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    Your Elvenar Team

% Sales?

Socrates28

Well-Known Member
Sage thoghts @ajqtrz and with my background in economics and business what you say could very well be the case.
Additionally I seem to have frequent offers to buy diamonds with other perks such as the one I got today with bonus KP. I have also gotten them in events with ribbons (event currency) or spells as in the just past FA.
It may be possible that Inno has found that other add ons work better (more income) than 100% offers. This would mean that additional diamonds would have to be purchased on a more frequent basis that the 100% offer can produce. I.E.: if I get twice the number of diamonds in a purchase I will not need them for twice as long, but if I buy them with something else I will depleat my supply in half the time as a 100% offer would allow and buy more frequently. Hence more income.
Like AJ, just my thoughts.
 

Deborah M

Oh Wise One
They could, of course, raise the incentive by offering diamonds at a special price of -100% all the time -- where you get only 1/2 of the diamonds you normally get for the same price. Then the regular price would be a real bargain and we would all buy them, right? LOL. The conundrum they face is the same every discounter faces -- once you start offering deep discounts you are stuck with a lot of people expecting deep discounts and refraining from purchasing unless they do so at a deep discount. This means the number of people willing to buy the product at the standard price probably end up being fewer than if they would have not offered the deep discounts in the first place. Every product has a price at which it will sell. If the only way to boost sales is to deeply discount then the you have to say the market has spoken and the product isn't worth the standard price overall.

Thus, deep discounts are just shooting yourself in the foot as a business. Price things better -- i.e. at what the market will consistently bear -- and if you lose money at that level it's time to fold up shop because the cost of your product is higher than what the market wants to pay for your product.

Just my thoughts....

AJ

Also just my thoughts... What you say is very true in a text book case. In real life I'm a retired Corporate CPA. In my experience there is a variety of demands in any customer base. Some will pay full price and be happy when you offer them the occasional sale. Some will pay full price but want something thrown in as an added incentive which makes them feel flattered. Some will not buy what you are selling without a deep discount, feeling that what you are offering is not worth full price or near full price. And of course, there are some who will never buy whatever you are selling no matter what incentive you offer. Obviously just generalized observations but my observation over the decades. So, if you want to expand your customer base and increase cash flow (cash flow is king) then you do the math and determine what your margin and cash flow needs will bear. If deep discount offers to that portion of your customer base meets your margin necessities then 50% off, for example, is better than will not buy and will not buy without deep discount zero revenue. This seems to reflect the business model Elvenar has offered sales on in the past. It also reflects my personal experience of when I bought diamonds very regularly I did not get deep discount offers. I had never seen a 100% quantity match until I stopped buying diamonds consistently. Now I, and apparently a bunch of other players from what I see, will not spend until the 100% sale comes around. In my case the only alternative would be a 50% off on expansions but of course that would defeat the hope of getting me back interested in or back in the habit of more consistent spending. So they can increase revenue by making the offer to the many players waiting or they can lose that revenue just sitting there waiting to spend on their game.
 

WolfSinger

Well-Known Member
Here's an idea for a discount that would sell diamonds - at least to higher level players - buy the $49.99 diamond package and get a FREE premium expansion.

I normally buy the $19.99 package every few months - but if they added a premium expansion to the mix - I would probably buy the $49,99 package. Add 2 FREE premium expansions to the next level and yeah - I would be looking at that one.

Adding 1 additional premium to each of the packages as you move up from $49.99 might be a way to get some players to open their wallets. For me the max I would go would be the $79.99 package with 2 premium expansions. I do have bills to pay as well - lol

Instead of the insulting 10% off premium expansions - this would definitely get me to spend money - even if I had just purchased diamonds within the last week.
 

mikeledo

Well-Known Member
I spent money on the Bear event, but not since, I did see a 40% offer ages ago and have been waiting to drop $200 on a 100% offer. I have not seen one and I will wait. I did get a diamond +KP offer today, they generally come right before a 100% offer. The way they value KP it is about a 60% offer, however, since INNO has made KP so available, the offer is not tempting.
 

