Uber_the_Goober Posted December 31, 2012 Share Posted December 31, 2012 You say this like they don't have charts and graphs of their own to determine what the profitable price points are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goretzu Posted December 31, 2012 Share Posted December 31, 2012 You say this like they don't have charts and graphs of their own to determine what the profitable price points are. They have a whole 2 months of data, I'm not sure what that will really show. And the profitably point is $0.01 for something with no production cost, once you've covered any design cost. Yet strangely they are coming in VERY expensively compared to other MMORPGs, either directly (like for like) or indirectly (charging the same price of one toon as others do for account-wide items/unlocks). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uber_the_Goober Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Charts and graphs which tell them that Item X sold Y units and made Z dollars. That's got nothing to do with other MMO's. All that matters is what sells relative to their playerbase. If they like the #'s, then it stays where it's at. They've already begun to discount some things temporarily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTHC Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 A while ago, EA had a job posting for someone to analyze the CC market to do exactly what you're talking about. Notice they frequently tweak pricing on some items, probably to see if exactly what you're proposing would actually work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alavastre Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Alert: nerd post incoming. A little thinking about economics and prices on the Cartel Market. TL;DR - Bioware would make more money off of Cartel Market items if they decreased their prices. Though they would earn less revenue from each customer, the increase in items sold would outweigh this and lead to more money being collected overall. Explanation below... Imagine a graph with a downward-sloping line on it - the demand curve for Cartel Market items (just assume for a moment that they're all the same). Every point on this graph represents how many items (represented on the X axis) will be bought at every price (represented on the Y axis). Also imagine, from any given point on the line, horizontal and vertical lines extending outwards, and the rectangle formed by the intersection of these lines with X and Y axes of the graph. The area of this rectangle represents Bioware's revenue from the Cartel Market (price of the items x # of items sold). Because these items are luxuries, both in the game and in real-life, the demand for these cartel market items is elastic - meaning that percent change of how many items are sold is greater than the percent change in price, and that Bioware will collect more revenue at lower prices. The line described above has a slope of of less than 1 (absolute value), so dropping the price increases the quantity sold enough to make that revenue rectangle bigger and bigger as the price gets lower and lower. Since it costs next to nothing to "produce" more of every given item, Bioware would actually increase their profits by lowering prices. A win for the company, and a win for us players. Ya dig? (Edited title to better reflect the discussion in the thread) Not to nerd up your nerd storm, but you miss one key element. Scarcity. If everyone has the same robes, or speeders ect, less people will want them. Since you are in a digital world, and there is limit in how many of one item can be floating around, you can actually hurt yourself by making the price too low. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goretzu Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Charts and graphs which tell them that Item X sold Y units and made Z dollars. That's got nothing to do with other MMO's. All that matters is what sells relative to their playerbase. If they like the #'s, then it stays where it's at. They've already begun to discount some things temporarily. Other MMORPG will have looked at thier sales. If stuff sells more (and make more profit) for lower there they why is SWTOR so expensive? All we can say so far with SWTOR is its Cashshop is extortionately expensive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arlon_Nabarlly Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 (edited) OP posted basic laws of economics, but then suggested that they lower their prices with no real data to back that up. /facepalm As has been said by others, hopefully Bioware is doing exactly like the OP suggests and graphing this out. Likely that will remain internal eyes only and we have to hope they have some smart economic minds in their working with that data to set the prices. Honestly from what I know from people within my guild it seems like the market has done pretty well so far. I know I am a subscriber and I've spent over $100 already on the market and will likely by another $50 set of coins each time a new gambling pack comes out. At least half of my guild has spent over $20-50 and one member said he's spent closer to $300-400. This is a small sampling of about 20 players or so, but if these numbers are an accurate reflection of the overall subscriber base then that is very positive. That's without even counting f2p players buying unlocks regularly for weekly unlocks of operations, flashpoints, and/or pvp. Edited January 4, 2013 by Arlon_Nabarlly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sstanks Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 They have a whole 2 months of data, I'm not sure what that will really show. And the profitably point is $0.01 for something with no production cost, once you've covered any design cost. Yet strangely they are coming in VERY expensively compared to other MMORPGs, either directly (like for like) or indirectly (charging the same price of one toon as others do for account-wide items/unlocks). I imagine their cost has a lot to do with the fact that they give so many cartel coins out. I get 700 a month for example. What they don't want is people being able to buy the things they want with just the free cartel coins. That would obviously be lost money. But if they give you just enough cc where you have to spend some real money to buy what you want then they hit the sweet spot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metaIsaber Posted January 4, 2013 Share Posted January 4, 2013 Yeah there are usually 3 ways to "potentially" increase revenue. 1.) Price goods high so you only need to sell a few. 2.) Price goods low. You will sell a lot of them. 3.) Price goods some where in the middle. There's no real good answer to this question since all items are "digital" and there is no scarcity of item. I think their internal numbers either support their price point or they are dipping their toes in the water to see what prices actually work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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