(Constructive) Feedback on Cosmetic Shop and Supporter Packs

Feedback and Suggestions
1

I know EHG is getting a lot of criticism right now and not all is very constructive. As a Kickstarter backer, I went into supporting this game with the understanding that there would be a cosmetic (only) shop. Maybe I can offer up some criticism of the recent pricing announcement that’s a little more constructive.

First thing I want to touch on is the pricing structure of the supporter packs. It is unclear if these packs are tiered in that if you buy the Templar pack you get all of its contents plus the contents of the Traveler pack and so on up to the Legend pack containing the contents of the previous three. The way it’s present makes it seem as though you would have to purchase these packs separately at their given price points. This is where I take issue with the pricing. This pricing is odd and it would mean there is less value in the Legend pack than the Traveler pack when in reality it should be the inverse to entice more people into buying the higher priced pack.

Let’s break it down mathematically a little. If a portal costs 100 EP, a back costs 50 EP, and a pet costs 100 EP that would mean each pack contains 250 EP worth of cosmetics or $24.98, based on the pricing of the EP packs. Then each pack contains 150 EP or $19.98 worth of EP. That’s a total of 400 EP or $44.96. Now lets look at the price of each pack and compare. The traveler pack would have a cost ratio of $20 : $44.98 or roughly 5:11. If you calculate it this way for the remaining you would get the following:

Traveler = 5:11
Templar = 8:11
Vanquisher = 10:11
Legend = 13:11
(ratios are rounded)

We can see that buying the Legend pack would actually cost MORE than the individual components. Now, this is all assuming that these are separate packs and not tiered. If they are tiered, than this point is moot and the value would actually increase with each tier, which is how it should be. If these are tiered, then giving some clarification is highly encouraged. If they are not, you need to rethink the pricing because it’s a bit of a rip off to pay more and get less. The cost to develop art on a individual basis in that a portal took longer or is more technical than another portal, should never be part of the pricing. Art is subjective. All like cosmetics should cost the same, I.E. all portals should cost the same.

The second point of criticism I wanted to bring up is the pricing structure on the individual cosmetics. I believe you’re shooting yourself in the foot with the pricing. The way it’s structured, discount sales will never be possible. The only items that could have discounts would be the 100+ EP items. Then you would have to have things on a 50% off to reach that division by 50 pricing. It would certainly be welcomed by players, but from a business standpoint, it’s a bit much. The pricing should be more flexible. A pricing structure that is always divisible by 10 or even 20 EP would be much more sustainable.

There a people that will purchase MTX regardless of price because they want to or because they can’t control their spending. Not having sales, though, would severely diminish your income from MTX. A much larger portion of players will not bother with MTX because they don’t see the value at full price. Put the item up for 20-30% off and suddenly now they’re reconsidering and much more like to bite. This is where the flexibility in pricing would be able to capture all types of players and your revenue from MTX would be significantly higher.

One final small point. I hope at some point you handle MTX and EP purchases through your website or in-game rather than through Steam only. If I’m not mistaken, Steam takes 30%. From a business stand point it would be worth the investment to handle that in-house. Have the option to go through Steam, but also have it in-house so that you’re getting a larger cut from at least some of the sales. I don’t have the data on whether there would be more sales on Steam or on your site/in-game, but personally I would rather pay EHG directly than give Steam more money.

That’s all I have for now. I just wanted to give something to think about. From a personal standpoint, if the supporter packs are not tiered, I will never purchase them. From a moral stand point, I can’t support something that rips off people for spending more. If the pricing never allows for sales, I will never purchase them simply because I never buy anything at full price. I’m always looking for a bargain. That’s why I supported through Kickstarter, I saw a good bargain. I would have happily spent double or more if I would have had the job I have now.

Keep up the great work! I’m looking forward to seeing what this game turns into 1.0 and beyond. :slight_smile:

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2

They’ve said that it won’t be like that. The more expensive packs only contain different MTX, not the sum of the preceding ones.

3

Thank you! I did not see that anywhere. That is very disappointing that it is structured that way.

