Since the addition of the Cartel Market and Free to Play option in Game Update 1.5, Star Wars: The Old Republic has seen a resurgence. Servers are full, the game is vibrant and we have gotten reports from BioWare that all their metrics are amazingly good. We hope to find out on January 30th how good, when EA has their latest quarterly financial status call. Until then, all we have to go on are carefully worded statements from the development and leadership team at BioWare Austin.
Crushed it.
It’s not that hard to imagine the success however, as there have been many anecdotal stories of folks spending large sums of real world money on Cartel Coins, the in-game currency that is granted monthly as a stipend to Subscribers and can also be purchased through the SWTOR website.
Coins are sold in packs of 450 for $4.99 (USD), 1050 for $9.99 (USD), 2400 for $19.99 (USD) or 5500 for $39.99 (USD). Assuming everyone buys the best deal package of 5500 coins, coins roughly go for 138 per dollar or 90 coins per dollar if bought in packs of 450. These are the two bases I will use for price comparison.
Hipster Kitty won’t ever unsubscribe.
Pricing Strategy
There isn’t a lot known on how items are priced or packaged. In speaking with Corey Butler, Producer of the Cartel Market, he discussed how the cartel packs are packaged in “shipments” together and then staged for release in the Cartel Market store. That makes sense for the Cartel Packs, however, the rest of the market seems ran differently. While packs come out at certain cycles, there have been almost weekly updates to the Cartel Market with new armor sets, items, pets and other items. For the most part, the weekly updates revolve around adaptive armor sets that are not class or level restricted and sell for 1400 coins ($10/$15 USD).
Most of the recent concern has come on the cost of the Life Day Holiday Item Pack which consisted of the following items:
- ● Czerka LD-1 Celebrator
- ● Life Day Attire(Life Day Vestments, Lower Robe, and Boots)
- ● Life Day Holo-Tree
- ● Life Day Orb
- ● Life Day Tinsel Bomb
This pack sold for 2400 coins ($17/$27 USD). You could also buy the items individually but for a higher cost. Buying each item individually added up to 3720 coins ($26/$41 USD). This pack garnered some fairly angry responses from players who felt not only that these items should have been offered for free to celebrate an in-game event or through some form of in-game mission or quest. The items were social in nature, added no real in-game benefit and seemed radically overpriced. The pack was eventually said to be put on sale however, the price never actually changed, further irritating some fans. The pack was removed from the store on January 22nd and hopes grew that Cartel Market pricing issues might be going away.
However in the same patch, BioWare introduced a new mount, the Czerka CR-17 Incendia which is selling for 1800 coins($13/$20 USD). While the mount is impressive, many players seem to be upset again at the pricing of the item. Concern over the costs of items in the cartel market now seems to be growing as we haven’t seen any indication of them adjusting prices based off of player feedback.
TOO. DAMN. HIGH.
How Do Others Do This?
One good barometer of pricing items like this is to look at how other games price their items. While World of Warcraft isn’t a Free-to-Play game like SWTOR is, they do sell some items through their online Blizzard store. They sell mounts, pets and character re-customization and transfers.
A mount bought through Blizzard is $25 USD. While looking at this at face value, one would think that they are charging more than SWTOR. The difference is that mounts in World of Warcraft are account bound, meaning any character you have or any character you create in the future will get this mount in their mail. In SWTOR, each item you purchase, for the most part, is only usable on that one character. There are some account unlocks, but those are mostly for features such as inventory space, cargo bay storage space, etc.
Star Trek Online offers different items that aren’t easy to compare to SWTOR items, however the majority of unlocks in STO are account bound as well. If you unlock ships, you are able to unlock them across all characters. When items are usable across all characters present and future, players feel like they are getting a good value for their money.
Kind of explains my whole article in one meme.
