Increase in Premium store prices - some spectacular greed on display. One cosmetic, that’s the same but a different colour, is 35% more expensive for no apparent reason

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide General Discussion
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I will fully admit I very much enjoy cosmetics. I really like the ability to customize a character’s look and make things (relatively) unique to me. I also understand that it’s just a system that’s easy to be monetized now, and is a good way for companies to continue development on a game.

I really, really don’t like it when that’s taken advantage of in a very corporate, greedy manner. I don’t like it when tactics that are basically the equivalent of psychological warfare are used to gain every advantage they can to try and take advantage of consumers.

What I find frustrating is that VT2 handled it relatively well I feel. Then they’re pulling all this garbage here in Darktide that’s extremely anti-consumer.

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22

What pisses me off to no end is just the mentality behind it all.

Why does it need to be anything else than what it is, a transaction? I give you my hard earned money and you give me some good looking skins.

Why do you have to try and manipulate and swindel me in the most obvious ways possible?

Nobody that sells a worthwhile product has to manipulate the costumer into buying said product!

All this is just done to make the prices as high as possible while making it so that they can do as half-assed a job as they want to.

Hey FS, I’ll let you in on a secret: if it looks bad, no amount of psychological BS will make me buy it!
And even if it looks good, if I get the feeling you’re trying to manipulate me in one or several ways, I won’t buy it either.

These schemes have been done to death and everyone above the age of 16 is sick and tired of them.

Honestly, all this anti consumer Bullsh!t should be made illegal.

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23

They drove all the players away with a combination of their greed and their RNG player addiction mechanics, so now things need to be really expensive for the few people still left.

Also, it’s totally not FOMO you guys, it’s just showing all the different tiny variations of the outfit would be confusing! It’s certainly not so people can see how they’re charging $10 five times for the same hat with tiny minor variations to it.

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24

It’d be best if they just do it as they did it with the Veteran Guardsman helmet that came in a Green / Blue pack.

Just have all the variants of the same coat, helmet, trousers, etc. in one bundle of the various colors. It just feels so silly otherwise.

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25

the white mask is 900 because its part of a bundle, so theyre all on sale. While the black mask is a cool standalone item. Prices would make more sense if you were forced to buy the whole bundle and not just a piece of the bundle for a discounted price

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The premium prices really are so disgusting, having high prices like that in a niche co-op game just doesn’t fit - this game will NEVER reach the level of popularity and renown games like CSGO/TF2/DOTA have where people go nuts over skins like that, it’s just a different kind of game, it’s co-op, not competitive. People don’t buy cosmetics to show off to their opponents, they just wanna look cool with friends, huge difference.
I would love to support the continued development of the game, if cosmetics cost a couple bucks for something cool, you know.
They could earn so much more by reducing the prices down to at least 1/3 of what they are now, then people would at least actually buy them, it’s such a braindead tactic…

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“Hey FS, I’ll let you in on a secret: if it looks bad, no amount of psychological BS will make me buy it!”

you are but one man. works on so many people, otherwise the industry wouldn’t be full of it.

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28

I know that I’m absoluetly in the minority to be aware of the psychological tricks and not fall for them. You’d also be a fool to claim that they “don’t work on someone aware of them”.

It does work on more people than not and makes a ton of money too. Me saying that won’t directly change something. I just hope that someone sees it and becomes aware themselves too.

If the schemes stopped working, we would also stop seeing them in our games.

The problem with that is however, that being aware of the tricks doesn’t translate to being able to buy the cosmetics in a smarter way. If I buy a hat, eventhough I know all the tricks that are in play, FS still gets a purchase that validates their anti-consumer system.

Eventhough I know better, my only choice is still to not buy and tell others what they are supporting.

Take “shadows of change” DLC for TWWH3 as an example: it sold over less than half the copies compared to DLCs of the same style but CA still ended up making more money because the price was increased to 250%.

