Opinion: The New StationCash Reality — The End of Double and Triple SC?
As we’ve discussed in the past, Sony Online Entertainment got itself into a huge pickle with their unintentional devaluation of their StationCash currency. An overeager Marketing Dept held numerous Double and Triple StationCash promotions which devalued much of the StationCash entering SOE’s economy to just 1/4 of its value. This created an untenable situation and at SOE Live, SmokeJumper was heard to say “We were losing our shirts”.
Compound this with the fact that Walmart demands special incentives from their vendors to carry product. The popular 1500 StationCash cards with 500 SC bonus further amplified the devaluation effects.
We are just speculating at this point, but we’re going to call August 2013’s Best Buy Double StationCash deal to be SOE’s last such weekend. This is frustrating due to how few locations bothered to stock the cards.
Black Friday and Cyber Monday Minimalism
One can earn a Doctorate in American Consumer Culture and still collosally misread the market. Just ask J.C. Penney — an American department store — who eliminated frequent sales and storewide discounts in favor of “everyday low prices”. It was an unmitigated disaster. After just one year of this policy, the company is reeling from millions in losses as deal-scouting customers went elsewhere. The company now teeters on the verge of bankruptcy.
There is an unmistakable psychology at work when it comes to those make-or-break retail holidays now known as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While Black Friday is known for its doorbusters and early Christmas shopping for friends and family, Cyber Monday has increasingly become a day to splurge on one’s self, rather than an opportunity for more gift-buying.
For SOE, it would seem one of the best times of year to dangle attractive sales would be Cyber Monday, yet with this tweet from Sony Online, it seems there won’t be EQ2-specific deals beyond the previously announced 25% bonus StationCash:
@EQ2Wire Our #CyberMonday sale was posted on most SOE sites yesterday before 2 PM Pacific, not sure how you missed it. [Ashlanne]
— Sony Online Ent. (@SonyOnline) December 2, 2013
Is the belt-tightening going too far?
It’s easy to shout from the cheap seats and kick SOE when they’re down. That’s not why I’m writing this. Even though they are America-centric “holidays”, I see Black Friday and Cyber Monday as a huge opportunity to get players to redeem StationCash cards they’ve had squirreled away in a drawer and buy in-game items now that so many players have come back for the Tears of Veeshan expansion. Instead, this weekend seems to be turning out as a non-event.
Undoubtedly, we’ll see some kind of Christmas sale from SOE, but Christmas sales are less about buying things for yourself, and more about buying last-minute gifts for others. Further, many of the items people want in the Marketplace — Mercenaries, Reforging, Character Slots, Server Transfers, and the like — rarely go on sale, and are not Giftable.
What Would Feldon Do?
Personally, I would have done 40% off StationCash for online AND redeemed cards, plus a 30% off sale on Services like Character Transfers, Character Slots, Name Changes, Mercenaries, Beastlords, Reforging, and Merc Slots. It would basically be a 58% off sale:
- Character Transfer: $25 $10.50
- Mercenaries: $15 $6.33
- Age of Discovery Features: $40 $16.80
Such a deal wouldn’t totally devalue StationCash, and it would be a one-day sale on things people want and for which there is pent-up demand.
Letting Go
Only time will tell if the new conservative sales strategy works out. Players are going to have to let go of the idea of getting 6,000SC for $15. This will also rekindle the argument: Is $25 really a Microtransaction?
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Comments (23)
Loch
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Well written piece, Feldon. I’m surprised we didn’t see a half back rebate sale today, as those are basically “flash” sales that (I would imagine) drive the sale of more SC at its true value. (Assuming there isn’t a boatload of 1/3 cost SC in everyone’s accounts). The great thing about those is that they can control what is on sale and for how long. On top of that, the customer has to have the full price to purchase the item…so they may need to buy a little extra to get the half back. Then they have surplus SC in their account that is just money in the bank for SOE.
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Beimeith
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Simply put, far too many items for sale are priced higher than they should be. $25 is not a micro-transaction. It is more than the cost of a subscription for a month.
Far from “devaluing” SC to the point it isn’t making them money, I would say it brought it down to the level most people are comfortable paying.
In a normal Market, lack of sales would lead to lower prices, but since SOE controls the marketplace 100%, they are free to keep prices as high as they want, even at the cost of sales.
These are virtual goods. They cost almost nothing after the original price to create them. If they price something for $25, but I am only willing to pay $10, they are losing a sale. My $10 is better than $0.