Core Issue
One of the issues with SWTOR before it went Free-to-Play is that players didn’t feel like it wasn’t worth the monthly subscription fee. Players had an issue justifying the cost with the value and we might be seeing an issue with this again. It seems that BioWare (and to some extent EA) are looking to see how much people will pay for items by putting them up for higher costs and seeing what the reaction is. I admit, it is impossible for me to know if these items are successes for BioWare since I don’t have access to their metrics, however, I believe there is a silent group who have no issue paying for this. I also believe that there is a fairly vocal group who are unhappy with the costs. The big question ends up being if the complainers have a valid point, or if it is just an issue of people not wanting to spend money on things.
I’m torn with this issue. I have no problem spending money on items in the Cartel Shop when they are a good value. However, there are times I may take a plunge and purchase items I might have concerns with. I did not think the Life Day Pack was priced well. That being said, I did purchase it. I feel the same way about the new mount as well, however this time I will not be purchasing it. I can’t justify spending almost $20 (USD) on a mount for one character. I also have a tough time spending money on armor sets that are in game in other ways and were just added as recolored versions/adaptive sets. Seems to lack creativity on the part of BioWare and points toward content for contents sake.
Worst. Armor. Ever.
Where the Pricing Issues Begin To Break Down
One thing that continues to eat away at me is how they are pricing their Cartel Market items in comparison to other aspects of the game. The first digital game expansion, Rise of the Hutt Cartel is currently selling for $9.99 (USD) for Subscribers or $19.99 (USD) for Free and Preferred Players. When I compare the price and the features we are getting from this expansion against the costs of items in the Cartel Market, I begin to scratch my head. Why does a single mount cost more than an entire new planets worth of content that I can access across all my characters? Why is one set of armor worth more than this expansion? What is the reasoning behind this?
One of the common responses from people is “If you don’t like the pricing, don’t buy it”. That argument makes sense in some respects, however without voicing concerns, BioWare will only see a subsection of folks buying an item and assuming that everyone is happy with it. I think we, as a community, owe it to ourselves to bring concerns respectfully to BioWare. Staying quiet or refusing to buy things only proves half a point. I think we, as a community, truly want to make things better.
Not sure if fry or just very squinty…
Where Does It Go From Here?
The future of the market is full of possibilities. I feel that the market is the best addition to the game since launch. It offers a great way to make sure that the game I love stays financially viable in a environment of heavy competition with other MMO’s. As I do when I write about issues like this, I offer some suggestions on things that I believe can be done to help improve.
Make Items Account Unocks – Buy a mount? You unlock it for your account. Buy an armor set? It unlocks for your account and can be retrieved on any character. This would seem at face value that people would spend less money on armor sets, however, I believe that would be offset by folks who wouldn’t usually buy the armor sets or mounts to wade into the pool since they know they will have it across all characters. I also think by doing this, BioWare could increase the cost of the item as well. Charging $25 for a mount, as Blizzard does, is a perfect example.
Offer Unique Items – This week, one of the new market armor sets was Sand Person armor. While it is technically different from the other two versions offered in game, it isn’t different enough to really get people excited. Rare, unique armor that can only be obtained from the store gets people interested. Putting armor that is based on existing armor sets in the game doesn’t generate a lot of buzz.
A Dialogue with the Community – BioWare has a habit of saying “We are listening to feedback” and while I believe it, I also feel that a lot of the time it must be like trying to drink from a fire hose. Sending out surveys, posting specific feedback threads or initiating dialogue with fan sites, much like Eric Musco and Corey Butler did in response to my previous Cartel Market article. Players want to feel like their opinion is valued and that they are being heard. Posting a post in a thread doesn’t really give them that feeling.
I think overall we are seeing good things come from the Cartel Market. My goal for this isn’t to try to constantly pull it apart and complain. My goal is to see this market become an industry leader in western Free-to-Play MMO’s and become the wild success that I believe we, as players, know it can be.
So I ask you loyal reader, what are your thoughts on these items in the market? Do you feel they are overpriced/under priced? As always, we enjoy your thoughts and comments so please leave them in the comments section below!
