Did FDEV Pioneer The Modern "Microtransaction HeII" Phenomenon?

Bloodsign

Bloodsign
I was thinking about it the other day, and Elite Dangerous was the first game in which I ever noticed the "microtransaction heII" phenomenon. Admittedly, I don't play a whole wide variety of different games or a lot of multiplayer games.

But I distinctly remember when FDEV rolled out their (hilariously named) digital ARX currency. And yeah, I've bought some stuff with real money...

I do like the ability to earn ARX while playing the game. But we need to talk about some things...

  • ARX store is a great way for FDEV to passively make money but it's underutilized. With some balancing, it could be a great thing for players and for FDEV to make more money.
  • Having time limited stuff just makes no sense, as there are things players would like to buy but forget about or miss while they are taking a hiatus. ARX store items should be always available, but maybe with seasonal/holiday special pricing. But players should always be able to buy what they want, unless it's a limited edition for some very, very special reason.
  • The pricing of ARX store items is ridiculous. FDEV simply hasn't optimized the equations on this. There are two philosophies (probably more) when selling a product; sell it very expensively to the very few who will buy it (FDEV's current model) or sell it reasonably to many more people who will buy it at that price. You've got to find the sweet spot to optimize earnings. FDEV's pricing is currently outrageous. Has anyone calculated how much it would cost to buy all ARX store items? I bet it's (heh heh) astronomical. I'm sure some will say that's okay because Star Scamizen does it. Well.... whatever
  • FDEV should consider offering more ARX store items. I think many ED players would like to see camouflage paints and dazzle paints that are inspired by modern military craft. I think just that arena alone opens up probably hundreds of styles of digicam, etc. Another vein of paint styles would be styles inspired by muscle/performance cars. I'd love to see more mirrored/metallic/candy finishes for some of the luxury/performance ships. And of course, I think there could be more ship kit items as well. Players love this stuff... if it's quality and if it's priced affordably.
  • I'd love to see more paints that you just get as a reasonably priced pack for all your ships or bundled for a lot of ships that it fits. That makes a lot more sense to me than buying paints one by one per ship. Maybe that's just me.

o7
Fly economically
 

aRJay

aRJay
The nice thing about the limited availability paintjobs is that availability window, that tempts me to buy things I wouldn’t consider if they were there all the time.

Paintjobs were sold in packs for a ship, generally speaking I am happier to get them individually and end up with ones I like, at the time.

I like the sound of more decals but I am not sure what I would want to see.
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
Bloodsign said:
  • The pricing of ARX store items is ridiculous. FDEV simply hasn't optimized the equations on this.
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You say this, but there's a casual mobile game i waste time on when I'm waiting for <something>... it currently charges $159USD for the chance to get a skin. Not get the skin... just a chance to get it. Of course, there's lower cost options, which attract ever-smaller chances... It's pretty crazy, and it's just gambling by another name at that point.

I don't think FD really pioneered anything in this regard though... many games have secondary currencies you buy into, which is then used for skins, effects or even in- game benefits. Puzzle pirates was one of the first i can think of which did this (with doubloons), but i doubt it was the first... heck, a 1999 PHP game i used to faff with was doing that.

On balancing equations... you only really have to look at the game proper to see they've just generally not been great with that XD
 
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Killerskullmk

K
the prices really are abusive 11 K in a kit?? for just one type of ship?

3 types of internal lights in the ships, all of them strange...

Perhaps for frontier the answer to all this is a CG where addicts will compete to stay at 75% carrying some load, which is something completely boring for some players, who have a job and don't have time to farm as frontier idealizes.
 

Ned Flandalorian

N
Killerskullmk said:
Perhaps for frontier the answer to all this is a CG where addicts will compete to stay at 75% carrying some load, which is something completely boring for some players, who have a job and don't have time to farm as frontier idealizes.
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Would you rather work at a real job for one hour and earn more than enough to purchase the paint job, or spend days doing a pointless CG grind?

People who complain about not being able to do the CG due to work should really learn to value their time more...
 

Planewalker

Planewalker
In short, no they did not whatsoever.

More to the point they did quite well initially and eventually.

Items on the arx store are sometimes discounted, and a more decals would inded be nice.

While the initial iteration of the ingame arx store was...less than stellar, talking about "mtx hell" makes very little sense here.

