Frontier: Can you please define your understanding of "Limited"

[gamecat]

I get what you are saying, but this is a slippery slope to just handing corporations over to the government. Corporations need regulation to keep them from outrightly exploiting resources and consumers negatively.

We are talking about purchasing digital paint jobs for digital ships in a a digital world. There is no tangible loss to the consumer because, when you purchased it, you agreed to the value of that purchase.

Now, some time later, Frontier is offering it again to attract more customers. This isn't hurting anyone, or damaging some held value that you could liquidate, therefore what are we protecting?

<SNIP>

Fortunately there are regulations in place to PROTECT consumers from false marketing and advertising.

Limited means limited. There is either a time limit or limit on stock. This is finite, the product is not available after that time or there is no more stock. Like Limited Editions they ARE interpreted by consumers to mean this is a one off opportunity to purchase and own the item. This enables the company to increase the cost of the product as it is considered an item of scarcity. The value this scarcity creates is devalued if the product is subsequently sold again especially if it's sold for less. So there is a tangible loss to the customer. This is plain misleading and unfair on consumers; shame on you Frontier I'm really surprised at you.

Fortunately we have laws to protect us from lying companies.

<SNIP>

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Personally, I wouldn't be AT ALL surprised if the old flag skins were accidentally re-enabled by someone at FD, as they went through the (probably clunky) shop back-end, adding in the current "specials".

Think about it...

1. Even an Arts Major * can tell you that if you try to milk the LAST "limited edition" special by flogging it off afterwards, people won't get on board the NEXT time. So that makes no economic, sales or marketing sense whatsoever.
2. The old "September 14th" dates are still there. No rhyme or reason for that.
3. The "flag" ones reappeared at exactly the same time as some other new paint jobs.
4. A bunch of OTHER paint jobs got the "50% off" treatment.
5. The Frontier Developments staff weren't allowed to get a skinful on Saturday night, would have been exhausted on Sunday, and would probably only have got around to an office "let's hit the pub for PINTS" session a day or two ago. A hangover or two could figure here, lol.
6. The whole idea of putting limited-edition paint jobs back on the store ten weeks later, for half-price, is oo.

I'm certainly reserving judgement until I see a formal FD staffer comment.


The simplest explanation: It's a straightforward, simple cockup.


Beware of echo-chamber threads. In reality, nothing has changed since we noticed the flag paint jobs. An "evolving" thread can fool us into thinking the situation itself has evolved, but it hasn't.



[edit] * Sorry about the "Arts Major" gag. It sounds harsh, but was fully intended to be a giggle. No offence intended!

 

[Vandaahl]

It was even written that the flag skins "would be gone forever". This is a little weird indeed.

I thought so too, I have tried to find it but I couldn't. If you can then I would appreciate it.

Been weeding through old news letters, but couldn't find it. I now I read it, but I think it was stated at the life time expansion pass.

* a long sigh *

* breaths in *

Oh well...
I knocked a few teeth out of my colleague's skull and feel much better already. BUT DON'T DO IT AGAIN, for my colleague's sake...


*edit*

Personally, I wouldn't be AT ALL surprised if the old flag skins were accidentally re-enabled by someone at FD, as they went through
the (probably clunky) shop back-end, adding in the current "specials".

No mate, they even discounted them.

 

[Titus Balls]

Personally, I wouldn't be AT ALL surprised if the old flag skins were accidentally re-enabled by someone at FD, as they went through the (probably clunky) shop back-end, adding in the current "specials".

Think about it...

1. Even an Arts Major * can tell you that if you try to milk the LAST "limited edition" special by flogging it off afterwards, people won't get on board the NEXT time. So that makes no economic, sales or marketing sense whatsoever.
2. The old "September 14th" dates are still there. No rhyme or reason for that.
3. The "flag" ones reappeared at exactly the same time as some other new paint jobs.
4. A bunch of OTHER paint jobs got the "50% off" treatment.
5. The Frontier Developments staff weren't allowed to get a skinful on Saturday night, would have been exhausted on Sunday, and would probably only have got around to an office "let's hit the pub for PINTS" session a day or two ago. A hangover or two could figure here, lol.
6. The whole idea of putting limited-edition paint jobs back on the store ten weeks later, for half-price, is oo.

