Feldon 
If EverQuest II: Altar of Malice were a brand new game coming out today, then a $90 price for the Collector’s Edition would be completely justifiable. We’ve seen this price point with Founder’s Packs in Landmark, and in other highly anticipated new games from Trion and other developers. But Altar of Malice is not a new game. It is an expansion — nee a DLC — for a ten year old MMORPG.
Technically, EverQuest II’s last four expansions (ToV, CoE, AoD, and DoV) have carried a sticker price of $89.99. However this price has only gone into effect after a generous Pre-Order window at a more reasonable $59.99. I think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of players who purchased the Collector’s Editions did so at this early stage, even if their accounts did not yet contain max-level characters.
This time around, the announced Altar of Malice Collector’s Edition — which it’s worth pointing out contains no physical box or physical items to ship such as a cloth map, commemorative coin, or any other tchotchkes — will launch, and presumably stay, at $89.99. Combine that with this spring’s changes to the All Access program that saw the expansion discount shrink from 25% to 10% and the cheapest anyone is going to snag the Collector’s Edition might just be $80.99.
No Pre-Order, No Discount, No Sale!
I wonder if SOE Sales/Marketing is aware of just how many players bought the Collector’s Editions for accounts that didn’t have any max level characters. I ask because this has been common for the past four expansions. Like any hobby, MMORPG players can sometimes set overly optimistic goals.
Everyone thinks that they’re going to get up to max level in time to need the new and shiny expansion, so they plan ahead by buying them in advance. They might buy expansions for accounts that turn out to be months or even years away from having a max level character on them, but it’s still a sale on SOE’s books.
I think players buy Collector’s Editions because they see a reasonable price that will soon jump to a less-than-reasonable price. I also think some players want to be ready for the expansion on launch day, rather than having to wrestle with an overloaded ecommerce website.
A Paucity of Extras
The first thing you’ll notice about this year’s Collector’s Edition is that it does not include a prestige house. Of course house decorating is not for everyone, but for the past few expansions, a house has always made an appearaence. The largest omission with the broadest appeal would have to be the new Aerakyn player race. It will be a separate purchase even if you spring for the CE release.
Some players have screamed “Pay to win!” at the news that the Altar of Malice CE will grant three armor gems per account and a unique pterodactyl mount with stats similar to the quested Tears of Veeshan one, but these are items that can be acquired in-game without great difficulty. We’re skating the edge, but still in the realm of convenience items. The 80 days of Spell Research granted per account by the CE, in light of the recent removal of like potions from Skyshrine zones, does have more of a sting to it in my opinion.
The CE also includes a new Mercenary, a sort of battle Mystic hybrid. No word on if this merc will actually cure/heal and move into position to do so, as the existing healer mercs are notorious for standing around performing personal grooming while the character dies. Either way, you can bet the new merc will not include the “Merc Unlock”, a $1.50 extra that allows that merc to be summoned anytime, even if you have swapped to another.
If the Collector’s Edition included the Aerakyn race (and a character slot), the Mystic merc (and the merc unlock), two armor gems per character, one 40 day spell search potion per character, a house such as the Ossuary of Malevolence, and everything else mentioned, then it might have enough value to reach that $90 mark. But I think the price is the problem moreso than the features…
What’s the Worst That Could Happen?
The below diagram is a COMPLETELY HYPOTHETICAL chart based on my theories that, with no Pre-order discount, and thus no urgency to buy the expansion, many people will stay on the fence about buying the expansion at all, many will skip the Collector’s Edition, and many more will just wait to buy the expansion until their accounts actually have a max level character in need of the upgrade.
Let’s make an educated guess that there are currently 50k active accounts. In my first scenario, let’s say 20% of those players purchased the standard edition or 10,000 copies. If another 16% purchased the collector’s edition, that would be 8,000 copies sold. Over the next four months, those numbers would gradually reach 20,000 standard and 11,000 collector’s editions. Add that up, and you get $1.55 million in gross sales.
