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Normal Topic SSG fails at capitalism - summer sales sucked (Read 2985 times)
Skoodge
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SSG fails at capitalism - summer sales sucked
Jul 21st, 2017 at 1:33am
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I can't believe a company that large doesn't have a single person with a business degree.  They can't even pull off a decent sale, it's like not one of them have ever walked into a retail store in their lives.

If you go into a store with a thousand items and they're promoting a small table with a handful of slightly discounted but still over priced items, they suck at capitalism.

Gianthold?  Who the fuck doesn't already own GH?  The like two new players who started playing this year?  No, they own it too, they grinded out favor and it was the first or second pack they bought.

Haunted Halls was slightly better, but I took a two and a half year break and even I have HH. 

About the only good deal was the sun elf, which is what they should have lead with.

Here's how you make money -

First two weeks you slash the prices of useless shit that nobody buys.  75% off shared bank accounts (not that bare discount they offered.  A slight discount on stupidly over priced items is still stupidly over priced).  You heavily, heavily, heavily discount your lowest selling items where people who would never be tempted to buy them are now "that's too good of a deal to pass up."  First and second shared accounts are 50% off, everything after is 75%.  That way they're buying more of what they don't need/want and using up their free TPs.

1st and 2nd week you unload the garbage.  Iconics, half-elf (who the fuck buys half-elf ever? Besides that one girl with an ugly toon) at 75% off.  Fuck, I'd probably buy half-elf at 75% off and never use it, but that's the whole point.

You discount the crap packs no one runs to make a little money and give the appearance that you have a real sale going here instead of the previously mentioned bargain table.

Weeks 3 and 4 you hit them with the 25-50% off the good stuff, the stuff they actually want.  The stuff that's so good that, even though they just blew almost all their points, now they have to buy points to get that 25% discount on warlocks.

Jesus wept they are the most miserly company I've ever seen and I've worked in Israel and the middle east!  They're scared to give a real discount because "they'll buy it at full price eventually."

No, fucking idiots, no they won't!  They'll grind out the free favor and get it for free.  Leave it at full price and they're going to slowly get it all for free.  Create giant sales and force them to spend money by buying in bulk.

Fucking company doesn't make close to half the money they could if they had a clue.
  

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Re: SSG fails at capitalism - summer sales sucked
Reply #1 - Jul 21st, 2017 at 2:20am
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Skoodge wrote on Jul 21st, 2017 at 1:33am:
I can't believe a company that large doesn't have a single person with a business degree.  They can't even pull off a decent sale, it's like not one of them have ever walked into a retail store in their lives.

If you go into a store with a thousand items and they're promoting a small table with a handful of slightly discounted but still over priced items, they suck at capitalism.

Jesus wept they are the most miserly company I've ever seen and I've worked in Israel and the middle east!  They're scared to give a real discount because "they'll buy it at full price eventually."

No, fucking idiots, no they won't!  They'll grind out the free favor and get it for free.  Leave it at full price and they're going to slowly get it all for free.  Create giant sales and force them to spend money by buying in bulk.

Fucking company doesn't make close to half the money they could if they had a clue.



SSG, the people that sabotaged DDO so they could snake the product for a song, is heavily relying on certain "whale" clients - rich oil baron sons that have money to burn. These are the ones that pay to win. Otto's boxes, tomes, especially XP pots which because of the new racial TR carrot, is now is what keeps the lights on. Special snowflake Quayl-whore admitted spending more money than what most people make just on Otto's boxes and XP pots.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. DDO and the people that have tried to ruin it for the last 4 years see the 'profit' and 'benefit' of nerfing or taking away things players have earned only to offer it in a different way with their new garbage. A game that was supposed to have long lasting enjoyment has been malformed into a senseless drudgery that benefits only the people within a certain circle.

They got what they need with the players that still have their VIP's, even better when some spend 10x in a day what some spend in a year. With no quality control, customer care, Daybreak games EULA stating you're lucky the lights are on and we're still mining information on you, SSG doesn't do sales and marketing. DDO is collecting nostalgia welfare.