Ashrem

Oh Wise One
Thus, deep discounts are just shooting yourself in the foot as a business.
virtual goods are a completely different model from physical goods which have inputs aside from your labour. Even if Inno "trained" us to expect deep discounts, all they have to do is add more diamond sinks to rebalance. A shoe seller can't produce more shoes without buying more material and can't give all their customers a third foot to get them to buy more shoes.

The way they value KP it is about a 60% offer, however, since INNO has made KP so available, the offer is not tempting.

Part of the issue Inno faces is that they inevitably price things higher than players do. Practically nobody aside from the extraordinarily impatient believes a KP is worth 45 diamonds.
 

samidodamage

Buddy Fan Club member
Since this seems to be evolving into a discussion of alternate ways for Inno to get folks to buy/spend diamonds (and hopefully giving us less random and more meaningful choices in events, etc):
add more diamond sinks to rebalance.
Don't everybody pile on at once, but: This^^
I don't understand why there's not a *store* in the game. Since this is the only MMO I've played, I don't know how other games do these things; I have no idea if the mechanics are a bear to implement, either but here are my (as yet NOT fleshed out) thoughts:
Have a place where a player can go to spend diamonds on packages of various items in the game. In my thinking this would be in addition to the various methods already available for spending for upgrades, premium bldgs, premium expansions, time reductions, etc. Example packages would be : troop packages, Instants packages, Goods packages, Spells packages, Pet Food packages, Artifact packages. I don't envision these packages including diamonds.
It would be a balancing act, but if done correctly could boost sales. For example: Ch 15 city: I can train up troops, feed the brown bear, and then use time boost instants to increase my number of available troops. I might not be the best example for buying Troop packages now. But when I was back at Ch 4-5-6; figured out the benefits of using combat, and had not even trained troops up to that point[ :rolleyes: at my naive self] I did buy the special packages when offered with diamonds. I'd have bought Troop packages from a store then. I'd have to weigh my options now (available pet food & time boost instants, how long I was willing to wait, lol!) before making the purchase. I mentioned the Goods packages since I'm just starting Ch15 and have seen the posts about Sentient goods demands. I know those things are game balance issues as well (hence the balancing act) but would deserve some thought as to how much it would impact revenue to allow players to advance to end game (their choice: I don't want to be there, lol) more quickly if they pay to do so. That's where the willingness to focus on more strategic event mechanics would probably also come into play: those players need more than a slot machine to keep them engaged. Rather than slow them down in the chapter, keep them engaged with meaningful events.
Just some idle thoughts while reading this thread. Opinions welcome.
 

Darielle

Chef, Scroll-Keeper, and Buddy Fan Club Member
I've been on Elvenar since October, and the only thing I've seen were diamonds with extra KP and diamonds with ribbons. Haven't seen discounts and certainly none like that. My son bought me some for Christmas (I think 2000 diamonds) but I haven't spent any money myself. So I guess they're forgetting newbies, too.
 

ajqtrz

Chef - loquacious Old Dog
virtual goods are a completely different model from physical goods which have inputs aside from your labour. Even if Inno "trained" us to expect deep discounts, all they have to do is add more diamond sinks to rebalance. A shoe seller can't produce more shoes without buying more material and can't give all their customers a third foot to get them to buy more shoes.

Part of the issue Inno faces is that they inevitably price things higher than players do. Practically nobody aside from the extraordinarily impatient believes a KP is worth 45 diamonds.

I do believe our separation of physical goods and virtual goods to be a inadvertent red herring. Cost is cost. The only difference it, and it may be significant in the long run, is the materials. You are right that virtual goods, once created, are extremely cheap to produce. However, once they are viewed from the purchasers reference point their value is relative to whatever the purchaser values them at. In this the cost to the producer is irrelevant when pricing the items unless the cost (in physical goods) is greater than the price. It's may be hard to see how a virtual good price could be too low to ever make it unprofitable, but even virtual goods have equipment upon which they must be maintained -- and thus ongoing cost of "storage," if you will.

