- The $10 horse, the $20 bag, the $25 sparkle pony. Just mentioning them bring up memories of flame wars and eternal forum threads. Vanity item stores have run amuck in MMO games. CCP has decided to blow them all away with a $60 monocle.
Check my math on this: a 60-day time code is thirty-five dollars US. That converts to two PLEX. Each PLEX is 3,500 AUR. That give you $0.005 per AUR. With the monocle priced at 12,000 AUR, that converts to US$60, right?
- Stuff, as they say, has hit the fan. The EVE forums are the obvious place to watch the faithful melt down. But don't overlook the comments thread on Massively for an extra helping anxiety.
- Venerable EVE blogger Kirith Kodachi opines that CCP set the prices to prevent a run on PLEXs. Maybe, but only time will tell.
- I'm not in a hurry to give CCP any extra money, so the prices aren't a personal affront. But were I a serious capsuleer, I would find these prices insane. As I have said in the past, I want to support the games that I play. I actually bought customer packs in Champions Online before I got the monthly stipend. With stupidly high prices like this, game companies tell me that whatever I can afford is not good enough for them because there are plenty of others who will pay anyway and they are worth more.
- There are two schools of thought about MMO cash shops. They could follow the Wal-Mart model and price their goods so that everyone can buy them. Or they could be the Rodeo Drive boutique and sell only to those who want to display their wealth with vanity items. Almost exclusively, MMOs have followed the second option. I'm sure there are economic models that show they will get the greatest returns by doing so. But there are many who wish that these cash shops were open to more people.
© 2011 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.
The 60 dollar monacle is pretty outrageous. And it doesn't even show up on your ship! I would at least expect a giant space monacle for my ship ;-)
ReplyDelete@ Yeebo - I would buy one if it showed up on my ship.
ReplyDelete