Gem prices

[Lymond]

And the game is still in beta...

It's worth pointing out that the game itself is live - the german servers are identical in gameplay and have been out of beta for many months. The beta tag is appended to the international versions because the server infrastructure, game translation etc are new and not yet polished - the servers have been generally stable but we've all seen some of the really mangled english sentences used in places (and doubtless it's the same in other languages.) A lot of the work done by the volunteers in testing is suggesting alternative text for the new content.

[Mushii]

Ubisoft are a business so their job is to extract as much profit from this game as possible without leaving their customers feeling so fleeced that they will not come back or try the next Ubisoft product. In that respect I believe they priced most of the early items correctly since you didn't need them during the tutorial period but many players who enjoyed reaching level 20 found it worthwhile investing a little money to keep playing, and some players bought a lot of items. That seemed to buck the common trend of 98% of players of a "free to play" game refusing to buy anything. The settlers starter pack continued that trend - it's sold out in all the online retailers I know, suggesting that its popularity has completely outstripped their expectations. Well done Ubisoft, you got it right and reaped a nice return.

The most recent items have changed that trend significantly. Had I not obtained a Veteran with eggs I would have felt unable to justify spending the entire value of a retail game on just a single pixel person in TSO. Likewise the cost of the forthcoming mines seems truly fantastic, genuinely unachievable for anyone except the richest and of very little practical use - why buy a 20,000 gem building that will not make a single gem profit for 6 months? You could use far fewer gems to buy vast quantities of anything you wanted from the marketplace within days. It seems there is a new attitude at the company, swapping steady returns for maximum short term gain. Perhaps the company is really hurting for money and cannot afford to think long term? From a customer point of view it's a great shame.

Nicely Said

Mushii

[Morgy321]

well i find 20000 gems for the new endless copper ore factor to be kinda luny price it is on test if you like to see

[Trianam]

When I started this game, I thought I will spend 15ish euro a month on gems, it was a price I payed for WoW, and it is a price I'm willing to pay for any online game for as long as I find it entertaining.

Then I realized my 15euros aren't going to make much of a difference in my game because of the cost of the gem items so I just gave up on the idea. If the items do go down I may consider buying, but for the time being it's better for me to just log-in once a day and collect the daily reward, build nothing, buy nothing and just wait for the resources to amass.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, in every online game I played recently those microtransactions became true macrotransactions, some even being more expensive than the full-fledged game (take look at the Sims 3 store, prices of pixel furnishings are similar to RL flea market or used furnishings, most of the sets being more expensive than a stuff pack).

[Stoof]

When I started this game, I thought I will spend 15ish euro a month on gems, it was a price I payed for WoW, and it is a price I'm willing to pay for any online game for as long as I find it entertaining.

Then I realized my 15euros aren't going to make much of a difference in my game because of the cost of the gem items so I just gave up on the idea. If the items do go down I may consider buying, but for the time being it's better for me to just log-in once a day and collect the daily reward, build nothing, buy nothing and just wait for the resources to amass.

EDIT: Now that I think of it, in every online game I played recently those microtransactions became true macrotransactions, some even being more expensive than the full-fledged game (take look at the Sims 3 store, prices of pixel furnishings are similar to RL flea market or used furnishings, most of the sets being more expensive than a stuff pack).

I do agree with you that many items are over priced, but I believe 15euros a month while not outlandish, gets you plenty if you spend wisely. Unfortunately BB pulled a commercially genious move by giving half the game the vet general, making it nearly a necessary investment.

[Zwedinho]

The players that not use the vet general are the most skilled players. Your pussycats v gen players, ssshhh (whatever smiley)

[hades8840]

guessing you didnt get the vet lol

The players that not use the vet general are the most skilled players. Your pussycats v gen players, ssshhh (whatever smiley)

[Neri_Enye]

What would you expect from Ubisoft. Ubisoft is a greedy company. Back 9 years ago in 2003 Ubisoft was the publisher of a little known game called Uru: Ages Beyond Myst (later became Myst Online: Uru Live). A single player aspect was released in November 2002, with the Live aspect going well Live in February 2003. Just before it was to go Live, Ubi cancelled the Live portion citing a lack of subscribers. Ubi then funded the development of two expansion packs for the single player game. While Uru likely would not have the number of subscribers most MMOs get due to the type of game it is. It would have still turned a profit and even did so when Gametap took over as publisher in 2006, though a year later they cancelled it for the same reasons as Ubi. Its widely known amongst the Uru community that Ubi did not want the Live aspect of the game, they wanted the quick cash instead that traditional video game sales produce.

[clownroach]

ive spent £45 on gems and wont be buying any more..why would i...?..unlimited copper mine pointless as i log in every day so just build normal ones..i was filling my gold mine but that seems fruitless as the time it takes to make coin is ludicrous..its better having more explorers and dropping coin that way or selling stuff...the prices are stupidly high as they never seem to make any relevant changes to the game just lame promises in dev diary..trade system sucks but that benefits them as who can be bothered to click down a litttle interface to see what is out there and by the time you have done it the seller has alreaady sold..if they want my cash i want some effort in return..nothing has changed in the 2-3 months i been here and im at lvl 37 now and done most 1 player adv 1 or 2 times and did the big hurrah football rubbish in 3 days...big con for me as its like give em loads exp easy keep em keen...personally i think they have put a retail box game online without thinking on how the community will work as every aspect of it being online sucks plums...ive loved playin this game but im guessing that if nothing changes ill have nowt to do in a month or so bar the same stuff ive already done.

[Obliwan]

I don't really see the big fuss about how ubisoft decides to price their in-game items. They defnitely have every right to charge whatever they want for extra stuff in their otherwise free game. If you don't like the price/advantage ratio of the items then simply don't buy them. Personally when I buy a normal PC-game for say 50 euro's I'm quite content if I get a good 50 hours of playtime out of it, so that's my usual guideline for online games aswell. I have bought 20 euro worth of gems so far and have gotten by far more than 20 hours of playtime out of this game and honestly I don't feel I'm missing out on anything that would require me to pay more.

I've also seen people complain that for the prices that items are sold currently they don't feel its worth buying as you only gain something small and give that as an argument that things should be cheaper. Isn't this a good thing for a free game, if the advantage that you get is only small, doesn't that mean that free players have a reasonable chance of keeping up with people that do invest some money into the game? Sure maybe Ubi might make more money if they make it cheaper and sell their stuff to more people, why would I as a player care about that? Sure I like the settlers games and don't mind if Ubi makes some money, but who am I to start giving them business advice?

tl;dr: If you think the payed items in this otherwise awesome free game, then don't buy them instead of whining about it.