So the reference point of my original post was from the producers point of view -- and you are right that if the items are physical -- and thus each item has the cost of materials and labor -- deep discounts will bring the average selling price closer to the point of unprofitability. Yet, at the same time, the storage and maintenance cost of virtual items is there, and thus, the lower the average purchase the less revenues and the less revenues the less raw profit (not as a percentage, of course, but as a basic number), which means, at some point, if that number is too low the investors take their money elsewhere.

In the end the point is deep discounts lower the average selling price thus profit margin, and revenues because many, many players wait for the deep discount rather than buy at the standard rate. This is true of virtual goods and non-virtual as well.

As to your point about rebalancing, you may be right. However, it would seem to me that if you "raise the price" on something the market generally reacts by not purchasing the thing as much. Which means, at some point, you cannot make up for lost revenues by simply raising the price somewhere else indefinately. There are limits and the same people who refrain from purchasing at the standard price are probably the same people who will refuse to purchase once you have attempted the rebalancing by raising the prices elsewhere.

@Deborah M

Your are right that there is always a mix of customer attitudes. Some will pay full price, some will not. Some will want incentives -- lower prices being just one of the possibilities -- and some won't care. But imagine for a moment that there were not incentives other than the standard package at the standard price. No discounts or goodies. If there are no variances in the selling price you will divide your group into two categories: those who spend because they think the price is okay or even good; and those who do not because they've come to the opposite conclusion. One day you decide you wish to bring in more revenues by offering incentives -- doesn't matter what but something. Now in the group of purchasers -- i.e. those who have already purchased -- the value of the standard package is now lowered since they now know they can purchase MORE for the same price they previously purchased LESS. Is it not reasonable to believe that those purchasers who were closest to the "this is too expensive" line (and thus were in danger of becoming "non-purchasers") would realize that the actual value of the original, non-incentivized package was less (because they could get MORE for the same price if they just wainte? Psychologically, once you get a package with an incentive for the same price as a package without an insentive, you lower the value of the package without the incentive. Thus, the value of the standard, non-incentivized, package becomes lower.

Of course, on the flip side, the value becomes higher to some degree as well among those non-purchasers who, without the incentives, think the price "too high." With the incentives those closest to the line of "cheap enough" may cross over and now purchase. Yet, now they, too, have re-valued the basic non-incentivized package at a lower price because they have now said that package is worth X only if it has some incentive attached to it.

My point is that the larger the discount the larger the change in the perceived value of the standard package because you are adding something of value to it in order to get the same payment out of your purchasers. Over the long run this will lower the average perceived value of the non-discounted package and force you to continue offering incentives just to get more people to purchase it. Some, of course, will not care what price it is, but that group is probably very, very, small indeed. The rest of us will become more "jaded" and expect more and more incentives.


AJ
 
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Deborah M

Oh Wise One
Absolutely! Doesn't even need to be new artwork, lol! I'd love to be able to buy a 'Fairy Portal' skin and put it on a bldg, any bldg, lol!

I would really love to have a Spring Grove from Halflings skin :D

@ajqtrz All good points. Thing is from personal experience after being a whale in this game for a few years, I knew the deep discount offers were out there for players who did not regularly buy diamonds. With my play style then there was NO chance I could have waited long enough not buying diamonds to get those offers. Frustration sets in when you're not patient and click goes the mouse to replenish them when I was used to the instant gratification. They did my budget a big favor when they ticked me off so bad over the loss of and refusal to replace 1 blueprint when I experienced a glitch when I got a FA pop up at the same time as tournament end pop up! :rolleyes:
 
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Ashrem

Oh Wise One
You've completely misinterpreted my post, which I'll address at the end.
I do believe our separation of physical goods and virtual goods to be a inadvertent red herring. Cost is cost. The only difference it, and it may be significant in the long run, is the materials. You are right that virtual goods, once created, are extremely cheap to produce. However, once they are viewed from the purchasers reference point their value is relative to whatever the purchaser values them at. In this the cost to the producer is irrelevant when pricing the items unless the cost (in physical goods) is greater than the price. It's may be hard to see how a virtual good price could be too low to ever make it unprofitable, but even virtual goods have equipment upon which they must be maintained -- and thus ongoing cost of "storage," if you will.

