What's the deal with the pricing? (little bit of a rant, feel free to ignore)

[Rey Spartan™]

I've been around the block a few times, and the pricing in this game is bonkers imo. Absolutely insane pricing. For example, you can buy the entire game plus every dlc that's come out for it for 49.99 [Online Standard Edition (base game), Necrom and all previous Chapters - High Isle, Blackwood, Greymoor, Elsweyr, Summerset, and Morrowind. $49.99]
On the other hand, if you want a banking NPC for your player housing, it's 39.99 or 5000 crowns. 1 npc or for 10 dollars more every expansion to date?

Speaking of crowns, wow. it gets more expensive to buy the less you buy. I know, it's nothing new, but it's sickening to see how they do it, all the jagged prices and wonky conversion rates make it hard to determine the value of what you are paying for. I just equate it to 1000 crows = 10 usd. We have; 5500 crows, or $55 usd for a dye station. $15 for butterflies for your house that fly around in a circle. $60 dollars for a iron atronoch training dummy to punch around! Why are most of the crafting motifs in the store $50? Some of the houses in this game are well over $100 as well. 20-30-50 dollar mounts.. I understand that it takes money to keep a mmo going, server costs, developer costs, moderation and support, but there has to be a middle ground between a few dollars microtransaction and paying more for craiglorn furniture pack than the entirety of the Elsweir DLC. So seriously, what's the deal with the pricing? How do you justify so high price for add-on content? When you have to ask yourself if you'd rather have a brand new AAA game or a training dummy in a mmo, I think the time has come for some questions.

[Meowella]

Most AAA games now are between 60 and 100 dollars, I appreciate the exaggeration to make a point but it's an unfortunate realism that games are much more now.

On top of this - luxuries are just that - luxuries. You don't need things from the crown station, they're just if you want to spend the money.

I neither support nor condone their pricing, I just appreciate it's a free choice whether you buy it or not. On top of this, consider ESO+ offering 1500 crowns a month for 10 dollars so over time you can save on the crowns via that method (sub for 6 months, get 6 months of crowns at once too so you can get the thing in one go if you wish).

[Alox]

Yeah, the prices are pretty extreme.

Do claim your daily rewards, I got a training dummy, pets, crates, and more from them.
I think it feels bad to spend on these things, so I personally don't do it.

What I think is the most abusive system is the crafting bag... without it, crafting materials end up clogging your whole bank... and I sure ain't spending on that subscription... it costs more than my phone bill... yeah!

I am ok with expansions.

[Psil_Semilan]

Pricing might be questionable. But compared to mobile games (e.g. Diabolo Immortal)... If people wouldnt pay and consent, non of this bs would be surviving. Zeitgeist ist sad but true!

[Berserkr]

Originally posted by Alox:

Do claim your daily rewards, I got a training dummy, pets, crates, and more from them.
I think it feels bad to spend on these things, so I personally don't do it.

So far all the free crates did to me is make me want nothing to do with buying them and to stay as far away from them going forward lol, we'll see what these ones after the seals give coming up

[Alox]

Originally posted by Berserkr:

Originally posted by Alox:

Do claim your daily rewards, I got a training dummy, pets, crates, and more from them.
I think it feels bad to spend on these things, so I personally don't do it.

So far all the free crates did to me is make me want nothing to do with buying them and to stay as far away from them going forward lol, we'll see what these ones after the seals give coming up

Yeah, same.
I did get a few cool things from the free ones though. Also worth trashing the low tier things for purple crystals.

[Hefutoxin]

The high pricing for optional stuff is an intentional choice.

The chapter prices are cheap so they can get as many people to buy them as possible.

Cosmetics could be priced lower. More people would buy it, making far more money off it. Throwing $50 at a mount is something very few people would do, no matter how cool. FAR more people would throw $1 at that same mount.

On the other hand, when everyone has a cosmetic, it loses it's luster. Do you want to use the same mount as everyone else? Especially if you paid extra for it? High price keeps the exclusiveness of the item.

