I don't understand your business model

[CrimsonDuskEU]

Ok so I've been playing since day 1 and here's my thoughts on your business model, and marketting strategy overall.

With the way things are, you reward players for swiping and not for playing. Which leaves 2 issues :

- People who play feel out of the "grind-game", and not rewarded enough for their no-life grinding.

- People who swipe, have no need to do the "grind-game", and will ultimately have no reason to log-in.

 

You basically just lost 2 potentional playerbase in the long-run.

 

The third playerbase, new players, or altoholics, now come in. The "grinders" earn a mediocre salary (gold) and feel slow progress. And might be reluctant to continue progress. The "Swipers" CAN actually use real-life ressources in order to "catch-up", however, they skip through the learning phase, and feel excluded from "end-gear content" that requires some kind of mechanics.

 

Basically, with the way the business model is, and overall strategy, I don't think Blade and Soul can have a healthy future. The only remedy to this, is to make it impossible for "swipers" to earn ALL their gear through $$$. That they have to farm to obtain it. To actually play the game. With the way things are, pretty much everything can be swiped through. Anything can be bought with gold, and currency-exchange being a thing, aswell as gold selling sites, there is no need to actually play the game.

 

I assume you adopted this business model because we have quick patches, and people will always have stuff to swipe for. But what do you plan on doing once we catch up in terms of content and people having nothing to "swipe" for ?

With the way things are in other versions, end-content is impossible to grind. There is some item that costs 3600$ that everyone deems impossible to grind. If we go down that route, who will remain ?

 

I don't know where goes the money you earn from the quick crash-grabs, but without advertizement for this game through the e-sports scene, and implementation of "walls" against swipers so they actually have to farm something, which WILL keep them interested in the game, as opposed to them buying everything and not playing, this game has no future.

I love Blade & Soul, and I believe it is about time we had some communication between the devs aswell as localizators, and the playerbase. And not just about outfits or T-shirts.

[Minity SN]

you will see alot of failing business models in the future.... I also see it in my department for hydraulic system. Business models are created by people who claim their stratigies ontop of 1 or 2 books, eg "blue ocean" or some stuff like this. the big mistake in my opinion is that these books are maybe working on one specific area but never generally on all... what I want to say is, is that the current people making stratigies for business models are fking idiots freshly out of universities.... for games it is even worse: rarly poeple creating stratigies are playing games themselfes. In my university, students who touch these studies rarly are gamers, its a " I dont have anything else" study for people who jsut want to study anything

[FaeQueen]

1 hour ago, CrimsonDuskEU said:

Ok so I've been playing since day 1 and here's my thoughts on your business model, and marketting strategy overall.

With the way things are, you reward players for swiping and not for playing. Which leaves 2 issues :

- People who play feel out of the "grind-game", and not rewarded enough for their no-life grinding.

- People who swipe, have no need to do the "grind-game", and will ultimately have no reason to log-in.

 

You basically just lost 2 potentional playerbase in the long-run.

 

The third playerbase, new players, or altoholics, now come in. The "grinders" earn a mediocre salary (gold) and feel slow progress. And might be reluctant to continue progress. The "Swipers" CAN actually use real-life ressources in order to "catch-up", however, they skip through the learning phase, and feel excluded from "end-gear content" that requires some kind of mechanics.

 

Basically, with the way the business model is, and overall strategy, I don't think Blade and Soul can have a healthy future. The only remedy to this, is to make it impossible for "swipers" to earn ALL their gear through $$$. That they have to farm to obtain it. To actually play the game. With the way things are, pretty much everything can be swiped through. Anything can be bought with gold, and currency-exchange being a thing, aswell as gold selling sites, there is no need to actually play the game.

 

I assume you adopted this business model because we have quick patches, and people will always have stuff to swipe for. But what do you plan on doing once we catch up in terms of content and people having nothing to "swipe" for ?

With the way things are in other versions, end-content is impossible to grind. There is some item that costs 3600$ that everyone deems impossible to grind. If we go down that route, who will remain ?

 

I don't know where goes the money you earn from the quick crash-grabs, but without advertizement for this game through the e-sports scene, and implementation of "walls" against swipers so they actually have to farm something, which WILL keep them interested in the game, as opposed to them buying everything and not playing, this game has no future.

I love Blade & Soul, and I believe it is about time we had some communication between the devs aswell as localizators, and the playerbase. And not just about outfits or T-shirts.

I wish I could up-vote this more than once. I agree with everything.

[Pesto]

what are some examples of a free to play mmo that offers less cash shop incentives than BNS?

