noamineo wrote on Sep 1^st, 2016 at 10:30pm:


Maybe because they make more money if people buy points not at sale prices when Otto's boxes are available?

Who Cares wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2016 at 1:20am:

This. If I could get more with my Turbine Points, I'd be more likely to buy them more often and not always when they're on sale.

Who Cares wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2016 at 1:20am:


And you know this is a fact due to your incredible insiders knowledge of their sales trends and revenue figures.  Right.

Keep dreaming about how people actually plan around small dollar amount purchases.  If people actually did that then it wouldn't matter if the double points sales and the Otto's boxes were up at the same time, would it?  Because people would do all that planning you think they do and buy the points when they are on sale and then buy the Otto's boxes when they were available, and the OP wouldn't make any sense at all because planning would make the synchronizing of double bonus points and anything else they sell irrelevant.

People plan for a vacation, or a car, or an education, or other high dollar things.  Very few people do much planning over something that's a low dollar cost, unless they are on a very tight budget.  And if ~$100 is a stretch for someone then buying TP is probably not going to happen over food or rent or other necessities.

Frank wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2016 at 1:41pm:

Although I agree with much of what you say here, I think he's right about lining up points and boxes increasing sales. The problem isn't so much planning as opportunism. People will "snap up a good deal", which is why advertisements make use of "for a limited time" or "plus, if you act now" so much. For a buggy game, TP even on sale are at best a moderate deal, and boxes are a moderate deal, but if they are both on sale at once you have a better chance of having someone make an impulsive purchase.

Which is what you are arguing, really. Many people *aren't* planning TP purchases or box purchases, and neither alone is a good enough deal to trigger the good deal bargain reflex. The two together make a much better bargain and would get more people to buy them. Everyone's threshold is different, of course, but aligning the sales would bring the price below more thresholds and trigger more sales.

And factor in impulse and delayed reward - a gamer has $20 and can spend it on DDO or another game. If he spends it on the other game, he can use it immediately. If he considers spending it on TP on sale, if the sales don't line up then he'd have to wait for the box, and the immediate use in the other game looks better. If the Box is on sale but not the points, he knows he could get a better deal by waiting until points come on sale and buying them then, so he waits. But by the time the points are on sale again the boxes aren't, and the immediate purchase in the other game looks better. So the box never gets purchased.

No one model of purchase decision making covers all DDO players, but clearly aligning the sales would increase the number of boxes sold.

Revaulting wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2016 at 2:23pm:


I think you missed maj's posts long ago about ddo being funded from a small group of whales.

Otto's boxes have stayed at the same price point for years.  I don't see their sales numbers, but I would guess that if they weren't selling at that price, the seller would change the price.

Is there a more efficient price point?  Possibly.  I have no data, so I can't say. 

I would guess, however, that an even better alternative would be if they released mini-boxes with 1 million XP stones at half the price, they would tap into a market that is currently not being served.   Possibly even going into lower increments like 500k and 250k. 

For when you just want to skip a level or catch up with a guildie/friend because you missed a few gaming sessions.

Frank wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2016 at 1:41pm:


Phrasing.

SpaceGoat wrote on Sep 6^th, 2016 at 5:17pm:

But that's not the question, we don't have an equal number of customers and there is negligible cost associatd with a sale. If you want to use a piza shop analogy, what we have is more like a shop that sells slices for $50 across the street from one that sells them for $5, if they lowered the price they would get more sales, possibly resulting in an overall gain.

But maybe a movie theater would be a better analogy - there are a bunch downtown, maybe the one with the really high ticket price should drop it a bit so they could attract more viewers and sell more popcorn and soda.

The whole factor of ten number is just pulled out of his ass, but considering the stuff Turbine just pulls out of their ass (people complain there aren't enough Feather Fall clickies) that hardly seems to matter, one ass is as good as another for producing random gusses.