SWTOR Community Cantina Audio: Q&A Live With Musco, Hickman, And Schubert
I would love to see something implemented like WoW’s Account wide mounts, titles and pets in general not just the Cartel Market. Codex being account wide would be nice as well. I would however be much more likely to buy mounts if they were account wide. The gear off the market however doesn’t really need to be account wide but at least bound to legacy and that would help.
That being said with the cost to pull mods and augments in all your displayable gear costing over 700k to remove all mods (9k X 3), augment removal (3k I believe), buy augment kits from GTN (40k depending on market) and the install cost of the kit (30k) to 7 pieces of gear which is very prohibitive to free to play and even myself as a subscriber who doesn’t do dailies as much as he should. It makes me feel like I should find one set and stick to it which doesn’t help EA/Bioware sell more and/or newer sets. It’s unfortunate as I see some of the most recent released sets I would really like to use. All that on top of the $10 for the set.
Overall I feel broke in game (and maybe out of game too) and that’s never a good feeling while trying to enjoy the experience.
Huh, that’s an interesting point. I wouldn’t be surprised if some time in the near future they added a “Free mod extraction for a day/week” item to the Cartel Market. Actually, I’m surprised there isn’t one already, it would basically be a license to print money.
I had high hopes for the Cartel Market and the F2P option in SWTOR only to have them dashed when they came out for the reasons you’ve sited: high cost and unlocks not being account wide. The best market and F2P model I’ve seen is Turbine’s for Lord of the Rings Online. Besides having a good pricing value on their items and knowing which items to have account wide vs single character, they have a good system for earning store credit in game so you can eventually buy some things without spending money – this practice actually encourages players to earn some credit and then pay for more to make up the difference oftentimes. I’d like to see EA take a similar approach. The one they have now makes them appear to care more about squeezing every last penny from the game they can rather than focusing on making the game as enjoyable for players as possible.
I /totally/ think they need to implement a deeds system like LotRO to allow players to earn cartel coins in-game. I think that would stave off some of the aggro /and/ give folks don’t want to spend real money on coins (whose monthly allocation isn’t enough) something to work towards. Sure it’s a bit of a grind, but it gives players another option, and it also makes players feel like they’re getting an additional reward for their time in-game.
I agree completely on this. I wish there was a way to earn coins in-game. STO and GW2 have ways to trade in-game gold for gems/dilithium to purchase other items on their markets. It’s less direct, but it’s still ‘earn it by playing’. It would be nice to incentivize people who play the game a lot and spend time there.
A long time ago I suggested on the forum that they allow us to earn Cartel Coins ingame, however when F2P launched I realized that’s not necessary because you can pretty much buy everything in the GTN.
If I buy an XP Boost with credits, Bioware still gets the money because somebody paid real cash for it at some point, before they put it up on the GTN.
Now let’s suppose I have Cartel Coins I earned through some ingame activity somehow, I go ahead and buy what I need from the Cartel Market, the result? Bioware gets no money at all.
At least with the current system there is a way to buy Cartel Items without having to spend real money yourself, but since someone else paid for those items Bioware still gets paid.
There is no need to earn Cartel Coins ingame, just earn credits and use those to buy what you want
Another thing about LotRO (I’m a lifer there) is that there special mounts that are resistant to characters being knocked off and move at max speed allowed in the game about about $20 US. Perhaps they got the idea for the price of the new speeded from LotRO’s cash shop?
I did get the last mount because i know what i’m paying for.
But i will never again pay for a cartel pack, talk about svindel !
And that mounts that cost this much is not accound bound just goes
to show how greedy Eaware have become.As it is now i feel there is no reason to pay a sub when as a subscriber i even have to pay for content.What other MMOs do right eaware does all wrong and they have been doing it wrong sinse way before launch.Question is how many people play the game in 6 month when they are done with the greed that is Eaware and the cartel shop, a shop were they charge players ALOT for hollyday evwents things without even having a event, makes me sick !