 

This is i think actually the best method for selling an mmo atm across the globe

 

Fact is, games are kinda like cars, consumers use it for a few years, then the cars become outdated and consumers move on to a newer, flashier one.

When the market became saturated and companies realized they cannot support a pay2play business model due to the limiting resource here being active players, over a long period of time as player interests dwindle and newer games come out, they realized that by offering players a free to play game, it provides consumers with more incentives to try their game out.

 

in short, Free to play is not an actual business model. a game that is free to play will only cause the company to go bankrupt

 

what free to play actually means, it is a marketing model

think of it as free to try, you get to experience most of the game, and while you COULD choose not to pay, paying often grants you a more complete experience.

 

Think about WoW

the original game was what, 60 dollars? that's an initial purchase. Then you add 15/month for as long as you play.

 

If you spent that money on blade and soul cash shop as you are playing, everything you are upset about suddenly doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.

 

Remember, you don't sit down at a restaurant and become furious that you can only smell the food and not eat it without paying.

 

So why are you so crazy that you think by not spending any money you should be able to play a game that has over thousands working hours put into it? Your pizza only took 15 minutes.

[CrimsonDuskEU]

25 minutes ago, Pesto said:

Fact is, games are kinda like cars, consumers use it for a few years, then the cars become outdated and consumers move on to a newer, flashier one.

Blade & Soul is an old MMORPG still very popular in Asia. WoW is a (very) old MMORPG still popular in the West. Why ? Because they mend their ways to bring in more customers. There are no "freeloaders" in a game. By playing the game, you directly support it, even without spending a penny. The trick is to find a balance between attracting "swipers" and "freeloaders". Which NCWest is failing to accomplish.

Without "freeloaders" there are no "swipers". And without "swipers" there are no "freeloaders" (cost/serv). The problem here is "freeloaders" miss out on gear-progress, while "swipers" miss out on "skill" progress by brute-forcing through mechanics. Which renders them useless in mechanics-intensive dungeons (that will come, think 4mans shattered mats is hard ? you've not seen anything). And will make them lose interest in the game. Any healthy business must keep INTEREST up. And allowing to "swipe" through everything does NOT keep interest up for neither sides.

[Reaper00]

2 hours ago, CrimsonDuskEU said:

Basically, with the way the business model is, and overall strategy, I don't think Blade and Soul can have a healthy future. The only remedy to this, is to make it impossible for "swipers" to earn ALL their gear through $$$. That they have to farm to obtain it. To actually play the game. With the way things are, pretty much everything can be swiped through. Anything can be bought with gold, and currency-exchange being a thing, aswell as gold selling sites, there is no need to actually play the game.

Not entirely accurate. The items you need to evolve your weapon and accessories all drop from the end game dungeons and are non-tradeable. The only grind you can bypass by swiping is really the secondary mats that you need like the stingers, moonstones, etc 

[Pesto]

firstly, you can't compare wow to any other game, yes wow is extremely popular, but in car terms wow is like a classic 60s mustang. You can't recreate what made it so popular. You know in the industry they joke and say the best way to make a popular mmo is to go back to 2004 and release it under the name world of warcraft? Because it's true

 

Second, your idea of "by playing the game, we are directly supporting it" is a very ironic one. For you see, in your ideal sense of the game, people who freeload SHOULD be struggling to keep up in gears, otherwise swipers gain no significant advantage and therefore won't spend money regardless.

 

Despite what you may think, people who paid into this game has already paid enough money to sustain the servers for the next couple of years. Servers don't cost that much to host per year, the majority of the money goes into advertising/game maintenance and developing, with the latter being nearly nonexistent for the western branch, as the majority of their developmental work is in translations and minor network fixes/tweaks.

 

Lets talk about this misconception you have of swipers having no skill progress as well. You seem to be under the impression that people who pay cannot adapt and learn to dungeon mechanics like your ideal freeloader.

Well, you're wrong. Just because they have access to a credit card doesn't make them inferior human beings. Maybe when their gear could push them through content they don't need to learn game mechanics. But once they start wiping due to boss attacks they'll be as quick to learn the fight as any non paying customer. Stop with the stereotyping of swiper = bad at games because that's just something people who don't /can't pay in games tell themselves to feel balanced and in control XD.

 

lastly, i can do nearly all current content on a SF i created just 30 days ago when the only money i've paid is my premium subscription. I fail to see where a nonswiper like me is hindered in progression compared to people who spend money.

 

Sure, i don't have top end gears, but is that stopping me from doing anything in this game? nope.

[ChubbyFatBoy]

2 hours ago, CrimsonDuskEU said:

I assume you adopted this business model because we have quick patches, and people will always have stuff to swipe for.

