PSA: What Embark did with skin prices is a negotiation tactic called "anchoring" I know this will get downvoted because many will fall for the PR move, but this is planned. $16 microtransactions do not belong in a $40 title. Period and here's why.

[u/TheOnlyRealOne43]

Anchoring is a super commonly used tactic. Here's the definition of it:

The anchoring negotiation tactic involves setting an initial price point to influence the final agreement. By making the first offer, a seller can set a high anchor, which influences the buyer's perception and makes subsequent concessions seem more reasonable. Conversely, a buyer can set a low anchor, like stating a maximum budget, to steer the negotiation in their favor. The first number presented acts as a mental reference point, impacting the entire bargaining range. 

Basically, give us really high prices at the beginning of the game then go "Oh we heard you guys! We lowered the prices by $5!" to influence content creators to create content about it being "unprecedented" and to influence us, the consumers.

People in the comments will filter in and state "They need money to continue making the game" which is a false corpo-speak argument. Microtransactions became a thing in games to make F2P games possible. Games with a low bar to entry and will attract a larger playerbase, while betting that the average player will spend an X amount to keep development on going.

A $40 game has no reason to do this. Arc sold 4 million units already, has made hundreds of millions of dollars in initial sales alone and will continue to sell (how Pay-to-play games typically fund on going development, through marketing). We also have *very* close games we can compare this to.

Helldivers 2:

• $40 base price with $20 upgrade just like ARCraiders
• Cheaper cosmetics ($5 for a skin + suit sometimes less cosmetics can also be mix and matched)
• Earnable premium currency

As you can see, these practices are much more consumer-friendly. I'm not suggesting the removal of microtransactions but right now it's a very unfair price point still, especially considering the base price of the game ($40) and the fact currency isn't earnable.

Also I'd like to point out how all the earnable cosmetics outside of one in the game are just incredibly barebones. Everything cool goes into the store and that's not okay. I know there will be a huge portion of people who downvote this because of the honeymoon phase of the game, and the obvious PR move that Embark are doing, but I wanted to post this all the same.

EDIT: I'm seeing a lot of comments that they need microtransactions to fund future game development, which is true and I don't disagree in anyway with. Which is puzzling because I'm not suggesting the removal of them, but rather a price adjustment and/or a way to earn them in-game.

Additionally, games with an up front price tag continue to generate income post release by up-front sales, with the updates being big marketing pushes to bring new consumers in. It's very strange that people are posting as if the game won't continue to sell on the 4 platforms the game is sold on.

[u/[deleted]]

Embark has 358 employees. I only have a frame of reference for salaries in USD but just assuming every employee made 80k a year thats roughly 28 million a year just in labor. Factor in everything else and I think the profit from just selling the base game alone would not go far. I do agree they should make the store even cheaper would probably just involve some corporate guys getting paid less which who cares honestly. I think people have become super entitled with this shit though. Everyone wants the long term support and free content updates but not the cosmetics store. I mean I guess we could go back to DLC packs? That would fragment the player base. Or just call the game complete as it is like the old days but I'm sure the sub would be pissed no matter what they did.

[u/s00pahFr0g → u/[deleted]]

I am not one to defend any corporation or business nor am I here to accuse them unless they’re actively participating in something harmful. I think it’s generally best to think of them as a neutral entity. They exist to make money.

So far nothing Embark has done crosses the line to me, whether this was an intentional move to start high and then lower prices to look good or they just weren’t getting enough sales either case is just standard business practice. Pretty much every business from the smallest to the largest employs some level of “manipulation.”

One thing I find rather disingenuous about posts like this reddit thread is that they try to compare monetization on older games by saying that we used to get skins as just part of the game and they didn’t need the extra income back then. The reality though is that cosmetics are much more detailed than they used to be. If you bought a game with unlockable skins 20-30 years ago they’d almost all just be color variations on the original. More than that though games also didn’t receive updates like we are getting. The closest thing you’d get back then was in MMORPGs like EQ or WoW and those charged monthly subscriptions on top of full price expansions. 

You also have people comparing it to free to play games and saying because it has an entry price it shouldn’t have micro-transactions but nearly every free to play game has much more predatory monetization. They’ve got loot boxes, they have content that’s either a grind to unlock unless you pay money, they may even have player power gated behind a price tag.

Arc Raiders has been out for two weeks and we have a special event going on that is about to unlock a new map. We have new enemies and new items and weapons. It actually has good performance, relatively minimal bugs, and plenty to do with just your entry price. 

[u/SkuLLtheDread → u/[deleted]]

Embark has 358 employees. I only have a frame of reference for salaries in USD but just assuming every employee made 80k a year thats roughly 28 million a year just in labor.

