Remove the referral system

As many others in this thread, I feel cheated by this promo for I have already invited many friends to this game who have spent the money. I no longer have any more. Main reason is my other friends don't have the rig to run this game. Perhaps you could make a way to prove the friends you invited, were indeed invited by you. Maybe they could send you an email verifying it with an in-game name.

What about people with few friends but spend much more then 10 dollars on the game? Suggestion: players who are recruited and spend $10 can count as 1 referral but then let's say that same referred friend spends $25, it can count as 2 referrals, $50 3 referrals, $100 4 referrals and so on. This makes it fair for players with less friends and technically you're still making money because I recruited them. Just a thought.

I pay to play Planetside 2, which in itself SOE should not taken for granted as the benefits we have today is not worth the money we give them every month compared to a free player. Considering to end my subscription if this is what we can expect in the future. No use in being loyal, if they do not show any loyalty to their current members.
Waiting for an annoucement from SOE about what happens.

Oh my lord the entitlement.

I'd hate to think how much you all would've whined when Blizzard implemented essentially the same thing.

I know I will never get any of these rewards, but I also know that they aren't mine by right. I'm sorry, but if you want to look shiny you have to do the legwork. Also people asking for stuff retroactively clearly have no clue as to what SOE's trying to do.

F2P games aren't Free2Make or Free2Run. Also, I want more opponents, not the same whiny brats just with shiny armor because they feel they their $15 is worth more than what SOE does.

There is an exclusivity attached to these items. Sorry. Wanting it isn't the same as deserving it.

And the people who have sunk hundreds of dollars into your accounts and are threatening to quit over this? One, lol, and two, delete your characters then come back here.

" It's already bad enough that it forces us to recruit players for items, but when it says $10 is to be spent in order for it to count, that is taking it way too far."

SOE at its finest

Yes, because it would be so difficult to make 25 free accounts and unlock everything for yourself by yourself. This system is designed to recruit players and convert them into long-term.

"Taking it way too far"--Jesus.

This is really the only argument that's been posted up as opposition to the point of this thread and surprisingly, the baseless opinion's been drowned out every time with facts.

It's not entitlement here, it's factual opportunity cost. You like the game playing efficiently, right? You like having new things to work with to keep it up to date and interesting, yeah? What if that all stopped? What if the developers had to skip a few patches, because they simply couldn't afford them anymore?

That's what we're bordering on with decisions like this. Entitlement? Yeah, I feel entitled to a game that is well-designed and entertaining, and that needs a smart marketing team. If they want to follow your logic and dismiss solid marketing opportunities for far-fetched risk-taking maneuvers such as this, to obtain resources that have quite literally already been depleted several months ago, then it won't be surprising in the least when certain patch qualities get sacrificed.

The smart thing would have been to market similar items in some fashion that could allow them to be purchased, alongside the recruiting program. Without that, they not only risk failing to attract new players, they risk losing the solid investments of old players as well.

Of course, you don't really care. By your stance, you would be saying the same thing, "No, I don't want three to five hundred dollars from you,"

Huh? This system costs them almost nothing to implement. I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or not, but new player conversions are worth a lot more than retaining an old one from a game development standpoint.

If you feel entitled to a good game, then you should endorse a cost-free system designed to crowd-source revenue and a player base.

Also, how does not offering specific new cosmetic items put off brand new players? They don't know about it. And again, for the old players, they have their money and odds are those players won't abandon their investment. You know it's true.

By not doing this and getting some extra revenue I could see them cutting down development, not the opposite like I think you're implying?

Your argument is invalid? Or just looking at a situation and saying "I don't like this, so I will draw the opposite conclusion of the correct one." I don't see how getting more paying customers is somehow not cost effective.

Also the last line makes literally no sense.

I'd love to provide for the system, but I can't. Few people can. The new players? Are usually joining by themselves, and those who are being invited aren't precisely in swarms.