I'm certainly reserving judgement until I see a formal FD staffer comment.


The simplest explanation: It's a straightforward, simple cockup.


Beware of echo-chamber threads. In reality, nothing has changed since we noticed the flag paint jobs. An "evolving" thread can fool us into thinking the situation itself has evolved, but it hasn't.



[edit] * Sorry about the "Arts Major" gag. It sounds harsh, but was fully intended to be a giggle. No offence intended!

I'm happy to accept this as an answer and move on - if it was a mistake, these can be made - and in that case they need to withdraw them from sale immediately and well done to the people who got them for cheap.

Or if they did decide to sell them again, remove the 50% off price - then we can move on from here.

If nether of these are the case and happen though then I, and I assume many others, will be deeply disappointed

 

[Jack Schitt]

The simplest explanation: It's a straightforward, simple cockup.

You could be right, but if so it's a cockup that's already netted a fair bit in extra flag skin sales. I wish every mistake I made raked in a few quid. I'd be retired by now

 

[cletus]

I put a ticket in to customer support. If it's a mistake, then fine but I doubt it is.

Just wondering why you sold the flag skins to us as "limited" but then placed them on the online store again only weeks later at half the price. I don't mind supporting your game but I feel that this move is dishonest. If you plan on keeping these skins on the store, I'll gladly take a refund of half the price as it makes no sense that you've "unlimited" the skins and discounted them so quickly. You really need to be careful how you're treating your (at this early stage) valuable customers. I'm not confident in buying any more game extras since this has happened. I'm sure I'm not the only one. But hey, money matters more I guess.

Great work with the game though.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Yes, I'll find it pretty hilarious if it was a mis-click in the store DB.

"Stop those flags! The old flags have got out, and they're escaping! Unplug the server! Unplug the forums before they notice!"

"Uh, ten page thread. They noticed..."

"Whoops!"

 

[Javert]

I've just gone from a happy supporter, to a wary customer.

Thanks Krow for coming up with the right wording on this. It's not about whether something is legal or not, it's about what kind of relationship you want to have with your customers.

There is one reason, and one reason only, why a paint job would be withdrawn from sale on a particular date, heavily publicised in this way. That reason is to plant the idea in the potential customer's head that they must buy this now or they won't get it. This is intentional misleading of people. Unfortunately for anyone who works in or understands marketing and the legalities of such things, this is perfectly legal and happens all the time, so they then think it's perfectly fine to fall back on semantics to justify it, and imply that the customer was an idiot for thinking that limited meant limited.

Unfortunately though, I think this game has now moved into mainstream marketing mode - expect to see the mercenary edition, slightly renamed, appearing again soon after release once sales start to tail off.

Frontier have stuck to their word on anything to do with the pricing of the kickstarter - they never devalued the price of buying into beta. Maybe we just have to accept that the micro transaction part of the game is going to use retail marketing tactics and make our purchase timing decisions accordingly.

Of course it could also be that this is a simple mistake and the flag skins were not supposed to be put back on sale

 

[Zalifer]

I posted about all this before. Every single time they do something on the cosmetic store, there is some sort of backlash.

We have

- "Exclusive" or "Bonus" skins that force you to buy the pack for that 1 skin
- Said packs becoming 50% off a month or two after release
- Overpriced skins (This is open to interpretation, but considering that the 3 "premium" skins to date cost almost as much as the game itself...)
- "Limited Edition" being used to get people to purchase skins "before they are gone", that then return to the store (Cheaper too)
- Low effort skins (Chrome being the worst offender until...)
- Colour tweak skins (Gold is just a five second tweak to chrome)

- Less egregiously, buying skins from a pack, does not lower the pack price, for example, I bought the hauler yellow, but if I want the pack now, I essentially pay for the yellow skin twice, to get the exclusive skin.

Its a cosmetic store designed not to offer cosmetic options to customers, and raise some money, but to squeeze every possible penny out of anyone who wants something from the store.

It's not quite the worst tactics in the world, but it's far from fair.

For me, it's clearly all legal, but it's about the lack of respect for the customer.

Of course it could also be that this is a simple mistake and the flag skins were not supposed to be put back on sale

No, the sale banner has a Union Jack viper on it, on the store home page.

