Remove the referral system

not sure if that's where you were going but i would much prefer to see exclusive items for subscribers. i'll never subscribe to an fps game, the concept just doesn't make sense in my mind but it's definitely something that would make subscription appealing even if it is just cosmetics.

if it wasn't profitable $OE wouldn't be releasing all their future games as free to play. they're making far more money than they were before even when they do it to older games. especially when you have people dumping $1000 into a game within a couple of months which would have taken a few years of subs to get out of them. at that point it doesn't even matter if they stick around, so customers that have been around 6+ months probably have little value to them and it'll start showing with the new things they add to their free to play games.

I'm guessing you haven't read all 22 pages of this topic (I don't blame you) but one of the biggest reasons I've seen is that SOE pulled a bait-and-switch by showing us the cosmetics in development months ago, like they usually do, then said "nope, you can only get these through referrals." That, combined with no alternative similar to how people could sell their nvidia promo codes, is why I am against the current system. It's problematic because they lead us to believe we could buy these things (minus the tank cannons) and now we can't. That's just how I'm taking it.

Well if they were the exact items shown and SOE had explicitly said they would be for sale in the depot than I guess the angst makes more sense. Only if that promise had been made (I don't know if they said so explicitly, or just showed stuff in development).

That said, I'm sure this thread would be just as long if that hadn't been the case. Nobody wants to be told they can't have something (although you totally can, it just takes some doing).

The same marketing genius that figured forcing people to do their advertising for them + making it take 250$ to unlock the items people really want..... is better than getting 5$-10$ from small groups of people who want it.

When Blizzard, or any other game i've been a part of... Promotes stuff as being 'exclusive' to something, they are PROMOTED as such from the first release of any information about the item.

I'd have no problems with the items being exclusive (well i'd be a bit annoyed, but nowhere near what things are like now), if they had had them labeled as such to begin with. They weren't. They were displayed just like everything else that is NOT exclusive, They were teased to us for months.. now, suddenly their made 'exclusive' to a nearly unattainable promotional campaign designed to try to get more people into the game, at a date in time were everyone who currently plays (and would be interested in those items) has ALREADY gotten everyone they know into the game.

I know the game isn't Free to run, or Free to make. Thats why i pay them 15$ a month for the subscription (i don't just do it to skip the lines during alerts). Its also why i WANT TO BUY THESE SUDDENLY "EXCLUSIVE" ITEMS IN THE STORE. But, i am sorely tempted to cancel that subscription simply because of how they handled this. When you dangle something in front of your customers, get their interest in the item, play it out just like you have every single other item that has gone into the store like normal, then turn around and say "oh, sorry, you have to get us 250$'s worth of "new" members before you can have these." Its nothing more than a low-blow money-grab. It shows that while they like to tease us with new items and toys to play with, their more interested in raising their profits than in actually keeping us happy.

First items we all have been waiting for are suddenly 'exclusive' to a nearly unattainable promotional goal. What's next? Outfit Controlled Bases require a 50$ a month subscription payed by the Outfit leader in order to 'claim' them? Water-based combat continent requires a 'payed membership' to get to? The ability to take your vehicles from one continent to another requires a 5sc charge each time you do so?

Your forgetting one thing. PS2 HAS a subscription system. Sure it is optional.. but it IS There. And im pretty sure those F2P games the Zynga guys (who i dont really trust anyway based off their recent history in the gaming world), were ones that were 'truly' free to play, meaning NO subscription options, purely "Gem-store".

Throws PS2's subscription into the mix, and you now have a 'steady' income, even from those players who 'have everything'. Those 10$ new recruits?.. they may spend that 10$ to 'help their friend' then never touch the game again. Woo-hoo... you made 250$ off a group of people. But what happens if 20-30 people currently paying you 180$ a year + the SC purchases they make leave? that 'instant' 250$ vanishes rather quickly when you face a 3600-5400$ a year income decrease (those 20-30 people who 'were' paying 15 a month leaving)

They didn't come out and say they were 'going' to be on sale in the Depot. But, they displayed them to us, teased them to us, hanged them in front of our noses, JUST like they did with every single other item that IS in the depot.

