CEO, Goblinworks
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@Sintaqx - The average age of the people who play MMOs, their average educational levels, and other demographic data suggest that they have plenty of disposable income. The trivial amount they could spend even on several MMOs is dwarfed by what they spend on restaurants and coffee, to say nothing of other disposable purchases like vacations and sporting equipment.
The industry is well aware of this fact, and monetizes appropriately.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There's an old maxim that states "A product is worth exactly what a customer will pay for it." With cash shops in MMOs this is true, but there are very different repercussions. The average gamer is not wealthy. Many of us have mortgages or rent, tuition or student loan repayment, utility bills, family, food, vehicles, insurance, and fuel to spend a limited income on. Entertainment usually takes up a position at or near the bottom of the expenses totem pole, and in some cases that particular budget is slim indeed. Right now my personal monthly entertainment budget is around $10. I play EVE because I can pay for my accounts with PLEX. I play MWO because it's free. I have purchased MC in that game when my budget and desires allow.
I'd say a story that is active and changing and sociable is worth the movie ticket x1 per month. The question changes after 2-12 months and the total cost is decided on by the growing total and how a person thinks more returns could be had from that higher total? Most mmorpgs fail in that respect. Above all a highly socially rewarding experience I'd say is key to people adding value to that growing total? I think so from various clubs I've been a member of: To mix sociability with an activity so you keep up with people as well as do fun things.
So, if PFO can be a drama and story that has you thinking about how it's developing, provides fun experiences and the social side is very rewarding it becomes much more worthwhile. I think for that price to add to other acivities eg sports, nights out and anything else that is under "leisure" then maximizing productive forms of leisure over passive consumption forms - it's going to be rewarding beyond gratification thresholds aka burnout or "game got old real quick" that you see in a lot of mmorpgs. Certainly I enjoyed the Game Of Thrones TV series as well as the books. To think I can gain a comparable sense of drama from a mmorpg with a much more steady story and daily/weekly updates with real characters... there's huge potential and why I'm already +$100 under!
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Goblin Squad Member
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All I really want is for the cash shop not to cripple me. I remember in APB I had to struggle to slowly gear up my character and it felt very rewarding when receiving a new gun. Then the Cash shop was implemented and suddenly people are walking around like its world war 3.
If you don't buy a cash shop gun, get ready to die a thousand times over until you have a gun that may help you against other enemies.
Now I have ragged a lot against SWTOR but I really like the cash shop there... Lore breaking items excluded....
They give you cool weapons, nice armour designs but it is all novelty items. You need to work for a item with good stats to transfer that over to the cash shop item for it to actually do anything.
This has the great benefit of making your character look more unique, while still making people work for their stats.
I especially love the uniqe mounts often up for grabs. I want my half orc to ride around on a worg or a giant boar not a horse! But as I mentioned in another blog don't sell me a spider mount unless that thing climb on walls.... I am looking at you neverwinter!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know this is necroing an old thread, but I didn't want to start a whole new thread for one idea.
The typical choices for goods seems to be strictly player made, strictly cash shop sold, or items that are both. It's the last type that players seemed to have the most trouble with - the cash shop competing with player made goods.
When chatting with another Empire officer, it occurred to me that I have never heard of a cash shop item that is "jointly" player made and cash shop sold. That is, the player crafter makes the basic material parts of the item, but it requires a cash shop purchase to activate the item.
Let me use bags of holding as an example - and I know people want to be able to totally make their own bags of holding...it's just an example. Like other games, I can see tailors and leather workers being able to make various sized bags/pouches. But what if for a real encumbrance reducing bag of holding, you needed a highly skilled crafter to make the bag, but it required a cash shop purchase to get the bag to work? You would buy the bag, equip it, and then click on your "bag of holding token" that you bought in the cash shop, and the bag would then be imbued with its special powers.
The cash shop wins for providing an item that Devs might judge special enough to require an extra purchase (especially since encumbrance is going to be a real issue in PFO), and crafters are making and coin in-game from the bag that's needed to utilize the cash shop purchase.
I've likely overlooked some hidden problem with this idea, but I thought it sounded like a nice win/win.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I don't think a bag of holding is the best idea- something like that available only via mtx purchase would be seen as pay to win if there were no normal playermade equivalents. However, the underlying idea of a hybrid economy is interesting.
Using the idea of a unicorn mount that Ryan mentioned in a few of his cash shop posts, maybe the cash shop doesn't sell a freestanding unicorn but rather a one-use clicky that turns an existing horse into a unicorn. So you still have to engage the player economy to get the functionality of the item, and the mtx purchase just gets you a changed appearance. The same principle could be applied to any other alternate-esthetics cash shop items: they transform an item already acquired through normal channels, rather than being complete items themselves.
Obviously you'd have to be very careful to make it clear to the players exactly what they are or are not purchasing, but that should be easy enough if they're paying attention to doing so.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The most common jointly created/sold "item" may be the player created dungeon adventures similar to the Neverwinter Foundry. If/when the toolkit comes out for this, with an appropriate vetting system to prevent abuse (and maybe a little tweaking by a QC crew if the module is decent, but not good enough yet for selling), this would be the crown jewel of the cash shop.