 

[Titus Balls]

I posted about all this before. Every single time they do something on the cosmetic store, there is some sort of backlash.

We have

- "Exclusive" or "Bonus" skins that force you to buy the pack for that 1 skin
- Said packs becoming 50% off a month or two after release
- Overpriced skins (This is open to interpretation, but considering that the 3 "premium" skins to date cost almost as much as the game itself...)
- "Limited Edition" being used to get people to purchase skins "before they are gone", that then return to the store (Cheaper too)
- Low effort skins (Chrome being the worst offender until...)
- Colour tweak skins (Gold is just a five second tweak to chrome)

- Less egregiously, buying skins from a pack, does not lower the pack price, for example, I bought the hauler yellow, but if I want the pack now, I essentially pay for the yellow skin twice, to get the exclusive skin.

Its a cosmetic store designed not to offer cosmetic options to customers, and raise some money, but to squeeze every possible penny out of anyone who wants something from the store.

It's not quite the worst tactics in the world, but it's far from fair.

For me, it's clearly all legal, but it's about the lack of respect for the customer.




No, the sale banner has a Union Jack viper on it, on the store home page.

Hah I hadn't even noticed that.

If you do a search you'll find I also started a thread about the cobra skin and its £10 cost at the time. After a while I calmed down and came to the conclusion that it would be a rare item, never to be seen on the store again - and in leiu of a subscription was supporting frontier.

Now we're being told that those items marked as limited can actually be sold again (fair enough) at 1/2 the cost other backers paid for them (this is not on!!)

This is what I cannot comprehend why frontier would do this.

 

[thenickmove]

I put a ticket in to customer support. If it's a mistake, then fine but I doubt it is.

Let us know what the response is!

 

[RGS]

Bad form FD. Don't see any way around this really. Looks especially bad after the mess over newsletter 49/the awful way in which the removal of Offline Mode was initially handled (done properly in newsletter 50 at least).

I've not bought any limited paints as there's been nothing that's really tempted me, but if I had I'd be feeling pretty annoyed right now. That said, it never made sense to me that the flag paint jobs were limited - IMO they should never have been and I can understand bringing them back. I can also understand that 'limited' doesn't mean 'never for sale again,' however it seemed to me that that was the impression that FD wanted to give out and from reading through any one of the paint job threads at the time (during the 'wire-frame' or 'chrome' releases for e.g.), it was pretty clear that a lot of people buying them thought that this was the case and FD said nothing to the contrary.

Just like with the abandoning of Offline Mode it would appear that no one at FD has the remotest clue that reintroducing 'limited' paint jobs is going to potentially upset their most loyal customers. In fact they go one further and half the price of them - And the game's not even out yet! Fair enough to re-introduce them I reckon, in the case of the flags at least (with a coupe of lines explaining 'limited' as not always final, but rather 'on sale for short periods of time') and they should have charged the same price for them, or if anything even a little higher than they were previously (like CIG/SC are doing with their ship 'sales' - early supporters get the best deal, which feels fair).

I don't mind sales of standard skins, or even higher priced ones normally, but not so soon after they've been released and to do so before the game's even out isn't right IMO. If either the wire-frame or chrome skin were to be offered again for half price over the next 6 months I'd feel pretty cheated if I'd bought them (especially considering their very high price for a single, simple skin).

This reminds me of another company which sold the beta of their flight sim product for ~£45 and then had a ~65% off 2 day flash sale 3 months later (product was still in beta for roughly another 6 months from that point). Needless to say those who'd stumped up over the normal figure for such a product (and a beta at that) were hugely disappointed and felt like they'd just been given a kick in the teeth by the very company they'd set out to support. Unfortunately there will always be the 'if you couldn't afford it, shouldn't have bought it' and 'sales = more money to the devs, stop complaining' types but they're completely missing the point IMO. Aside from treating your most loyal customers badly, this kind of behaviour isn't even good financially for the devs IMO; it's a small cash injection, but in the long term leads to the devaluation of the company brand and value of its products. Goodwill goes out of the community (and this is extremely important) and people no longer buy the products at high prices having been burnt once, etc. etc...

Rise of Flight has a strong online community, and also often has sales, but I don't ever remember them pulling any silly moves like this (though I've not played that for quite some time, so could be wrong now). There always seemed to be a decent amount of time between the release of an a/c and it going on sale. If there was a general sale, any products which were pretty fresh were excluded (or that the very least only had a minor discount).

