I will not support a cash shop that has predatory pricing tactics, like the one employed on the Aquilonian Elevators

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This is absolutely not cool, and my wallet is closed as a result. Funcom, you guys gotta understand – I’m on PC. I don’t need your cash shop when modders do it better than you and for free. I was supporting your cash shop because I wanted you to get money for continued development.

But not like this.

This is irresponsible at best, an insult at worst, and an absolute red line for this consumer. I’ve got enough coin to let the battle pass ride and completing it to ensure the free content continues for me is not at all a chore.

There’s absolutely no reason this pack couldn’t have been 1200 coins even. Do better, and for more than just this pack. Change your ways and give me an honest deal, or take your content and shove it.

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Would you prefer the $X.99 to give the illusion you are getting it a dollar cheaper that retailers have been doing for almost an entire century?

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I prefer honest pricing in this particular instance. I also prefer focusing on one matter at a time.

The matter at hand is that this particular cash shop goes, I would argue, well over the line of good taste when it comes to pricing for a profit. I don’t have a problem with making an honest buck, but this ain’t an honest buck, is it.

The world’s problems are best solved one at a time.

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So what profit is morally acceptable and are you immoral to accept a discounted version of it?

The issue here is that there are lots of folks that want to bring up some morality aspect to pricing and profits of a company but for some odd reason, the morality doesn’t go both ways when you are shopping for a bargain and buy something at a 50-75% discount.

Is the pricing competitive in the industry as a whole? If yes, then your issue is with microtransactions in general and the industry.

I didn’t buy the elevator because I don’t think it’s worth that price. I am expecting it to lower the next go around and will determine if its worth it and it will be dependent on the discount they offer.

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Bro, it’s not that deep. At least to me. 1270 coins, in this case, actually means buying 2640. That’s the actual cost.

Honest pricing isn’t obscenely philosophical, and you’re welcome to continue supporting these kinds of pricing schemes if you like.

I won’t.

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Yep, clearly a dark pattern being overly used in the industry. In some countries these practices will be banned eventually but it might take some time.

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Just to clarify, is your objection specifically to the elevator cost in question as it relates to the purchase packs for Funcom 's crypto…
Or is it with Funcom (and game companies in general) creating their own funny money that requires one to purchase with (comparatively) real money and do so in specific increments rather than at a standard exchange?

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And no guarantee it will actually work, if it doesn’t oh well.

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It is. It actually is and that is why you have sales strategists as a marketing professional role in larger companies. It’s why $3.99 sells over 50% more than $4.00. because people just focus on the 1st number. It’s why supersizing is significantly cheaper (because the price isn’t COGs based but industry based and therefore mark up is extreme that COGs are just not considered as relevant) and it appears a better value for that extra dollar per $0.10 worth of food. Its why, in the US, that taxes are calculated at the register vs put in the price of the good on the shelf. It’s why the government takes more than it needs from your individual paycheck so you get a a check back that gives you a dopamine rush of earning money…that they flat out took more than they should have, made investments with said money throughout the year and gave it back without any interest. The point is that there is literally nothing honest as far as any sort of currency transaction goes…be it paying taxes, getting wages, buying anything, investing, or saving. You are putting out an impossible ideal that has never been as your expectation. That’s like me expecting Heaven on earth and it’s just not based in an form of reality. So by all means, don’t participate in this but I got to ask, why is this offensive when every other transaction you have had is equally dishonest?

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There is no honesty in the bazaar.

You have a variable conversion rate the some fiat currency.
$9.99 → 1$ = 120.12 crom
$19.99 → 1$ = 132.07 crom

Then you have a limited window of items that you can exchange crom for. 7 items if I recall correctly. Some of those items have a ‘sale’ price with the original scratched out. Do we have a reliable way to verify the item is truly on sale? There is no price tracker. There is no way to browse all items to compare.

The whole point of the crom coin pricing is so that you purchase more crom coins. If you purchase the $19.99 crom coins then you get 2640. If you exchange the coins for the elevator then you have 1370 left over. Maybe something else comes along that you want and is 1700 crom coins. You only have 1370. So maybe you buy the $9.99 crom coins…and so on and so forth.

It also requires an additional step to figure out how much something actually cost in your local currency.

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I play another game, where they sell costumes for high price as well.
Everybody was like “Say No to this abuse!”, “Price ridiculously high!”, “I will never buy this nonsense!”
And the next day, when I got into the online lobby, EVERYBODY was wearing new costumes…

Turns out to be a majority of people actually willing to buy it.
They just happen to be absent in here.

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I’m willing to concede that with inflation, the work that goes into creating these assets and delivering them costs $. There’s a lot behind what goes into providing these options.

