Feldon 
We recently saw the end of paying EQ2 subscriptions with StationCash (which, due to triple SC weekends and 50% off sales, allowed players to buy a YEAR’S EQ2 subscription for $14.99 — or an EQ2 sub for as little as $1.25 a month).
On August 29th, the ability to buy EQ2 expansions for StationCash will similarly come to an end. With various promotions, it was possible to buy an EQ2 expansion normally retailing for $39.95 for as little as $6.65.
SOE is providing this upcoming weekend as a grace period to buy expansions for 50% off with StationCash. The only shocking bit of news here is that it took so long for subscriptions and expansions to be removed from the Marketplace.
From the EQ2 Forums:
Starting Monday, August 27th, 2012, we will no longer accept Station Cash as a payment method for Expansions and DLC Packs. Real-world currency will be the only way to purchase these products.
The reason for this is simply that these products require a high level of development resource and are therefore a substantial cost. We want to continue to run aggressive Station Cash promotions, which we know our customers love, but cannot continue to do this and protect the revenue that we need to offset these costs.
In consideration of our players who would like the opportunity to purchase current Expansion and DLC Packs with Station Cash, we are running a 50% discount on them from Friday August 10th until Sunday August 12th*.
As always, if you have questions about your Station Account or Station Cash Balance, please contact customer service at http://www.soe.com/support.
As Feldon commented, it really is about time this happened, or atleast that their marketing and financial teams picked up on it.
The mention of DLC is interesting, particularly because there is none that is not already included in the DoV All-Inclusive Expac. Does that mean that they are considering more Adventure Packs like Fallen Dynasty, Splitpaw and Bloodline?
It seems like it could be a good opportunity to add some well developed content into the game between expansions (particularly with this new ‘features expansion’ model). If we get one or two of those and an expansion each year, that would be awesome. I think we’ve seen over the past year what the free Game Updates have gotten us; rushed, awkward and somewhat poorly planned content. If a micro-transaction helps them bring their A game, I’d be okay with that.
John Smedley and the top branch need to retire or forfeit their positions as heads. I never see a videogame company handle their products with such sloppy intent as SoE does. Nothing new, not a big surprise tbh that they’re doing this. This screams of typical SoE behavior on not knowing how to properly introduce a feature correctly.
They fed us into F2P with SC marketplace, devalue the currency, then take away a few of the privileges that made the system a success. What will we need SC cards for now? Just gold subs, maybe unlockers. I suspect a drop in card sales on EQ2’s side due to them being much less useful for the type of of products it can buy.
You know, a great thing about the game going F2P is that I didn’t have to hand over ANY information to SOE. I can use SC cards anonymously, and since I don’t own a credit card, I don’t have to be subjected to prepaid cards with little consumer protection.
There goes my future adventuring in new content, now that I will need to wait two expansions to get what would be the next one for free (at least, for what we’ve been told). Guess it’ll be crafting and dungeon maker for a couple years.
you can still use the “SC cards” to pay for subs but your not paying with SC you using the card as a time card to add 30 days onto your sub, As it was used originally.
plus you can go to a store and buy DoV and AoD, not giving them (SOE) credit card info.
Since they are doing this system-wide I would assume the DLC might apply to other games? Would be pretty cool to have another FD or splitpaw/bloodlines (what were they to buy like $5? IDR too long ago). I guess you could consider Skyshrine one of these though.
I just wish I could gift AoD to my alt account with my main’s SC before the ability is taken out. I got like 4900 sc on that account only 1700 on the other. but I can’t see the option on the marketplace because I already own the collectors editions. Anyone know if you can Gift? Might make a petition.
plus you can go to a store and buy DoV and AoD
What store would that be? I haven’t seen anything EQ related in a store since I bought DOF in Anchorage when it launched.I’m not being an ass,I’m genuinely curious.SOE puts exactly nothing on the shelves that I see.At least as far as EQ2 goes.
Next thing will be the reversal of the content=free and features = pay.
That’s why they are encouraging the spending of sc now.