Now let’s look at my “worst case scenario”. Without a Pre-order discount, I believe that less people would buy the collector’s edition due to it’s high price and the other reasons stated. Let’s say that drives the percentage of people buying the standard edition up to 24% (12,000 copies), while only 2% of players would buy the collector’s edition — a paltry 1,000. Imagine that sales would then limp along through March reaching just 19,500 standard editions and 2,000 collector’s editions.
If my numbers are close to accurate, this leaves 5,000 people who wouldn’t even purchase the expansion since they don’t have max level characters. Since there is no discount, there is no incentive to purchase the expansion until they actually need it. In this scenario, SOE would only bring in $996,000 of gross sales.
Again these are totally hypothetical numbers based on holiday shopping habits and my educated guesses at current player populations. I truly believe that by cutting out the discount and removing all urgency from purchasing the expansion, SOE is going to shoot themselves in the foot and see a net LOSS of over half a million dollars.
Is There Hope?
There’s always hope that something will budge on the pricing or features of the Altar of Malice Collector’s Edition based on player feedback. With Tears of Veeshan, enough players gave their feedback on the paucity of CE perks that the EQ2 team packed the premium version with much-needed value and features. Then there was this spring’s All Access program which was completely revamped due to player outrage.
There’s always a chance that cooler heads will prevail and we’ll see something change!
So what you’re saying is, SOE should either lower the price ($60, on par with other CEs) or add something to the CE to justify the price (a prestige house or the aerakyn race, for example).
Hard to argue with that.
It’s not just EQ2 that’s suffering from the $90 CE that is lackluster. EQ1 offers for the $90 tag – a heroic character (value $35), a pirate ship house, and a unique merc skin. Not a merc with unique abilities, a merc that just looks different.
If you have no interest in housing or a different graphic on your merc you can get the standard expansion and a heroic character and come out $20 ahead. Who came up with that combo of perk items? SOE marketing/planning is off for both the EQ games this year. I suspect there will be a lot of money lost this year.
As much as I’d love to see it happen (and I suspect if the Devs had any say in the matter it would likely be a lower price to acknowledge all-access/past pre-order discounts) it wouldn’t surprise me if the same person that pushed increased research time and increased costs of SC for research potions / un-attuners is in charge of this.. and they haven’t budged despite the outcry.
The sad thing is, I want the CE for the Merc because I suspect it’s going to be a beast and while not necessary they’re really handy things to have (and I haven’t seen an Elite Merc up in over 12 months), I want to support SoE BUT even tho I’m fortunate enough to have the cash to buy the CE for two accounts I’m seriously considering not doing just in the hopes it drives the point home to SoE that nickle-and-diming your customers just annoys them, sometimes to the point you lose the customer. On the flip-side that stance seems futile, SoE seem oblivious most of the time.
Regardless, I’d be a lot happier with that price if Feldons suggestions were acted on.
Feldon,
Thank you for this level headed well thought out post. You’re spot on!
In EQ1 for The Darkened Sea expansion (for All-Access players open on Oct 28th, F2P on Nov 11th) itself is offering, well, crap for the CE. The worst part of it is that they’re also nerfing XP from mobs from 2 expansions back once you level past 100 (instead of allowing it to naturallly reduce as you level higher and the mobs con lower) and setting their Heroic Adventures to have 6 hour lockouts.
I don’t know what they’re smoking over there. Unless it’s just some crazy, misinformed belief that this will make people more likely to buy EQNext.. (not likely…)
All I know is, $90 for a collectors edition with such little bonus that this one has is absurd. If it was priced at $60 I might consider buying it but there’s no way anyone with real rationale can justify buying this collectors edition at $90.
I get SOE has to maximize profits but there are better ways to do that.
The area between Subscriber and F2P is getting a bit too narrow for my taste as of late. AoD was an expansion, no it’s a feature pack, sorry, it was called an expansion and their still making money off it. Races, Classes, Game mechanics as pay to have options to subscribers with the latest expansion? Wan’t a really good Mercenary? Shell out $90 for the CE.