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Anaogi
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Given that the devs seem to have taken EVE Online as their oracle, I suspect they think the concept of the $80 monocle is just grand…
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Dawnya
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Well they gave us a Cyber Monday sale in marketplace… a whopping 15% off prestige housing… Honestly, I’ve seen better deals on regular any day sales …
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pox67
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I have never bought Station Cash from SOE. Check Ebay and you will find people selling PS2 money which once redeemed is Station Cash. Bit of a drought at the moment but it is often 50% of regular price.
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Jrral
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Smokejumper ought to take a look over at the Playstation Network. They’re doing a land-office business in RMT with items priced down around the level of the supermarket-checkout-counter impulse-purchase items. Let’s face it, $15 and up is a price point where I think about a purchase before making it. So things like appearance gear, mounts and such are things I don’t buy on a whim. But merc unlocks, those are $1. I don’t unlock every merc, but if I need the merc while playing I don’t think twice about unlocking one.
These are virtual goods. Aside from a few things like server transfers, the marginal cost to SOE of making another copy is $0. And once bought SC is what’s typically referred to in business as “funny money”, entries in the ledger transferring amounts from one department’s budget to another that don’t actually cost or make the company any money (when Software Dev “buys” a box of printer paper from the supply room the company doesn’t make any money on the sale). The money’s made when people buy SC in the first place, not when they spend it in-game. If you make it easier for me to spend my SC without having to think much about it, you make it more likely that I’ll exhaust my SC and have to buy more. I’ll admit, right now I’ve spent a fair amount on SC from double- or triple-SC sales. I think in total it’s been about $80 over the last year or so, mostly on impulse (“Triple SC sale, I can afford to drop $20 on that.”). If it hadn’t been for those sales I’d’ve spent maybe $40 total and only as I absolutely had to spend it. So which path makes the most money for SOE? Because in the end that’s what matters, not how much SC I spent on in-game items but how many real dollars I spent buying SC.
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Makya
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I called this before because of Player Studio and it’s just going to be moreso the case with Landmark. I’m sure they are hoping Landmark will become a booming player-to-player economy based on Station Cash where they can skim a little bit off the top as well as sell their own premium goods in the same channels. They need to be careful to track discounts on an item-to-item basis so they can discount the payments for Player Studio items. When you discount the currency on the front end that becomes impossible to do. Prediction is that most sales going forward will be quite small for buying SC and more focused on specific items with the deepest discounts on their own productions.
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Kruzzen
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When I can buy a new game on steam for less than the COUGH micro transaction on a piece of gear I am not gonna spend my money on SOE. The double and triple sc may have brought the sc devaluation in, but it is the poorly priced items that are making it needed in the first place.
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Anaogi
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$50 mount for April 1
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Qamar
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I have to agree with the posters saying that the deals brought the item price under the threshold that made me think about buying them in the first place. 10€ for a mount is simply ridiculous. As is 10€ for a experience potion. I will never ever pay that. As long as SOE is pricing like that i will not buy anything besides services i need like a character slot.
Jrral has it right. Lower the prices to the level of impulse purchases and the players will spend their money left and right.
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milliebii
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SOE should take a considered look at this.
For people who look at the SC cost of items and services and do an automatic conversion to $’s prices are too high. In the past they got most of these customers to spend $’s on these transactions by offering deep discounting on SC. Stop the discounting and SOE loose these dollars, cut the SC price of items too much and they loose money in total (more sales to the thinking demographic, but less cash from the impulse demographic).
Feldon’s proposal for shallow SC discounts combined with discounts on services at the same time is by far the best option I have seen.
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Murfalad
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I must admit their deals do not tempt me. Now, what if they instead offered for one day only a chance to add old Collectors editions to your account? Maybe even allow only one edition per an account for that day … 🙂
I guess they would not be able to sell items where they have promised that they will be exclusive, and they will not be able to offer physical items, but I could see people wanting to drop 10-20 dollars for things that, while old, are a little bit different too.
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quaim
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This article is terrible. We will see a double sc day soon.
How are they losing anything…sc was suppose to be a bonus thing for stuff that in no way affects gameplay…also, most people wont buy anything. Making double or triple sc changes that. However, when he said that,he had to be referring to when sc COULD still buy subs and expansions…now it is useless for the most part. Yes the aod stuff…but its 3 years old now they couldnt expect me to buy it for all my alt accounts…yet as soon as they made it available for sc i bought it with sc left from triple sc.
