I've always supported every product you've released, from the gg mf debacle, to the multiple prestige chromas, to cutting the numbers of 975 skins as I understand the balance between making money and taking the players into consideration. I think I am being biased here because I'm feeling the effects of the decision more personally. Obviously I don't know then numbers and without them I can't truly judge, but money is money so it makes sense to me to lock whatever the most sought after behibd the pay wall but provide an alternate but hard to argue against explanation.
I'm glad you support the skins team on their decisions. I will let them know :) Personally, I did not work on those products you mentioned :(
In terms of locking the most sought after chromas. Most amount of players buy either 1 or a bundle of chromas. If we force the mass of players that love pinks, whites and blacks to buy bundles, we do not expect them to do this every time. Which means, there will be less people buying single chroma for a maybe a small increase of bundle sales.
Bundle exclusives are aimed to make the already bundle buyers feel that bundles have more value do to the exclusivity. They are for the people who love collecting and already on the fence between buying one or bundle.
Those who are more price sensitive can always wait for Blue Essence Sales.
Moreover, there is no evidence that single Chroma buyers have only one color they prefer on every bundle. Generally the majority single chroma buyers will buy one of White, Black or Pink chromas.
For chromas there are mostly 2 types of buyers. Either you buy the whole pack, or you buy one of your favorite colors.
The red exclusives are aimed towards rewarding our bundle buyers. It is not for making people shell out alot of money because their favorite is locked behind a bundle.
While I understand that may get alot of buyers in the short term :P It wouldn't be as sustainable in the long run!
I remember when riot lexical said it would be unfair to lock pink and white and black chromas behind a paywall and disingenuously said they picked red for that reason, not because it would be the most popular.
It's nice to see they won't rotate the one locked behind a big pay wall ever, which they totally could, while promoting some resemblance of fairness and integrity.
That would be a very messy schedule. What if you like this set's pink and next set's red etc etc. That just happened to on rotation?
I can already imagine the comments :P Rito locking the most popular color of every set. There will always be one person who's favorite gets locked.
Moreover, on key idea on keeping exclusives consistent color is for recognition. There are not many indicators in game to tell others that your chroma is exclusive (aka a tier above the rest) aside from the color itself.
Also its a bit saddening for intentions to be misconstrued. I wish I can show you the exact PPT slide comment where I told the eCommerce team that I rather put red as bundle exclusive compared to pinks due to the reason I mentioned.
;_; Sometimes you get bashed either you try or not try....
then it would make financial sense for EITHER ONE of those three to be the bundled exclusive and not red then :) by a landslide. that is why they were made, no?
it's smart to cement the consistency early so that any criticisms can just be responded to with "we want to keep our word!"
contrl+f emerald wow! real exclusive! youre making them partner chromas/giving them away for free because they were selling the worst, opposite decision to making red the most expensive, yet sneakily suggesting the reasoning to make them exclusive is the same.
again, fuck ANYONE that prefers red
It would probably make financial sense in the short term if we really wanted to milk on people's love for obsidian, pearl and pinks. However, I think alot of chroma lovers might be very unhappy in the long run.
The consistency is mostly for recognition of a certain color be tied to exclusivity. Ex: Golden Chromas, Ruby Exclusives, Emerald Influencers and White/Golden Prestige.
We decided to do red exclusives for the reason I mentioned. Emerald Chromas became influencer exclusives because the team that work on influencers wanted something to give to influencers and their fans. All in all, Chroma team saw the benefits of helping Influencer team with their goals because we believed that it is very crucial to build a stronger community. We did not have to agree and probably would made more money as a team :P
We don't want to be predatory with our decisions, however, one big goal for chroma/skins team in general is to make money :) It is how we keep the game alive and free globally and support R&D for future games. Making games is not cheap ;_; we have many Devs' to feed! Sometimes we need to make tough decisions with no 100% win scenarios. We can just try to make best of the situation, desire to reach our goals etc.
My policy usually is that I grab the set if I like more than 2, or half of them aren't outright hideous.
Not really a collector in that sense, but I've recently come to realize that the skin page in the shot has grown awefully short. Which I guess I normal if you are approaching 700 skins owned...
Ya, we found similar patterns in most of our spending player base :)
Our insight's guy has a really fun ppt slide that kind of explains this behavior of diminishing returns.
1 Chroma = Good Value
2 Chromas = Good Value + Okay Value
3 Chromas = Good Value + Okay Value + Some Value
4 Chromas = Good Value + Okay Value + Some Value + Even less Value
Etc. Till
Chroma Pack (8) = Good Value + Okay Value + Some Value + Even less Value *5 + Value from Completion/Ownership etc.
We just tried to not make the first 3 most picked Chromas as an exclusive.
Also his PPT slides were way prettier than my bad formulas.
It is not for making people shell out alot of money because their favorite is locked behind a bundle.
Isn't that exactly what it's trying to do to anyone that likes the color red? (a lot of people)
Generally there isn't alot of people who like red. We actually considered making chromas only sets of 3-4. Most likely: Obsidian, Pearl, Rainbow, Pink and sometimes Purple.
Since vast majority of people only buy 1 chroma or a bundle, some of the colors were getting only sold as part of the bundle (Red, Green, Granite, Citrine etc).
I think there is a loss here for the very few people who buy red chromas consistently. However, even sadder would be not making it at all. There is a cost to making and having an asset in the game.