Most of my perspective is from other games that went F2P, and thus, I don’t really have as much aggro about the pricing of mounts as most other TOR players seem to have. Paying 20 bucks for a mount for a single character is standard operating procedure for LotRO, so while TOR fans are going all /seethe about it, LotRO players are already well used to it and pretty much chill and mellow. It almost deserves a Condescending Wonka, in fact.
The differences in the two fanbases are actually quite remarkable in their reactions to how the in-game stores work and the prices of things, and it’s almost entertaining to watch TOR players wind themselves up into a froth over something other games do (and successfully, there isn’t a huge campaign to get LotRO to change things up).
That being said, I wouldn’t /mind/ if mounts and pets became account or even just legacy-wide. Armor…? Hmm. I’d say if the armor was strictly cosmetic and only used for a specific look, yes, it should be account or legacy-wide, because it offers no stat bonuses or anything to be used in actual non-roleplay gameplay, but we don’t have a cosmetic gear system like other games have. However, I don’t have much of a problem with actual gear being priced to encourage multiple purchases. Maybe bring it down to like 1000 coins for a full set, but 1440 doesn’t really strike me as ZOMG, THEY’RE PICKING MY POCKET.
With reference to the expansion being so cheap compared to optional items you can buy in the store? That’s actually a VERY good marketing strategy. Look at how WoW and LotRO priced their most recent expansions. To be fair, it looks like RotHC isn’t going to be as huge of an expansion as, say, Mists of Pandaria or Riders of Rohan, but I would have expected that the ‘for subscribers’ price point to be 20 bucks and the PSP/F2P price to be $30. Buying an expansion to continue playing the game isn’t really an option, so I think whoever set the $9.99 for subscribers price point made a wise decision, because they /do/ have to worry about those players who are on the fence thinking about giving up their subscription, and with a number of folks erroneously flinging the phrase ‘pay to win’ around, this is a good way to head off some of that aggro.
Honestly? I think at least part of the instant aggro from a lot of the playerbase is less about the pricing of things and the methodology and more about the automatic assumption that BioWare (or more commonly, EA) is doing stuff to screw the players, so the discussions start off with something of a closed mind already, rather than giving a fully fair benefit of the doubt.
I prefer my toons to look different. I don’t like them to have the same cookie cutter appearance and style as another toon in my lineup. Could just be me but I have to get into the right mind set for each class and character. I think account wide is not so great. If people want account wide do it for the generic speeders in the game not the rares and sold mounts.
However I am all for bound to legacy for armor and mounts. Buy one set of armor you should be able to mix and match pieces anytime you want. Same goes for mounts but you should just get one. Which leads me to the legacy vault and legacy crafting materials vault. That is one thing that so many other mmo’s have from the get go. It is a sorely missing feature.
Ack I took to long thinking my post out and you beat me to the punch. I agree on pricing I came from EQ2 and the mounts were in the same range. They were allowed to be traded between toons though.
I bought one allotment of 5500 Coins, and I’m a subscriber on a 6 month renewal, so I’ve got a fair cache of coins. I still view those coins as if they were real money, however.
Problem is, I’m having a hard time deciding on where to spend them.
A speeder on one character for $13? No thank you.
Global unlocks? Already had them all.
Character perks? I can afford the ones I want with credits.
Cartel Pack? Why spend real money for a chance for an item I want when I can just buy it on the GTN for credits?
Outfits? It’d have to really speak to me for me to spend $10 and so far, none of them have.
XP Boosts? Bought on the GTN for credits too.
Cargo Bays? Just realized the account ones sell for 300k on the GTN … brb … there we go, bought 3, now I don’t need those either.
So I suppose part of the ‘issue’ is that the ratio of real money to in-game currency weighs heavily in my favor. If I can get it for credits, that will always be better for me.
But when it’s only available for real money, they really over-priced stuff in my mind. I’d spend $20 on an account wide mount. I’d spend about $5 on a single-toon mount or outfit. I considered the Gamorrean Axe. The rest, not so much…
Extremely overpriced. The only reason I’m still playing every day is by making myself believe they’re still experimenting. XD
Also, knock-off protection greater than speeder piloting license 3? Sounds like pay to win…as an open world PvPer I’m concerned.