So the reference point of my original post was from the producers point of view -- and you are right that if the items are physical -- and thus each item has the cost of materials and labor -- deep discounts will bring the average selling price closer to the point of unprofitability. Yet, at the same time, the storage and maintenance cost of virtual items is there, and thus, the lower the average purchase the less revenues and the less revenues the less raw profit (not as a percentage, of course, but as a basic number), which means, at some point, if that number is too low the investors take their money elsewhere.
The "storage and maintenance" is the only red herring here. Every item and effect is stored in a database. Every city is stored in a database. If something exists for one person, it needs to be stored once. If it exists for every player, all that is required is a single Yes/no bit in their city database. For a million cities to store something costs pennies more than for one person to store it. Delivery of the item's code and location to cities probably adds less than a penny of bandwidth (delivery cost) per 100,000 cities. There is effectively zero maintenance cost. They don't have to refresh and repaint their existing product line (Your premium building or spell ) according to whims of fashion. Nor do they have to pay inventory tax on it. The cost of backing up an extra field among the hundreds of others in each city is their only "maintenance" cost and is effectively zero vs backing up all cities without it present.

As to your point about rebalancing, you may be right. However, it would seem to me that if you "raise the price" on something the market generally reacts by not purchasing the thing as much. Which means, at some point, you cannot make up for lost revenues by simply raising the price somewhere else indefinately. There are limits and the same people who refrain from purchasing at the standard price are probably the same people who will refuse to purchase once you have attempted the rebalancing by raising the prices elsewhere.
Whether intentional or not, this is where you make plain a complete misinterpretation of my argument thoughout your entire response. I carefully and completely avoided any mention of raising prices, because that is a complex issue. I talked solely about adding diamond sinks, and my example was a third foot, which was also carefull selected to avoid any hint of pricing of existing goods. Shoe sellers have only one way of getting more money from their clients, which is to charge more. The developers add new premium buildings in every chapter as diamond sinks. The fellowship adventure was an added diamond sink. The Spire is an added diamond sink. They can add additional diamond sinks any time they want, without ever touching the price of existing sinks.
 

DeletedUser3220

Guest
I just looked and the last time I spent real $ was in June so more than 6 months. I know for a fact that when I was spending $ every week, month, or so I never received any 100% or even close to that. It was after I got angry over getting jipped out of a blueprint and stopped spending that I started getting the occasional 100% sale. Sucks that now that I am ready & willing to spend they seem to have decided we long term players aren't worthy of the sales that are still going out to small cities :( :mad: That is a sentiment I am starting to hear from other FS members along with others. Maybe it's just us 1M+ ranking points players? o_O

Nope, it me too. I'm only half your size and may have spent less than $100. in 4+ years.
 

Deborah M

Oh Wise One
Darn! I was planning to buy some of whatever we need to collect for the upcoming event. The Valentine's building is one I have to have because of my Wedding Anniversary. BUT I vowed to not buy diamonds until I get a good % sale. Sooooooo, I'm thinking that if I buy the event things then my time without spending or buying diamonds will reset and it will be months & months before I get an offer that I will buy diamonds for the last expansion :( I guess I better be prepared to really work on the event instead of spending unless I get the diamond offer I and others are waiting for :( I just went from really happy with the format of the upcoming event and looking forward to it to even more frustrated with Elvenar than I have been lately.
 
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