In any case, two things on my wishlist is being able to buy any item singular, instead of packs and having the legacy flight suits fixed. (Raider 03/04)
 
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Lhorndra

Lhorndra
To answer your question in the headline: nope. Far from it, FDev was rather late to the party. Even in the Olden Days, there were at least some arcade machines (!) were you had to pay with real coins to purchase in-game items. Unfortunately, microtransactions really took off with Second Life (the infamous Linden Dollars) and when mobile games became a thing. Ah yes, and The Sims. Not to mention the Diablo Immortal and Diablo 4 kerfuffles.

Sad thing is: the revenue from microtransactions in free-to-play games has long overtaken the revenue from traditional games sales.

Bloodsign said:
I was thinking about it the other day, and Elite Dangerous was the first game in which I ever noticed the "microtransaction heII" phenomenon.
Click to expand...
You ain't seen nothin yet.
 
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Aella Fess

Aella Fess
The ARX store operates on a microtransaction model, but it's one of the fairest ones I've seen, and I've explored numerous online game stores. First, it's strictly cosmetic, offering no advantages even if you invest heavily in the game – you remain on par with everyone else. Second, it's unobtrusive; there are no in-game pop-ups about the store or sales. Third, it's immersive, avoiding comically altering your ship's appearance. Fourth, it's not abusive; you either want something or you don't. If you choose to buy, it's solely for your satisfaction, as 99.9% of players won't see it. Even when playing with friends, your ships are rarely visible, unlike in third-person MMOs where you're constantly on display to your group.

Fifth, I haven't noticed any miss-out syndrome abuse. Most importantly, sixth, Frontier could introduce many features to its ARX shop, including fair options that don't lead to pay-to-win situations, but they choose not to. They keep it simple, professional, immersive, and fair. Not buying anything doesn't diminish your importance as a player, and buying doesn't make you more important. You can't impress anyone but yourself. I wish all games followed this approach.

Actually, writing this post has inspired me to support FDev and purchase some ARX. Damn.
 

hems303

hems303
metatheurgist said:
I'm fairly sure their bean counters have totally optimised the cashflow for their cosmetics with information that we can only dream about having.
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optimised their cashflow.???.. by REMOVING the option to use PayPal in the purchase of ARX!!! Go figure. (Not having any more of my cash via dodgy WorldPay!!!!)
 

Kaocraft

Kaocraft
The ARX store is a mystery to me; it’s probably run stupid and wasteful like every other part of the company, but who knows? Maybe the current approach to pricing, variety, and timing of availability is bringing in the most money it possibly can bring in. I personally used to buy the odd cosmetic item here and there back when they let you pay with money; once they switched over to Disney Dollars I stopped. How many former customers are like me, vs ongoing customers who are unit-of-completion-biased into repeatedly buying packs of ARX to use up the “change” from each successive transaction? Dunno. And maybe the higher quantity of money spent by people like that is worth the reduction in overall customer numbers. All I can say with certainty is that Frontier is no pioneer in this field of “micro transaction hell”; this was well worn territory long before Elite and at this stage they’re pretty benign by comparison to some of the forms this style of business has metastasized into at other companies.
 

Northpin

Northpin
Bloodsign said:
I was thinking about it the other day, and Elite Dangerous was the first game in which I ever noticed the "microtransaction heII" phenomenon.
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Lol - time for my faved meme

jjj-youserious.gif


ED is really friendly and very very light on this matter. I wouldn't even call it a microtransaction game.
You definitely haven't played a game that falls in that territory of "microtransaction heII" phenomenon.

Bloodsign said:
Admittedly, I don't play a whole wide variety of different games or a lot of multiplayer games.
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Wel, it shows 😂
May i direct you to explore the world of gacha games?
Or maybe to the world of loot-box games?


Bloodsign said:
But I distinctly remember when FDEV rolled out their (hilariously named) digital ARX currency
Click to expand...

Well, i do agree on this one - but it's funny and it may have been intentional because it's too good to be random.
However, i do came from Consoles - and there FDev always had their own currency - which back then it was called Frontier Points, so for me unifying the entire experience kinda made sense.

And while the stuff in the ARX store is not exactly cheap (and i'm still miffed they removed the packs when they introduced the ARX) they're not actually really expensive either.
The fact they are purely optional while FDev also giving you free ARX on a weekly basis - makes the entire thing a non-issue.
 
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