Sure. Asking on a forum surely will give you the percentage you're looking for.
"We are listening to the community"...
- Thread starter iFred
- Start date
My restaurant doesn't give change but you can apply the excess to a future purchase. I only accept notes in denominations of 10 and 20. If you're over or under you can always top up the difference by washing dishes in our kitchen. One dish = $0.10, with a maximum earning of $0.50 per day. You'll want to keep coming back and washing a few dishes every day for a while, is what I'm saying. It's only a bad deal if you're a bad customer, so its basically a win-win for everyone! You're welcome, and to answer your question: the kind of person I am is a great person.
To be serious for a second, it’s getting increasingly hard to find a bank over here in the US that’s offering any interest on checking and savings accounts, outside of credit unions and a few other “members only” banks, and CD returns are now a joke. There’s already quite a few banks over here that are charging you for the privilege of depositing your earnings with them... not directly, of course, but via fees for services that used to be free even ten years ago. And that’s for us lucky few who actually have enough saved up to have such accounts. It’s even worse if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, especially if you don’t have enough to have a checking account in the first place.
That’s why I have a hard time taking the outrage over ARX seriously. Buying premium currency to buy cosmetics is supposedly a predatory practice? That’s amateur hour compared to the banking industry
More like- there is a restaurant where you pay for food, then they charge $.50 if you want to use a gold fork or a polka dot plate while you eat there. You can pay for the colored plates and forks in bills, and we will keep the overage and apply it to the next purchase. OR, we will be putting money in your account simply for coming in and using our restaurant
if you want to use a dumb analogy, at least make it accurate
To be perfectly honest any analogy of digital sales / workflows to real-world stuff will fall apart under any scrutiny. Neither analogy is really compatible with the problem, but I do feel Kaocraft makes a slightly better point in terms of the dangers that such micro-transactions can have, whilst your version is the "it'll be fine", optimistic version.
<very subjective fragment incoming>
Again, I'd love to be wrong on this, but if I look the cosmetics at the moment, then the current deals are bad. We're paying for stuff modders in other games happily provide for free. Some of those skins could be done with two color pickers! The only way I find this palatable is if it framed not as a "buy a skin for X", but rather "support the developers with a payment of X; get a skin as a thank you", and even then this is just a justification. But this framing concept stops working the moment premium currencies are implemented...
Most people tend to buy one thing at a time. When they got their new ship, for eg.
So basically you've proven the point. This means that players will basically be forced to pay more upfront for ARXes, than what they would normally do just to buy something.
And then they will likelty have some left over that:
A) They can't use, and go to waste.
B) They will have to top up more in order to use
And after B), in almost all circumstances, they will always have a few points left over because items are priced such that you will mostly have a difficult time zero-ing your account.
You might think that for A) .... no big deal. I lose 2 bucks. But if this happens 10 times, you lose 20 bucks.
And if this happens once to 1000 players, they lose 2000 bucks collectively.... or should I put it in a more ugly way.... "FD just ate up 2000 bucks for basically nothing"
Yes, this is a business, not a charity.... I understand. But there is also something called ethics and fairness.
Also, as a customer, I absolutely hate the idea that someone made me pay upfront, and more than I should have, for something that I needed.
I'm not giving free money to a business. It's not a charity.
The main point I was trying to make from the start was.....
How does this benefit the consumer from a financial sense, if he/she has been able to pay exactly what he wanted previously?
If this stored value thing was the system from the start, no one can complain because it is what it is.
That's why I say FD should also retain the existing store for players NOT interested in ARX.
Exactly.
So unless they make sure that all items in store will be priced in convenient multiples that you can completely zero your account with no matter the package, you will still end up with excess ARXes.
Hint hint FD.
Make those packages small, in multiples of 50 ARXes. And price your items in multiples of 50.
Line them up nicely, and make them match.
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nobody is forcing players to buy anything from the cosmetics store.
A) that logic is badly flawed.
You dont lose anything. Those 2 bucks remain in your account and you might come even at the next purchase.
