself. The monetization shift we’re discussing would basically be a giant “fuсk you” from Funcom. “Yeah, sure, it’s nice that you not only gave us all that money, but also probably spread some nice word-of-mouth over the time, but we’ve decided that only a tiny slice of the overall populace should be able to afford all of our stuff.”
Don’t get me wrong, business is business and it’s naive to expect a business to be sentimental, but that doesn’t make it right.
Not to mention that a change like that might backfire, in terms of reputation, and therefore future sales: it’s hard to find more determined detractors than those who supported you for years only to be treated that way.
My second objection has to do with what I consider predatory marketing aimed at non-whales. If only the whales are expected to be able to afford everything in the store, that means that they’re artificially inflating the worth of the goods to make them into luxury items. This is not an exaggeration, by the way. By your own definition, not just mine, whales have discretionary buying power that far outstrips that of the average consumer. If only whales can afford everything in this store, then that means we’re talking about digital luxuries.
Which, not to put too fine a point on it, is fuсking ridiculous. I mean, I love this game, but it’s just a game. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve already spent more money on it than I’ve ever spent on any game, and I don’t begrudge that at all, because I’ve also spent more time enjoying this game than any other. But no matter how much I enjoyed it, it doesn’t deserve spending that’s as disproportionate as the one you’re suggesting.
So okay, even assuming you end up agreeing with me – and I have a hunch you won’t – I’ve explained why I think that would be absurd, but would it be “predatory”?
I could go on a rant about De Beers and diamonds and explain why I consider any artificial luxury to be predatory marketing, but there’s something else, something that hits a lot closer, that makes this idea – in my opinion – predatory.
It’s us, again, those of us who have stuck around and supported this game so far. Some of us would say “well fuсk this” and leave and not look back. Others would stick around, thinking that maybe it’s not so bad, they can still show their support, especially if the items are on offer every now and then, with special time-limited discounts and whatnot. It’s amazing how easy it is to exploit both people’s goodwill and their desire to just have fun in the game. Make it tantalizing: expensive, yes, but always almost within reach. If you spend enough effort and attention, you might get all of it for a reasonable price, right? And if you don’t, well, that’s because you just didn’t try hard enough
I could go on, but there’s no sense in it. By now, you – and a lot of other readers, I imagine – are probably convinced that I’m reaching, even though we’re discussing a hypothetical extreme (i.e. “what if Funcom was deliberately structuring prices so that only whales can afford everything”). And many are probably thinking “Well, even if there are people like that, it serves them right, they should be more responsible and smarter and wiser and whatnot.”
And that’s why I’m not going to keep belaboring this anymore. Those who think like that will never be dissuaded from their “might makes right” point of view. Those who don’t probably think that this particular “What If” discussion is just wanking – and I can’t say they’re wrong
And the fact they upended their entire revenue stream. You don’t do that on solid 20%+ growth and gains in capital. Now we can argue what is acceptable profit etc but the business needs to show not just profit but justified investment growth of what Tencent put into it.
About $150 million was put up by Tencent according to google. 20% is $30 million it needs to see back yearly. That’s on top of ensuring the business is stable and growing. Do you really think this is getting done with around 25,000 players putting in $10 every 6 months?
Ah, I do not read the Steam forums to know. Explains where that amount came from.
Well, it is doubtful even before Adam mentioned the potential price it would be more than the game itself. Sounds like some people just wanted to make a stink without any real info.
I can see the arguments from both sides. But I have to take the side of the consumer, not for the consumers sake but rather Funcoms. You may think that sounds contradictory but if you take into account the world economic climate it makes sense. For instance gasoline prices in the US is at an all time high nationwide. So when it comes to fueling your mode of transportation to work or a cosmetic for a game which is more likely to take priority. So in turn Funcom is not going to make money if the items in the Bazaar are more expensive than something of a higher priority. So that begs the question what is a reasonable middle ground?
Well for 1. They are competing with every other game thats sells in game currency. So would be wise for Crom Coins to be cheaper priced than Dabloons from Wargaming.net, Zen from Star Trek Online, and the biggest one of all Call of Duty.
Are we the players going to be more likely to buy full sets of items or individuals? Truth be told most of us will pay for whatever we think will give us the most items for the cheapest price. For example an individual item for $5 or a set of 3 items for $7. To be honest if I were Funcom I would have a mix and match option where the buyer could pick 5 individual items for a 30% reduced total price.
Lastly what will keep us buying coins? That one is actually quite simple… Make the items priced enough to make a small profit but not expensive to the point we feel guilty after checkout.
I won’t lie I didn’t watch the video but im sick of seeing games that sell in game currency at nearly a 1-1 ratio. It would realy refreshing to see in game currency priced for what it is, fake money. So I conclude by answering the very first question. What is reasonable? In my opinion 10,000cc for $1.00usd. Some of you are thinking…“OMG Funcom can’t make money like that.” But those people have probably never taken a commercial sized pickle jar full of 0.01 coins to the bank and walked out with a stack of notes. “Less is More” as the saying goes, consumers especially gamers will buy more and more often if they don’t feel the bite to the wallet.
Guys, thanks so much for all the discussions! I am very happy to see a decent collection of views from both sides of the argument which obviously helps Funcom narrow down their final decision when 3.0 launches.
As to the arguments I can understand most if not all points of discussion and I personally fall on the side of hoping for a bit cheaper than the current “placeholder” prices seen. (obviously )
My main viewpoint stems from the fact that, even though this game is awesome, Conan Exiles has been out for a while and I feel if a president has been formed on how much things cost we should more or less keep to that pattern.
I want Funcom to succeed and thrive in these dark times with the world going all out nuts with prices, war and weirdness but I request them to keep it reasonable and rather go for that 2000 sales at $1.00 mindset.
I try and stay clear from all the buzz words like “predatory” and “FOMO” etc because that is a whole new argument on it’s own. But I will say this, those naughty words would be less of a factor if we have a pricing structure akin to that which we grew accustomed to over the years with the culture pack DLC prices.
I dont even know why we’re comparing the shop to the DLC’s instead of the battle pass to DLC’s. Feels to me like someone picked the thing they can criticize the most instead of doing proper research and comparison. (Especially since we do not know if something about the pricing is going to change still)
I dont think funcom meant to replace the DLC’s with the shop but with the battle pass. Pricing of the pass is the same like a DLC. So we should compare those two in value.
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