Any idea when the next sale will be?

LordWill

I also think that Steam sales are different than mobile sales because I could have sworn I saw a sale on Steam not long ago that wasn't offered to my mobile device.

Unknown

LordWill wrote:

I also think that Steam sales are different than mobile sales because I could have sworn I saw a sale on Steam not long ago that wasn't offered to my mobile device.

Steam has these random interval sales and the twice-a-year huge sale. As far as I can tell when Steam wants you to have a huge sale, you will have a huge sale. I remember pre ordering Civ 5:Brave New World for like $45 and then two weeks later it was $30 on the twice-a-year Steam huge sale and the explanation given was 'when Steam says there's going to be a sale, there will be a sale' even though it's a total slap on the face on all the guys who preordered, and there were a lot of them. So I do expect a pretty big discount on Steam whenever the next time for the huge sale comes around, but I wouldn't hold my breath for the random sales. They're usually pretty minor like '15% off', nothing like the 66% off we had on Steam last time.

LordWill

Phantron wrote:

LordWill wrote:

I also think that Steam sales are different than mobile sales because I could have sworn I saw a sale on Steam not long ago that wasn't offered to my mobile device.

Steam has these random interval sales and the twice-a-year huge sale. As far as I can tell when Steam wants you to have a huge sale, you will have a huge sale. I remember pre ordering Civ 5:Brave New World for like $45 and then two weeks later it was $30 on the twice-a-year Steam huge sale and the explanation given was 'when Steam says there's going to be a sale, there will be a sale' even though it's a total slap on the face on all the guys who preordered, and there were a lot of them. So I do expect a pretty big discount on Steam whenever the next time for the huge sale comes around, but I wouldn't hold my breath for the random sales. They're usually pretty minor like '15% off', nothing like the 66% off we had on Steam last time.

Yea it wasn't a huge 50% off sale or anything it was 10-20% off or something like that. So maybe it was just one of those steam contractual sales or something.

Was just pointing out, it wasn't offered to mobile even though it was on steam, so steam users may see more sales overall, even if they aren't the bigger whopping sales we have seen on the mobile platform.

Unknown

They will have a sale when you don't have the money.

Unknown

Bugpop wrote:

They will have a sale when you don't have the money.

This is a fundamental law of physics

Spoit

ZenBrillig wrote:

Thanos wrote:

Normal prices are already seen as inflated. It boggles my mind how F2P games think they should charge more for their content than a fully packaged retail game.

These are the prices people are willing to pay. On the flip-side, I could say it boggles my mind how many F2P gamers think that someone else should work hard to provide entertainment for them for free.

More accurately, it's the prices the whales are willing to pay. And in any F2P game, the vast majority of the money comes from a vast minority of the paying players. Even if you get 50% more people to pay, if it means the 1% pays like, 20% less, it could still work out to less revenue

Unknown

The F2P model works off of price discrimination. Just because Bill Gates is capable and willing to pay $5000 for a game doesn't mean he'd suddenly mail you a check for the difference between a fully packaged game and $5000 when he plays your game. So you try to create an environment where you can find the guys capable and willing to pay an extreme amount of money for a game.

That said I don't think this method is particularly effective and there's certainly a lot of competition for those type of games too for the few whales out there. The VentureBeat article didn't list the breakdown of how people spend their money on MPQ but I'm guessing it's more likely that most of the revenue come from guys spending under $100 (which is not much if you consider the game compared to say, a MMORPG, which a lot of the time offers surprisingly little content for what you pay) as opposed to the guys spending $1000 or more, though only D3 would know for sure. There are games that subsist primarily on the guys who pay for $1000 or more, but I really have a hard time seeing this model working for MPQ.

IceIX

Phantron wrote:

That said I don't think this method is particularly effective and there's certainly a lot of competition for those type of games too for the few whales out there. The VentureBeat article didn't list the breakdown of how people spend their money on MPQ but I'm guessing it's more likely that most of the revenue come from guys spending under $100 (which is not much if you consider the game compared to say, a MMORPG, which a lot of the time offers surprisingly little content for what you pay) as opposed to the guys spending $1000 or more, though only D3 would know for sure. There are games that subsist primarily on the guys who pay for $1000 or more, but I really have a hard time seeing this model working for MPQ.