« Last Edit: Jul 21st, 2017 at 2:25am by Novalis »  
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Re: SSG fails at capitalism - summer sales sucked
Reply #2 - Jul 21st, 2017 at 2:46am
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Novalis wrote on Jul 21st, 2017 at 2:20am:
SSG, the people that sabotaged DDO so they could snake the product for a song, is heavily relying on certain "whale" clients - rich oil baron sons that have money to burn. These are the ones that pay to win. Otto's boxes, tomes, especially XP pots which because of the new racial TR carrot, is now is what keeps the lights on. Special snowflake Quayl-whore admitted spending more money than what most people make just on Otto's boxes and XP pots.


Catering to whales is just idiotic.  Here's the thing, whales are going to spend no matter what.  They're obsessive and once they latch onto something, they're never going to let go.  You're not going to lose their money no matter what.

If you've got the option between making the 98 people who spend 10 dollars a month happy vs the 2 guys who spend 100 a month, you're an idiot to cater to those two guys.  98x10 is way more than 2x100.  Especially when making those two happy means losing 50 of the 98 when you have no risk of losing the two to begin with.

Which comes back to why I hate Jerry.  He ignores the masses and gives the whale's feedback which dictates the changes in the game.  He buys that whole "they've been saying ddo is dying since 2006 but it's still here, we don't need to fix things" philosophy of the whales, where a quick glance at the ddo oracle shows that the fucking game has been dying.  The more broken content they roll out, the more people get fed up and quit.

Even at this point with the meager player base that remains, they still could be making at least twice what they are - if they had a fucking clue.
  

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Re: SSG fails at capitalism - summer sales sucked
Reply #3 - Jul 21st, 2017 at 10:49am
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I have seen some decisions that I don't agree with.  The racial TR system is another example of flawed logic. 

The Heroic TR and Epic TR systems are front and middle loaded.  You get the most bang for your buck out of getting 3x in a handful of classes that provide value to your build and then getting 1x of the rest.  That is probably around 16-18 lives.  At that point, the remaining 24-26 lives are either no value or minor value for your end build.  The only thing triple heroic completionist does is give you the flexibility to make the character anything you want with full power levels.  You just need to gear it.  But, assuming you decided this character is always a melee (of some sort) or always ranged or always a caster, you can get 50% of the power with 6-9 PL's and 90% of the power with 16-18.  Those last 24-26 lives is for that meager 10% and the flexibility down the road. 

Iconics is all front loaded, since you have no completionist feat.  Get the ones that work for your build and skip the others.  Since they are mostly defensive (fort, mrr, prr, dodge, positive SP) it's hard to argue that any of them aren't valuable, but you can make a case to skip dodge on heavy armor builds, since you dodge cap easily without it.  The Iconics are easy though because you get them with a heroic PL (double dip) without having to run 1-30.  Adding in that 15-30 for 2 PL's is very attractive.  That alone probably sold a lot of Iconic purchases. 

Epic PL's, are, again, front loaded.  Getting all is generally unnecessary for a lot of builds.  You get the extra twist (completionist feat) after 12 lives (3 in each sphere).  Since the passives are all defensive, it's hard to argue that you can't get value from 36.  But, since you can only use 1 active at a time and each build will not need all of them, you can, again, get 75% of the value for these by doing 15-18 E-PL's.  Not has high as the 90% from Heroics, but still pretty strong.  And the value of the AC, HP, Absorption kinda fades at cap with the bloated damage and attacks of LE and Reaper mobs in level 30+ quests.  Relatively balanced.

Racial, however, is almost entirely back loaded.  The 1st life in every race is useless.  The 2nd life will be valuable about half the time, depending on build.  The 3rd life in each race is the prize.  And the completionist feat doesn't come at 1 each, like with Heroic and Epic.  It is at the full 30.  So completionist and triple completionist are the same thing here.  That means that if you have a 3 stat build, there are 6 races you want the +1 from.  That is 12 lives to get +2 to each of those stats.  (assuming that you don't need wisdom or strength.  Those you get to skip 2 lives since there is only one race for those).  At which point you have 25% of the power potential.  If you get the 3rd life and get 6 racial AP, now you have about 50% of the power.  At 18 PL's.  Over half way done and only 50% of the power.  You don't cross 75% of the power until you are 25+ lives in.  Depending on how highly you value +2 to all stats.  This is a very backloaded system.