I would buy more stuff off the cartel market if they were account wide, however i do still want to buy stuff off the gtn. If they make it account wide and every charecter gets one via mail, they need to bind it tothem on pick up. However i think 1, just 1, should be given unbound to the current charecter that is online during the purchase. That item will be unbound and placed in their inventory so they could put it on the gtn if they wish. They will not recieve it in the mail to though. Just a suggestion because sometimes i buy items off the gtn that i only want for the specific charecter and most of the time I am only interested in just 1 part, ie the helmet.
“One of the common responses from people is “If you don’t like the pricing, don’t buy it”. That argument makes sense in some respects, however without voicing concerns, BioWare will only see a subsection of folks buying an item and assuming that everyone is happy with it. ”
This is a nigh universal issue with in-game item shops. “Voicing concerns” is irrelevant unless you are willing to back it up by either canceling your subscription or reducing your additional spending on Cartel Coins. If even a single player purchases the item, while 99.9% complain but do not alter their spending, the publisher makes more money by selling the item than by not selling the item. (They still have to turn a profit on the time needed to create the item, but this generally is not the limiting factor.)
Since TOR went F2P, i have maintained my subscription AND spent about $500 on Cartel coins. Ouch
I think “if you don’t like it, shut up and don’t buy it.” really does apply here. We’re not entitled to the pack. There are lots of other mounts and gear in the Cartel Market that are much better looking. It’s the same as if a car you’re looking at is priced more than it’s worth. Forget about it and go buy one you are happy with.
I covered attitudes like this in my post. Shutting up and ignoring the problem never fixed anything. If noone spoke up about things they didnt like in the game, nothing would get fixed. Doing what i did by voicing concerns and offering suggestions on how to fix it is how i feel things should get addressed in this game. Just ignoring things we dont like is a lazy way to avoid being actively involved in changing the game.
That’s a good point Brian, but where the cartel market is concerned actions (buying/not buying the products) will probably speak louder than words. People should voice concerns but Bioware has the data about what is selling in the shop. If complaints on an item make up 5% of the player base but 30% of the player base are buying it (like the speeder could be) then the complaints probably wont be addressed much. I fully expect the shop to be driven by profit and that the reductions and sales will be on those items not meeting their internal projects for sales. Having dealt with LotRO store for a few years now that “seems” to be how it has gone there.
I’m with you here about the price of the expansion. I see it as a blades and razors thing. Keep the price way down for the expansion to avoid turning players away, and keep making money with the Cartel Market.
A high priced expansion could be a bottleneck where people decide that the expansion is too high and just stop playing altogether.
TOO. DAMN. HIGH.
As has been said before in LotRO the in-Store mounts are 1995 Turbine Points which add up to $20 and those are among the most sold items… besides a little rant at start there hasnt really been any discussion about it anymore and people are actually looking forward to all kinds of new mounts Turbine presented during their F2P period. Most popular are the so-called Class-Mounts and i have to admit to have bought several of them…
The only discussion about a Store Mount recently in LotRO was actually the introduction of a Hobby Horse (a toy Stick Horse) which was priced $50…
As i see it BioWare is still learning but they do ok and in my opinion are improving as they go along… this doesnt mean there will be nothing to rant about in the future but overall picture is looking pretty good!
Paad’s
Malevolents of Xibalba
The Progenitor
Is it cynical of me to think that they have bought out a premium pricing policy for the Brian’s and the “B”s (two posts up,$500 ? wow) of the world but when they have drained these guys wallets they will reprice downwards ? and use community out rage as the excuse ?
I do look at it that the two “B”s are paying for the game at the moment ! and I’m not, TY guys
I read your comment 5 times and i still have no idea what it meant. Can you try again? Not being a douche, im just super confused with what you wrote.
