Smedly comments on Implant changes: "sorry but we are actually trying to make money"

Here's how I see the money situation. This is only my personal opinion, and I have no idea how many other people share it.

I am more than willing to send Sony $10 per month as my way of supporting them, to make it worth their time and effort and to pay for electricity costs or computer technician labor cost or to buy a 500-acre server farm. LOL

But I am NOT willing to send Sony even a single penny to purchase some "bling", or even something a bit more important like a weapon. Why am I not willing to do this? Because what am I really buying? Something virtual, not something real and tangible.

Perhaps my words won't make sense to people. I dunno. But this is how I feel. I haven't even spent any of the StationCash that I get each month for "supporting the game" via my AllAccess membership. I'm gonna save it for another game like Everquest Next if that game ever gets released.

So I will send them $10 for no reason at all, essentially (just because I love the game and want it to keep going forever)... but I will not send them $10 in return for a weapon or some cool-looking decoration. It barely even makes sense to me as I type it... but maybe it will help some Sony psychologist figure out its player base. LOL

I think some people (like me) just love a good challenge. So for me, the less certs they give us, the more I'm gonna grind certs, just so I can say "I did it, despite the roadblocks and obstacles they put in front of us".

Sorry have to dispute it's US Law. There are plenty of US firms doing Gifting. Plenty. I'll use an example one can go look at right now. Rift. American company with all servers running in US. They do huge business in gifting. I gifted stuff to people in Europe and Australia as well. No problem.

No, there is but one reason they can't do it. Don't fool yourself. SOE. Oh and cos' hats are their specialty.... And there you have it.

Ones on currency, currency being anything of value (even gifts) exchanging hands. If it is between individual people, it's bartering, but if people does it through SOE's server, it's a centralized exchange and subject to laws in countries and localities. Think of every country, state, city etc that may have it's own laws and SOE serves in, and It's a logistical nightmare. If you want to gift someone, paypal them the cash.

But other games do gifting.

And, if necessary, why couldn't they just find a workaround, like buying and gifting a code?

If they really can't do it, they should post that in the gifting Roadmap thread and close it. Of course, that would mean an update.

I don't think there's a real problem with doing it, requires some lawyers to write some additional language into the EULA and a bunch more code added to PS2. The real problem is funding, I don't think the finances will allow much lawyering and code writing if it doesn't come with golden eggs attached. The volume of gifting will be too small for what could be 500,000$ of work.

Charities have to make money too, you'll never see a charity that loses more money than it can sustain!

In any case charity or business; a bad business plan remains a bad business plan - the intent is irrelevent.




The problem with rentable implants is:

1) the P2Whatever issue - they cannot just PR that away, as much as they try, people aren't that daft and mud like that sticks, it drives people away and it stops other playing (both groups of people that would have been potential income streams).

2) it simply won't make much money, apparently implants were making money (which isn't surprising when you consider their are effectively $0 cost items), but it wasn't "enough". Totally rigging the system so you have to buy now doesn't guarentee that everyone will, in fact it may well result in the opposite.

3) the reality that if they'll sell implants like Clear Vision or Sensor Shield 3 (or rather the ability to have them 24/7) then there is basically no difference to that and them selling a 1%, 3% or even 5% DPS "boost". And given what RadarX has said things like that may well already be in the pipeline!

They are saying it isn't "supposed" to be P2W, but rather a cert sink now......... I'm not convinced myself. At best that's a fib at worst they are basically having all the problems of P2Whatever for a reason that can be addressed in other ways.