What is a reasonable price for an item? How rare should rare get?
SirKewberth
EdenForum Administrator, Forum Moderator, Game Developer
in General Chat
A question that has come up over the years is the price of items. I've had players write to me about item prices many times over the last few years with completely different perspectives. I have my own views on these things (some are just thoughts with no concrete answer) but I'd like to hear what the players think of it in general, and maybe generate some clearer ideas about how we manage the game going forward both for us and for players. With regards to this I'm talking about true in-game pricing and NOT about things that get out of whack like in the recent hacking of the game. So this is only about when all things are operating normally.
There's a few considerations to this that I can see off the top of my head.
A player with money may attempt to artificially raise the price of an item... perhaps to make more later, or maybe just to be the only guy in the game with a certain hat or pet. Is this something we want? Is this fun?
Items that have high values are targets for people to hack/cheat/steal -- do we want to put players in the position of buying an item for 500$ of real money and then losing it to a scam? Is that the kind of environment we want in the game generally? There will always be rarer items but should there be some level of control. Maybe an item locking mechanism (something proposed) would help.. but ultimately people may want to trade these items again.
How much should a virtual hat be worth? We don't charge too much for in-game items with the exception of maybe a few special pets/cars, but prices rise over time. Considering that ultimately a game like this is transient should we consider this or not meddle at all? Should Items be allowed to completely dissapear. What if the only owner of active halloween masks decides to quit the game and play another game. Should no player ever see that mask again? Is that fun? Seems like a waste of models/texture space in a game that has limits on these things.
Sure some people may have a lot of money and maybe it's worth it for them to buy a hat for 500$, but I don't even know what to think of this, and it honestly wasn't even something I thought too much about before cubic. It does make me a little uneasy. It's not really the goal of this game to have such expensive items. The goal of the game is for it to be fun for the most players possible. In part that means you do have collectable and rare items. There is something to that. Nothing in the game would have any value if all players had "god mode" and could magic up whatever they wanted. But is there a reasonable limit to this sort of thing? I'm not sure.
My gut says that when items start to be valued over 500k cubits it's not unreasonable for us to inject some into the economy to stabilise the price a little and to prevent the items from dissapearing from the game entirely and new people come and older players leave.
What are your thoughts?
There's a few considerations to this that I can see off the top of my head.
A player with money may attempt to artificially raise the price of an item... perhaps to make more later, or maybe just to be the only guy in the game with a certain hat or pet. Is this something we want? Is this fun?
Items that have high values are targets for people to hack/cheat/steal -- do we want to put players in the position of buying an item for 500$ of real money and then losing it to a scam? Is that the kind of environment we want in the game generally? There will always be rarer items but should there be some level of control. Maybe an item locking mechanism (something proposed) would help.. but ultimately people may want to trade these items again.
How much should a virtual hat be worth? We don't charge too much for in-game items with the exception of maybe a few special pets/cars, but prices rise over time. Considering that ultimately a game like this is transient should we consider this or not meddle at all? Should Items be allowed to completely dissapear. What if the only owner of active halloween masks decides to quit the game and play another game. Should no player ever see that mask again? Is that fun? Seems like a waste of models/texture space in a game that has limits on these things.
Sure some people may have a lot of money and maybe it's worth it for them to buy a hat for 500$, but I don't even know what to think of this, and it honestly wasn't even something I thought too much about before cubic. It does make me a little uneasy. It's not really the goal of this game to have such expensive items. The goal of the game is for it to be fun for the most players possible. In part that means you do have collectable and rare items. There is something to that. Nothing in the game would have any value if all players had "god mode" and could magic up whatever they wanted. But is there a reasonable limit to this sort of thing? I'm not sure.
My gut says that when items start to be valued over 500k cubits it's not unreasonable for us to inject some into the economy to stabilise the price a little and to prevent the items from dissapearing from the game entirely and new people come and older players leave.
What are your thoughts?
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
In my opinion, i don’t think virtual items should go over 100k cubits, it’s probably something you’ll get bored of later.
I would like to point out that whoever thinks that there’s no problem in having an item worth 500k cubits is crazy, no offense but a lot of these players don’t even play the game and they complain about not having something rare and expensive so they can considerate it like a reward for playing the game for a long time, for example the motley sets.
I’m glad you’re getting opinions from the community, but then again, please don’t let one greedy person change your perspective about this issue.
