Look. If you want people who aren’t whales to buy cosmetic packs, you need 1 of 2 things:
They need to individually be reasonably priced - $5 for a skin max. Not the $15-$20 prices I’m seeing here. This is especially ridiculous given that the game is already something you pay $40 for.
They can be earned in gameplay via earnable currency.
Neither of these are what Fatshark is doing.
To buy the whole new set of Rogue Trader skins (for all the classes combined) the cost is around $90 (in Australian dollars) which is more than what I paid for the game itself.
These rogue trader cosmetics looks pretty jank as well, you can literally see the similarity in pieces and armor shapes when compared to earlier sets or the penance sets.
They’re just bad
Rogue traders are supposed to be some of the richest most dripped out people in the imperium that wear their spoils on them as a show of prestige. They’re supposed to be colourful and flamboyant their very outfit making a presence.
The ones we got here are the most boring bland muted sad excuses for rogue traders I’ve ever seen. It’s done as dirty as the commissar coat where it’s missing all of it’s military dress uniform flair and bling.
Ok so, dont buy it?
Executives will cry if you don’t hyper monetize SOMETHING.
I don’t
I just find fatshark’s handling of the store inanely stupid
I like darktide, I want it to succeed
More store purchases = better game
But it pains me to see fatshark continue to shoot themselves repeatedly in the foot with it with this combination of laziness and stupidity.
Unfortunately it will be just like the Krieg set. Everyone will buy them because they’re flashy and somewhat unique even if they are low quality.
I honestly hate the average consumer so much.
That’s the thing they aren’t flashy
And they should be the most flashy out there sets in the game period.
Like people wouldn’t have any problem if these sets were made correctly and to the quality you’d expect of the price.
But yeah, sadly whales with no sense of self control will buy.
Are they though? Clearly this scummy system is profitable for them and they clearly don’t really care very much about community relations, so this seems like a win-win for them.
Idk I’ve seen many store rotations where I barely see anyone actually with the current rotations.
when the covid hits, all the prices have been increased
I cannot see them (or their financial backers/the managers) ever reducing their prices or actually implementing Aquilas as an earnable currency as that would represent potential lost income.
Quite frankly, after the past year, I’m at the point where I check in each rotation to see what new things are being shown, but I don’t think even perfectly lore accurate Krieg/Mordian Iron Guard/classic Cadian (pre-2003) skins would get me to drop money on them. The only one that would still get me is the classic metal figure pre-Kasrkin carapace armour; that is my weak point. Unless it is madly expensive, which arguably the current prices are.
If they’re hitting projected targets at these prices, the prices will stay the same. But if they think they should be selling X at Y price but aren’t, they only have a few options: put out better cosmetics, put out more cosmetics or lower the prices (or otherwise increase the value, like putting more stuff in the bundles).
I imagine they’ll try the first 2 tactics first. But there’s a chance they could lower these absurd prices if people actually stop buying them.
Whales don’t stop tho
It’s like this pool of people with zero self restraint and infinite money
It’s the corporate equivalent of golden goose, feed it mediocre overpriced digital crack and it gives them infinite funny buck purchases.
Yes, there are people with money to burn. And yes, there are people who have no self-restraint.
Not really a problem any of us can solve. Not even FS, who have to make money one way or another (and this way objectively works).
In my opinion, these prices are absurd because FS is likely trying to maximize profits off of the (imo) dwindling number of gamers who have money to burn. I truly wonder how many of these silly outfits they’d sell at half the price. I know I wouldn’t buy them.
But I’m happy for the content I’m not paying for.
I’d also settle for not having 90% of new cosmetics being aquilla shop only. Seriously. Every few months we get a new penance set, while 10 new premium skins rotate around.
If you want people who aren’t whales to buy cosmetic packs…
Fatshark doesn’t. They’ve clearly indicated who their target audience is and it’s not low volume spenders. Sure, they could make more money by widening the net via lowering prices and/or improving the quality of the cosmetics. But that would also mean they’d be making less money per individual sale and having to pay their designers more for more hours of labor, presumably.
I’d hazard a guess that their marketing/accounting teams have already determined that the marginal increase in sales from more smaller spenders wouldn’t exceed the revenue they already generate from high volume buyers and “whales” to justify the extra costs.
Tbh I wouldn’t buy them at any price because I don’t like the poor rogue trader look.
I’m of the rather simple mindset of guardsman class should get more guardsman outfits and not 2 in a year