Then, they pulled the bait-n-switch with the "nope, sorry, gotta give us 250$ for these threw our nifty new money-grab referral system. You wont be able to buy these individually".

bait n switch or not.. .they are still deny us cool stuff and denying themselves money.

This is, precisely, the issue at hand here. Even without the fact that these items were touted with the intent of them being purchasable only to be restricted from the playerbase, this is a terrible marketing decision on the part of SOE, for reasons which they clearly did not anticipate.

To address Flapatax, you have clearly put a lot of effort into your posts, and that deserves commendation. It's always nice to see someone take the unpopular side on an issue and actually take the time to attempt a truly convincing argument. That being stated, however, I am compelled to disagree with your opinion, and will endeavor to make the quality of my rebuttal equal to the quality of yours.

Regardless of whether or not you personally believe that this program is unfair, the majority most certainly does. Regardless of whether or not you believe the majority to be correct, it is the majority which will be spreading the most information about this program. Whether it happens to serve its intended purpose and gain a few new players is irrelevant in the face of the fact that the overwhelming majority will only ever mention this program in a negative context, which will, invariably, make prospective newcomers wary of SOE and what choices they will make. Regardless of whether or not this program is objectively fair - which it is not - the fact remains that this will turn away almost anyone who is an actual friend of most avid Planetside 2 players.

Furthermore, let us take a moment to analyze this in terms of basic marketing. I am aware of the differences between marketing real products and marketing a free-to-play model, inasmuch as that there are very very few. SOE is providing a purposefully crafted virtual environment, designed to give the impression that its technically worthless virtual items are of real value. The real world provides a purposefully crafted 'real' environment, designed to give the impression that its real but practically worthless items are of real value. It is the same metaphorical marketing game, the only difference is the medium.

In regards to any lasting appreciation and success for items which hold no practical value, the determining factor always, without fail, boils down to the dedication of its core supporters. Franchises such as Transformers, Magic: the Gathering, and Star Wars stand as testaments to this - the company gives the long-time die-hard fans what they want, and while those fans are happy, more people are drawn in just by the fact that the people who invest the most in the product are the happiest - that's Capitalism at its finest. For a franchise to succeed, the people at its center - the people whom, individually, contribute far more money than anyone else - must be satisfied with their investment, and in turn, they will recommend the franchise to others naturally, without being coerced in any way.

This decision by SOE, to refuse their core playerbase these items unless they pay an obscenely unholy amount of money, is making their core playerbase not only unhappy, but distrusting as well. We, as a core, cannot tell other people that their investment will without a doubt be worthwhile, while our own investments are being tacitly disregarded by the company we support. The Planetside franchise is more than capable of reaching the status of the aforementioned example franchises - but only if it allows itself to accommodate those who support it most, along with new players.

Again, I do not mean or intend any disrespect to SOE - they overlooked a lot of key factors in making the decision which they did, and that's more than understandable. What will not be understandable, however, is if these items remain exclusive and SOE chooses to make itself indifferent and indirectly dishonest to those who have been with Planetside 2 since its initiation. We, as a playerbase, and as their best supporters, are absolutely entitled to the privilege of giving them a realistic amount of money (e.g. less than $250) for virtual items they have promised us for months on end.

If you honestly believe that, there is no point discussing this any further.

I cannot facepalm hard enough at the people in this thread who think they have better information than SOE in regards to how to monetize their game.

Just...wow.

Then tell me this.

Am i wrong in that a 'instant and one-time' 250$ influx of cash is counterbalanced by the 180 a year that is lost. This being the amount gained by 1 player managing to either get 25 people to spend 10 bucks, or spending the 250 by themselves, and the amount 1 player spends per year on his/her subscription.

Yes, that 180 is less in the first year than the 250, but in 2 years? it is not. SOE has mentioned this 25 persone 'goal' is a "long term plan" and the entire recruitment scheme itself is designed as a 'long term plan'.