It’s time for SoE to start treating subscribers as full time customers and stop making F2P such a viable option at the cost of features to subscribers. Put in the FULL game with ALL the classes, races and mechanics and require that you either stay subscribed or purchase them with SC. So long as you’re subscribed, you get the benefits, drop the sub. and you lose them. simple as that.
Unfortunately you are looking at F2P in EQ2 in a vacuum. The MMO market as a whole has shifted to a F2P model, with very few holdouts (Wow, final fantasy). The holdouts are the ones with a million+ sub’s. Even in its peak EQ2 never had those kind of numbers.
In order to make eq2 competitive in this market, they had no choice but to embrace the F2P/Freemium model.
The jump in price between the SE and CE is ridiculous.
I blame everything on the F2P model. It is all about getting more money from a smaller base of people. And it really sucks when you intermingle F2P with subscription based. It’s like the airlines nowadays, give them a lower ticket cost and then hit them with other charges later. I just wish everyone would just charge you upfront what you are actually going to pay.
And I hope they have more than 50K active accounts. You would think they would want like 20-30K per server. (Of course that reminds me of the days in WoW waiting like 90 minutes to be able to log into a server.)
And SOE should know better than to depend on whales for income.
If they even just said that those who buy the Collectors Edition would be given the new race free once it is released, that would be a huge improvement. However, I do agree, a house and more per-character items would also be a great deal more enticing.
Maybe even a heroic character would be cool, but, that’s just wishful thinking.
The continued disrespect towards loyal players in EQ2 began slowly but has now gone beyond anything I thought possible. For 5 years we have been paying for the development of EQnext/Landmark and have lost key personnel in development.
We are left with an under funded game with a skeleton crew of devs that we are now supposed to pay more for. The real shame of the whole matter will most likely be that Longdale will probably be fired in some dramatic PR circus in an attempt to draw attention away from all of the bad decisions and poor planning made by Smedly and Smokeblower.
I would buy this as my first CE for the merc but not at 90 bucks. 60 is at my limit for what I can budget.
50K Active accounts seems to be a little low to me.
But you are better informed than I am.
Thanks for the great read Feldon. My bottom line is this, I will not give SOE another dime for this game. It used to be great. I had 6 paid/recurring accounts because of the time I spent raiding. When it turned into pay-to-win is when I started losing interest. Lvl 85 characters were available for purchase, as was armor, weapons, mounts etc. As with many of you I have been here for a long time. I remember getting groups together to try and get through the carpet quest in SS. Now this game is a joke. New xpac. Big deal. 5 levels of useless spells, new tier of spells. It isn’t worth it anymore and the prices reflect their greed.
Now I’ll give you the spell research/GMs-for-subs-only is crossing the border for pay-to-win.. but there are no end game weapons/armor/mounts available for purchase and I would not consider lvl 85 pay-to-win as again that’s not usable in end game content.
Great work as usual Feldon.
If the original SOE team and their corporate overlords hadn’t made the decision years ago to spend virtually zero dollars on promoting one of the greatest MMO’s of all time and then proceeded to strip it down to a dummy game they wouldn’t be begging for cash by charging $90 for a $20 add on.
It’ s so sad. /..\ I would like to see this game go on for another decade.. but SOE is squeezing for pennies so hard they’re going to choke themselves to death. .. I wonder if they insured EQ2 and just want to collect. >.>
Once the expac hits, if we see a ton of the elite mercs and new mounts around the world, then SOE was right. Time will tell. I will be buying the CE, EQ2 is my hobby, and I am willing to pay for fun. Playing MMOs is still a damn cheap pass time.
Yes, it’s in an incredibly inexpensive hobby but I will not reward bad decisions and corporate behavior with my money no matter what.
EQ2 is my hobby too, but I’m still not prepared to pay way over the odds for it. I am happy to pay a fair price, and I’ve always bought the CE of expacs in the past as they felt like decent value (especially with pre-order discount). There are always people who will pay whatever is asked in order to get everything tho, and they are the ones who drive prices up.