As a result, they've lost potential income from the products being marketed in the depot, which is assured cash flow rather than the potential cash flow of hoping people still have friends left over for invitation to the game. The masses needed for this to work, don't have the resources needed for this to work. Instead it's limited to an elite few who could never invite enough people to draw in the same revenue as the immediate cash opportunities of the depot.

Because of this, their hope for profit through new players, turns into the reality of poor income through a visibly faulty feature that held the incentives which could have turned a greater profit if they'd been put into the depot to parallel the recruitment program.

It's great that you think it's working, but given a month or two, the recruitment numbers will plateau again, just as they have before. So far though, I've spoken with outfits such as AOD, Goku and so on, to find that the recruitment drive has only suffered because of this. People aren't interested in trying for the impossible, because they feel that if they hold out or leave long enough, they rewards they want will eventually be available on the market.

That means we're not getting income from them, or the players they're not inviting.

The last line was pointed out as the literal summary of any counter-point. We're asking to give money to SOE, if they say no to that, they're saying no to that. If you're agreeing with them, you're taking the stance that you don't want our money.

The fact is, this comes at a time when people are skeptical as to planetside 2's continued future. You see low BR people yes, but how many of those are just alts of existing players?

Bringing in new players is only monetarily more valuable to you if those new players will end up making you more in the long run than that one allienated veteran would have. You have no statistic to claim that its more valuable to have new players than old ones, you are making it up because you , like many in the modern era, are thinking of a short sighted, short term goal of cash grabbing rather than product longevity.

If I sell expensive cars and I know a rich guy who collects expensive cars, Im pretty sure I am going to go to him first and ask him to buy one before I try selling to some new person who may or may not be a sale. He has a vested interest in my product, further more, if i do good business with him, he trusts me to give him a good product. If he has a friend who says one day

"Where do you get those cars? Id like one myself"

Then I suddenly have a really SOLID source for a referral. If After I sell the guy a car, I treat him like trash, and he tells all his friends "this guys dealership is trash" It wont matter If I pick some guy off the street and pressure him into a buy, because i just lost more potential customers by pissing off the one, than i gained by playing cash grab.

people think that "i have your money now i dont care about you" is an effective business model these days. IT used to be such that a return customer was your most valuable. I mantain that it is.Only pyramid schemes/shady monopolys get away with cash grabbing.

Thinking with the mentality of, "money now is fine even if we dont support our customer", It should be pretty obvious why many business are having trouble with sales and wondering "why arent people buying our stuff?"

Product support is one of the most important aspects of mantaining a referall base. IF the product failed to stay sold to the buyer, how on earth do you think itll sell to someone else who is their friend?

@SOE

Word of mouth advertising is stronger than any billboard or banner ad, and it comes ONLY from loyal EXISTING customer base, wether a trade school business degree says so or not. You can choose wether you get this free, and highly effective form of advertising or not, based on how you treat your existing playerbase.

If I had to guess I'd say they are doing a version of a tiered pricing strategy, in which case these things might eventually become purchasable.

If they don't, there will be plenty of cosmetic items in the future to buy. They won't be these items, hence exclusivity. I hope SOE doesn't renege on this. There are plenty of mounts in WoW that I would love to have had but had no reasonable means of obtaining. I didn't ***** at Blizzard to give them/sell them to me.

Again, working in the industry, a new player putting down $10 is worth much more than an established player paying the same. You may think customer loyalty trumps all, but with MMOs it really, really doesn't. I cannot stress this enough. Go to an industry meetup and talk to some analytics guys.

And if you're discouraged from inviting people because of how hard it is to type in an email address, well, I can't do nothing for you. If you don't have 5, 10, 25 friends to invite, well, that's the breaks. You can always make 25 accounts and throw down $250.

Also, talking to big outfits is the definition of confirmation bias.

Why is that? I'm only curious. Why is a new player putting down only $10 worth more than say me for instance, annually subscribed, alpha squad purchased, and a hefty sum dropped on SC?