I think that you should make like a realm with basic prices but also give some margin as to how high the price can go for example:
Let's say an item rn costs 20k ok? So in that realm you could put that item and under it you could write: item price:18k
Item rarity:rare
Price margin: 20k(or you could write in percentages but imo it is better if you just wrote an actual price as not everyone is great at maths)
But this is just a little suggestion and if you do not like it feel free to ignore it
But I also think there should be like a realm with LOADS of vends with basic items such as shirts and top hats and stuff where newbies can go and exchange them for something like cotton or grass(yeah idk this idea sounds stupid but whatever)
If a player buys everything and tries to make it more expensive of what it is, Then that item can be the prizes for the events & contests.
Not an exact price for example 100k!
It must be around 50-150k. (Estimate)
So that others still can buy it for cheap and sell for more, That is what most players like...
I believe that what you say about items going over 500k is accurate. I think that there should be some items that are worth 500k, If you are able to put in a sustainable amount of time into the game or would like to support it by buying cubits you should be able to get something that lets you "stand out", I believe that if all items capped at 100k the "business" aspect of the game would die down, the game is about building as well as a lot of other things. Also i agree that there is a need to inject certain items into the game however what i would like is that the amount of time in between item prices inflating and then them being injected is decreased, for example, the halo has been over 500k for a fair amount of time and the ram, for as long i can remember, the longer the time between the injection of items, the more people are going to be against you doing it.
Also, games like this lose a lot of players simply because they realize it will be impossible to get the one item they really want.
If you make everything worth very little, where will the money come from to support the servers?
The ram is a bit ridiculous, and maybe the krampus, but I think other prices are fine. You're bringing back some halos, so they won't be 800k anymore, which is good.
If you do have some items that are that rare, props to you for playing long enough to own them.
It's really common for mmo and free to play games to have such items.
It is an incentive for whales to spend. They pay for everyone else to play.
You may not like this fact, but it is true. A whale for those who don't know is a term for the 1-5% of players who purchase large amounts of currency or items with real world money in a free to play games.
I really dislike any outside intervention to the economy to be honest.
The market should dictate prices based on supply and demand.
If you start having realms of official prices and stop letting anything get expensive then what is the point of having loot boxes with items in them of different rarities.
You may as well just sell the items for that price in the store and bypass the rng of loot boxes.
I'm kinda for this to be honest. Loot boxes are not good for a minority of players with addictive personalities/gambling traits and is being made illegal slowly around the world (Belgium its illegal, eu are looking to follow suit.)
The amazing thing about this game is you can earn hundreds of thousands of cubits without having to spend a penny. All items are obtainable via grinding/mining/trading.
There are very few games in this space which offer that.
Most throw in premium currencies or near infinite grinds.
I'd say keep it as it is and maybe add more $ items on the store like the dragon pet.
Lastly, new items are way better than reusing old ones.
How awesome is the New Easter Umbrella right?
I'd prefer more stuff like that instead of bringing back old/still obtainable buy trading items.
OP items are fine, but OOP (Overly over-priced) items should be controlled by adding more from events. Current OOP items should be back in events, but never put them back in the pack as many whales will quit. There is too much damage, so you have to live with it now.
About the new rare items. releasing them yearly is the best thing you can do, since the rate from packs is so low to get that it would be OP but can never be OOP (*cough New Easter Umbrella). Starting from this year's Easter pack, I believe the rare items in the future will be controlled.
How much is OOP, then? To me, anything that is more expensive than the dragon pet is OOP (Price as the amount of cubits from a 10$ cubit purchase, NOT in-game price). There should be more $-only items in the game because it helps stabilising the economy. (After all, those are the only ones that should be OOP).
TL, DR: Don't put ex-rare items in the pack, hit new rare items down below the $-only items line. There should be more $-only items to help you with this. Or, make ex-rare items event-only from now on.
P/S: The next coolest thing we will have this summer should cost 9.99$ in Cubit Store, what do you think? From my experience of hoarding robes: Yes, it is fun to get a hold of a certain hat/pet (Or the majority of them), But no, this is not good at all.
Remember: When you "own" a certain item, you have the power to decide its fate. (Whether to raise/lower the price or entirely remove it) The same goes for every other items, realms, gaming experiences, etc... that we had/have in the game. Someone can just snap their fingers to delete everything I spent thousands of hours playing for.
No, it's not the kind of environment we want, but it happens everywhere. You can't deny it. No one can.