I think with an appropriate balance of a lot of fun and decent look, mixed with some Golarion/Pathfinder lore, this could generate GW and Paizo a chunk o' change.
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Goblin Squad Member
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My favorite idea for cash shopping is still building skins. Have the settlement leader be able to choose the building skin the settlement wants, add it to their "cart" and thereby begin a kickstarter-style purchase. When enough cash is donated by your settlement members, the skin goes into the settlement leader's governing UI and poof - your generic looking smithy now looks like a sturdy Dwarven smithy.
Given the buying power of hundreds of people in a settlement, these could be sizable ticket items, but when dozens of people are pooling their money,it's not a huge individual contribution.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I didn't dig back through the whole thread, but for Hybrid items, allow applying a skin, so that a sword or staff or dagger or cloak or boots that have been manufactured in game can have a cosmetic appearance applied to them for a cash cost. A sword will cost you 5 gold. A sword with a jeweled pommel and elven runes will cost you 5 gold and $2.99.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm leery of store bought re-skins because I don't want the game to come with 2 s%%~ty looking clothing/armor/weapon skins and anything decent looking requiring additional cash.
Same thing with character graphics.
I'd like the store to not include any more advantage item, pay2win/pay4advantage, over and above the ones they already have. If they do intend to go even further down this slope or even into a full on pay2win I wish they'd just fess up now.
I'd like the store to not include any perks designed to mitigate or reverse bad behavior. No cash shop restoration of rep/alignment.
I'd like the store to not include any "catchup" items. No bonus xp, double time xp, skill packs, etc, designed to allow newer players to skip the time requirements of leveling.
I'd like the store to not include any items that interfere with player interaction. No cash shop weapons/armor/potions that could be used to break sieges or in any way allow one player, or group of players, to "win" inside the game by outspending another player or group outside of the game with real money.
Note the above could also impact selling training time in a way that makes it sellable from one player to another for in game cash. A settlement should not be able to break a siege by spending real world money to suddenly acquire a lot of in game cash to buy the resources / allies in a war. Otherwise the game is completely pointless and becomes the ultimate pay2win.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm leery of store bought re-skins because I don't want the game to come with 2 s#%!ty looking clothing/armor/weapon skins and anything decent looking requiring additional cash.
Same thing with character graphics.
Well I'm confident GW won't kill their golden goose with any of those p2w ideas. It'll be as per wargaming "Free To Win".
But on the above cosmetic graphics, I say they NEED to monetize this stuff. Graphics is a big overhead and people want it and hence will pay for it which allows GW to make more graphical stuff for the game.
However, how to actually sell it, is an altogether more difficult or challenging proposition. I can't help but get the inkling that SOE with Landmark are onto "a good thing" allowing players to make stuff and sell it to each other.
Perhaps Goblinworks could have their own spin on this that fits their own design (not voxel terra-forming gameplay) via a sort of licence system to crafters who have to pay X amount to Goblinworks for the licence but they can recoup those costs selling their crafted stuff with extra graphical addition to other players to recoup and eventually make a profit?
Something to do with the timing might be required per selling the licenses so the first-movers/buyers can have time to make the financial investment and have time to recoup it more exclusively? It would ideally also feed into the crafting system this way as part of the in-game economy?
A quick idea.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...buy the resources / allies in a war.
I can't remember which, but one of the Land Rush 2 groups offered real-world hard cash, paid each week, for Companies joining them. I've no doubt we'll see at least some of that out in the open come game-time--and likely more hidden away for whatever reason--and I can't think of any way to stop it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Training time sold in the shop will be tradeable like PLEX, correct?
Other than that I would only put in cosmetics/bank space/char slots. If you sell a months training at a busy market and you'll have enough cash to buy whatever else you want (sans things only available for cash)
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Goblin Squad Member
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...buy the resources / allies in a war.I can't remember which, but one of the Land Rush 2 groups offered real-world hard cash, paid each week, for Companies joining them. I've no doubt we'll see at least some of that out in the open come game-time--and likely more hidden away for whatever reason--and I can't think of any way to stop it.
To some degree, I don't think we can worry about stopping it. Once training time can be sold in game and contract mechanics are solid, there will be a way to convert OOG cash into IG coin and contract services for coin.
Any subscription game has a certain number of players that will (or say they are willing) to work in game for subscription money. And there are a certain number of players that are willing (or say that they are willing) to pay for a worker. (And a huge number of players that wish they could farm out some work). I think the reason it doesn't happen more is because there's a disconnect between how much work each side expects will be done, and there's no enforcement mechanism on OOG contracts. With contracts and sale of training time, such arrangements become much more possible, perhaps even commonplace. Some people will go the extra step and have OOG arrangements of OOG cash for services rendered.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the reason it doesn't happen more is because there's a disconnect between how much work each side expects will be done
This is what I thought when the Gauntlet made their offer. Assuming they keep a pretty small window by only taking their core towers, they're asking for a commitment of being on call for an hour a day, 30 days a month, for $15.00 or 50 cents an hour, with no extra pay if you have to actually do some work. I may be a bit jaded in middle-age, but I have a hard time imagining that worthwhile.