Edit; Re-read, disregard, ~paying the same.~

Though still, why is that?

keep in mind smed said only 10% of players are paying customers, so you're going to have to recruit 250 people, by their own stats, to ever get the reward. this is just a way to get people to spam forums, youtube, social media, and the like for people they don't even know and likely don't even want to play with in the first place. and keeping the 10% in mind, a paying customer is much more valuable than a new recruit considering one paying customer equals ~10 recruits.

that said, I don't really care about cosmetics so claiming that the controversy is due to people wanting the item is just plain false. it's because the system is just awful. also note that the majority of the people that agree with this system also say they won't even be trying to get the item. figure it out for yourself.

*Insert lots of text to support the points above*

The system's flawed, could use work before we end up killing a portion of PS2's marketability.

One particular conversation with an analytics guy from Zynga Boston last year stands out. The fact of the matter is F2P games are marketed extremely different from what we've grown accustomed to over the last decade. Let's say you've spent $250 dollars on the game and bought just about every weapon you want. You're done. You've indicated that you are a loyal customer and will either throw more money at the game when they release more stuff (great) or that you've bought everything you plan on (that sucks, but they have your $250). Considering your investment, most people will fall into the first camp. Trying to wine and dine you is pointless.

A new player who throws down $10 has indicated they have a new vested interest. Every item they haven't bought is potential revenue now, with a much higher chance of them buying it now that they've made the initial investment. The odds of a player being the kind of person to spend money on a F2P game, but only doing so ONCE is extremely small; especially as they see how slow certs accumulate as a F2P member (here comes a sub) and the opportunity cost of using certs versus station cash for weapons.

They aren't going for retention the same way WoW or other sub games do. With those games, you have your monthly fee and time invested, and when you quit, whatever, the tap stops. But every time you buy something in PS2 that's an optional purchase, and it makes you more inclined to stick around. When I quit WoW I'm just not paying next month's sub and I'm losing the time I've invested. When I quit PS2 I'm losing the time and all the microtransactions I went in for.

Also, 10% pay conversation for a F2P game is HUGE. Most games work with <1%. I am frankly shocked, and much more optimistic about the game if that's truly the case.

I personally don't disagree with the point that new customers are more valuable long term. New players are likely to make more purchases for things established players already have. That being the case, I don't have an issue with the recruitment program in itself. My issue is the feasibility of reaching some of those numbers with PS2. Just recruiting isn't enough. If people use the program legitimately how many recruits might it take for them to reach the number that spent $10? Now granted it doesn't need to be PS2 you are recruiting for, but if you aren't recruiting to a game you are playing, they aren't that good of friend.

The recourse is dummy accounts that both speed up the process and reduce the hassle of actively recruiting. The thing people are trying to say is that if people can do that, why not provide an alternative method to acquire some of the items? A simple solution is have a mirrored program for long term subscription members. They have a premium access store so just add some of the recruitment items to that based on member level. Copper sees 2 recruit rewards for sale. Auraxium members see them all for sale.

Doing that leaves the recruitment program in place and makes everyone happy. SOE probably would get a lot of new subscriptions as well from this which subscribed members are more valuable than non paying users.

The key to tiered pricing is that you don't make the cheaper/more desirable model available right away.

Early adopters, then the masses.

Problem here is that SOE is standing by the notion that the items in question will never be released in the Depot. I wouldn't mind hearing some evidence to counter that, as it'd really make my day better.

They very well could, and we'd all be better off to have the new players. Nothing wrong with encouraging new players to join, you guys need to get over it.

I'd rather damage the reputation of the game and discourage these silly tactics for recruitment. If SOE wants more people, just give me a game I can enjoy, rather than trying to bribe me with stuff that I'd rather pay money for.

Again, there will be things to buy. Here are some things you can't. Not sure why that's so problematic. This system can, in theory, leverage 100% of the player base as opposed to the minority of paying players. If they get a paid conversation off a referral from a F2P player that's nutballs awesome.

I'm sure the F2P people will complain just as noisily when SC-only awesome cosmetic gear continues to show up again and again. (Ifrit mask...I can almost justify it to myself).