ARX store inflation
- Thread starter Fnord Velkor
- Start date
Why, that makes baseless speculation not quite as dramatic. pfft
I thought I was an optimist! I was expecting an increase, but not to this degree.
That's me. A few days ago, I purchased ARX for carrier and ship cosmetics, wanted to get a more uniform look of my fleet. Didn't spend all of them yet, and now I’m looking at the shop in disbelief. Actually planned to by more ARX to cover more of my ships, that's totally off the table now.
EDIT: To be clear, one big reason I just started to buy some cosmetics after all these years was to support Frontier. With the decision to raise prices like that, without any warning and thus devalue the ARX I just purchased just a few days ago, my goodwill has gone poof
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I was certain that the change would be to actually lower the prices to make the cosmetics and custom parts available for a bigger demand.
And it was otherwise, so I'll mark it as another "pushing me out" minus for me.
Along with Kickstarter Aristocracy, exclusive rewards (Cobra Mk IV and Pioneer Armor set, AX-exclusive cosmetics and pre-engineered stuff), nasty Engineer grinding, lack of ships (even when Python Mk II is just... coming), overall feeling like the Galaxy is a prison for us, everything outside exploration (and to lesser extent - mining) is just... basic. But don't mind, it's just my ills.
I wouldn't be actually suprised if by such "moves" the lights on E
would be switched off year (or a few years) later...
And it was otherwise, so I'll mark it as another "pushing me out" minus for me.
Along with Kickstarter Aristocracy, exclusive rewards (Cobra Mk IV and Pioneer Armor set, AX-exclusive cosmetics and pre-engineered stuff), nasty Engineer grinding, lack of ships (even when Python Mk II is just... coming), overall feeling like the Galaxy is a prison for us, everything outside exploration (and to lesser extent - mining) is just... basic. But don't mind, it's just my ills.
I wouldn't be actually suprised if by such "moves" the lights on E
would be switched off year (or a few years) later...
but they are giving us more arx to farm through the new powerplay right ?, i think i spotted something like that in the ui preview somewhere in the frontier unlocked video
rootsrat
Volunteer Moderator
A bit of a "my 2 cents" ramble that people are welcome to ignore as I'm not trying to stir up any controversy here.
I really don't enjoy criticising Elite. I truly adore the game and the work the devs do at Frontier and I've always been happy to purchase cosmetics as a way to help support it.
Ship kits, Suit collections, Paintjobs, even the Python Mk.II early access packs all seemed relatively fairly priced to me.
insert take my money meme here
However I'm definitley agreeing with the general concensus here.
These revised Arx store prices seem overly (and rather arbitrarily) inflated and I think are right to be questioned.
Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly NOT on the "Elite is now P2W" toxic bandwagon when it comes to pricing up new content (and again I'm happy to pay for things if I want them)... But upwards of 100-200% price hikes across the vast majority of existing store content? Without a justifiable reason as to why?
Well that's getting (no pun intended) dangerously close to EA/ Apex Legends levels of questionable marketing.
Sure Elite might not have gambling mechanics and we can purchase exactly what we want straight up, but buffing up prices of existing content like this isn't going to do Frontier any favours.
The ratio of Real Cash Value : In-game Value has drastically diminished now.
(At least from a purely Cash to Arx perspective, as I'm not in the loop on any potential changes to passive in-game Arx rewards post PP2.0.)
However... If I wanted to buy a pack of suits yesterday, I would've only needed to have spent £9.59 on enough Arx to purchase them.
Today I'd have to spend £12.99, even though the cosmetics haven't changed. So why are they suddenly £3.50 worth more of Arx?
Where does this extra Cost : Value come from?
I also fully intended on purchasing a 51k Arx bundle next week to get my hands on the new Python Mk.II and planned to use the remaining Arx to purchase additional cosmetics.
However now knowing that whatever leftover Arx I have remaining post ship purchase likely won't even be enough to buy those additional cosmetics I wanted, without requiring me to ALSO purchase at least one more additional Arx bundle first? Or forcing me to upgrade to a £44.99 Arx bundle? Well... That's just not very consumer friendly, nor good value for money if you ask me.
Suddenly a £24.99 - 51,000 Arx bundle (which is also the full cost of both Elite Dangerous & Odyssey on Steam atm) doesn't look like very good value for money anymore.
Again I adore Elite! Truly! But people are right to be raising their concerns with this.
I really don't enjoy criticising Elite. I truly adore the game and the work the devs do at Frontier and I've always been happy to purchase cosmetics as a way to help support it.
Ship kits, Suit collections, Paintjobs, even the Python Mk.II early access packs all seemed relatively fairly priced to me.
insert take my money meme here
However I'm definitley agreeing with the general concensus here.
These revised Arx store prices seem overly (and rather arbitrarily) inflated and I think are right to be questioned.
Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly NOT on the "Elite is now P2W" toxic bandwagon when it comes to pricing up new content (and again I'm happy to pay for things if I want them)... But upwards of 100-200% price hikes across the vast majority of existing store content? Without a justifiable reason as to why?
Well that's getting (no pun intended) dangerously close to EA/ Apex Legends levels of questionable marketing.
Sure Elite might not have gambling mechanics and we can purchase exactly what we want straight up, but buffing up prices of existing content like this isn't going to do Frontier any favours.
The ratio of Real Cash Value : In-game Value has drastically diminished now.
(At least from a purely Cash to Arx perspective, as I'm not in the loop on any potential changes to passive in-game Arx rewards post PP2.0.)
However... If I wanted to buy a pack of suits yesterday, I would've only needed to have spent £9.59 on enough Arx to purchase them.
