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Daum says "Cash Items Relatively Expensive..."
PottedPlant22
Member RarePosts: 800
Without comment -
While the game is “buy to play,” many users are still purchasing game pass. Furthermore, even though cash items are relatively expensive, we are maintaining large revenue and we predict that current trend will last until end of this year.
http://dulfy.net/2016/03/30/black-desert-naeu-release-schedule-for-april-june/
While the game is “buy to play,” many users are still purchasing game pass. Furthermore, even though cash items are relatively expensive, we are maintaining large revenue and we predict that current trend will last until end of this year.
http://dulfy.net/2016/03/30/black-desert-naeu-release-schedule-for-april-june/
Comments
People can whine all they want, but unless they back up their words with action, Daum would be foolish to lower prices before sales started lagging.
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Better yet take those employees and man hours and put them into the game because imo the game is not nearly good enough,actually bad enough i quit playing after only 3 days.So they can brag or pat themselves on the back all they want,i am not paying them any money for their cash shop and won't be supporting any further sales they try to make.
IMO they had their chance and blew it,next time pout ALL your efforts into the game and then when people are happy go to the next level of looking for added revenue.
Furthermore,IF i thought it was good enough at least as a single player game,i could handle the cost of buying the game,but it is not even good enough as a single player game,let alone a mmorpg,so it just fails on all fronts.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
How would they know if the price is too high? Perhaps the price is too low?
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I also don't compare Daum to the development of Black Desert Online. Black Desert Online is developed by Pearl Abyss. Daum does the localization for Black Desert Online. They are not creating anything. They are gatekeepers for content. That's it.
Those choices could be to screw over the player to spend more money. It's a compelling argument when looking at what the Korean version of the game has and what the prices are for their cash shop. I think it's a topic worthy of discussion in that context and looking and the OP quote. That is why it was posted. Not to say the game isn't awful or that it's not worth it.
Although such a monetization model is semi-doomed to fail in the long term because eventually everyone will have gotten past the buy-price of the buy-to-play game and finished buying their pets/costumes, at which point people won't be giving Daum very much money after that. Daum themselves appear to have realized this when they said they expect the revenue to drop by the end of the year. Alas, they didn't say what they were going to do once that happened...
But yes all that considered they are doing it 'right' but the credit they get can only be stretched so far.
I also alluded in that positive post that they are more than likely also banking more good will doing this which will help them as they release more and more aggressive cash shop items, either marginal P2W or more blatant P2W stuff.
That is what is going to have to be watched fairly carefully.
But the aggressive way theyre releasing content and the way they seem to be steering marketing I would not be surprised to see them have a steady amount of 'free' content until the end of this year, announce free to play and then an expansion that has to be purchased from the store (thus making the base game F2P but the expansion B2P. This keeping a theme going forward. So in the next year vabilla and the first expansion is F2P and whatever the 3rd expansion is will have to be bought through the cash shop. Also all the while adding more and more stuff to the cash shop.
IMO its makes good business sense to do this. Although if cash shop stuff becomes blatantly P2W it will have a backlash effect.
What they are doing with the game itself and the in game content is good. Only problem I see is the cash shop and how theyre handling that. Which has always been a concern because a 30 dollar buy to play game isnt really going to pay for itself or future development.
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I don't agree with the pricing on a personal level - 22$ for a costume doesn't seem right if you consider you can get full games for that.
That said, so many people are buying the items regardless. People complain, but then you see armies of people in costumes. Horse cart skins are not uncommon. I'd imagine inventory space is even more demanded.
They would be silly to choose less aggressive pricing. As long as people keep buying, why on earth reduce the price. I'm not even unhappy about these business models anymore - people should get what they want.
Also, that update was all started before NA/EU sales were really collected, think of where the game can go from here with double the revenue. Honestly this may as well be a AAA game with the type of content they are adding. I just don't see any other MMOs coming along that can compete, unless BDO finds a new way to fail, because in my opinion the cash shop isn't currently a deal breaker for me. As long as people can't buy actual up-gradable armor, and it continues to just be small perks on pieces that don't give AP/DP, I have no issue.
I despise F2P cash shop games, I tolerate B2P games, but will always prefer box plus sub games with no cash shop.
If you are Daum, you have about 9 months to figure out who the biggest spenders are and what they prefer. You then make sure new costumes arrive targeted at the people you marked.
Provided you do this right, you should have a fairly successful stream of revenue.
In Korea they handle things different and that's Daum's problem. They have another version of the game to compare it to and players get to see how another company (Pearl Abyss) handles cash shop items.
In the Korean version of the game you can get pets and costumes in-game. They sell different costumes and pets in the cash shop as well that are cheaper than the NA/EU cash shop.
Pearl Abyss handles the cash shop there directly. Where Daum handles the NA/EU cash shop.
They sell well at the early life of the game cause no one has costumes yet. But people only need so many sets of clothes before they've eventually found enough costumes that they like, at which point the amount of people buying new costumes becomes less and less as more and more people become satisfied with the costumes they currently have.
Many people just brought the original costume for the exp bonus and ghillie suit effect anyways and you only need to make that purchase once. Sure, there are people who exist that will continue to buy costumes just for new looks but the vast majority of people have completed their one-time purchases and won't be buying very much else from here on.
As for pets... why would most people continue buying pets? Oo (well, for the whales, at least once they're done reaching decent pet stats via breeding as it is already) The amount of people that will continue to buy pets after already owning a pet just because they like the way the new one looks are existant but not-numerous.
Again, you don't have to take my word for it. DAUM THEMSELVES have indirectly stated they expect this to happen! It's right there in their conference, clear as day, that they expect revenue to drop off by the end of this year! Instead of questioning whether or not I'm wrong, you should question whether or not the multi-million dollar company with all the metrics that presumably poured tons of effort into researching this (if they have any competence as a business whatsoever) and likely has connection to many inside sources is wrong.
And they probably aren't wrong.
(really, instead of questioning whether or not this will happen when Daum, who probably knows more than you or I do, said it will happen, you should question what Daum is going to do once it DOES happen...)