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I can see your viewpoint and perspective, but i don’t share the majority of it. When it comes to the supporter pack prices, they have stated that the higher tier packs will include higher detail cosmetics that might also include custom animations and the such, while the lower tier packs usually won’t, Saying that development cost of a cosmetic shouldn’t be reflected in its price because “art is subjective” is kinda ignorant since this would just incentivize them to make crappy cosmetics.

Anathor thing is the sales argument, with how much commotion people have been making about the packs being “fomo” i can’t see how the same arguement can’t be made for sales, obviously people would think “i better buy it now while it’s still on sale” and the such. As such i think it would be smarter for them to basically never have sales and just price the items fairly to begin with.

And lastly these are supporter packs, they’re not made to give the user value some crazy good value or anything. It’s the option users have if they basically wanna tip the developers for making a good game. Now there are arguements to be made that buying any cosmetic at all is tipping. But in my eyes the supporter packs might aswell be buttons that say “tip 20£, 30£ …” and i would still maybe buy the 20 buck one, saying it’s a scam is kinda crazy to me.

5

If the point is to fund the developers, why bother with the mtx is the first place? They could better employ the art team by making stuff for the game (mobs, zone/tile sets, spruced up skill effects and general animations, etc).

6

Maybe I’m misunderstanding but i don’t see how that would fund them. You want them to sell us different mob skins and tile sets instead?

7

No, just have supporter packs with nothing in them as the “purest” way of funding the devs. The “requirement” to provide mtx (both in the packs and as something to spend our cc/epoch points/whatever on) is a distraction from and takes resources from making the game.

If what you want is to support the devs without the need to “provide crazy good value”, then surely getting rid of the mtx is the best way to go?

8

I have nothing to add here really since OP covered all of my concerns and questions, I just wanted to throw my name into this thread as a means of support, so the developers know more people think this way.

If the supporter packs are tiered I’ll 100% be purchasing the highest one, but like you said, it feels like a bit of a ripoff if they’re not since cosmetic appearances should be subjective in taste/value.

I wasn’t even thinking about future discounts and sales, but you’re absolutely right. Just look at Warframe if you want an example of doing discounts right. The price for their premium currency platinum is frequently offered at discount to individual users at a relatively common basis, and they sell like hot cakes.

Seeing a currency discounted by 25% or even 50% makes your brain think “Hot damn!” I am usually never one to buy into it, but when in Warframe I get a 75% off discount for platinum I just have to use it, otherwise I feel like I’m just wasting the opportunity. lmao

Having EP be divisible to the nearest 10 instead of 50 should be fine, and not unheard of in the industry (not just this genre), and would only really be a deal breaker to like a dozen people overall, nothing really worth rebuilding the whole system for.

So long as every unique item gets it’s own 3D art to match it’s 2D one, and more and more non-unique sets are being introduced to add more visual variety to your leveling progression, then I have zero issue with a cosmetic shop and will definitely be buying some cool skins to match my builds.

Just make sure my dollars to points exchange is being valued and we’re golden.

9

I mean id be down with that but a lot of people aren’t and in the end despite it being free from development costs it’ll make them less money than having mtx bound to them. It’s like giving a tip at a restaurant and they give you an extra nugget or something, there’s incentive on both ends.

It’s not like Wikipedia where they want to have to rely on pure charity from their users, now yes the other mtx still fund the devs but obviously at a lesser rate since most people would just buy a supporter pack and use the points from it to buy mtx. Having no supporter packs at all would basically be the alternative where all the things from the supporter packs would just be sold individually, but then people would just complain about their high prices since they wouldn’t give as much value as other mtx (bet your bottom that the wings on the highest tier would have to sell for like 30 bucks or something by themselves)

10

They aren’t.

11

This is precisely the concept behind shops in most games (sadly, LE included soon, apparently).
You put ridiculously high price-tags on everything. Very few will buy at that price, but that allows you to regularly showcase massive discounts and trigger in the playerbase the psychological reaction you describe.
Very predatory.

Important edit: I wrote that before reading Moxjet’s latest post. Looks like EHG is taking steps to avoid using the typical “psychological manipulation” models of other games. Thanks EHG.

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But is it veey predatory for bricks and mortar stores (not that they “often” do massive discounts)?

