Why have 343i been so silent on store prices?

Ske7ch already told us there’s nothing they can do, it’s F2P and that’s final, end of discussion.

Because they spent 6 years of troubled development on a game with an engine built from the ground up and they are going to get their money back. The F2P model with outrageously priced microtransactions for essential customization options is how they’ve chosen to do it.

Being unwilling to do something is not the same as being unable to do something.

Remember how XBox One couldn’t possibly work without an internet connection, then 3 days later it could?

The answer is simple. They didn’t make the decision. Microsoft did. Maybe you should be asking Phil Spencer instead of someone at 343i.

Can you back up that claim? There are lots of 1st party Microsoft games that don’t have micro-transactions.

I don’t have proof but it’s obvious. Look at Activision and Bungie, Activision was the reason for some of the features in Destiny 2, the store is similar to how Call of Duty games work. Also, I’m sure Microsoft just going off what everyone else is doing. I see similar prices if not worse in Black Ops Cold War. I assume that Microsoft did the research and passed down prices for 343i use.

In the community playdate on youtube they finally talked about the store. Not mentionned the price yes but we are getting there. Keep the pressure up guys.

I didn’t see it, would you mind a short little summary? If not, it’s cool, and thanks for the heads-up.

wait wait they actually talked about it? like said the issue is there and its on their list to fix talk?

Here. 1:42 or 43

https://youtu.be/G6a4f5PntWg

edit: my mistake it was still live. Ignore time code. It’s at the end of the first talk though.

Because before they can make any changes they’d need to do a full cost analysis to see how much revenue they’d be making. People don’t like to accept it, but running a game studio that’s actively supporting a live service game isn’t cheap. You aren’t just paying for the couple of hours it took someone to design the armour. The MP has got to generate enough revenue to pay the salaries for the designers, the programmers, the network engineers, the managers that run those departments, the administrative staff at 343, the cleaning company they hire to clean the offices, the qa team, the community managers, the cost of the servers (yes they’re MS’s servers, but running servers have a cost. If infinite is using say 2% of their availabile capacity, it needs to pay for 2% of the server maintenance cost). What we payed for the campaign is offsetting the costs of the previous few years of development, thats how gaming development has always worked. It doesn’t pay for any continued development, that costs money.

I’m sure they’re running the numbers, seeing what percentage of players at the moment are spending and how much they’re spending. They then need to look at projections for player counts in the future and figure out how much they need an average players spending to be, and if they think they can reach that with lower store prices. At the moment they can’t promise change, so they aren’t, but there’s also no benefit for them to come out and say “we are keeping the prices the same” because it’ll create an even bigger outrage than what we see now. Just be patient, provide feedback, and don’t buy anything you think costs more than it should.

its still live I have to wait until its over or see someone else record the moment they talk abut it
the fact they are talking about means that they like us want it fixed or at least reduced prices and earning the credits by playing

When they said F2P, most assumed it would be closer to $9.99 for something like the Preserve and Condemned DLC armor sets together with a new coating for each, or $29.99 for the coatings and armor of Noble Team + Rosenda, with a DOT AI on top. Overall less content than the Champions bundle provided, which was $9.99, but nowhere near the level of excessive pricing they applied to Hazop since each set alone is being valued at $5 each.

If they were to release something brand new, an all original set for that core or a new core itself, then $10 or $15 might not be seen as insane for that hypothetical new selection since it wasn’t repackaged from legacy.

The point is that no matter how you try and justify it, whoever is in charge of monetization at 343 has completely dropped the ball. Just being F2P isn’t an excuse for exceedingly bad price gouging even by F2P standards, and it’s made worse since the campaign element is still full priced, the part most players consider to be the core element of the game.

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They know and don’t care.

Probably assessing their store profits. If players complain a lot but items are still moving enough to their satisfaction then they probably won’t change anything.

It’s a lot different when they’ve sold tens of millions of dollars in microtransactions already and can’t just refund them or legally change what people have paid for. Everyday that hole gets deeper, every million more they sell the possibility of them changing how the monetization and customization systems work gets more and more impossible.
Things may have a chance of getting cheaper, but fundamental change can’t happen.

Likely on holiday mode like any other business.

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree there.

I’ll agree that a drastic change is more difficult than a minor change but it’s certainly not impossible for 343 and Microsoft to change things for the better.

As a species we’ve harnessed the power of the atom, put people on the Moon, cured any number of diseases, developed methods of sharing information and media almost instantly across the globe, it most certainly is not impossible for the pricing of virtual items to be reviewed.

I’d cite EA and Battlefront II as a good example of players being able to force a huge change in a game’s monetisation strategy.

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