It’s an example of charging ‘as much as the market will bear’ – ie: as high as they can get away with and enough people still pay it. Its not a fair price, its a greedy price, and is a strategy used far too often – maximise margins. Most of the time a lower price will cause more sales and ultimately more profit, as Feldon has explained.
IMO a mount, a merc, some house fluff and some research time baubles are worth considerably less than the actual expac content – new zones, quests, items, dungeons etc (and 5 levels). Not $10 more.
I don’t really have an issue with what comes with the CE.. its just the absurd price tag it comes with.. I mean yeah it could always be better. But at that price it would have to literally double what is in the CE. Even then I doubt I would buy it. I hope they lose big on this expac. Then maybe going forward they will learn.
Thanks for the article, a lot of great points!
Like you, the way SOE is pricing things these days really makes me scratch my head. It does not surprise me at all that they would try to make as much money as possible. They are not doing this for charity, I wouldn’t want them to. I would hope the more money the game makes, the more resources would be justified to pour into the game to make it even better.
Still it makes you question what they are looking at to come up with pricing. I can only guess at what kind of experts they either have or are hiring that determine pricing. I am sure their goal is to hit a price point that maximizes revenue. They would be foolish not to. And from everyone I have talked to and heard from it sounds like they have missed the target by a lot. The standard mantras in pricing are know your customer and know your market. I can only guess since this game at this point mainly consists of existing loyal customers they are just badly overestimating how many people will pay so much more for the CE. I don’t think it is quite as dire a picture as you have painted above (I put my guesses on this below), but still a lot of money left on the table. For me at this point the only thing I would really being willing to pay more for is the merc, I would probably be willing to shell out $20 more for the merc, but certainly not $45 extra. Like you point out it also doesn’t make sense not to have a bonus house included – there are plenty of people for whom that would be a big deal, and might sweeten the deal enough for them. I am not one of them, but there are some out there for sure.
The other big recent change, pricing for the spell research upgrade, made me question who is making these decisions as well. I have once or twice paid to research a key spell on a toon under the previous pricing. It seemed to me even then that SOE was potentially leaving a lot of money on the table. If the cost had just been a little more reasonable. I would probably have paid to upgrade all my spells to master. Instead they went in the other direction and raised the price. Just at a time when they added a whole new tier that could have been a giant revenue stream. It seems to me if they had priced the upgrade from master to grandmaster more in the 300 to 400 sc range, it would have an exponential impact on people willing to pay. I am not saying that is the best thing for the game, I know a lot of people would object based on the pay to win argument. I am just saying if you are trying to increase revenue, you are shooting yourself in the foot once again.
I would guess a higher percentage than you of people who will purchase the expansion. So just for the sake of my point here I am going to guess 80% of the core 50,000 have bought the expansion in some form, in the past via pre-order. I would guess based on the number of Krivoks and Kriviks runing around out there, that at least 25% of those pre-orders were the CE. So under this hypothetical the revenue for those past expansions under those conditions would be $1.8 million. Lets say the same 80% buy they game, but with the current pricing. I think generously estimating the percentage of CE purchase at 5%, that would be a total revenue of $1,530,000. For a net loss vs the previous expansion of $270,000, under this hypothetical. So I do think they are leaving a lot of money on the table, but not quite as much.
The interesting thing is that most of this loss is due to the 10% discount. If there were no discount, even with the above pricing the net revenue would be $1.7 million. I think the people willing to pay $81 for the CE, are willing to pay $90, price is not the deterrent for them. Even if they were to lower the CE price to $70 to take into account the discount, making it $63 with the discount, which I think most people who bought it in the past would go for. With the discount that would still create a net loss vs. the past. It would result in $1,710,000. Closer but still a loss.
It seems to me like the best thing to do would be to just get rid of the 10 percent discount and sell the expansion standard for $40 and CE for $60. You don’t have to call it a pre-order discount. Call it a limited time discount, after Christmas raise the price back up, put some money in the bank and everyone on the EQ2 team has a happier holiday I would hope!