Eventhough the community unanimously agreed that what CA pulled with SoC is absolutely deplorable, they still had their strategy validated and I guarante, the next DLC will be 25$ again eventhough it’s worth maybe 10$. Only because the majority of players do not care what they are supporting as long as it seems “worth it” to them.

FS went from selling a complete skinpack for a VT2 career for 5$ to now asking for 13$ for the same thing or over 10$ if you only want 1/3rd of the pack. Disgusting.

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29

Nah, actually a lot of people think like that. It’s just that some tastes are very different and some buy gear to look ridiculous rather than good or roleplay something weird.

For instance, the Gimp mask in Darktide and the pig on Saltzy’s head in VT2. Classic cases of items that get bought a lot, despite being really stupid in concept.

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30

The Total War example is a whole nother bag of nasty.

When some pushback from the community came regarding the 250% price hike (@Flawless I got it right this time hah), the reaction from CA was to make a veiled threat. Not word for word, but what was roughly said: “You will buy the DLC or we will pull the plug and go maintenance mode. You don’t want that, do you?”

Your example applies doubly now:
Do you buy the DLC?
Well, now you have signalled CA that they can threaten you and you’re weak and fragile.
Do you not buy the DLC?
Now you signal CA that they can sod off, that the game isn’t profitable anymore and they can stop working on it. You join the revolt.

Even if you weren’t involved in this dispute, now you are. And your purchasing decision is taken in one of two negative ways, because people who should have staid cool-headed decided sprinkle their hostile feelings all over their product. The professional term is Framing and the frame that was set here is an awful one no customer rep should set, ever.

Big Brain moves like these from people who have no business working in PR, have lasting damages on customer relations. Never will people see Creative Assembly in the same light again. Years of support and feelings of “loyality” down the drain, because some guy in a semi-lead position just couldn’t have his mouth shut.
They essentially put everyone of their players, would-be or already invested, in a lose-lose situation with a cherry of “Go F yourself either way”.
That’s one way to take the fast lane from trendsetter to corner of shame.

I remember it just like it was yesterday, the TW:W2 was the thing heralded as the future of strategic games, active community over social media and 10/10 reviews everywhere.
Now most of CA’s games on Steam have a negative rating and nobody wants to touch that Nurgle Goo ridden mess.

Take notice Fatshark: Never copy Creative Assembly. Never put your service users into a lose-lose bind by threatening them.
This is ample opportunity to learn for everyone operating a business reliant on mass appeal.

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31

First, let me say that I am not defending Fatshark’s pricing model.

Having cleared that up, I have to admit that I am divided on Darktide’s mTX store. Darktide is the only game I currently play, out of the many games in my library. The reason is that I love the game and the dopamine surges that massage my brain just right as I scatter the brains of heretics across walls with Aljernon’s (my psyker) Revolver or krumping them to bits with Keshawn’s (my Ogryn) Achlys Stubber.

I currently have 1000 hours played in Darktide and that is a lot of hours of entertainment for the intial asking price of the game.

If anything, I think the rotating store needs to go and if Fatshark is going to keep with the prices of items they really need to work on the quality of the cosmetics.

I’m talking about both in terms of QA, like clipping and rigging on male-female bodies, and in general the cosmetics need to be better detailed and higher quality.

Zealot for instance, which is the class I don’t play, got yet another hobo sack (white this time around) and that’s what I am talking about; Fatshark need to step up the quality of the cosmetics.

They can’t sell cosmetics that look like they were meant to be bought from the Commodore’s shop (where you spend ingame make-belief dockets) for real money.

If I am supposed to drop 10-20 dollars on a full set then the quality of the sets need to be much better rhen they currently are AND get more creative.

Stop with the hobo sacks and preacher looks for Zealot when they already are overflooded with them.

Why can’t Psykers have the Veteran’s “forehead goggles” (Ogryn also have them if you use the fashion randomizer mod) and a tank top with a vest like the Veteran?