It's most definitely the former, not the latter. Whenever we're discussing with partners about our numbers, we get a jaw drop and a "Your conversation rates are *what'*?! HOW?" We apparently have a far greater percentage of paying users than most known F2P leaders while still keeping our retention rates for overall players up. Long story short, our game is sticky and a marked percentage of players believe it good enough to drop some change on it, so we don't have to go chase white whales.

Beast1970

I have two points I would like to make.

The obvious answer to the date of the next sale will be exactly one day after the majority of vocal forum members complete their next purchase.

But seriously, I actually like the pricing scheme for this game. I believe it prevents widespread serious accusations of this being P2W (although we have had these threads). I think it was recently determined that it would take well over $300 USD to level a new character. The majority of people I know have used HP purchases to fund roster spots at critical times during their development. I know others use it to fund shields, but I believe the number of people who buy their way to a pristine roster to be a very very small minority, and I'm OK with that. Makes me feel like there is a way to give some back to the developers as there should be, since F2P cannot continue if everyone takes the 'free' route entirely. At the same time, I'm probably not going to run into anyone will a full up roster that has only been playing for two weeks and has more disposable income than he knows what to do with.

Unknown

Bacon Pants wrote:

davecazz wrote:

They spoke about their sale strategy in the venture beat article. They do sales at a time where everyone is flush with hp. Right now everyone is starting to run out if their hp from the last sale so my guess is that we'll have to wait for a bunch of people to buy non sale hp and then the sale will happen at whatever holiday occurs a few weeks after that.

My guess is that a sale will happen for 4th of July. Should be enough time for everyone to re-up on hp before then.

I figured Memorial Day or the 4th of July. They make the most sense from a sale point of view at least.

This explains why every time I buy HP, it goes on sale the next day.

Unknown

Fingers crossed for tomorrow. Lol

Unknown

Raffoon wrote:

ZenBrillig wrote:

Thanos wrote:

Normal prices are already seen as inflated. It boggles my mind how F2P games think they should charge more for their content than a fully packaged retail game.

These are the prices people are willing to pay. On the flip-side, I could say it boggles my mind how many F2P gamers think that someone else should work hard to provide entertainment for them for free.

The economist in me says that if people are willing to pay the price, then it's fair. On the other hand, even after paying a considerable amount of money into the game personally, from a common sense standpoint and a comparison to any other video game, the pricing seems greedy.

The fact that you can pay 100 dollars into the game and still not end up with a single maxed out character as a result is ridiculous. Compare that to what 100 dollars gets you if you spend it on any other video game, heck even compare it to the original prices for Marvel heroes, which took so much flak for its pricing. In Marvel heroes, you could spend 200 dollars for the ability to play the first 20ish(?) characters to max level, plus receive a bunch of bonuses with the package. With the old pricing, the most, most, most premium characters were 20 dollars. We're talking about a game with 3D graphics, a greater server load, many more developers working on it, and patches with major balance and item changes, content, and characters added close to monthly. Marvel Heroes, which started with pricing that was more generous than Marvel Puzzle Quest ended up lowering their pricing in part because people complained so much, and in part to stay competitive.

At the end of the day, this game is undoubtedly pay to win and I'd argue that it's greedily priced too. It's also so fun that I've ended up paying into it anyway since I have a bit of spare cash. I just wish that I could feel like I was helping out a team of deserving developers, rather than participating in a corporate scheme to part me from my money in the most efficient manner.

If you're not going to vote with your wallet, it's hardly fair to complain, is it? You're enabling the very situation you have a problem with. Up until recently I didn't have a problem paying D3 because I thought MPQ was a well-designed, fun game that I was happy to support. But if they keep money grubbing so hard and forcing players not to have a life in order to be marginally competitive, not only will I not give them any more money, I'll just stop playing. I've got more games than I can count in my Steam backlog that have been sitting idle for months because of this one game. That commitment is what they're standing to lose if they keep this nonsense up.