The items you can get in the game as well as buy in the store is more of convenience tax. As I have started working jobs that require 50+ hours per week, I have learned to appreciate these types of things more. I haven't bought any, but I do see the value.

Crown pricing is fairly standard, if not decent since it's tied to the value of a currency. How much would you be griping if the cost of crowns skyrocketed as the USD suffered from inflation? Every year you pay less due to a less valuable currency for the same stuff. You may not see it like that but I can assure you that Zenimax does.

[Stevic]

Zenimax gets away with the Crown store / Crown Crates as the game is age restricted to 18+, and they also meet Microsoft [parent company] requirement that items winnable with Crown crates are also available from normal game play via Daily Endeavours.
I just wish Zenimax would change the percentage of Gems awarded for duplicate items, I'd like to receive 100% Gems, but I'll settle for 70%, but not 33%

[Duke H. Vytantis]

Originally posted by Stevic:

Zenimax gets away with the Crown store / Crown Crates as the game is age restricted to 18+, and they also meet Microsoft [parent company] requirement that items winnable with Crown crates are also available from normal game play via Daily Endeavours.

Microsoft has nothing to do with this.
Crown crates were in conflict with the more recent EU law, which is a law against lootbox addiction mechanics.

[Knavenformed]

Yeah the microtransaction store is in a way a ripoff, they all are
And things like banking NPCs are almost irrelevant, but sound enticing to most players so they can jack the price up on a nifty mechanic they can just dump to be sold

Thing is the stores make a lot of money, so they won't go away
Just don't look at the catalog and enjoy the great amount of content you got for your 50

[𝒞𝒶𝓉𝓎𝒶♡]

Originally posted by Meowella:

Most AAA games now are between 60 and 100 dollars, I appreciate the exaggeration to make a point but it's an unfortunate realism that games are much more now.

On top of this - luxuries are just that - luxuries. You don't need things from the crown station, they're just if you want to spend the money.

I neither support nor condone their pricing, I just appreciate it's a free choice whether you buy it or not. On top of this, consider ESO+ offering 1500 crowns a month for 10 dollars so over time you can save on the crowns via that method (sub for 6 months, get 6 months of crowns at once too so you can get the thing in one go if you wish).

Now would it be too much to ask to actually earn cool rewards by actually playing the game and not just by buying with real money like in ESO?

When i play FF14 for example, i can farm mounts everyday with same amount spent monthly than ESO+ costs, not all the extra insane amount it takes in ESO, like hundreds of mounts. In ESO? Only like 5% of mounts are in game to be get by playing and 95% are in the Crown Store for cash.. nice ratio. (not, in case internet sarcasm detector is broken with some people hih)

In ESO new Crown Crate Seasons are "content", in other MMO games actual new content is content. No wonder people are abandoning this milking low effort game. It had potential, but greedy and lazy developers are ruining it and have for some time already sadly.

[ringod123]

ESO became all about churning through new players who are willing to spend money on the cash shop for convenience, before quitting weeks later because of the teams constant ignorance towards all performance and bug issues as well as them constantly trying to revamp combat with every major update which only ever results in combat becoming worse.
Who cares if the games signature game mode, Cyrodiil, has been decimated so that it can only let 60 players per faction in with performance that is STILL worse than it was when it let 300 players per faction in, go buy a new mount or sub to ESO+ for 3 months instead, the devs are trying to run the game like its The Sims, buy new houses, costumes etc, it's clearly where 80%+ of the current dev power goes, everything else is low effort copy and paste and has been since summerset/morrowind.

[Kissing Fish]

you don't need "microtransactions" in this game or any game for that matter. Last time i spent crowns in this game was in 2016 in xbox when i was still a dumbass with my finances. and I still regret it to this day..

[Rey Spartan™]

Originally posted by Roadie:

It's wild that this thread is calling the game a micro transaction pay to win game when in reality it's nothing at all like that. All of the Crown store stuff is mainly skins and cosmetics. The worst it gets is XP boosters, and even then you can amass those easily from daily login rewards (no ESO+ required).

Of all the MMOs i've played ESO has the least egregious micro transactions of them all.

