As the title says, after a good xmas I feel like splashing some cash and getting some cool stuff for my conan character, and all I see is stuff I couldn’t really care about, some golem head and a japanese bar, I ideally would like the dogs of war set, maybe some armor, chieftan of the north (picked un the Aesir set, was kinda cool)
so why can’t we just buy what we want? why is the market operated on a cycle, you are literally gating me from spending money on your product.
When the Bazaar launched, they noted that they would have a rotating inventory because a full catalogue would be sad and sparse. Which was true at the time.
This one believes we are well into the point where everything should be available at it’s non-bundled price evergreen, with the rotating window being for currently featured bundles.
However, updating the Bazaar interface would require dev time, which, based on the current bug infestation, they likely don’t have. Also, there’s some attitudes common in specific marketing departments that creating the illusion of temporary availability will drive sales to newer heights. So there may be deliberate resistance to a Bazaar catalogue from the “monetization expert”.
While this one personally thinks the time is well past that the Bazaar should have been updated (assuming the earlier notation that it was rotating because a full catalogue would have looked sad and anemic was sincere), this one no longer holds out hope for anything resembling progress on this front, and merely hopes the… very erudite and encultured persons… who make decisions at the company don’t find a way to make it worse.
That is the thing, maybe their data goes otherwise but I speak to my clan and this whole fomo thing isn’t really flying, by the time we see something in world or decide hey I would kind of like that, its already cycled out.
Like the dog thing on the cycle today, I kind of would like the dog, but don’t want the cage or spraypaints, but I know that dog is also in a dogs of war pack, so im not going to buy it and hold out for that pack to hopefully come into rotation again.
There’s also the possibility that they are still in the fuc- er, experiment phase of roll out. They recently did an update to the Bazaar. Not it’s format, but the rapidity with which it rotates. Stepping it up even more so that the offerings cycle faster. This one thinks it is far from the best solution for availability of the burgeoning list of digital offerings, but also notes it is likely the option that is easiest on the backend.
It would be nice to see everything and have rotating bundle discounts (full price single items if all someone wanted was the dog). I do suspect its a coding issue; rather, a coding priority issue.
Honestly, as this one understands the skeleton crew keeping the ship sailing (and this one may be entirely wrong in this estimation), there is no anger if they prioritize some of the… hiccups… that are currently impacting play over a new format for the Bazaar.
The core gameplay should be a priority and it would be utterly disingenuous of this one to stomp fear and demand attention to the Bazaar over the non premium content. Quite contrary, this one would appreciate if the finite time of the devs was not prioritized to this. Perhaps in the future, when time is not tight and there are not wheel reinvention roll outs, this can be addressed. If all were currently in order in the game, this one would have a different take. And this one does feel that some of the time spent on the massive and unsolicited overhauls could have been spent on the Bazaar front end… But moaning about the past doesn’t fix it
TLDR; the window for this is probably not right now.
Well, I’m sure the people on the team have different skillsets, so I would imagine if its going to happen, there is a dedicated person on the task (who may be spending time each day also doing something else for sure, if not something like testing the current build or replicating bugs). I dont imagine the same person doing the npc ai is the same person doing the bazaar menu for example. If I were to guess, I bet we see a new bazaar format in the next age.
This one does sometimes like to speculate as to how the backend projects are divided up
Is the Bazaar front in part of the U.I. team responsibilities, or does it fall on the marketing and new asset team? Or worse, do the two have to coordinate with the money master overseeing, thus adding schedule coordination into the mix?
There are always moving parts and no two projects are necessarily the same.
This one would be very happy if the catalogue made an appearance with the new Age. Also, the extra Season for this Age hopefully will buy the breathing room necessary to facilitate a smooth roll out. This one still thinks a Season between Ages would be a good solution, but that’s not the direction they went with, and the most important purpose of the suggestion, allowing time for more rigorous testing and successful integration is being addressed.
I had the same feeling with the feast set. I didn’t want the table, or the chairs yet i was very interested on the feasts.
So patiently they appear alone in the bazzar and i bought them. That’s the great thing with decoratives, we don’t actually need them so we can wait until they split from the set and buy them.
But, no matter if that seems ok…
I really don’t like bazaar.
Has nothing to do with the ‘store being sparse’ on release or it now being a coding issue. It’s 100% a psychological trick:
Except nothing on the bazaar is “scarce”. Its also easy to see for Funcom; does something sell more the first time or second time around? Is it the same people who buy day one? Do some people buy first day for one thing (and one thing only) later to be reminded of it with a sale and buy it later? I hazard to say that most people who are buying something on the bazaar don’t think for two seconds about it rotating out, unless its just a matter of what day is more convenient to spend. In the end, I will bet money we get a more formal store in game. It will do more to up the revenue if the small stuff like floor sprays and what not can be bought at any given time. The little purchases it would enable would bring in a lot more revenue. Being single items, they wouldnt get a discount. Right now, they essentially have product they can’t sell. I guarantee you they change that.