I don’t have the numbers on sales obviously and maybe everything newly rotated on the mTX store sells really well, but from my perspective, comparing to games like FFXIV, ESO and Guild Wars 2; Darktide’s cosmetics is seriously lagging behind the competition. Just maybe beating Diablo 4’s awful mTX, but that’s nothing to brag home about.

Darktide’s paid cometics need to be able to function with other cosmetics from other sets. Increase in both detail and creativity.

Where is the Necromunda-esques sets for Psyker for example? Currently, the only two classes that have a really good “hive-ganger” set is the Ogryn (leopard print pants and open vest) and the veteran (bionic leg, black vest with tank top).

Zealot’s set with the gold/black pants fits the bill too, but Psyker has none.

Be more creative. Make an effort!

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32

Well yeah this is the awful store system, they have somewhere around 50 cosmetic slots in each slot for each character that we knew about before all these ones started coming sideways in updates to throw us. Their goofy store set up has 1 gear set, 1 trinket and 3 headgear per page, times 3. The ‘featured’ page just has the exact same items you find on the gear set of the most recent revision, lol. Sometimes the 3 headgear slot is occupied by a misc slot item or more trinkets. The current stuff on offer has 3 literal repeats, like how are you going to sell more of the same item when they get rotated out one after the other?

Even if the idea was FOMO, there’s like nothing to buy at any time you log in.

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33

“I used to go to the store to buy a game. Now I open up a game to find a store.”

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34

This is not true. 900 is if you buy it standalone and is not the bundle discount price.

If you buy each piece standalone, it’s 900+1,200+700=2800. Purchasing it as a bundle is 2100, a 25% discount. So the white mask would be 675 aquilla as part of the bundle.

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35

part of the issue too is that they’re charging for each variation of the same cosmetic. Part of the FOMO cycling is to hide the fact that they’re just recolouring some of the cosmetics, and selling them for the same price.

This current Ogryn coat for example. It’s just a beige version of the exact same leather coat we saw before. Exactly the same. Charging the same amount for both.

If they removed the FOMO tactic and had it all in a menu, we would see that they’re charging ~$15 for each colour variation of the exact same model. I don’t think anyone can defend that fact alone, especially how they’re using FOMO to both get more sales, AND to lower the value of each piece while already charging a high amount.

$15 for a full kit that you can pick and choose colour schemes for is far, far more reasonable than charging $15 for each colour.

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36

But why would they give you all the colours when they can charge you for each colour individually?
:slight_smile: :gun:

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37

Agreed with everything you said! :100:

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38

But I feel they would be more successful AND profitable if they were more player-friendly. Lower pricing, provide unique variations (not just a crappy recolor), and make everything available at any time.

To me, the pricing is unfair and the selling tactics are too scummy, so I have yet to spend a single cent in-game. I’d be happy to throw down a few bucks for cosmetics from time to time. If the price is right and I don’t have to wait for it to ‘rotate’ in the shop. But I refuse to participate in price gouging, and clearly predatory selling tactics

I get it… They are hunting for whales, but come on… The player count is miserable, maybe it’s time to change tactics

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39

Well what annoys me is every match I play, at least 2 of the other players have some kind of cosmetic. Almost every game has at least 1 mtx full outfit. So even with who is left playing, clearly it’s working.

I would love to give a big list of what I’d like to see that I would consider a more ethical practice. But I have a feeling that’ll fall on deaf ears since these gross tactics are proven time after time that they are effective and work.

It leaves me feeling so conflicted because I do want to buy cosmetics, because realistically with 300+ hours in this game, I got my $40 worth a loooong time ago and realistically I do want to keep supporting the devs since I am getting a ton of value for what I paid - especially if we keep getting maps & system rehauls like the class system coming out for free. But I don’t want to support them if it means supporting and validating these greedy practices.

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40

My only issue with the shop is that for what they’re charging for skins there should be more to them than just their appearances. They need to add stuff like recolor options, particle effects, unique animations and voice lines, and so on if they intend to continue charging more than 10 bucks for these sets or 5 bucks or more for individual items. Made a feedback post about it previously: Please Improve Premium Skins

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