Me and my friends have always bought CE but this year I know that only I am looking at the CE as a possibility, and even I’m not sure if I’ll get it. Without the preorder discount it’s pretty darn expensive.
I think, without “Preorder” there is no need to buy a black box. Starting with the standard edition you’ll have all time in the world to find out, if the CE is worth 50 bucks and use the upgrade option.
Maybe SOE will discount the upgrade in future, if we all buy the standard edition. That’s our strategy 😉
Cheers, Oparis
I totally agree. it seems like we are paying more and getting less. I have always purchased the CE because of the perks but I don’t think this one is worth the $90 that they are going to charge for it. $90 I can take my wife out for a really nice dinner and have money left over. I hope that SOE puts it customers ahead of extra profit
Even a dwarf with an never-ending sea of platinum in their mountain hold would think twice about this price. $90 is the wrong price point and not a good value.
It’s a value and positioning problem.
I’m sure gaming experts have a better feel for this but let me posit that there are three tiers of buyers that are +/- $10.
$95
$55
$35
The advantage of a $89/$59 price is that you can sell to two tiers with one product.
Cheers,
Vex
Good article Feldon.
While I’m of the opinion that the Sentinal’s Fate Collector’s Edition was the worst cost versus value wise, this one certainly isn’t worth $90 for me. For the past couple of expansions I was willing to spring for three collector’s editions for our main accounts, but I can’t see that happening this time around.
I can’t predict how it’ll work out for SOE moneywise, it seemed quite a few people dropped the $80 for the SF CE with just the bubble butted cat mount, but there’s certainly been a lot of irritation among players about the pricing this time around I don’t recall seeing as much of before.
Sentinel’s fate collector’s retail box was $69.99
EverQuest II Sentinel’s Fate Collector’s Edition Retail Box Includes: (Available for purchase February 16, 2010)
Up to a 7-day head start of gameplay access before the digital release
Exclusive Armored Highland Stalker in-game mount to accompany you through your Norrathian adventure
Collectible Armored Highland Stalker figurine
Coveted Guarding of the Reasoned in-game armor* to provide extra protection on your journey
EverCracked! The Phenomenon of EverQuest DVD Documentary
$10.00 Sentinel’s Fate digital download discount coupon for Station Store
500 Station Cash to spend on virtual items
Legends of Norrath The Fall of Erudin scenario
30-day subscription included for new accounts
I still “play” with my pewter highland stalker figurine! /makes it walk across the desk again
I really miss true “collector’s editions” where there was a physical item to add to your collection on the desk!
The physical standard edition also came with all of that stuff except for the highland stalker mount in game. I also was one of the lucky few that got a pewter figure in my standard edition as well (apparently there were limited boxes like that and you just had to be lucky).
Digital downloads got the red version of the armor (Guarding of the Learned I think).
I did forget that the Collector’s edition also came with the Evercracked documentary. I stumbled upon one of those elsewhere, probably a Dragon*Con SOE event.
I miss when we had items in the boxes as well. I never bought collector’s editions before Destiny of Velious (including my whole time with EQ1) and I have a nice collection of figures, keychains & gold coins =(.
I take that back about the figurine, I think I was thinking of the bear we got with a previous expansion (either TSO or Kunark).
Well, I’ve never had a max level toon, and I don’t feel rushed to buy this. But what I believe they are planning is taking advantage of all the people who want to be first in everything. So first month they’ll see what sales are, then they’ll offer a discounted CE upgrade depending on sales. Having self control and patients, will be worth it unless you need to see your name on the front lines.
I feel they failed to offer a reason to want it now, or even really want their elite merc.
This will be the first EQ2 expansion I will not purchase. I refuse to further support such terrible practices. Not just CE, I won’t even purchase the standard.
