If purchasing from the item shop is required to compete, then the game isn't "free to play" - it's a more expensive subscription based game than a traditional subscription based game.  That's where the F2P model fails.  We the MMO paying fanbase aren't going to pay more than the standard $15 per month for long, if at all, before we walk.  I will not pay real dollars for virtual crap in a game...ever.  I will not pay for micro-additional content...ever.  If your game requires me to buy this crap to compete with other players that do, I'm not playing your game.

If you want my money, keep that in mind when you develop.

Originally posted by Terranah

See, I think the biggest failure is not knowing your market.  If someone is hardcore enough to spend 7000 dollars for some runes, chances are they probably don't work and therefore don't have that kind of money.  I have a very good job...but I'd rather tack on $3000 dollars to that and buy another rental property,  but that's me.

 

I'm not opposed to buying stuff in an item shop if it appeals to me.  So far nothing has, but if it does I will definitely buy something, just not at ridiculous prices.  I could see buying something at $1, 5, or maybe 10 dollars.  After that, I have lost interest and start disliking the company.

I agree with this..

I am retired, invested, and have disposable income.  I have spent monies on cash shops, though not to the extent of some.  I have no issues spending money on cash shops either if the game is decent and has a decent community.  Do my part to help the game grow.  Or at least think I do.  But this is a personal example:

When Allod's opened up the cs and I looked at the 20$ bag upgrade.. (only six slots mind you, 18 slots to 24), I thought to myself.. man this is a bit steep, but I assumed it was account wide.  It wasn't.. thats 20$ PER character.  I enjoy playing alts/different classes to break up the monotony of one class.  In CB, I rolled all classes and decided four for OB.. thats 80 bucks to equip upgrades.. JUST for bags.  lol.. um no. 

dislike for me is an understatement.

d

Originally posted by battleaxe

If purchasing from the item shop is required to compete, then the game isn't "free to play" - it's a more expensive subscription based game than a traditional subscription based game.  That's where the F2P model fails.  We the MMO paying fanbase aren't going to pay more than the standard $15 per month for long, if at all, before we walk.  I will not pay real dollars for virtual crap in a game...ever.  I will not pay for micro-additional content...ever.  If your game requires me to buy this crap to compete with other players that do, I'm not playing your game.

If you want my money, keep that in mind when you develop.

That is true, it is not realy so much the cashshop model being bad though.  It is more along the line that the games designed around the use of cashshop is bad.  Of course the high pricing on some F2P give it a even worse reputation.

If a game was F2P but offers a good pricing which does not exceed what P2P players pay monthly on average, and the cash shop items itself does not impedge game progress.  (Basically cosmetic and convenience focused)  I don't think F2P would be such a bad model nor have a bad reputation among players.

I think F2P model is usually handled too poorly when it comes to cash shop.  A lower price generally boost sales just on impulsive buys alone.  When a player think they are at least getting their money's worth with cash shop items and the game itself is entertaining nothing is wrong with a F2P model.

you know maybe we should boycott them by dropping thier games i was looking forward to getting back into aika today but after hearing all this im not sure i care about rappelz or aika anymore this is just weak

This looks like one of those classic "suit" responses that advocates not discounting anything/raising prices: "You can lose half your customers and still make more money!"

Once in a while they are correct, but most of the time there's a disconnect between doing that, and the other effects raising prices can cause.  There are many, but as one example - those 1/2  of your (former) customer base people tend not to go away quietly, and it's VERY EASY to miscalculate/misjudge the size of the new customer base after you increase the prices.  If it really ends up a 1/3 or a 1/4 of your former customer base, the extra profits go bye-bye, and you've just driven away over half of your cash flow for NOTHING.

In a way, I hope this company sticks to their guns and runs with this plan.  If they are right, they can run servers that aren't maxed out with players, giving the best performance on their end, while having "Setting Money on Fire" lunch hours once a week and not giving a Gawd Damn what bloggers say about them.  If they are wrong, which I personally hope they are, then a ceiling is set that other developers will respect for future games.

This is a bad situation

"We are working very HARD on a solution" - While still keeping the insane cash shop online - PRO

Proving there's some free to play models that aren't so bad (DDO) vs this one which might be possbily the worst one I've ever seen.

I actually had some interest in this game and was considering playing it once it went live, but once this all came out I dropped any thought I had of trying it.

heh..

Yes,   I just posted some feedback in thier forums dedicated cash shop feedback thread in ref, to shutting the cs down until the problem is rectified..