13

If they double the normal prices simply to be able to do frequent shiny discounts, of course it is. Some do.
But it is a far less common practice in regular shops than in video games, I think.
(Or maybe it’s just that I spend way more time on video games than on the high street).

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14

Yes, probably to everything (for me as well).

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15

I don’t have any data on it but I think a model with a higher normal price and occasional sales makes the devs more money. There’s people who will buy a cosmetic as soon as it comes out and the price doesn’t matter that much to them and there are people who will wait for a sale to get good value for their money.
If managed right it doesn’t have to be anything predatory and most customers will be happy with what they bought and how much it cost them.
By having the price constantly set somewhere in the middle will net you less money from both groups. The 1st type of people would buy even at a higher price point and the 2nd might not buy ever.

16

While i can agree with the fact that having sales can for sure net more money, and some people will wait for an item they want to go on sale before buying it. That doesn’t stop it from being fomo, either they’d have to have each item go on sale quite often as to avoid the “oh no if i don’t get it now who knows when it’ll go on sale again” which will actually reduce income. Or they can limit the amount of sales they have to a more reasonable degree as to earn more money but then you’ll get the “oh no if i don’t get it now who knows when it’ll go on sale again” which is according to some people “predatory” (which is strongly disagree with, i honestly think that barely anything they can do here would be actually predatory since it’s just cosmetics but i know that’s a hot take).

It’s simply easier to just never have sales or maybe only have them during special events like anniversaries or something, and like they said in the blog post one of the main reasons as to why they want to have a middle man currency (apart from a ton of behind the scenes benefits both for them and us) is to be able to give out the currency, so you can pick and choose what you want to get. So instead of sales they might just occasionally give people some of the currency if they’ve earned it. I think that’s a way more “ethical” model and incentives players to challenge themselves, much like poe challenges.

But yeah ultimately my opinion is basically they can do whatever they want to make as much money as possible using their mtx store. This isn’t fortnite where you have 12 year old kids grabbing their moms credit cards to get some vbucks. Everyone here should be responsible with their own money, anything short of literally stealing your money or catering to minors to spend their parents money isn’t predatory, because everyone except those minors should be able to realize “oh this is way too expensive for me, i’ll just not get it, too bad” if something is too expensive or whatever. It’s kinda like saying a Gucci bag is expensive, i mean sure it is, but just don’t buy it, easy as that. If you want to flex with it and you think the monetary cost is worth it then all the more power to you, go and get it and flex all you want. Sorry for the rant but i honestly cannot fathom peoples positions (not you) when they get all butthurt over literal cosmetics, it’s not like the in game gear makes you look like a mentally challenged hobo like they do in poe, the characters look pretty damn great imo without any cosmetics, there should be literally 0 pressure on players to buy cosmetics, the only source of preasure is the players own want to look cool, which is something they themselves are responsible for controlling.

Sorry for the long rant.

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I know they’re not. I’m implying that if they were to make them tiered, they’d get more of my money.

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Oh, absolutely, a lot more money. No question there.

Let’s say you need to sell a product for 100, to cover your costs and make a reasonable profit.
The “normal” way would be, well, to sell it for 100. Very rarely, like once a year or so, you can cut your profit and let it go for 80, just covering your cost. It is called a sale.
The “computer games” way is, sell it for 200. Then once a month, loudly announce a huge 50% off sale weekend, and drop it to 100. It is obviously not a real sale, as it was already preplanned and budgeted in the pricing, just a psychological trigger.
I don’t know if “predatory” is the right word, but it is certainly not very honest.

19

It gets kinda complicated with video games microtransaction. The cost you need to cover isn’t really the cosmetic that’s getting sold itself but the cost of running the servers and developing new content.
But honestly, I don’t particularly care about what’s gonna be in the mtx shop. If I see something I like for a price I’m okay with paying I might buy it. If not than that’s fine too.

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20

Selling digital stuff is totally different to selling physical goods. Physical goods have an actual cost of materials
attached to each one, with likely very few exceptions, digital goods would have the original creation cost (X manhours at Y rate) plus a cut for the store doing the selling & that’s usually it. So as long as they make more than the original creation cost, yes, they can cut the price by 90% if they want & still make a profit.

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