This stood out to me the most. No they didn't adopt that business model because of the quick patches. It was adopted because it is a business and this particular method makes money. Even simple events in this game have a way to dig into your pockets if you allow them. The player base is a dollar sign, simple as that. Even if you were to have those in the BnS team that actually care. They aren't the ones in charge.

[Brand X]

6 hours ago, CrimsonDuskEU said:

Blade & Soul is an old MMORPG still very popular in Asia. WoW is a (very) old MMORPG still popular in the West. Why ? Because they mend their ways to bring in more customers. There are no "freeloaders" in a game. By playing the game, you directly support it, even without spending a penny. The trick is to find a balance between attracting "swipers" and "freeloaders". Which NCWest is failing to accomplish.

Without "freeloaders" there are no "swipers". And without "swipers" there are no "freeloaders" (cost/serv). The problem here is "freeloaders" miss out on gear-progress, while "swipers" miss out on "skill" progress by brute-forcing through mechanics. Which renders them useless in mechanics-intensive dungeons (that will come, think 4mans shattered mats is hard ? you've not seen anything). And will make them lose interest in the game. Any healthy business must keep INTEREST up. And allowing to "swipe" through everything does NOT keep interest up for neither sides.

And WoW is a sub game, so by that extension, BnS needs to become sub!

[Sogno]

13 hours ago, CrimsonDuskEU said:

Ok so I've been playing since day 1 and here's my thoughts on your business model, and marketting strategy overall.

With the way things are, you reward players for swiping and not for playing. Which leaves 2 issues :

- People who play feel out of the "grind-game", and not rewarded enough for their no-life grinding.

- People who swipe, have no need to do the "grind-game", and will ultimately have no reason to log-in.

 

You basically just lost 2 potentional playerbase in the long-run.

Because B&S is a quick cash grab. It's not here to stay.

[NN13]

12 hours ago, Reaper00 said:

Not entirely accurate. The items you need to evolve your weapon and accessories all drop from the end game dungeons and are non-tradeable. The only grind you can bypass by swiping is really the secondary mats that you need like the stingers, moonstones, etc 

Actually, you aren't accurate either.

I am not sure why you classify Stingers and Moonstones as secondary mats, but those are the actual timewalls/grindwalls.

And every single mat can be bought with RL money, legally. Thanks to currency Exchange. Be it Stinger, Moonstone, SS, STS, SPTS, Machismo, Poharan perfume, MW Tear, MTS and what not. Right from the beginning of the game, you can buy things, as simple as Viridian Potion.

The only thing that can not be bought is the weapon/acc needed for evolution/break through. And that is the least of one's concern. As a matter of fact, most notorious upgrade accessories can be bought like Tainted Lab or Dark Glimpse.

 

BnS made a huge mistake. BnS designed the game in a way that one can straight up buy their way up to top gear. Upgrade materials should always come from gameplay. That is an ideal design. Being able to buy upgrade materials, even something as important is SPTS, is the worst possible design a game can have.

[Reaper00]

28 minutes ago, NN13 said:

Actually, you aren't accurate either.

I am not sure why you classify Stingers and Moonstones as secondary mats, but those are the actual timewalls/grindwalls.

You might want to re-read what it is i actually replied to. The OP said that anything could be bought with gold and there was no need to play the game. You cannot buy everything with gold, so what i said was accurate.

 

Stingers and moonstones are secondary mats. If you look at the actual weapon or accessory screen, they are in the second row of mats needed. The primary item is the accessory or weapon needed for the evolve. The fact that it takes longer to gather them doesn't make them the primary mat. The secondary mats are obtainable in a number of ways without having to run the hardest content in the game, the primary mats are usually only obtainable from one location which usually tends to be the most challenging content in the game at that time.

[NN13]

23 minutes ago, Reaper00 said:

You might want to re-read what it is i actually replied to. The OP said that anything could be bought with gold and there was no need to play the game. You cannot buy everything with gold, so what i said was accurate.

 

Stingers and moonstones are secondary mats. If you look at the actual weapon or accessory screen, they are in the second row of mats needed. The primary item is the accessory or weapon needed for the evolve. The fact that it takes longer to gather them doesn't make them the primary mat. The secondary mats are obtainable in a number of ways without having to run the hardest content in the game, the primary mats are usually only obtainable from one location which usually tends to be the most challenging content in the game at that time.

I am talking about the accuracy of your statement alone. I am not talking about the accuracy of your statement in relation to OP's statement. Yes, OP said everything can be bought and the game is not needed to be played. That is somewhat true. If one can buy 5 out of the 6 things needed to upgrade, I would be very hard pressed to agree with your statement.