So... thinking 'long-term', that instant 250, at the end of the second year, has costed them 110$ if the subscription player leaves while that 1 person who payed 250, but still does not buy a subscription, stays. After 3 years it has costed them $290, 4 -> $470 and so on. And this is just based off 1 single subscriber closing down their subscription vs 1 person managing to recruit 10 'temporary' players, none of which pick up subscriptions (or if 1 person makes 10 dummy accounts and spends that 250$). What if this 1-to-1 ratio turns into 20?.. 30?.. 100?

How does 10 x 'burst' 250$ payments compare to the loss of 10x 180$ 'constant yearly' influx of 180? In that first year.. again, they 'gain' with that 250, but from that point on, it ends up costing them more.

That is the 'loss' they face.

So put on a 'recruit must reach BR x'.. Say.. 30 or 40 so you spend 100-200 hours or whatever avg time to reach specific BR is deemed enough. Not too many people are willing to do that 25 times, or even 2 times.

And during those hours, if a player is ever going to spend money, they will. If not, they're content for other players regardless; This game would be dead if it had 10% playerbase (only the paying customers).
The people not paying are still vital to making money.

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There is one point to consider in favor of this system: At least the servers won't be destroyed by an influx of new players they can't handle (before new ones are set up).

...in fact, SOE should already be setting up new servers? Why aren't they? Because they, too, realise this recruitment program won't actually grow the playerbase very much...

Still no update on that issue , sadly is someones laughing at us

Personally, the free weapons aren't bad... but they only work for one class. What if we were trying to get someone to play that didn't want to play heavy assault? The free weapons don't exactly work as an incentive then. Why not a choice of a free weapon based on the class they want to play most instead. Just throwing this out there.

As for the cosmetics, I'll be honest that most of them simply look ugly to me so I wouldn't have much interest in buying them in the first place.

Typical PR-response. Typical of what I'd expect from a company like SOE that is only interested in maximizing their profits and not at all interested in providing a fun (not to mention well designed) game.

The solution is easy: sell all the rewards in the regular item shop for fair prices. People that don't want to spend money themselves still have the option to recruit 721'343 people and each get them so sell you their soul or whatever sick requirements you crazies dream up.

Good work!

The point of the program is to incentivize you to recruit for them. The earning potential from someone who converts to a paying customer trumps the dollar value of the cosmetic items. They are fairly confident that no matter how upset you are that you can't buy your shinies, the people who would in fact spend money on them have invested too much to just quit the game in protest. And they are overwhelmingly correct.

That is all. /thread. The end. No more. Sorry that not everything comes easy.

What do you think SOE or any successful company's goal is? Businesses exist to make profits. Even non-profit businesses exist to make money. They just don't call it "profits". If you put down SOE for trying to make as much money as they can, you may as well keep going and put down every business. Start hating on your grocery store because they are selling items consumers need to make a profit. Hate the stored you buy your clothes from as well as the manufacturers supplying those clothes to the store. I could go on but hopefully you get the point. Demonizing companies for the very reason they exist is just dumb. Without companies trying to make money there would be a lot of jobless people.

Make the cosmetic items available in the depot. (I am already used to knowing that there are certain weapon variants that we can only obtain through certain promotions, so I don't mind that there are "platinum" versions of some weapons I can buy.)

Put the helments in the depot.
Put the camos in the depot.
Put some form of MAX lumifiber in the depot.
Put ESF gold dealies in the depot.

People who cannot/will not recruit will contribute their SC. People who can/will recruit, are incentivized to save their SC and getting the nifty recruiter versions of some guns.

The only thing I would point out here (regardless of who may be correct or not, I suspect both sides have about half the truth) is that, from what I've seen, it's not that people will quit. I don't think many or any will stop playing and uninstall over this silliness. But I've seen more than a few (on other forums and places of discussion as well) say they won't buy other things. You don't have to quit a F2P to hurt it financially.

How true that would hold in the long run is debateable; it's not like these are the last cosmetics that will ever be made, and I'm sure something else eventually put in the game would tempt them. But the way this has been handled thus far is more the issue....not knowing if there will be an equivalent or something even better in the depot eventually is putting people up in arms. It would probably help PS2 some to preview something else coming out, or confirm that more plain, non SE versions of the helmets are going to hit the depot, or....something. Leaving us to stew in our own unknowing, circular arguments doesn't seem the best way to do this.