The new loading screen advertises 3 new sets , currently the second one is in the bazaar and will be for the next 11 days and then maybe it will get to the one I’m interested in , the new nemedian armor.
In 11 days the vacation will be over , I’ll have completed BP and will be at work = less time in CE , less desire to spend ( and despite all the FC fouls I was still really considering the armour)
So in summary - this “gradual” way of selling means I won’t buy the armour.
And from talking to other players on the server, I’m not the only one who doesn’t like these offers
Being timed creates the scarcity mindset. Again it’s a psychological trick. There is plenty of information on this and how it’s being applied to “games as a service” design.
It could easily be applied to p2w items. It just loses opportunities for cosmetic purchases. Its too clever by half. One time only items? Sure. But these are rotating store items. People know it will eventually come back. The difference is, right now they can only get some items in bundles with stuff they may not value and at the new pricing, you can’t squeeze blood from a stone on the people who didnt buy it the first time around. Thats why I expect a discounted bundle method coupled with full price single items. Then people may wait for a bundle to get a value discount, or just pay more to have it now.
It doesn’t matter if they’re rotating items, it still plays on that specific part of our brains that reacts to scarcity, such as hoarding impulses despite no longer living in a society where such actions are necessary. Again, there are plenty of psychological studies done on this specifically to get customers to spend more money, whether or not the reality matches the mindset. It plays up the worry in our psyche that it might not come back around, or if it does it might be during a point we aren’t playing, or that the game could be abandoned at any point so one should pay for it now just in case. Again, like the hoarding instinct which we saw very blatantly on display just a few years ago when it came to things like toilet paper despite there being no real shortage of such.
The same goes with the Anchor Pricing where you are presented 2 different prices with the more expensive one being slashed out to make it appear like you’re getting a deal. That price was never and will never be the actual price of the item, but it tricks the brain into believing you’re getting a deal, but the price you pay is always the intended price point.
Then there’s also the fact Crom Coins themselves are tweaked to be slightly different than a flat number conversion, which is again another psychological trick. The brain sort of defaults the price of $10 to 1000 coins, so 1200 seems like you’re getting a deal instead. This then carries over to the pricing structure of the items themselves never equaling out to a flat rate, so you’re in such a way that people who spend money on Crom Coins will always have some left over. Another psychological trick to get people thinking that those leftover coins are wasted money.
Again, there is a plethora of information on all of this if one just does the research instead of trying to give any company the benefit of the doubt. None of them deserve that benefit, even the most consumer friendly ones.
I have no doubt psychology goes into what’s available at what price and what’s not. Did you know nearly half of psychology studies end up being debunked over time as people’s mindset changes? The money here is made at the Crom Coin purchase time, which is before the item is purchased. As we have seen, Crom Coins go on sale, prompting stockpiling of coins. The same “scarcity” (which its not) that you describe can still he achieved thru bundles, charging full price for single items.
Time will tell, but I expect the store to change to sell much more (maybe not all as it would be in game page hell). As it stands, sales are being missed due to unavailability, and missed sales are a big deal.
Absolutely! Scarcity isn’t about the product being in limited quantity, but rather about the few who will have the opportunity to own it. The moment there’s a time window for purchase, the product automatically becomes scarce in people’s minds. And this sense of exclusivity even works for those who’ve made the purchase. Once a player buys the item, they prefer it to leave the marketplace because it gives them a feeling of uniqueness. It’s a perfect mechanic, and Funcom surely won’t let go of it!
I can imagine how many people will buy the Yamatai Tavern pack, even with the pillow bug (or non-bug), simply because they fear not being able to have it in the future. And with that, Funcom achieves the sales target for the pack. Instead of fixing it (or improving it), they focus efforts on another pack and apply the same strategy! May the marketing gods help Funcom keep this mechanic working and Conan Exiles thriving!
Does anyone really believe the yamatai tavern won’t rotate back in… especially when people are still bugged from enjoying the game… I got some stuff to sell people if they believe that
This.
The psychological stuff is BS. There’s not enough people with psychological disorders to keep the game afloat. But items not on rotatation aren’t making sales. Not making sales makes them worthless. There’s over 600 items that can be sold, with less than 5% of them being available at any given time.
It makes no sense to have 95% of ones services unavailable at any given time.
That’s the neat part, they largely don’t exist. Literally the argument is ‘some people might think’ or ‘there might be someone that…’ but no -I- or -Me-. Where are these people? Who are these people?
“Some people” is code for “I”… its a tactic for people who don’t want to take ownership for also believing it