Jesus, what a knee-jerk reaction post meat riding the multi-million dollar company. First of all (and the only point really) I never criticized any P2W aspect of the cash shop. This thread was a rant about how a single bank npc cost actually irl $50 or a bunch of butterflies cost $15. It's about how bonkers the pricing is, hence the title "What's the deal with the pricing?" and not "Cash shop items too powerful?" or "P2W cash shop ruining game balance". The only thing in this thread even tangentially related to P2W is Alox's mentioning the crafting bag.

Please actually read the title/post/replies before rushing to the defense of a financial entity, *especially* when the thing you are 'defending' it from isn't even present in the thread.

[𝒞𝒶𝓉𝓎𝒶♡]

Originally posted by Rey Spartan™:

Originally posted by Roadie:

It's wild that this thread is calling the game a micro transaction pay to win game when in reality it's nothing at all like that. All of the Crown store stuff is mainly skins and cosmetics. The worst it gets is XP boosters, and even then you can amass those easily from daily login rewards (no ESO+ required).

Of all the MMOs i've played ESO has the least egregious micro transactions of them all.

Jesus, what a knee-jerk reaction post meat riding the multi-million dollar company. First of all (and the only point really) I never criticized any P2W aspect of the cash shop. This thread was a rant about how a single bank npc cost actually irl $50 or a bunch of butterflies cost $15. It's about how bonkers the pricing is, hence the title "What's the deal with the pricing?" and not "Cash shop items too powerful?" or "P2W cash shop ruining game balance". The only thing in this thread even tangentially related to P2W is Alox's mentioning the crafting bag.

Please actually read the title/post/replies before rushing to the defense of a financial entity, *especially* when the thing you are 'defending' it from isn't even present in the thread. :koboldkiss:

I agree, but some people here just are like this with any critical feedback or even questions, they go instantly in full 100% defensive mode saying "everything is perfectly working in the game and prices are totally cheap and normal!"

Meanwhile.. as you said, bank npc costing 50eur/dollars or houses costing 100eur/dollars, mounts costing huge X amount of cash (gambling so cannot tell always how much even until spams crates to get enough Gems) like 100-500eur/dollars, meanwhile on other games you get most mounts/rewards by playing the game, not putting them on shopping cart with these kind of price tags or gambling with a Khajiit telling you have a lucky aura and then you get 4 Crown Potions only.

The prices are legit insanely high compared to other games.

"But you don't HAVE to buy anything." (says the random ESO KnightDefender3000 from the forums)

Yeah well, i would not - if there was rewards to get in the actual game, like in FF14 i can farm cool mounts and weapons from actual raids, meanwhile in ESO you get mounts and monster weapon sets (particle effect weapons equivalent to FF14 raid weapons) from Cash Shop with cash, huge gaming skills to get stuff, amazing shopping skills!

How can people not understand your point?

Things are expensive, not "p2w", but people would like to have cool stuff and cosmetics from in game activities more and the ones in the shop should be more reasonably priced and not like cost 50eur for some QoL single purchase banker on top of ESO+ that is a must have for the craft bag if actually actively plays the game and does not want to torture self with constant login and logout with mule characters making the gameplay even less fun.

[GinsengSamurai]

Originally posted by Rey Spartan™:

So seriously, what's the deal with the pricing? How do you justify so high price for add-on content? When you have to ask yourself if you'd rather have a brand new AAA game or a training dummy in a mmo, I think the time has come for some questions.

It's justified because they're optional. If you're crying over $40-$60, then perhaps you should reprioritise the way you spend your money.

It's crazy some people whine and rant over the most insignificant optional things. Latest generation Apple and Samsung phones costs about $2,000. They're optional. I don't buy them. I buy ASUS phones for $200. See what I did there? I didn't rant over the cost of my ASUS phone because it's cheap and I use it for 6-8 years before moving on. My monthly internet is $82/mo. My property taxes before the rebate is $1,200 per year. My utilities is $1,300 per year. My strata monthly is $312. My car insurance is $132/mo. When looking at the cost of everything else, $50 on optional things in a digital game seems like bus change.