Also, I don't think that you can compare selling games like Elite or niche flight sim titles to groceries or TVs etc. (or even other AAA games via Steam etc.). In this case you're buying directly from the developers and the nurturing of a strong, loyal community/fan-base is, or should be, vital for them. It really should be a case of 'good for the customer, good for the developer.'


TL;DR - Selling some of the limited skins again is OK with me (and in some cases makes sense), but FD should have explained 'limited' previously and the price should *not* have been lower. Don't screw over your most loyal customers or make them feel like they can't trust you. Not only does that weaken the community, but will lose you more revenue in the long run. Hope we'll see better and more honest/transparent communication from FD in future. Initially lower priced gold Viper skin + temporarily free Cobra skins is a good move IMO - Both from a goodwill standpoint and a financial one.

 

[tucker]

Get your skins at full price for a limited time only

 

[Watcher]

From my point of view it always seemed likely the flag skins would come back at a later date - why would you limit that sort of item to only the initial players?
I can see why it would wind people up though, especially with the whole "last chance to buy" stuff going on in the news letters.
But that is a flag skin, it will be interesting to see if they do the same with things like the wireframe skin. Iconic, desirable and a bit of a battle about price and limited availability. I think making that available again would be more worrying - I mean fine, they _could_, but then buying in to the whole "limited edition" thing would make no sense and the premium pricing would likewise make no sense. How much profit is worth the miff?
I don't think sales are such a problem, this is certainly annoying if you've paid full price but this happens all the time and perhaps time for us all to remember to wait for and expect a sale at some point.
Personally I'm going to load up on one or two skins I like while they are cheap and I'll be much more wary about limited addition premium priced ones in the future.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

Bad form FD. Don't see any way around this really. Looks especially bad after the mess over newsletter 49/the awful way in which the removal of Offline Mode was initially handled (done properly in newsletter 50 at least).

I've not bought any limited paints as there's been nothing that's really tempted me, but if I had I'd be feeling pretty annoyed right now. That said, it never made sense to me that the flag paint jobs were limited - IMO they should never have been and I can understand bringing them back. I can also understand that 'limited' doesn't mean 'never for sale again,' however it seemed to me that that was the impression that FD wanted to give out and from reading through any one of the paint job threads at the time (during the 'wire-frame' or 'chrome' releases for e.g.), it was pretty clear that a lot of people buying them thought that this was the case and FD said nothing to the contrary.

Just like with the abandoning of Offline Mode it would appear that no one at FD has the remotest clue that reintroducing 'limited' paint jobs is going to potentially upset their most loyal customers. In fact they go one further and half the price of them - And the game's not even out yet! Fair enough to re-introduce them I reckon, in the case of the flags at least (with a coupe of lines explaining 'limited' as not always final, but rather 'on sale for short periods of time') and they should have charged the same price for them, or if anything even a little higher than they were previously (like CIG/SC are doing with their ship 'sales' - early supporters get the best deal, which feels fair).

I don't mind sales of standard skins, or even higher priced ones normally, but not so soon after they've been released and to do so before the game's even out isn't right IMO. If either the wire-frame or chrome skin were to be offered again for half price over the next 6 months I'd feel pretty cheated if I'd bought them (especially considering their very high price for a single, simple skin).

This reminds me of another company which sold the beta of their flight sim product for ~£45 and then had a ~65% off 2 day flash sale 3 months later (product was still in beta for roughly another 6 months from that point). Needless to say those who'd stumped up over the normal figure for such a product (and a beta at that) were hugely disappointed and felt like they'd just been given a kick in the teeth by the very company they'd set out to support. Unfortunately there will always be the 'if you couldn't afford it, shouldn't have bought it' and 'sales = more money to the devs, stop complaining' types but they're completely missing the point IMO. Aside from treating your most loyal customers badly, this kind of behaviour isn't even good financially for the devs IMO; it's a small cash injection, but in the long term leads to the devaluation of the company brand and value of it's products. Goodwill goes out of the community (and this is extremely important) and people no longer buy the products at high prices having been burnt once, etc. etc...