I didn't break the threads rules, nor did I break the forums rules for posting in any way.  The intent was to suggest that if the current cash shop items are out of balance with the communities opinion, and that there is a clear motivation to rectify the problem,  as well as still being in OB (considered a testing phase), that maybe it would be a good idea to take the cs offline until a solution is created.

lol.. deleted. 

posted a question as to why, stating no rules or guidlines had been breached..

deleted.

:)   It is clear to me that they have no intention of doing a damn thing.  And also clear to me, they could care less about my "feedback" as it is not inline with generating money.   Say one thing, delete another.

this could just be that needle.

d

Mr. Jennings: Pity you haven't linked to your MMORPG.com articles from Broken Toys in quite a while. It would be interesting to discuss this thing over there.

I never played Allods, but after this, I can hardly say I am planning to.  The depressing part is that nothing will change.  If some people have found a way to play Evony, it's hopeless to attempt to reason with people like those in this thread who blew $1,500 on three months' play.  Undoubtedly, there will be people lined up to buy that $7,000 thingy, and as much as most of the potential players, even some of the game's most ardent supporters, might walk away in disgust, gPotato will be cracking a smile.

At the same time, I'm not sure that those who have balked will maintain their stoic resolve for very long, except those who realize they can't afford it.  After all, in a case of "take it or leave it" like this, have you ever seen a company backtrack?   Did EA backtrack over its Battlefield Heroes price hike (2000% in some cases) for items bought with in-game points?  And in that case, they had the redeeming grace of somewhat lowering the prices in real money, effectively targeting the freeloaders.  But is that wise to pull such a switch when you used to brag about how spending money on the game didn't make anyone more competitive at it?  So Battlefield Heroes is a parody of its former self, but still around and unapologetic (it's not like EA is in the business of apologizing for anything). Players' quitting threats came to nothing.  Life goes on.  It's like the whole thing never happened.

Until players develop the resolve to just walk away from a game, and not look back at least until things have changed, developers will be free to pull such cons (what is $20 for a virtual backpack, if not a con?)  as much as they want. 

First i wanted to say thanks Scott for putting this in the lime light. But I want to make a few points to others here about the game, its publisher and its so called developers.

Scott hit the nail on the head with how GP does business, its not only disconnected from its playerbase but they just dont give a rats ass how they make their money, period! This is the first game thats gotten them so much bad press they may never recover from it as they have been getting away with this type of pricing throughout all their games. Can they change? Sure, they need to fire a hell of a lot of people there starting with the CM who I assume is part of the marketing team due to the recent PR posts to the community. Then I would move over to the marketing team as well as management. Replace them with people who understand the industry and who play games themselves! The GMs I feel in this game are the only ones who has went to bat for us, the community, but they have little power to change anything.

As for Astrum Nival, Astrum Nival is no more! Nival is the true developer of this game and for whatever reasons had struck a deal with Astrum entertainment to help move the game forward. The company was then titled Astrum Nival. Mail.ru comes along and buys up Astrum Nival. On Nivals main site they say they had MINORITY INTER$EST in Astrum Nival which was soon taken out of the about page to the left on their site entirely, and then they posted today that Mail.RU owns 100% of Astrum Nival. From my understanding Mail.RU is a pretty greedy company.

Nival it seems has disconnected themselves from Mail.RU and is working on a new title called Prime World, a MMORTS. Now with Mail.RU at the helm they are killing the game as fast as it was made, maybe even faster! The patch notes released for Allods in RU (v1.6 and 1.7) is a death note! Do a little snooping and you will see how Mail.RU is destroying what could have been one of the best F2Ps on this planet to date! I think GP knows this game is sinking and they were trying to make as much off the game as possible before it sinks, but it backfired and now a lot of people are not only boycotting the CS theyre boycotting the game entirely! GP is to blame for the outrageous prices but lets not forget whose actually killing the game, and thats Mail.RU!

Funny how the mmo community ruin there own game genre.

I realy can't believe people pay so much money for items or try be competetive in end game.

This whole item shop wont last long becouse there will always be guys who just can pay alot and win always, those who can't pay alot eventuall stop playing.

A mmo can't continuing with few who spent alot.

PLus there is no achievement in this you just cheat by buying yourself to top lol, and sure its maybe legit but its just replacement for cheating now developer gets money instead of gold/itemfarmer sites.

MMO genre is going down the drain and its players who couse this:(

Refuse itemshops dont play mmo's with items shops problem solved.

Good article. I think this sort of business model preys on the bewildered. I could see someone with acute mental disability spending himself/herself into crippling debt with cash shops this overpriced.