 

As for the accuracy of your statement, there is no Secondary mats. There are 2 things needed for upgrade - Weapon/ACC. and mats. Of course, weapon is weapon and not "Primary mat". Just because mats are in the second row of the UI does not make it insignificant.

 

You also said -

13 hours ago, Reaper00 said:

The items you need to evolve your weapon and accessories all drop from the end game dungeons and are non-tradeable.

This is highly inaccurate. The only things you can not buy are the purple weapons/acc. Everything else you can buy. Every single thing except those are tradeable. Of course, I am not considering Naryu Silver.

The purple weapons/acc. are only a small fraction of upgrade items needed to upgrade. There are like 2 or 3 weapon that actually needs one to play the game and "grind". And even that grind can be bypassed by buying Brilliant keys.

 

Now, of course, if you consider running Asura a total of 5 times as "playing the game", then you are accurate. But when I compare the number of times non-paying users need to run Asura to upgrade, running 5 times is not exactly playing the game, at least imo.

 

The only thing in BnS that actually needs one to play the games are the Soulshields. Thats about it. Everything else can be obtained with money with the bare minimum amount of playing the game. Hell, even the HM skills can be bought if you spend enough money.

I will be hard pressed to consider the bare minimum amount of gameplay that you consider as playing the game, as actually playing the game.

[Reaper00]

21 minutes ago, NN13 said:

This is highly inaccurate. The only things you can not buy are the purple weapons/acc. Everything else you can buy. Every single thing except those are tradeable. Of course, I am not considering Naryu Silver.

Well seeing that I did say the items were untradeable and in the very next sentence that the secondary items can be bought, then i though it would've been obvious that i was referring to the weapon and accessories, but I accept that some people may not have made that connection. Fair enough.

 

24 minutes ago, NN13 said:

I am talking about the accuracy of your statement alone. I am not talking about the accuracy of your statement in relation to OP's statement.

er, why? I was replying to the OP so my statement was directed at what he said. If you want to use my statements out of context then you should start your own topic!

[InstantDeath]

I honestly don't mind swipers. There are lots swipers with +700 ap who have been offline for a very long time in my friend list. They just get bored or can't keep up with the new updates and they quit.

What really grinds my gears is that i bought gem hammers via ncoins to increase gem slots on my scorpio weapon. I recently upgraded to legendary and it gave 3 slots. Now i know that if i buy legendary gem hammers, in the future updates, they'll reset it again and make me pay again...

[NN13]

12 minutes ago, Reaper00 said:

Well seeing that I did say the items were untradeable and in the very next sentence that the secondary items can be bought, then i though it would've been obvious that i was referring to the weapon and accessories,

Still wrong. Weapon and Accessories can be bought. Stop trying so hard. You were highly inaccurate in saying that all weapon/acc. are non-tradeable. Want me to quote that part again?

 

Edit - Just for the clarification, I am talking about Blue weapons in the above sentence. As I have said in my earlier post, the only things that can not be traded or bought are the purple weapon/acc. And even then, the problem with purple weapons can be bypassed with Brilliant Keys, which again can be bought from F5.

That leaves just purple accessories that needs one to play and as I said earlier, I would be hard pressed to call it playing the game if one is playing just to get a couple of purple accessories.

 

Bottomline is that 90% of the upgrade materials in this game can be bought with money. Deny it all you want. My post is not gonna change your view. This is Internet after all.

[Reaper00]

12 minutes ago, NN13 said:

Still wrong. Weapon and Accessories can be bought. Stop trying so hard. You were highly inaccurate in saying that all weapon/acc. are non-tradeable. Want me to quote that part again?

 

Edit - Just for the clarification, I am talking about Blue weapons in the above sentence. As I have said in my earlier post, the only things that can not be traded or bought are the purple weapon/acc..

And seeing that i repeatedly used the word evolve, it's blatantly obvious i am talking about evolution and not break through. Maybe you should stop trying so hard and actually read the entire posts instead of just picking the bits you can complain about.

[NN13]

4 minutes ago, Reaper00 said:

And seeing that i repeatedly used the word evolve, it's blatantly obvious i am talking about evolution and not break through. Maybe you should stop trying so hard and actually read the entire posts instead of just picking the bits you can complain about.

So, now you are trying to imply that upgrading things in the game only involves evolving?

Don't make me laugh.

Anyway, evolve, breakthrough, whatever the hell you were talking about, I do not care.