So we will get to pay for the next DoV installment when we thought we had already paid for it almost two years ago.
Station Cash is now completely worthless, lol
DLC is a dcuo feature
Maybe not in stores, but you CAN buy expansions on Amazon, at least for the time being. You wouldn’t even need a credit card there: Amazon gift cards are easy to buy anywhere.
That kinda sucks, i been saving up all my Free SC hoping to get the next 40$ adventure pack for nothing….
I see DoV/AoD on my local Best Buy shelf still. idk if it’s just there because nobody bought it yet or if they still stock it lol.
are they stopping the resale of games?
Well that gets rid of the only other reason I even used SC cards. Guess we will see what the charge for xpacs. May be seeing a time for an end of EQ2. The funny thing is it was a great idea to sell them that way. The poor idea was how marketting did constant double and triple sc weekends along with dropping the price on everything. It was marketting stupidity that caused this, not the idea itself.
They left out the most important part … whether all previous expansions will be included with the next expansion. If they are included, then it is pointless to buy AOD now if you plan to get the next expansion in Nov. But if it is not included, then you will not be able to buy AOD in Nov with SC.
@ Kruzzen
Like with the subscriptions, you’ll probably be able to use SC cards to buy the expansions, just not station cash itself.
Meanwhile, in another part of the Sony Empire:
“[Social and free-to-play] is a business I think a lot of companies are learning is difficult to sustain for the long term. It’s an adjunct or it’s an add-on, but it’s not where gaming is headed.” –Jack Tretton, CEO of CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America (SOE’s parent company)
I forsee some very, very interesting in-house discussions in Smed’s and Smokejumper’s futures…
@ anaogi
interesting link sound like to me some of the higher ups at SOE are not impressed withthe F2P business model
$medbuck$ won’t like that article. Shame. My heart goes out to him. No, it really does! Honest.
@Mermut,
There has never been a way to pay for an expansion with a game card. It was always either game time first, later SC. The original idea to have expansions and gamer time on the marketplace is still a good idea. But it was plagued by poor marketing decisions and a reliance on flavor of the week fluff. I am waiting to see where this will lead, but one thing is for sure, The sale of SC cards is going to take a hit for this one.
On the article, really interesting read. We al know Smokeblower was hired directly for the Free to Play model. I wonder if that with the other blunders he has been doing will finally mean he is out and someone new can come in and bring things back. And I don’t think adding facial expressions is what is going to bring in profitability.
plus you can go to a store and buy DoV and AoD
AoD was never released in a box sold at retailers. It was, and is only available in digital download format.
If I could go to the next SOE Fan Faire or whatever marketing term they are using for it now I think I would dress up as a big fork.
/auction WTB copy of DoV for $6.65
Station cash is now a foo-foo currency – not worth anything. Do they seriously think that we’re gonna put in $100 to pay for some stupid house pet?
Maby if they stopped with that retarded x2 x3 bonus redemptions of SC cards that totally DEVALUED the station cash currency, it would still hold some value and would pay for the content they release instead of whining and disabling it totally.
I’d call SoEs market and planning team clueless monkeys, but that would be insulting to primates.
Why dont they do this the easy way remove double sc and triple sc
bunch of fails to cover the epic fail
Figures I just found out about this today and I’m a day late for that 50% off part :(, and I was thinking of returning to EQ2.
@ Anaogi, Uncle & Flatley
Don’t fret over Smed’s position at Sony. He may be in hot water, but this article isn’t the smoking gun. Tretton was just defending PS3, Vita and traditional gaming which had negative growth in the past year for Sony. The whole industry is touting the free to play business model as the future of gaming, and a lot of Tretton’s resources are tied up elsewhere. This is not an indictment of the free to play model, but a cornered executive protecting himself.
Havent Zyngna started to lose money now? not sure by any means f2p is the way to go for anything but facebook games,there will of course be DLC content on the PS3 thet’ll never go away.
Either they changed something, or discount works for EU people, at least it worked for me.