First things first. If you are still willing to buy anything in the store, you are part of the problem. You are one of the reasons the game industry is in the state it’s in. You are one of the reasons 343 launched an incomplete game and are taking their sweet time to fix it. If you are ok with that, that’s fine. But stick around, and hopefully the voices in this thread will help you to see something else you might not be seeing.
THE UPDATED STORE PRICES ARE STILL GOUGING. I just need that to be very clear. I don’t care if you believe that these prices are fair. You have your reasons for saying that, but you are objectively wrong. They are fair for you. To the general population of the game, they are gouging. 343/Microsoft does this on purpose because they don’t believe they’re able to make money any other way. This is the reason you keep hearing people say that the whales are all 343 cares about, and it’s partially the truth. They’re banking on you believing that. If you believe the prices won’t change, you’ll buy it just in case. They pretty much know that you have no self control.
And that’s why they designed the store from the ground up to help you part with your money. Want anything at all? You have to spend a minimum of $5. Why? Simply because it’s not illegal not to do that. Not sure if you want to buy something from the store today or this week? Well we’re going to imply that it probably won’t be coming back again. And if it does come back, we’re not gonna let you know when! Make sure you check the store everyday so you don’t miss it! Or any of our other products ;^}. BTW, is there something that you liked in one of our previous games? We’re selling it as part of a $20 bundle! No, you can’t get an individual piece of the bundle for cheaper! Why? Because legally we can call this a bundle and sell it for any amount we want. We know the government will never come in to regulate us, so it doesn’t matter. We can literally do whatever we want. In fact, these are “rare” now. And these are “legendary”. WE know these are arbitrary rankings made up by us, because there is no limit to the amount of any of the items and almost none of them are gotten through grinding. But if YOU believe this false rarity is real, you might buy it ;^}!
I could go on, but I think this point here is made.
This store is intentionally as scummy as possible, and 343 lied to us about it the entire time leading up to the launch of the game. ESPECIALLY ABOUT FOMO. And now they’ve again misled us for the last few weeks with their updated store claims. Telling us they’re “listening to the community”, yet I have seen literally no one ask for a helmet to be $7. That’s a joke. I saw people saying $5, and even then, most people weren’t agreeing with them. The average response was being willing to pay $1 - $3, with the latter being the lead. And a very common agreement on the price of most skins is for them to be $1, especially for basic colors like pink or white. Same with visors. Not ONE SKIN and ONE VISOR to be $4. Imagine being a company that gets this much feedback from their users, telling you exactly what they’re willing to pay for and how much they’re willing to pay, and then you just completely ignore them. It’s mind bogglingly smooth brained. Most marketing departments would cream their pants for that kind of data. And I’m sure I’m not the only one who expected more slots available for individual items to appear, not them taking up established slots that were already being used. I don’t actually care about this part that much because I’ve been boycotting the store since the game came out, but I imagine this has to frustrate a good amount of the people who do use the store regularly.
Look, If you buy that helmet, good for you. You probably live an incredibly comfortable life. I’m glad you have the luxury to do so. But don’t forget that you’re making a statement to 343 with that purchase. That you also believe everyone else who plays this game deserves to pay that much money as well. If you bought this helmet because ODST’s are your effing favorite part about Halo, I need you to think about this for a second. Every kid who’s picking up Halo for the first time, isn’t getting to experience falling in love with it like you did. You played campaign, you saw those badass marines, and you made it your multiplayer helmet because you thought it was the coolest -Yoink!- in the world, and you wanted to represent it. A kid can’t do that anymore. Literally just can’t experience falling in love with this game in the same way we did. Purely because of corporate greed. I honestly want to get into how these kids also don’t get to experience custom games, forge, or co-op campaign, but that’s just too much to get into at the moment.
IF YOU READ ONLY ONE PART, READ THIS PART
The craziest thing to me, is that the ultimate goal is to sell armor in the shop. We’re straight up telling 343 what we want to pay. 343 could lower the store prices for a week or two and see how the sales compare. If it doesn’t work, they can just put the prices to whatever else they want. They are dragging their feet as hard as possible just in the hopes that they can sway public opinion to believe these prices are normal. Don’t fall for their bull-Yoink!-.
The bottom line is, 343 is incredibly greedy and the only way to combat them is to not give them your money. Yes, we all know this is stupid and it feels pointless (it’s not) and this isn’t how the world should work. And yet. Here we are. So find yourself a reason you care about, for not giving them your money, and just stick with it. At least until they make improvements you feel good enough about to spend money on again. I personally have a plethora of reasons. Game crashes, desync/netcode, ranking system (almost every way it affects the game), sandbox imbalance, BTB, no custom games, no forge, the fact there’s no longer any social aspect to the game like there were in previous games, and ESPECIALLY BECAUSE OF THE OVERPRICED STORE. Hopefully I’ve been able to expand anyone’s view of the situation. I also hope that the replies will help to expand my view.