But gotta agree here. The purpose of the 70 crom coin difference is absolutely clear to drive the sale of the larger pack.

Totally get it, they want the moula. That FOMO gotta keep vibing.

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I mean, yeah. This particular anti-consumer pattern is widely used in the industry and the issue is with that practice in general, not just Funcom. Does the fact that other studios also do it somehow detract from the complaint?

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i support what you say…

sad to report, funcom does not care, there is a very evil person in charge of the store, causing stress, and frustration,

those running the shop are evil people, i am so curious to know who is responsible of setting prices? those 70 extra crom coins is forcing those people who did not had left overs of CC, to buy the next CC package. pretty sure the price tag is intended. LOL./

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A skin for a single cosmetic for a price of a DLC sounds like too much? Yes it is too much. It’s by design. It doesn’t matter that you don’t support it. It’s FOMO, so enough people will buy it for them to turn a profit.

These things (bazzar, battlepass,…) are simply designed to generate short term profit for the company. That is all.
Yes, building trust with customers, traditional DLCs, fairly priced content, and all kinds of things are better for the long-term survival of a studio, but “customer trust” can’t be made into a simple graph you can show to shareholders.

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For everyone that refuses to purchase something or at least claims to, there’s several that do so anyway. Its not even ‘whales’ but people who go, ‘I want that, I buy it.’. There’s also the issue of Crom Coin being purchased already. In that case FC was already paid by you, you’ve said you won’t buy anything else. Which means you’re just a one timer. They aren’t developing content for you, but for those who will buy whatever they want to buy.

Had many of you simply not purchased crom coin at all, then there may have been some changes. But even without that, too many of you still buy it when you see something you like.

How much Crom Coin have many of you purchased in the last month? During Age of War? Since Age of Sorcery? At all?

If the answer is more than zero. You’re sending a mixed message. Don’t send a mixed message. Stay firm. Ignore the fear of missing out and let that thing you want really bad just not be a thing you have. Its gone.

If you got Crom Coin. Sure go ahead and use it. You bought it already. FC is already paid. Might as well use it unless your jurisdiction has a means of getting it back. But don’t buy anymore. Use it up and stop. It’ll be another quater before FC even considers that an issue. And you’ll need to hope that others in this thread (and pray that they represent many more that aren’t here) can do the same (temptation takes most human beings, the human condition isn’t strong enough with most anyway). Because if you cave, chances are, dozens more are too if not more.

When you pay a company for a good or service. Say they shouldn’t do a thing. Then pay some more. They hear, “You should keep doing this.”

When they can’t pay the artists with the revenue they get from their work, that’s when they start listening to feedback. Or they may downsize, but that’s not our responsibility.

The other thing you can do is get local legislatures in your jurisdiction to try and pass some laws against this sort of fake currency or even tax it. This isn’t actually as hard as it sounds, even if only a few regions (not even entire countries) do this, it makes it very tricky for a business to operate such a shop since they have to either turn it off to those regions or develop different versions.

Both methods do hinge on a majority though. And democracy is frequently the dictatorship of the majority.

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I find this complain logical and i have no reason as a costumer not to agree.
It’s two elevators, but basically one that shares the vanilla one.
I don’t use elevators, it’s very rare for me to use elevators and i have years to use them.
I like the elevators and i will buy them even if i don’t use them.
But…
They shouldn’t cost more than 400 crom coins, it’s just a single building piece, for gods sake it’s very expensive, very expensive for a single building piece.

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If you don’t think you’ll use it, think it is expensive and don’t see the value, then why buy it?

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Honestly I agree and will follow suit with the OP, as this shouldn’t have been $20 it should have been $5 at the very highest most items that are a singular item are nearly as much as a bundled version giving you far more for your money. This needs to stop before it hits levels that OW2 has. Back when they did dlc packs you paid $20 for a huge return which most companies use to do before 2015, in my experience thats when this madness started to spill in to gaming from smartphones which began on 2007.

Its eventually going to go the way fallout 76 tried a shell game barely anything at all and then a slow drip of content until the game got called out and started to hemorrhage money then they wised up and did what was right and even knew they had to promise to support it well in to the future because in the end the customer is their boss.

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They show what they originally valued the item with the price and the x mark over it then their discount price which they believe is “fair” I wonder how the world would respond to this if this was the practice of all retailers, I suppose you enjoyed the $15 hamburgers from mc donalds? To which they got called out and are changing course.

Obviously companies need to make profit but not this way, not this marginal mark up then discount, I always believed in marking stuff up past the price you really wanted then willing lower it to that price making the consumer believe that they got a deal.

When it actually is put in to practice I see how stupid and ignorant I really was.

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