As for picking bits of information, I suppose picking "just evolution items" from the concept of upgrading the weapon/acc. is not picking bits in your textbook. Uh-huh, ok.

 

Oh, I do not see you replying to the fact that even "evolution" weapon can be bought indirectly using Brilliant Keys, but anyway, I don't care again, as not in the mood for mindless arguments.

 

Anyway, as I said earlier -

21 minutes ago, NN13 said:

Bottomline is that 90% of the upgrade materials in this game can be bought with money. Deny it all you want. My post is not gonna change your view. This is Internet after all.

 

[Reaper00]

Just now, NN13 said:

So, now you are trying to imply that upgrading things in the game only involves evolving

 

I'm not implying anything. You are.

Just now, NN13 said:

Bottomline is that 90% of the upgrade materials in this game can be bought with money. Deny it all you want. My post is not gonna change your view. This is Internet after all.

When did I deny that? Please show me where I said that wasn't true. The OP said everything could be bought, meaning 100%. That was what my post was about and what I said was inaccurate. Nothing more, nothing less. If you choose to read something else into that, that I never actually said, then that is you problem and not mine.

[ImaBadMan]

2 hours ago, NN13 said:

You can Actually, you aren't accurate either.

I am not sure why you classify Stingers and Moonstones as secondary mats, but those are the actual timewalls/grindwalls.

And every single mat can be bought with RL money, legally. Thanks to currency Exchange. Be it Stinger, Moonstone, SS, STS, SPTS, Machismo, Poharan perfume, MW Tear, MTS and what not. Right from the beginning of the game, you can buy things, as simple as Viridian Potion.

The only thing that can not be bought is the weapon/acc needed for evolution/break through. And that is the least of one's concern. As a matter of fact, most notorious upgrade accessories can be bought like Tainted Lab or Dark Glimpse.

 

BnS made a huge mistake. BnS designed the game in a way that one can straight up buy their way up to top gear. Upgrade materials should always come from gameplay. That is an ideal design. Being able to buy upgrade materials, even something as important is SPTS, is the worst possible design a game can have.

You cant directly buy your evolve weapon but you can buy it! All you do is buy class keys from the store. Run the dungeon 1 time and you have your weapon. So yeah you can buy your weapon, just not your accessories.

[NN13]

36 minutes ago, ImaBadMan said:

You cant directly buy your evolve weapon but you can buy it! All you do is buy class keys from the store. Run the dungeon 1 time and you have your weapon. So yeah you can buy your weapon, just not your accessories.

Yeah, I kinda said that in the next posts. Brilliant Keys.

[Eileithia]

you can make it to Awakened Breeze Weapon + Awakened Oathbreaker accessories with very little effort as far as dungeon difficulty, and buying gold with $$.

 

Only dungeons you need to run are E.Fleet/Blackram, BSH/NSH, Mushin's tower to F7, for the Accessories, and Brightstone Ruins, and Tainted Lab for the weapon.  Everything else is basically handed to you in the quests, or you can buy off the market.  All of these dungeons are soloable if you take the 24 man route for the accessories. Yes, it's a grind to get the tokens/emblems, but you can also buy 10/day of each with real life money and they come off the wheel if you get lucky.  The only accessories you actually have to farm are the enlightened ones from the tower, but you're farming warrior tokens already regardless. Brightstone and Tainted lab are soloable at level 50, even in crap gear, and you should probably be farming Lab for the soulshield until you start running Yeti.  Takes a little skill and practice, but doable.

 

With this set you'll be sitting at about 500 AP, then throw in AP Gems, and you can get to around 530.  This is more than enough to run all 6 man content currently in the game, and can mostly be done with $$ and minimal actual effort.

[CrimsonDuskEU]

Thanks for the upvotes, let's try to keep this thread alive.

[DannyInfect]

Alright, NCsoft has over a million dollars and then we got this guy who apparently knows everything about video game business models, yet he's sitting at home not having even close to the amount of money NCsoft has. Then we got like 9 people who agree with him vs the whole BnS playerbase. Also I don' think people need max gear to have fun in this game. Once you get to your Breeze weapon, you're sitting pretty good.

[Winner]

10 minutes ago, DannyInfect said:

Alright, NCsoft has over a million dollars and then we got this guy who apparently knows everything about video game business models, yet he's sitting at home not having even close to the amount of money NCsoft has. Then we got like 9 people who agree with him vs the whole BnS playerbase. Also I don' think people need max gear to have fun in this game. Once you get to your Breeze weapon, you're sitting pretty good.

I got banned for just replying 'business is business' in this thread. The mod who banned me for mistakenly flagging me as 'trolling', lol. Seriously.