That said, even I hesitated when I saw the 5$ price tag per themed statue or gardening pack. One might argue that it's unlikely that you will have the time to completely renovate a Greek and an Egyptian city, and so it's more likely that you will simply spend 10$ for the full customization options of your preferred civilization, but lets weigh the opportunity costs of those 10$ shall we? I can either spend those 10$ on a gimmick in a game, the novelty of which will quickly wear off, or I can go onto steam and purchase a game in itself, such as Terraria, which will guarantee many hours of fun gameplay spent in the company of friends, and well over 100 items with which to build houses, cities and customize your character with in that game.
It's slightly embarrassing actually: a game like Terraria has a development team of two, and delivers quality and quantity at cheap prices, yet Age of Empires with it's relatively massive development and marketing team decides that it, with its economics of scale, will recoup the money "lost" from offering fair prices for its premium content by ripping off customers on customization options that should really be included with the premium content.
I don't know who comes up with the pricing, but may I recommend a 5$ package containing all 40 items, rather than 5$ per 10 item package?
Keep in mind that those few customers who buy the 100$ season pass are also paying for "40$ worth" of plants and statues (presuming that the two upcoming new races also are released with the same options).
Anyway, it's hardly something to lose sleepover, but it is disappointing.
|||By now you should have understood that Microsoft is a cash leecher...|||I too think they charge too much for these vanity packs. For this price it should be possible to costumize your capital city much more. Just like the cities you can visit in the game, with much more 'outpost'-buildings (towers, walls, baracks, fortresses...), working villagers and soldiers.
|||Heh, I've been a paying customer with Microsoft since the days of MSDOS. They have literally earned thousands of dollars from me - I am sure they have earned thousands from most people here. While I hardly expect free stuff from them - they are a business - I don't expect them to offer good prices on premium content then try rip us off on the novelty stuff? It seems like a ridiculous way to leech cash. :P
Also, it seems a bit at odds with the new 'no-micro-transaction' business model of theirs.
EDIT: That's a good idea AfraidSinger: that would certainly make them a lot more worthwhile!
|||A cash leech off of vanity items in a video game played by an insignificant amount of the population... That is 100% absurd.
|||people buy them so how absurd is it really?
|||No, it's not. Think of the vanity packs as a bonus for the people who bought the season pass. I can't imagine any reason for anyone to buy them separately.
|||I bought mine (Bountiful Bushes) to test the Windows Live Games Marketplace :D
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Something is worth whatever people will pay for it. In case of luxury items that have no purpose other than their intrinsic value, $20 might be worth it to achieve a certain level of uniqueness.
Personally, not being able to afford some expensive bushes is not going to deter me from enjoying the game. The high cost of civilizations in the future, might. I can see me spending $5 on future civs depending on how different they are from the Greeks and Egyptians. Gaining a bonus or a unit here or there will not go down easy after $40 from the first two at $20.
|||The vanity items probably aren't worth it. But I have to ask myself - When I have my Celtic civilization, would I be tempted to buy special Celtic bushes and statues for my city? Probably.|||
"A cash leech off of vanity items in a video game played by an insignificant amount of the population... That is 100% absurd."
@ CR3ATED, thanks for the sarcasm. What's absurd is how obvious the cash leech is, and how contradictory it is to Microsoft's statement of 'Age of Empires Online will not feature subscription fees nor micro-transactions.'
Why do you think they gave micro-transactions, in a free to play game, special mention? They did because they wanted to let customers know that this 'new' business model would not rip them off, nor hassle them for continuous transactions. Why? So that they can create value for their customers so that hopefully, we keep coming back to make purchases in the long-run.
So, what do they do? They create four wholly inadequate micro-packages charging them at a high reservation price so that at the end of the day, the customers who do buy them at all are left indifferent between not having bought it and having bought it.
Great way to promote your new business model.
But hey, maybe it's not absurd after all.
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