Sadly for me its looking like the end,i took time away from the game so didnt get the last xpac,the first one i have ever missed but as i wasnt playing it made no sense t purchase i was hoping that with this xpac things could be re kindled for me but its not looking good.
Its a sad situation as there no rhyme or reason for these price points.
If you want a good comparative example in regards to another F2P MMO look at Rift. They just released a new expansion and look at how much you get for $49.99 (even $24.99)
http://www.riftgame.com/en/nightmare-tide/collectors-editions/
Thank you for posting this, I agree completely. I don’t normally comment but I just had to say that when I saw the top image in the post I immediately yelled Bob Barkers line from that scene and scared the hell out of my roommates so thanks for that too 🙂
If they had 100 people paying a $20 premium for CE before they only need 34 people to buy the CE at full price to be ahead. I’m sure that was the simple math. If it pisses of players enough to make them quit, however, it’ll backfire.
Do you REALLY think many would quit due to a more expensive CE? I expect most to bitch and stick to the SE.
I’m not ready to quit over it but I am disappointed.
I have played EQ2 since 2005. I love the game. I am in some poeples view perhaps a bit of an addict (3 accounts – 20 Lvl 95 toons). I came back to the game early this year, after being away 9 months and I like the game itself again, apart from the tank dps nerf.
All I’ll say is this – it has become apparent now that SOE’s internal research must be telling them we are a bunch of muppets willing to pay any amount of money to have all the best things in game – otherwise, they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing – right?
They’re not that stupid that they don’t round up all their facts/figures and statistics and calculate out their max win position financially. They’ve done their research, and the decision is – milk those happless addicts some more, they’re good for it.
So lets all just get with the program and get ready to open our wallets and let SOE take all our cash – or, once and finally, close our wallets, hot some cold turkey and flick the bird to SOE.
Have they announced UK pricing anywhere? Are we going to get stiffed on the currency conversion because of VAT once again?
$90 = £55.8107
What’s the betting they round it up to £60 and it ends up being £70~ inc VAT? (i’d love to be proven wrong if the prices have been announced anywhere)
Yeah that’s bothering me too.
I’m not quitting but will be giving up my subscription for the second account and not buying the xpac for it.
Feldon said:
Well, for those of us that went to Fan Faire this year, since we get the expansion for free, we’ll only have to pay the difference (or so I hope, I haven’t seen any OFFICIAL posting about this) So, $40.99? $45.99 maybe?
My question is, how long do I have, as a Fan Faire attendee, to get the “Only-pay-the-difference” pricing? With the pre-order, I had until expansion to pay the discounted pre-order difference. But since there is no discounted pre-order price, can’t I just wait, see if I like the expansion, and see if it’s even WORTH it to get the CE? And heck, even see if they will discount it due to poor sales . . . since you KNOW if I buy the CE now, and they lower the price, they won’t refund me any money . . .
Truer, more accurate words have never been written on this site. I cannot agree with you more on this.
NO WAY am I buying the CE this time around. Not quitting the game in protest or anything. I will still buy the normal xpac, I’m just not paying the extra money like I normally do.
For those who don’t frequent the forums (very wise) Kander, a dev, posted this which answers a few questions, possibly helping those undecided on which version to buy:
To answer some questions we are seeing asked.
The Collector’s Edition mercenary is on par with past elite mercenaries. It’s a little bit better and should do well in heroic content, as the current Elites do. That being said, there are 5 new Elite mercenaries that will be dropping in heroic dungeons within Alter of Malice and have also been upgraded from past Elites.
The Collector’s Edition Mount’s stats are nice, but anything earned within the expansion will undoubtedly be better, so think of it as the baseline for level 100.
The Collector’s Edition Mercenary can be renamed to give a little more customization. Unfortunately, he is too cool to wear any of your armor.
Last year for beta rewards, we handed out appearance Sokokar mounts, and got lots of awesome help and feedback from the community for it. We wanted to make the ones earned this year a lot better, so we put some stats on them that is comparable to current content.
Hope that helps – I was 99.9% NOT buying CE, now I’m 100%.