Smed's Philosophy ( From Planestside Reddit )

Exaclty. Why does it appear on Reddit first? Why does it have to be a link or a cross-posting here?

Why would the OFFICIAL OUTLET for a publication not (normally) be the first place to go to find out key information like developer notes or interactions.

I wouldn't have known who smed was if it wasn't for people reposting from reddit. Serves me right for using Planetside 2 forums to talk about Planetside 2.

Well £7 does sound rather high, but $7 USD feels pretty close to the pricing sweet spot to me (as someone who's worked professionally in F2P games for ~3 years)

Loving to make games, and loving when players buy your games, doesn't mean you should starve your business into bankruptcy. But again, $7 USD is £4.27, so there's a pretty serious price difference there and £4.27 is probably closer to the ideal price point (well...this works on the assumption that the British market is similar to the US one, which may not be true. One would hope for SOE's sake that someone there is looking at whether or not their price point is the right one for that market, especially if it's that much higher.)

So they should have, like, sales and promotions? Great idea! Why hasn't SOE thought of this?

I'm graduating soon as a marketing major with an emphasis sales...SOE's sales promotions don't compare to having universally more affordable items all the time. This is the case particularly when new items are first released and everyone wants them then and there. Their sales and promotions are okay, but are lacking in the areas of what the sales actually apply to and the duration of the sale. They should have these sales for every item and for a longer duration of time like the steam sales. I'm tired of the one sale for a certain type of item and for a short period of time. At least with steam sales if you miss the item/game they often have everything on sale on the last day of the sales promotion in case you missed what you wanted earlier in the promotion. But hey what do I know....

Yeah, because reasonable pricing worked so well for JC penny.

They have 2 sales everyday, bundle sales, and promotional sales. They have more then enough sales already.

LOL, J.C Penny had so many more problems and it extended beyond their prices. I'm comparing the online F2P game industry and you throw in an example from the retail industry.

I feel Smedley is misunderstood. Perhaps the reason he shuns the official forums is because of the negativity here. I have no idea what it is like on Reddit.

Doesn't matter where the market exists, it's the same principal.

I assure you if you look at the differences between industries and the markets/demograhics they target they have noticeable differences. Unless you're saying the people who play PS2 fall into the same demographic of the people who shopped at J.C Penny

Wait--woah! I thought Smed was a liberal!
This really reminds me of the recent impromptu AMA by Riot's (president?) about accusations of greed.
Good to see he's seen, through personal firsthand experience, the romance, altruism, and honor that can permeate through the respect of mutual agreement in their fellow man that naturally abides within capitalism.
<3 ya Smeds.

It not our fault that Corporate America is scum.

We just assume they are all one and the same.

Are you sure marketing is the right course of study for you? How do you not see the connection? Online sales and instore sales are the exact same thing.

I said there are differences, and I wasn't talking about online and in store sales. I'm saying that just because having reasonable prices didn't work out for the retail chain J.C Penny does not mean it applies the same to the F2P micro transaction game of PS2. At the same time just because selling items at 66-75% off multiple times a year works for Steam doesn't mean it will work the same way for J.C Penny if that makes sense. I've been in marketing long enough and have been in the university system for 5 years, am about to graduate, and have had a sales job for 4 summers that I performed very well at. I'm happy with the major I chose.

Mostly a ********** where image links are usually the most popular posts, with sporadic outcries against some forgotten (lack of) feature that die reach the second page within 24h due to the nature of the board.

Also, and most importantly, terrible formatting

Smed has said a million times that he prefers to post on Reddit since he is free to post and respond in any fashion he chooses and likewise players are also free to respond without limitations. Plus he prefers that he can see the more popular replies clearer.

Sadly this forum is moderated to remain in line with the T for Teen of the game.

It's funny when people post "all you have to do is lower your item prices and you'd make more money!"

Right, your kneejerk armchair economics notions trump those of a market research team with years of experience and statistics under their belts.

For instance, did you know that F2P games make all their money from "whales"? These are the people who spent large amounts of money on the game. Most people spend nothing, a few people spend close to nothing, and then a tiny amount spend like crazy. All the money comes from the big spenders.

Which means lowering the weapon prices would REDUCE SOE's revenue. So what if a few cheapskates are willing to spend an extra few dollars here and there? Statistically, those of you saying "$7 is too much" - you guys are insignificant. The whales are what matter. To them, $7 is no big deal.

The proof is in the pudding. If $7 was really a bad price point, SOE would have lowered it a long time ago.

It's all about sales. No one cares what the actual value is when it's 50% off, and it doesn't matter what the item is.

Now if the devs and ceo would be capable of writing on their own forum, we'd be getting somewhere.

Obviously any game company is going to want you to think making a great game comes first. Doesn't mean it's true.

Game devs have to answer to people with less passion for games as well. Maybe they're a necessary evil, maybe not. We'll see how game development changes as more and more people are cutting out the middle men with kickstarter and so on.