Today I'd have to spend £12.99, even though the cosmetics haven't changed. So why are they suddenly £3.50 worth more of Arx?
Where does this extra Cost : Value come from?
I also fully intended on purchasing a 51k Arx bundle next week to get my hands on the new Python Mk.II and planned to use the remaining Arx to purchase additional cosmetics.
However now knowing that whatever leftover Arx I have remaining post ship purchase likely won't even be enough to buy those additional cosmetics I wanted, without requiring me to ALSO purchase at least one more additional Arx bundle first? Or forcing me to upgrade to a £44.99 Arx bundle? Well... That's just not very consumer friendly, nor good value for money if you ask me.
Suddenly a £24.99 - 51,000 Arx bundle (which is also the full cost of both Elite Dangerous & Odyssey on Steam atm) doesn't look like very good value for money anymore.
Again I adore Elite! Truly! But people are right to be raising their concerns with this.
Sooooo, live can earn more Arx thought the new pp, but those on console,who have had THERE prices go up as well, will not be able to earn more Arx thought the new pp, since we are not getting anymore updates ,am I getting this right ??
Powerplay 2.0 is not a viable way to earn weekly Arx for explorers who spend months in the black. Requiring players to stay near the bubble if they want to earn regular free Arx would devalue an entire set of gameplay loops, as well as the main feature of Elite Dangerous that makes it truly unique as a video game- its 1:1 scale Milky Way.
That just makes me despise the new PP even more. Seriously, make fun game mechanics and I'll get into PP. Adding more bribes on top of PP modules just makes me hate it more. Especially if this price hike is a consequence.
The price of Arx in real currency has not increased; the price in Arx for store commodities has increased substantially, thereby significantly devaluing the Arx that you have purchased or have yet to purchase.
I saw this coming when Frontier announced an “adjustment” in prices on the store. I knew immediately that there would be an increase (but didn’t expect it to be so dramatic). In marketing speak, when a company says “adjustment”, it is always a euphemism for an increase and never means a decrease.
+1 another fella here that bought the big arx bundle a few weeks ago. Never bought ARX before and I knew I wasn't going to be buying any of the pre built ships, or even the MK II, but I wanted to support Frontier's recently planned updates around Powerplay. Only managed to spend a fraction of it as I was taking my time planning out which paints, ship kits and color cosmetics I wanted to get. QQ how foolish of me.
I am slain, Frontier can sod off. I can't even anymore with this incompetent company, holy hell they are daft.
I am slain, Frontier can sod off. I can't even anymore with this incompetent company, holy hell they are daft.
Yup, that’s pretty much the extent of respect they have for their players. I never thought they could sink any lower but here we are. This latest move just takes the cake.
What stings more is the change in the basic paints like vibrant and tactical colors, that went from 620 to 1600 (150+% increase!). Before this, if you liked a ship you could change its color in a couple of weeks grind, with something simple, not as flashy or flamboyant as other stuff, but still good.
Now it's one month grind for some of the most basic paints out there. I'm glad I manage to buy some universal cosmetics, like weapon/engine colors, because I can't see myself affording any of the new priced stuff, so I'll stick with what I have for future ships.
Now it's one month grind for some of the most basic paints out there. I'm glad I manage to buy some universal cosmetics, like weapon/engine colors, because I can't see myself affording any of the new priced stuff, so I'll stick with what I have for future ships.
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Maybe inflation is done in order to more quickly wipe out the current accumulation of ARXs over the years of play ?
It's quite well known that Frontier has been running the servers, the maintenance and the development at a significant loss for significant periods of time (even perhaps at this very moment). Rather than just shut down everything and ending the game, they have just tanked it. Maybe I'm being too naive, but I would like to believe that they have tanked the losses because they love the game as much as we do and don't want to see it die and disappear, and have been trying to make it work in the hopes that eventually the revenue stream turns positive and they can keep running and developing the game for the foreseeable future.
From everything I have seen, I do not sense any greed from them. At most, desperation. You might argue that this is the wrong way to try to increase revenue, and that may or may not be true. I'm not an economist, nor do I know what tactics make this kind of game actually profitable, given the amount of resources that Frontier has at their disposal.
If what they are doing now turns the revenue into positive and thus helps continuing running and developing the game for the foreseeable future, well, personally I'm all for it. I'd rather be able to continue playing the game even if buying some cosmetics is "too expensive" by some subjective metric. Heck, I'd even put up with some functional features (such as ship modules) being fully paywalled, if that helps keep running and development of the game for the foreseeable future. If the alternative is seeing all the servers being shut down and the game becoming unplayable, I'm all for it. Heck, I might even buy some of those things (heaven knows I have spent orders of magnitude more money for games I have played but for a microscopic fraction of what I have played Elite.)
Maybe I'm just a bit naive like that.
From everything I have seen, I do not sense any greed from them. At most, desperation. You might argue that this is the wrong way to try to increase revenue, and that may or may not be true. I'm not an economist, nor do I know what tactics make this kind of game actually profitable, given the amount of resources that Frontier has at their disposal.
If what they are doing now turns the revenue into positive and thus helps continuing running and developing the game for the foreseeable future, well, personally I'm all for it. I'd rather be able to continue playing the game even if buying some cosmetics is "too expensive" by some subjective metric. Heck, I'd even put up with some functional features (such as ship modules) being fully paywalled, if that helps keep running and development of the game for the foreseeable future. If the alternative is seeing all the servers being shut down and the game becoming unplayable, I'm all for it. Heck, I might even buy some of those things (heaven knows I have spent orders of magnitude more money for games I have played but for a microscopic fraction of what I have played Elite.)
Maybe I'm just a bit naive like that.