1- the prices will go down no matter what. Injecting the rares would speed it up but it wouldn't matter if too many of the same items r in da game. One dude goes ahead and buys say a rabbit head for 6k and then decides to sell it. He tries to sell it for 6.5k but no one buys. So he tries to sell it for 6k still no response. So he goes ahead to sell it for 5k it sells. Idk why but ppl just move on that one track ik from personal experience of trying to sell rares.
2- Most ppl r just greedy and want the prices to go down long enough for them to buy it for cheap and then sell it for skyhigh prices. And it's not necessary that only one person causes this even tho I can think of many ways of one person doing this. But then again it's possible, maybe more possible, with a group of ppl. Naturally a person would know a person who shares these goals and etc and then they could work together to reach their goal becauze, trust me, it only takes 2 vends with s.rares to convince someone that the price shut actually be the op price it is. I'm not saying that it's not a good idea to inject more rares to stabilize the prices but it's a big risk as injecting 1 too many or if a particularly greedy and ambitious person gets their hands on more then one rare then oof
You can control the economy but you also can't. Prices will always based be on players. I don't see how controlling items is a good thing. Now of course if some items rise to like 2mil+ then we have a problem. I see it as it's all about balance. Right now we have a good balance with ramm being 1mil-1.3mil, halo being 600k-700k, easter umb 500k-600k, krampus 500k-700k, mot set 200k-300k(these prices are just estimates atm because they will be lowering). We have 1 high item and a few semi high items that are in a good range. Their is a balance of prices right now we have a smooth transition between item prices. You have to build your way up. People talking about capping items at 100k is crazy, people already have millions of cubits.
For now I don't see a reason to cap on prices we are at a good balance right now I see no need.
Also well said @PontoZen.
But, I also think yearly 10-15 of each super rare needs to be given out to stabilize the price for some time. Like what was done with Ram week. The price still goes up, but it’s slowed down.
I have been watching the economy inflate for a year now. Every item in the game was inflating. Krampus had gone up 400k, halo had gone up 300k, easter umbrella had gone up 400k, black cats had gone up 200k. Every single super rare was inflating way too fast. I had assumed they would be stabilized with 15ish Krampus’ given away on Christmas, 15ish Halos given away on Valentines, and 15ish easter umbrellas given away during easter. What happened when they wheren’t given away? The Halo and Krampus went up 100k+ almost instantly. I am all for items being 100s of dollars, but 10-15 need to be given away every holiday to stabilize them from going up a couple million before the holiday comes around again. If 10-15 are given away, they would only go up 200-500k be the time the holiday comes around again.
Before somebody says ‘why did you cheat and make them less stable then???’
My goal was to buy only 1-2 of each super rare and introduce just enough cubits into the economy that there would be no choice but to giveaway 10-15 of every super rare and stabilize their prices.
Yes, that's right, But some items are not worth paying so much because it's not the real price it comes from a player who bought almost all of them from the community.
But if we have an official price of each clothes, players will know they won't pay more than what's in the official price's room, Otherwise they run their own risk when it comes down.
If the developers notice that the price rises beyond what is in the price's room, they hand out the item in the events as prizes... So that the price becomes neutral again, such as what is in the price room.
But that does not mean that no items should cost 1 million, I think it is now quite normal that a ram costs 750k-1mil.
Tbh stabilizing the prices would only improve half of the problem as most of the problem is the ppls attitudes
Common ''Rares'' (Noob Hats:) 30c - 70c (Builder hats would be an example)
Cheap Rares: 100c - 1k (Depends on what the item IS)
More expensive rares: (such as Angel Wings) 5k - 15k
Super Rares: (such as Krampuses) 100k - 500k (?)
Pet prices:
Dogs/Cats: 2k - 3.5k
Turkeys/Snowmen/Reindeers etc: 5k - 6.5k
Hoppers/Black Cats: 10k - 25k
Rams/Dragons: Between 750k and 850k (I think 1m is asking a bit too much)
before you say i’m a noob / triggered because i can’t afford things:
i have a halo, Easter umb, Wuvva pig amongst other rares. If rares were changed to be 100-200K i would personally be losing almost half a mill, maybe more (can’t be bothered to do math rn)
but i still think that it isn’t fair that someone who isn’t either lucky (i was gifted / won in raffles those items) Or doesn’t buy c, can’t get those.
edit: Also believe a lot of you who are saying rares should stay this price need to stop thinking about your own loss and begin thinking about the gain it’ll bring to others that will be able to buy things finally