The problem is that power gamers and whales will go full triple Heroic, triple epic, and triple racial.  Regardless of the fact that the systems are front loaded.  They have proved this 3 times now (heroic, epic, and iconic).  They will buy boxes and xp pots and spend time in game for 1% or 2% power boost.  Because, as Skoodge said, they are emotionally invested and obssessed.

The more casual group, they only want what matters to their build.  They are looking to maximize return on investment.  They will spend (money and/or time) if the value proposition works.  You can lose their investment if the value proposition isn't there. 

So, the correct strategy is to cater to the more casual group.  Make the long grind, sure.  But set it up as diminishing returns.  That won't stop the 40+ hour per week crew from going the distance or the whales from buying the distance.  But you want to make 85% of the value in the first 40% of the effort.  So that the 15-25 hour per week crew, and the 40 hour per week alt crew, and more moderate spenders stay engaged.  To use an economic term "price elasticity"  which means "how much does price affect the purchase decision", you should not design your strategy around the inelastic group.  You should design it around the elastic one.

It is called the "micro transaction" model for a reason.  You want a lot of people buying $5 and $20 DDO points purchases.  Not just a few $200 ones. 

I also never understood why ViP's can't buy adventure packs when on sale.  I've been a subscriber since 2008, when that's all there was.  if they allowed me to buy packs, I'd probably do so when they are on sale even though I don't ever plan on not being a ViP.  Seems like easy money.   

  
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Re: SSG fails at capitalism - summer sales sucked
Reply #4 - Jul 21st, 2017 at 4:24pm
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My main problem is SSG hasn't rolled out anything new to sell.

I've got 15,000 DDO points, I'm not buying XP pots or consumables. Aside from the occasional adventure new pack(I already own all the rest. Yes, even the shit ones), what do they have to offer me?

Fuck-nothing. That's why I've had 15,000 TP since the last triple bonus points sale.
  

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Re: SSG fails at capitalism - summer sales sucked
Reply #5 - Jul 21st, 2017 at 4:29pm
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A lot of bad decisions were made by true idiots, and now they have the force of tradition. Collectively, those "traditional" choices are what define the culture. The force of Turbine culture still weighs heavily on SSG. They feel bold and transgressive if they openly admit there's a bug. Fixing typos feels to them like Woodstock felt to the hippies.
  

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Re: SSG fails at capitalism - summer sales sucked
Reply #6 - Jul 25th, 2017 at 9:46am
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Asheras wrote on Jul 21st, 2017 at 10:49am:
I have seen some decisions that I don't agree with.  The racial TR system is another example of flawed logic. 

The Heroic TR and Epic TR systems are front and middle loaded.  You get the most bang for your buck out of getting 3x in a handful of classes that provide value to your build and then getting 1x of the rest.  That is probably around 16-18 lives.  At that point, the remaining 24-26 lives are either no value or minor value for your end build.  The only thing triple heroic completionist does is give you the flexibility to make the character anything you want with full power levels.  You just need to gear it.  But, assuming you decided this character is always a melee (of some sort) or always ranged or always a caster, you can get 50% of the power with 6-9 PL's and 90% of the power with 16-18.  Those last 24-26 lives is for that meager 10% and the flexibility down the road. 

Iconics is all front loaded, since you have no completionist feat.  Get the ones that work for your build and skip the others.  Since they are mostly defensive (fort, mrr, prr, dodge, positive SP) it's hard to argue that any of them aren't valuable, but you can make a case to skip dodge on heavy armor builds, since you dodge cap easily without it.  The Iconics are easy though because you get them with a heroic PL (double dip) without having to run 1-30.  Adding in that 15-30 for 2 PL's is very attractive.  That alone probably sold a lot of Iconic purchases. 

Epic PL's, are, again, front loaded.  Getting all is generally unnecessary for a lot of builds.  You get the extra twist (completionist feat) after 12 lives (3 in each sphere).  Since the passives are all defensive, it's hard to argue that you can't get value from 36.  But, since you can only use 1 active at a time and each build will not need all of them, you can, again, get 75% of the value for these by doing 15-18 E-PL's.  Not has high as the 90% from Heroics, but still pretty strong.  And the value of the AC, HP, Absorption kinda fades at cap with the bloated damage and attacks of LE and Reaper mobs in level 30+ quests.  Relatively balanced.

