If it starts causing issues in the game we can reconsider their long term availability. One of the most interesting use cases (especially for EQ) I think for these is gifting time for friends. Now I know no one has ever logged into someone else's account and put their own credit card in for time (I haven't done it 4 or 5 times myself), but this will give a much safer and easier means of accomplishing a similar goal. If anyone was doing that. Which of course we know no one ever does.
Now add expansions back to the marketplace at a slightly higher station cash cost than it would cost with a credit card (i'm sure people would be willing to pay SLIGHTLY higher.
This is already happening. People are selling hundreds of SC cards for 30 gametime for ingame money. And SOE is probably having to deal with hundreds of petitions about people being scammed by thiefs for some of these SC card sales. This simply removes the illegal market and the ingame samming creating a secure transaction that was happening eery hour of every day anyways. If anything we should be thanking SOE for kicking a small portion of the scammers to the gutter where they belong with this
The latter, its a split between the two pricing points. Call it a "premium" paid for standard sub's. The price of EQ or any other sub based MMO isnt going past $14.99 ever. The market will not bear that price. Look at $15 like a mental barrier, right now few people bat an eye at $15 a month, but if you get to $18 or $19 then it starts to look like $20 a month, $20 a month is a price point the market will not pay, no mater the game. Also the trend is going to Free to Play and AllaCarte gameplay (far more profitable by alot for Studios). I suspect in 5 years maybe less we wont even see subscription based gaming even left in the market.
you can buy the gamecards online for only 15.99 and then give the codes to anyone you want to. you can even pay with paypal on some websites. WHat i don't understand, is why make the krono higher than the actual game cards? it should be the same price. if it were, i would see the sense in buying them. i refuse to pay more than a regular subscription just because it is for a gift. or maybe this is their way of telling us our subscriptions are going up?
They can now turn their plat over for game time, which they can sell a months play for what they could have 10$ of plat before. I mean, who wouldnt want to buy a months game time for like 10 bucks (although someone started it at 18, but traded plat for it and now some one else has real money)
I have to say that this will probably be good for me, but I worry about its effect on the game. Even though it would be worse for me (I'd be the one buying Krono, so I'd have to pay more), I would like to see a plat tax on these (maybe 10% of the plat used to purchase them) to help remove some plat from the game. Would you guys be willing to put that to a vote? I don't know how that vote would turn out, but I'd at least like to see you guys consider it.
if itemSold == Krono platExchanged = platExchanged * .9 end if Another question: By the way, I know EQII will be getting Krono tomorrow. Any word on when EQ will get the Krono treatment? Sometime in November? December?
If you are talking through the bazaar system then all it would do is shift people to using trades to get it done.
Dumb it down a little for people who aren't quite following. When you purchase the Kronos from the Marketplace, *that* is when you will also have a plat tax? And the plat tax will be 10% of what? 10% of up to 17.99? What is the official sony approved exchange rate on that?
In that case people just purchase on a toon/account that does not have any plat and is set up just for that purpose.
Well, there are a number of ways to prevent this, including just taxing the trades (and before you suggest two different trades, one for the plat and, after that's exited, one for the Krono, remember that that runs the risk of getting ripped off). Besides, people pay for convenience, and the bazaar is convenient. /auctioned items tend to be cheaper than those bought in the bazaar, but people go there anyway so that they can have quick and easy access to items. Adding the same code to trades would make it very difficult to get around the tax without running the risk of getting ripped off. When they trade it to another person, though it wouldn't be impossible to figure out the average price of a Krono on a particular server and tax it when they purchase it from the marketplace (just record the selling price of all Krono in the bazaar for the past week, average that, and then charge that much when purchased).
It wouldn't really be that much work (though it would be to try to bypass it), and it would help to remove some plat from the game. Quite frankly, there is just too much plat and there needs to be a system for its removal.
There is not too much plat, and there is no need for a new system to remove it wholesale from game. We just saw another augment distiller price reduction, this time a massive price slash. Mercs have become dirt cheap to hire now, the result of another huge price reduction. More and more common plat sink expenses are being reduced, while more and more coin value items drops from common mobs in current content. They even added plat value to a slough of tradeskill items that were previously refused by merchants. Although you may feel there is too much plat, the people (devs) that actually know for fact how much plat exists on server economies don't appear to feel there is any sort of pressing problem that requires any attention at all ... much less a 10% house rake.