Rise of Flight has a strong online community, and also often has sales, but I don't ever remember them pulling any silly moves like this (though I've not played that for quite some time, so could be wrong now). There always seemed to be a decent amount of time between the release of an a/c and it going on sale. If there was a general sale, any products which were pretty fresh were excluded (or that the very least only had a minor discount).

Also, I don't think that you can compare selling games like Elite or niche flight sim titles to groceries or TVs etc. (or even other AAA games via Steam etc.). In this case you're buying directly from the developers and the nurturing of a strong, loyal community/fan-base is, or should be, vital for them. It really should be a case of 'good for the customer, good for the developer.'


TL;DR - Selling some of the limited skins again is OK with me (and in some cases makes sense), but FD should have explained 'limited' previously and the price should *not* have been lower. Don't screw over your most loyal customers or make them feel like they can't trust you. Not only does that weaken the community, but will lose you more revenue in the long run. Hope we'll see better and more honest/transparent communication from FD in future. Initially lower priced gold Viper skin + temporarily free Cobra skins is a good move IMO - Both from a goodwill standpoint and a financial one.

TL;DR = "Frontier's botty should be soundly smacked".

 

[tucker]

I'm also sure they said that the flag skins would never be seen again and that's why I brought one...

Also the fact that We/All of us are long standing customers from 1984 . Should not be ripped off though talk of limited and never to be seen offers that pop up less that 4 weeks at a discount.
(We are not being sold windows, get them fitted and never to be seen again type sales)

So far I've spent £140 on the Elite store and I have never done that for a game in my life. I never normally pay more more than £18 for games ever.
I like to put the money towards hardware. So to be treated like this is unfair. And I was going to buy the box and some more skins. Now I
doubt I buy any thing from them again... now....oh that looks nice.....

Next you'll tell me the lifetime expansion pass is on sale for a £5.

 

[MajorEpeen]

Personally this does not matter to me.

Star Citizen fired up a crapstorm in a similar way by selling limited time offer ships for a second time.

People like to feel exclusive, I get that.

To be honest the last thing FD need right now is another crapstorm. They should do themselves a favour and remove these items from sale.

 

[Ben Ryder]

Currently on the store (when it's up) you can buy many skins - this includes the flag skins that were released during Beta 1.

Now I should preface to this, I don't actually care about the skins themselves. None of them appeal to me over the ones I own - but there is a very worrying trend here that your definition of limited...

As noted in Newsletter #40: http://us2.campaign-archive1.com/?u=dcbf6b86b4b0c7d1c21b73b1e&id=cbbe7b15e6



Also, within the descriptions of the skins themselves on the store:

These items were LIMITED edition, and at the cost of £3 each - and now they are on sale again at 1/2 the price to anyone who buys the game.



Now as a digital product, of course there is unlimited of these at the time of sale so as far as we were made to be aware from the 14th September, these would no longer be available.

What you are doing is devaluing what your customers have bought on the understanding they would not be available again.

Does this mean one day we might see the Wireframe skin up for sale again at £5, because that was limited edition? I've had a look at the cached page for the Chrome Viper - despite the price I see it's not marked at Limited so I do expect we'll see that again - hopefully not 2 months later (like the Viper pack, or 1 month later like the Hauler pack at 1/2 price)

I should also add, I did buy the gold viper skin - also I might buy some more of the cheaper ones that are not limited. I suppose my gripe is that I can't believe your word here that something that is limited today won't be on sale tomorrow.

Flimited edition flags back on sale. Bang out of order. These were advertised as limited edition available only until 14th of September. I would like my account credited with the difference

 

[Dalkeith]

I can see the OP point but I consider cosmetic things like this to be donations to the company. I think if I was running the business myself I would try and avoid this though.

It would for instance be a problem if they were selling girls dresses like this.

 

[CMDR Sheehy]

My tuppence on this: With all those people saying they wanted their money back unexpectedly, accounts turned to management and said "Well, hey, we've got this little hole to fill..."

So they put in a loss leader (Free skins for the Cobra) and reduce the price, 'cause at the moment no one is snapping them up at full price. Guess what?

It's working...

Remove them from sale? Too late!

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Oh, and I totally get it Titus my friend. Totally get it. You see it all the time in physical stores. You buy something, then pop in a week later and it's on sale. Totally gutted.