Racial, however, is almost entirely back loaded.  The 1st life in every race is useless.  The 2nd life will be valuable about half the time, depending on build.  The 3rd life in each race is the prize.  And the completionist feat doesn't come at 1 each, like with Heroic and Epic.  It is at the full 30.  So completionist and triple completionist are the same thing here.  That means that if you have a 3 stat build, there are 6 races you want the +1 from.  That is 12 lives to get +2 to each of those stats.  (assuming that you don't need wisdom or strength.  Those you get to skip 2 lives since there is only one race for those).  At which point you have 25% of the power potential.  If you get the 3rd life and get 6 racial AP, now you have about 50% of the power.  At 18 PL's.  Over half way done and only 50% of the power.  You don't cross 75% of the power until you are 25+ lives in.  Depending on how highly you value +2 to all stats.  This is a very backloaded system.

The problem is that power gamers and whales will go full triple Heroic, triple epic, and triple racial.  Regardless of the fact that the systems are front loaded.  They have proved this 3 times now (heroic, epic, and iconic).  They will buy boxes and xp pots and spend time in game for 1% or 2% power boost.  Because, as Skoodge said, they are emotionally invested and obssessed.

The more casual group, they only want what matters to their build.  They are looking to maximize return on investment.  They will spend (money and/or time) if the value proposition works.  You can lose their investment if the value proposition isn't there. 

So, the correct strategy is to cater to the more casual group.  Make the long grind, sure.  But set it up as diminishing returns.  That won't stop the 40+ hour per week crew from going the distance or the whales from buying the distance.  But you want to make 85% of the value in the first 40% of the effort.  So that the 15-25 hour per week crew, and the 40 hour per week alt crew, and more moderate spenders stay engaged.  To use an economic term "price elasticity"  which means "how much does price affect the purchase decision", you should not design your strategy around the inelastic group.  You should design it around the elastic one.

It is called the "micro transaction" model for a reason.  You want a lot of people buying $5 and $20 DDO points purchases.  Not just a few $200 ones. 

I also never understood why ViP's can't buy adventure packs when on sale.  I've been a subscriber since 2008, when that's all there was.  if they allowed me to buy packs, I'd probably do so when they are on sale even though I don't ever plan on not being a ViP.  Seems like easy money.   


I agree with all of this.

However, I still stick to my Asberger's Assertion.

My brother-in-law is an engineer, and he once (while having a moment) described his thought process.

Basically, when faced with a "fork in the road", most people (Neuro-typicals as he calls them) will: Stop, look down both roads, assess, and choose.

If one road is CLEARLY IMPASSABLE, or full of pot-holes, they simply choose the other road.

Not so with Captain Aspy...

He will travel ALL THE WAY DOWN THE IMPASSABLE ROAD, check the road-block, measure EVERY POT HOLE, assess the state of his car, then drive ALL THE WAY BACK.

Then he will REVIEW THE PATH DATA. Then and ONLY then, will he go down the clearly open road (while measuring the time, distance and number of road signs).

Lateral thinking or pragmatism doesn't factor into the decision. Both paths are equally unquantified unknowns, to his mind.

This seems to be the process at work with SSG.

Except they keep going back and measuring the pot-holes because "their data says" the car should be able to clear the distance.

Aspergers are VERY prone to getting caught in Autistic feedback loops when faced with data that conflicts with their expected outcomes.

Again, the notion that their data might be incorrect or that ALL the variables haven't been accounted for never factors into their thinking.
« Last Edit: Jul 25th, 2017 at 9:51am by Metal-Beast »  

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Re: SSG fails at capitalism - summer sales sucked
Reply #7 - Jul 27th, 2017 at 7:42pm
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Skoodge wrote on Jul 21st, 2017 at 1:33am:
They're scared to give a real discount because "they'll buy it at full price eventually."

No, fucking idiots, no they won't!


They already moved on to playing other games.
Sad. But true.
  
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Re: SSG fails at capitalism - summer sales sucked
Reply #8 - Jul 27th, 2017 at 10:32pm
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The summer sales were a bit disappointing.

Should have, among other things, put Bladeforged on sale. My wife definitely would have bought it and I'm sure many folks would have as well.
  

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