It was a tough trade off, and I get many people want the red one due to the Christmas-esque themes :( It was something we actually didn't anticipate when first making the bundles.
It took us a bit to figure out if we even can make snowdown skin chromas due to their super blue color combinations. This is the first year we are trying to dabble into these specific color themed skins (Bloodmoon, Snowdown etc.)
/u/neolexical fuck every player that ever wants a red chroma for 290 RP, right?
I can 100% say with confidence that White, Pink and Black are more popular than red :) by a landslide.
We do not switch because it creates consistency and recognition.
Sure people love black, pink and white chromas for their color but when people see red they should think: This is a bundle exclusive.
The same reason we choose Emerald Chromas to be influencer chromas.
NeoLexical
I'm glad you support the skins team on their decisions. I will let them know :) Personally, I did not work on those products you mentioned :(
In terms of locking the most sought after chromas. Most amount of players buy either 1 or a bundle of chromas. If we force the mass of players that love pinks, whites and blacks to buy bundles, we do not expect them to do this every time. Which means, there will be less people buying single chroma for a maybe a small increase of bundle sales.
Bundle exclusives are aimed to make the already bundle buyers feel that bundles have more value do to the exclusivity. They are for the people who love collecting and already on the fence between buying one or bundle.
Those who are more price sensitive can always wait for Blue Essence Sales.
Moreover, there is no evidence that single Chroma buyers have only one color they prefer on every bundle. Generally the majority single chroma buyers will buy one of White, Black or Pink chromas.
NeoLexical
For chromas there are mostly 2 types of buyers. Either you buy the whole pack, or you buy one of your favorite colors.
The red exclusives are aimed towards rewarding our bundle buyers. It is not for making people shell out alot of money because their favorite is locked behind a bundle.
While I understand that may get alot of buyers in the short term :P It wouldn't be as sustainable in the long run!
NeoLexical
That would be a very messy schedule. What if you like this set's pink and next set's red etc etc. That just happened to on rotation?
I can already imagine the comments :P Rito locking the most popular color of every set. There will always be one person who's favorite gets locked.
Moreover, on key idea on keeping exclusives consistent color is for recognition. There are not many indicators in game to tell others that your chroma is exclusive (aka a tier above the rest) aside from the color itself. Also its a bit saddening for intentions to be misconstrued. I wish I can show you the exact PPT slide comment where I told the eCommerce team that I rather put red as bundle exclusive compared to pinks due to the reason I mentioned.
;_; Sometimes you get bashed either you try or not try....
NeoLexical
It would probably make financial sense in the short term if we really wanted to milk on people's love for obsidian, pearl and pinks. However, I think alot of chroma lovers might be very unhappy in the long run. The consistency is mostly for recognition of a certain color be tied to exclusivity. Ex: Golden Chromas, Ruby Exclusives, Emerald Influencers and White/Golden Prestige. We decided to do red exclusives for the reason I mentioned. Emerald Chromas became influencer exclusives because the team that work on influencers wanted something to give to influencers and their fans. All in all, Chroma team saw the benefits of helping Influencer team with their goals because we believed that it is very crucial to build a stronger community. We did not have to agree and probably would made more money as a team :P
We don't want to be predatory with our decisions, however, one big goal for chroma/skins team in general is to make money :) It is how we keep the game alive and free globally and support R&D for future games. Making games is not cheap ;_; we have many Devs' to feed! Sometimes we need to make tough decisions with no 100% win scenarios. We can just try to make best of the situation, desire to reach our goals etc.
NeoLexical
No, not at this time.
NeoLexical
Ya, we found similar patterns in most of our spending player base :)
Our insight's guy has a really fun ppt slide that kind of explains this behavior of diminishing returns. 1 Chroma = Good Value 2 Chromas = Good Value + Okay Value 3 Chromas = Good Value + Okay Value + Some Value 4 Chromas = Good Value + Okay Value + Some Value + Even less Value Etc. Till Chroma Pack (8) = Good Value + Okay Value + Some Value + Even less Value *5 + Value from Completion/Ownership etc.
We just tried to not make the first 3 most picked Chromas as an exclusive. Also his PPT slides were way prettier than my bad formulas.
NeoLexical
Generally there isn't alot of people who like red. We actually considered making chromas only sets of 3-4. Most likely: Obsidian, Pearl, Rainbow, Pink and sometimes Purple. Since vast majority of people only buy 1 chroma or a bundle, some of the colors were getting only sold as part of the bundle (Red, Green, Granite, Citrine etc). I think there is a loss here for the very few people who buy red chromas consistently. However, even sadder would be not making it at all. There is a cost to making and having an asset in the game. It was a tough trade off, and I get many people want the red one due to the Christmas-esque themes :( It was something we actually didn't anticipate when first making the bundles. It took us a bit to figure out if we even can make snowdown skin chromas due to their super blue color combinations. This is the first year we are trying to dabble into these specific color themed skins (Bloodmoon, Snowdown etc.)
NeoLexical
I can 100% say with confidence that White, Pink and Black are more popular than red :) by a landslide.
We do not switch because it creates consistency and recognition.
Sure people love black, pink and white chromas for their color but when people see red they should think: This is a bundle exclusive. The same reason we choose Emerald Chromas to be influencer chromas.