Goblin Squad Member
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One of the criticisms brought up about any pricing model that involves a cash shop is that it's very easy to loose track of how much money you have spent and thereby getting more in dept then previously planned/anticipated with your credit card company.
One thing that pretty much anyone can do is keep track of it yourself and make your own statistics about your own spending. I for example keep a spreadsheet on how much I spend in what game/online shop/cash shop/etc. in what month. So i'm always aware of how much I spend.
But how about this:
What if GW would offer an menu option in the account management page, and possibly in game when you are about to buy something, that would display, very visibly, how much you have already spend this month and in total in the cash shop?
Possible additional options would be to graph out how much you have spent int he past in every month. But that would be icing on the cake :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I know that GW2 has a 'recent purchases' list and I assume that PFO will have something similar.
Buying the 'Goblin Balls' would surely be done outside the game, though? All the other MMOs and online games that allow real money input direct you to a separate account page. You then pay through that page.
I'm all for stopping people getting into financial trouble by showing them what they have spent, but that sort of check could be done just by looking at your Paypal/credit card statement. If it is easy to implement within the game then, no problem. I don't, however, really see a need to devote time and space to a function that is pretty redundant.
Of course, there is always the old maxim of 'don't spend what you can't afford'. It rarely works that way, but if you know that you only have £50 left at the end of the month, you ought to know that you shouldn't be spending £75 on a game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I wouldn't call a feature redundant that helps getting more of the information needed for a purchase to the same place. In the same way i wouldn't call the checkout page in online shops that shows you the total price before the customer buys the order instead of letting the customers calculate the total redundant.
Also the people that have their finances under control and check all information sources for it regularly are not the ones that are going to get in financial trouble because of this.
But I see your points.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is an interesting notion. The problem is that most companies have a vested interested in what they can get you to spend, regardless of how much you have to spend. Making people aware of how much they have spent would be a great social decision, but a very poor business decision. If you have $100 and usually spend $70/week on groceries, the business would prefer you buy $50 of in-game items and live off of ramen for a week.
That is certainly not their goal. But they are unlikely to do anything that might dissuade you from giving them more money - especially highlighting that you've already given them a good amount.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Lifedragn: There is a flip side to that. People who thought to be over budget but are not would have the confirmation that they can spend more money without getting in trouble.
This is pretty much the situation i'm in every Steam Sale ever. "OH GOD! I have bought 7 Games in the span of 2 days. WHAT HAVE I DONE?! Oh..... the they were 26 bucks in total. I guess i can afford this bundle too after all"