Yes, if you stop playing, indeed those 2 bucks will remain unused in your account.
But why would you buy something, that's entirely optional, for a game that you know that you won't be playing anymore.
If anything, the direct cash-to-store system is worse for impulse buyers than the points system.
"Oh, sod it, it is only a dollar - i'll get it" , while if he had to buy a package he would give it a second thought.
With packages you'd be better to plan your purchases and in the end you'll get a better value.
B)
you might as well top up with the free Arx
So in your analogy playing the game is the equivalent of washing dishes?
Isn't it more like the more you eat the less you pay?
A) So why should FD hold on to my money if I don't have anything to buy at the moment?
Right now if I wanted a ship kit at GBP8 I just pay GBP8. Why should I pay more upfront?
Impulse buying is subjective, it's a variable and not a constant. Doesn't apply to everyone. I have only ever purchase one or two items in the four years I have been playing.
So remove the variables, we're left with the constant. You would have money left over which
a) you can't use
b) you'd have to add more to use. It doesn't matter if you have to pay for more ARX or wait to earn it
Whatever the situation is, it is still a downgrade from the current system in terms of flexibility.
I can choose the exact amount I want to spend, for the exact item I want to buy.
B) It will be a trickle, or else FD would lose money. Hence you probably have to wait quite a bit to reach an amount where you can simply burn it all away.
But let's say that I just wanted that GBP 8 item and nothing else, from the start. How will that fix my issue?
So again. It's either
a) FD keeps the credit card system open as an alternative to ARX
b) FD allows players to buy ARX in flexible and granular amounts
c) FD adjusts the prices of items in the store, along with the number of ARX in their packages so players can zero their accounts anytime.
d) FD allows a refund policy for ARX unused.
I'm pretty sure in 2 years you can rack up enough free Arx to buy another item or maybe more than one.
SO why are you worry about? It's a 100% win scenario for you, yet you seem to try quite hard to transform a non-issue into a quite big one.
But Frontier IS forcing people who don't want to touch Arx with a barge pole to be unable to buy cosmetic items any other way.
Frontier is removing choice, not adding choice.
Yup - I don't see the issue - my alts are finally going to get the Holly COVAS - for free! (I buy a few cosmetics for my main, but paying for alts - happens less)
It's just awesome that people still ignore the ability to earn Arx in game, even though we talked about it for 15 pages. It's not like you don't have a point, but it would be more honest to mention it.
They are actually adding the choice to unlock paintjobs in game. If that option will be worthwhile remains to be seen.
Anyway, using the word force is almost certainly wrong, otherwise Apple is forcing me to buy an iphone because they don't give it to me for free although I actually don't even want it.
Wrong.
Apple is not forcing you to buy one of their phones.
Frontier is not forcing me to buy their Arx
Frontier IS however forcing me to ONLY be able to buy their Arx and not be able to buy using cash.
You and others keep twisting the discussion because otherwise you'd get ripped to shreds and you know it.
Which would come in at a slow rate, lest it messes up FD's ability to get revenue from microtransactions.
Personally, I would rather just pay an exact amount for something I want and then be done with it.
SInce there are supporters on two sides of the fence, FD should allow players both options.
To purchase ARX, and to purchase stuff from the store directly.
I'm not interested in little freebies. Those little 10 cent, 20 cent things that come in dribs and drabs?
Never been bothered or tempted by those. But I do not like companies taking a penny more from me if I didn't intend to give it to them.
If I want A, I'll buy A for that exact value, and nothing more.
But you can exchange the amount for exactly what you want.
If I told the bank that I wanted 1000 USD for my local currency, that's what they will give me.
They're not telling me to change 10,000 USD and I have a chance to earn 1 USD every week.
Plus these days, I can simply use my credit card to buy stuff overseas. So convenient.
Come to think of it... that's what I'm doing with FD.
I'm not a UK citizen, but I bought ED and stuff using my credit card, for the direct amount that it was priced at.