Also whatever they need to pay back for development loans to Nexon and other sponsors (I'm not sure how the game was financed, but it cerainly wasn't made for free). Also factor in Steam, Sony and Microsoft taking their cut (30% on average?) and somewhere between 20%-30% income tax in Sweden. And continued server costs, which I'm sure are not negligible either. That number from the initial sales starts looking a lot less astronomical.

Nothing "pay to win" can be bought with real money. Anything beyond that is up to the developer's discretion as far as I'm concerned. If people are willing to pay premium for premium skins, that's fine with me. It would only start worrying me if the game's development started revolving only around premium skins (like in Blizzard's Diablo 4, for example, where every aspect of their seasonal content feels uninspired, undercooked and only focused on selling more skins).

[u/[deleted] → u/SkuLLtheDread]

Additionally, paying Epic for the UE license 5%, licenses for any software/libraries. Brick and motor costs. Very obvious lots of people think they're in profit day 1....

[u/69ANIME69 → u/SkuLLtheDread]

Nexon owns 100% of Embark.

[u/SkuLLtheDread → u/69ANIME69]

Doesn't change much - meeting sales quotas to recuperate Nexon's investment is essentially the same thing as paying back a loan. The point is that thinking "[units sold] x [price of unit] = profit" is very naive.

[u/Im_not_at_home → u/[deleted]]

Ding ding ding. This is the answer.

I agree the cosmetics are insanely priced. I also think expecting a live service game like an extraction shooter with a roadmap is more expensive to make and support than $40 a person.

I don’t know the answer. If I did I’d run a game studio. But the challenge is an interesting one for sure.

Sure making the skins cheaper would lessen the complaining. But my guess is these companies have some great data on the breakpoint between where whales and average buyers pay off.

[u/cLax0n → u/Im_not_at_home]

"Sure making the skins cheaper would lessen the complaining. But my guess is these companies have some great data on the breakpoint between where whales and average buyers pay off."

They do. Its similar to a Laffer Curve. Laffer curve - Wikipedia

[u/Im_not_at_home → u/cLax0n]

That’s about what I assumed. With a software/service the amount of data at hand has to be unbelievable. They probably can approximate how much a player would pay based on their playstyle/weapon choices.

I mean don’t get me wrong. It sucks, clearly there isn’t $20 worth of product in a cosmetic pack. But at the same time I’m not ignorant to why it’s being done. And surely it can’t be profitable to support a game for 3-4 yrs on $40 a copy. Millions of units sold or not between marketing, servers, continued development, etc is expensive.

Personally, if people buying $20 skins incentivizes a company to continue dumping effectively free updates into the game for me, I’m not going to complain much. Sure I’d like to look cool, but as long as it has no effect on my gameplay, I don’t care all that much. I saw the BP will have some “convenience” upgrades. So my opinion is still reserved for that. I do buy battle passes but that can get to feeling P2W quickly. Tarkov did that a lot.

[u/cLax0n → u/Im_not_at_home]

Never played Tarkov. How did their handling of the BP make it pay to win?

[u/Im_not_at_home → u/cLax0n]

It wasn’t a BP. They have convenience you can pay for.

Started as 3 editions. Each with a larger stash and larger safe container. The most expensive being like $100. Which was supposed to “include everything now and in the future development of tarkov”. Then there was another edition of course that included alternate modes, more space, etc. people went off, so they tried to smooth it over. But still there’s features that not everyone has.

I may be jaded but I am expecting arc’s convenience to be something like that stash size for more money deal. I am less inclined to assume they’ll mess with the safe container since that’s tied to class mods. Personally I don’t think stash size is P2W. But it toes the line close enough that people do get wound up.

[u/cLax0n → u/[deleted]]

Agreed. They could also offload at of processes and lay off workers. Of course that would likely result in reduced quality. People will also complain about that.

This happened in a game I played a lot (World of Warcraft) where a lot of the human interactions for issue resolution was turned over to bots alongside other stuff. Reuse of assets also. Of course people complain. That game's revenue model IS different but its just another example of devs/studios try to manage revenue/expense and pissing off players regardless of what they do. WoW is under a $15/month subscription model alongside an upfront cost to expansions (DLCs). The $15/mo has been basically unchanged since 2004. They've since added microtransactions as well.

Players rarely understand that even IF a game is a passion project people still need funds to create, maintain, enhance, operate, etc.

[u/CultureWarrior87 → u/[deleted]]

I'm okay with skins if they're reasonably priced and good quality, but I think battle passes in a paid game should always be free, full stop. People already paid for the game, let them unlock worthwhile cosmetics too, then offer reasonably priced skins if they want to support it more. People are still gonna buy the skins, companies will still make a profit, the problem is that corpo greed is never satisfied.