Translated/paraphrased:
“Is it cynical of me to think that they’re deliberately overpricing things right now to milk the people who *are* willing to blow three digits on coins, and that right around when those people start to run out of money is when they’ll start lowering prices ‘due to community concerns?’”
well done Brian a lot of what you wrote is mostly how I see how our market is today. however I’ve never bought the life day pack way to high for what it was. If they made speeders or armor account bound then I would definitely go out and buy them probably spend even more money to get them. But because they only go to 1 character I cannot justify spending any coins on them. If they don’t want to do acount bound then lower the price by 2 thirds.
Speeders being account bound would make sense.
Armour, honestly, don’t really care. the only time I would want it account bound is if I wanted it for someone of the same class. I’m fine with it being single character only (though it would be nice if they came with some basic level appropriate mods for the ones that don’t). Though the only one I bought was the Jedi Valiant one because armour that looks like that is not that easy to find in game.
Will never buy a pack, not worth it to gamble.
The new pricing model was created SPECIFICALLY to get as much money as possible out of as many people as possible. That is, after all, pretty much why anyone sells anything, anywhere
The only thing anyone needs to ask themselves is if they’re willing to pay the sticker price or not. If not, then shut up and move on. It’s a videogame. Having a thousand dollar legendary mount does not make you cool, it makes you out of pocket a thousand dollars, and therefore a moron, for trying to impress people with status items.
Buy or buy not. There is no try.
Actually, anyone who does anything with consumer pricing will tell you that what you just said is completely wrong. Pricing is about finding a specific price point that brings the most profit for the company while giving the buyer the best perceived value. Yes, every company is in business to make money, but that doesnt mean that they will do anything to make money including ripping everyone off.
Consumers always will decide if something is worth the price to them before they buy. They are smart like that. If something is overpriced, they will make their feelings known. Thats how this process works. Either buy not buying of complaining to the people who price it. Just saying “if you dont like it, shut up and dont buy it” is, as i said to another commenter, a completely lazy out on not being an active participant in trying to fix the game i love.
I bought the Life day pack. I love the speeder, ridiculous as it looks. I probably should have just bought the speeder and the robes, since the rest of it is about as useful as rancor lice, but oh well.
Yes, I definitely wish the mounts were account bound. I’d consider buying them more. I’m not planning on buying the new one.
I’m fine with armor being character-bound. I just wish it wasn’t a recolored version of all the other in-game armor. I have zero incentive to buy something just because it happens to be happy green in this pack instead of happy blue or happy red.
The only armor that has remotely caught my eye in the last few additions has been the Agent armor, since it looks novel and very much like something my Agent would be thrilled to wear. I’m waiting until I’ve built up the subscription stipend to get that set, however.
As for letting BioWare know how we feel, I have no issue with people liking or disliking something and expressing it. How is BW going to learn that they’re doing something that’s taking them down the wrong road financially if we don’t give them a heads up? By the way, BioWare, you can only re-color the same set of armor so many times before we all notice. At least tweak the art a _little_.
The $25 account bound speeder makes perfect sense for a subscription game. Nearly all the money is made from the subs, while the semi-annual bonus mount is a nice bump in income. Most players have numerous alts without penalty, so account bound items are very appealing.
The $15 per-character speeder makes sense for a F2P, game-store driven game. Nearly all the money is made from the market and players tend to focus on fewer alts because of game restrictions. Designers take a basic model and re-color it seven times and tweak the barding and the reins slightly and offer you 15 models to choose from, hoping one will catch your eye.
Then, they do it again next month.
Because they are offered so frequently, collectors would rather have cheaper mounts they buy more often for a single character than much more expensive ones that they can purchase less frequently, even if they are account-wide (since account wide may only mean 2-4 characters).
This is the tension present in the SWTOR market, right now. The store is operating as if it were serving a F2P game, but I suspect that it’s currently making most of its money from subscription players.
“Account-wide” is the term I’m referring to, not “account bound.”
Bioware and listening to player feedback ? You gotta be joking. The only time “player feedback” comes into equation is in their PR spins and marketing talk.
[...] Cartel Market Pricing Article by [...]