So how can they be losing anythong when sc is a bonus, and has mothing to do with the game…if they are losing their shirts, its because of poor gameplay and stupid decision after stupid decision. This is the worst article written on this sub-par site to date. Feldon, when they offer sc in like 3 weeks…what are you gonna say?
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Loch
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You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
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Mermut
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In a ‘free to play’ environment, Station Cash is not ‘just extra’, it is bread and butter. They need to get money from those who don’t pay a sub in some fashion.
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milliebii
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Really??
from this “”sub-par site”s archives:
2013
Dec 2 25% bonus on Station Cash
Nov 29 30% Discount on Station Cash
August 16-18 Double Station Cash at Best Buy Stores
July 4th 40% of Online Station Cash, 1000 SC Bonus for SC Cards
April 7-11 Double Station Cash Exclusive (7-Eleven Stores)
March 29-31 Double Station Cash Weekend
2012
Dec 21 Triple Station Cash
Black Friday Double Station Cash
Nov 16-18 Double Station Cash Exclusive (7-Eleven Stores)
Nov 4 Triple Station Cash
Oct 12-14 Double Station Cash at Walmart
Sep 16 -17 Double Station Cash at Gamestop and EBGames
June 8 -11 500 SC bonus on Cards
April 28 Triple Station Cash
April 6-8 Double Station Cash
Mar 16-17 Double Station Cash
Feb 18 Half Station Cash back on purchases using SC
From the above dates and offers it is self evident that the discounting of Station Cash has declined rapidly. DO NOT hold your breath for the next “Double” or “Triple” it might never happen.
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Feldon
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Thank you for your tremendously helpful feedback. Fortunately, I have mentally prepared myself for people to lash out at me for SOE’s business decisions.
Denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt.
I’ll have to think about that. Right now I’m preparing my acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize.
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gwen
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This rush to SC is a horrid mess,the devs and the bean counters seem to have grasp on reality whatsoever,a micro transaction is something that cost a couple of quid not the over inflated tat SOE is intent on peddling.
I shudder to think what will happen with EQ3 maybe its time to hand the whole shebang over to the bods who run PSN and see what they can do with it can it be any worse than the mess thats been made so far
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Kallinia
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They presume that people will still buy SC for the “full” price. I for one will not. I frequently stocked up on SC during double/triple events (sometimes for two accounts worth about 40€ each) and spent them on whatever I wanted over the following months.
Transfer another toon to my main server ? Go ahead, it’s only 8€. That nice looking mount for 2k SC ? 6.50€ ….. bought !
Now I will not buy a single item that I don’t REALLY need. And there only comes another character slot to mind which I might not even buy since I already have 11 toons. That channeler would’ve been nice for 3.50€ but not for 10 ! Another prestige home ? Get outta here …..
You see, SOE WILL loose real money if there will be no more double/triple SC (at least from me and many others I guess)
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Loch
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I was always under the impression that the prices on mounts and such were so high BECAUSE of the devalued SC floating around. I mean, 20 bucks for a mount? EVERY mount? With triple SC, that mount was actually about 6.50. So the actual money earned for that purchase was a fraction of the price. They really need to cut out the double and triple SC and just re-price everything in the shop. If it had been kept simple from the very beginning, they wouldn’t be in this mess.
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7rlsy
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The shirts they “lost” was probably was due to subs being purchasble with SC. Feldon pointed out long ago, with the math, that subs could be easily maintained with hardly a few dollars a month, what with all the sc discounts and 500sc perk. (Wanna put up the url for that one, Feldon? It’s pretty darn instructive.)
I do, however, agree that playing to impulse buying with small price points is apt to make them a lot more money by us draining our sc more thoughtlessly. See also Zynga.
Anyway, no, I don’t imagine we’ll see those big sc sales ever again. Indicative is how they’re marketing these piddlin’ sales to the same hype level they used to for doubles and triples. Yeah, them days is over.
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Feldon
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https://eq2wire.com/2012/06/08/takeback-stationcash-funding-of-eq2-subs-comes-to-an-end/
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Wobbafet
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I knew double and triple SC would end one day. Maybe because I, along with many other veteran players of SoE games knew that the marketing department of SoE has always been incompetent. That they would eventually figure out how much money they’re losing over time.
I am still on a free year of subscription that I bought in early 2012, I bought enough SC to purchase three yearly subscriptions when it was possible with just in game plat. Along with triple SC in late 2012.
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