$7000 is just plain out of line with what the market will bear and with player expectations when they go to an item mall.

I spend $20-40 a month playing Jade Dynasty, which has already been mentioned. I balked at wedding packs being $30 and one of the new mounts being $50. But I got the wedding pack I wanted from a 50 CENT random lotto box and I don't need to ride a goldfish really. I generally buy cash shop items from other players with in-game gold. Jade Dynasty lets players sell cash shop currency for game currency if you have a lot more time than money. I don't PvP much and I don't need to keep up with anybody else, so YMMV when it comes to how much you spend.

If I were going to fault JD for anything, it would be that you don't really need to spend anything til level 90 and then the game changes radically and you pretty much either have to spend real money, grind out huge amounts of in-game cash to buy cash shop stuff, or gtfo. I think that may be pretty common among "free" games though. They get you hooked and then they reel in your wallet.

But to get back on topic, $50 for a mount is a far cry from $7000 for anything, and I don't think I'm the only one who thinks $50 is too much for any one item. A hugely priced item mall is just a quick way to drive away customers and give a company a bad reputation that will hurt it in the long run, even beyond that one game.

In my limited experience, subscription games are cheaper.

Nice reading, thanks.

well i have based an opinion about this in my blog and any who are willing to read are welcome to do so and comment on it

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/joker007mo

yea cut and paste cant seem to get it to link oh well

 The thing to do is play on the Russian servers. Prices on the whole are Ok there.

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Originally posted by brostyn

I have zero problems with cash shops. I've bought plenty of stuff from DDO cash shop, and EQ marketplace.

I'm not even going to look at Allod's. Like I said in another thread; gpotato = A bunch of goons from Korea who think Americans are nothing but lazy fat cats with HUGE wallets. Sorry to disappointment the world, but Americans struggle financially, too.

 

DDO proved their point that cash shops can be effective... But they didn't sell any stuff that really unballanced the game or made you much more powerfull, their prices where allready to high for me...

 

But this will meen the end of free gaming and even $15 subscriptions, if people give intoo the slowly rising prices of item shops, soon every MMO will be free and require you to buy atleast for $50 a month to be competitive..

 

So we all need to ban itemshops, we need to show developers that we don't want item shops and either don't buy from them or return to WoW and start spamming Blizzard over those evil goldspammers again.

I do not think there should be an all-out ban on cash/item shops in games like Allods or DDO.  What we as players need to do, however, is support the ones (like DDO) that seem to have a good model and avoid the ones (Allods, currently) that do not.

Like others have said, if players will pay there is nothing to stop the developers from continuing down the wrong path.  If the reasonable games get the majority of the players, though, market forces should help us and developers will start using the model that works.  Just look at how it is the successful game/movie/etc that gets copied over and over.  Does not mean all the copies we get will be any good, but the few that are will tend to rise over the rest and evolution can continue.

Removing the shops as an option at all is not the way to go.  More variety is a good thing.  We just need to step up and let them know what we will support and what we will not.  (And yes, the current outcry over Allods is a start on this, but it actually needs to impact the game's bottom line for the "ones who make the decisions" to notice.)

Originally posted by Gorilla

 The thing to do is play on the Russian servers. Prices on the whole are Ok there.

Prices maybe "OK" but they have now killed the game with the current patch. You will not WANT to buy anything but rather NEED to buy almost everything if you plan to play this game after level 20 to cap! Do some research and see what the new patch has done to the game to make it even more CS dependent than ever! Russian prices are great if you live outside of Russia, but try to afford this game working in Russia on a russian salary, almost impossible. The servers there has lost 50% pop now and declining (http://www.allods.ru/ scroll down while looking at right hand side of screen, youll see the servers list), which says something about the game as a whole since the new patch hit.

You know perhaps this is a sign of the costs involved in making Allods. It is the most expensive free to play MMO made to date and that have to make that money back somewhere.

When people talk about how profitable micro transactions are, they are usually because the games using them are made with really small budgets. The bigger the budget, the less viable the business model is, and Allods large ($12mil) budget means they have a lot of money to make back.

I appreciate they should be making a fair of this back from the native version, but I'm sure gPotato paid a hefty amount for the NA & EU licenses for the game.

 This is capitalism comrade!  Too bad it's not still the Soviet Union...  then, in the finest traditions of Marxist Leninism, not only would it be free to play...  of course only the Communist Party elite would have computers, and no one would have any personal freedom or civil liberties, but it'd be free to play...