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Why does Ashes have embers in the cash shop?
BlackBrony
Member
So, Steven has said the doesn't like P2W, and I'm behind that.
I would like it if someone could help me find the answer why the cash shop is using Embers instead of real USD prices. Is there a specific reason for that?
It is my understanding that embers are a unique currency for the Cash shop that cannot be converted to gold.
If we're using Embers, which is already a red flag since it dissociates spending from real money, I would love if prices were set without any traps. I mean like selling 1k embers, and items cost 1200, so you have to buy 1500, and then you have 300 left, which oh, strange, buys nothing.
I would like it if someone could help me find the answer why the cash shop is using Embers instead of real USD prices. Is there a specific reason for that?
It is my understanding that embers are a unique currency for the Cash shop that cannot be converted to gold.
If we're using Embers, which is already a red flag since it dissociates spending from real money, I would love if prices were set without any traps. I mean like selling 1k embers, and items cost 1200, so you have to buy 1500, and then you have 300 left, which oh, strange, buys nothing.
2
Comments
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Embers
That gives me some hope that they won't use those types of scummy tactics, but we'll have to see. As for the reason - you're probably right in the assumption that it's to separate in-game purchases from spending irl money. There miiight be some kind of law that prohibits direct trading of $ for items, but I doubt it, considering other games have already done that afaik.
As long as people care more about game play than they do the companies business practices and the law allows it, gaming companies with in game shops will always do this and it will always be the case.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
Edit: The battle pass levels didn't grant anything but cosmetic rewards.
If there were no Embers, and rewards were only in dollar equivalents, then for the $250 Voyager Pledge you couldn't offer $90 in subscription fees and $100 in Cosmetics along with Alpha 2 and both Betas. If they instead offered $190 in store credits, then players would skip the cosmetics and spend it all on subscription fees, and Intrepid would only be collecting $60 for Alpha 2 and both Betas.
On the other hand, if, like me, you value the cosmetics at $0, then the Betas cost $45 each, and Alpha 2 costs $70.
Further, referral rewards are given in Embers, that is Cosmetics.
Awarding Embers for Cosmetics only allows Intrepid to cultivate Whales without Pay to Win.
None of this is true at all.
Everything here could have been accomplished via putting cosmetics on the store and nothing else, and giving store credit for the referral program, and in packs.
How is that relevant?
The point is that IS is using a well known tactic to make people spend more. Does this mean that IS is ok with shady tactics as long as it's not P2W?
I mean, they already had issues with their website redesign and people called them out on how they were pushing the FOMO.
They keep doing it every single month.
All I hear from players is "it's to pay to win". Yeah, I know that, I'm not stupid. But that doesn't retract from the fact that they are using dishonest tactics to make people spend more money, which is my point.
How can I trust that they won't get worst in the future?
NO, stop buying or playing the game are not answers! People get emotional attachment to games, that's the whole reason why their use these tactics. If you spend money you keep playing to not give up progress.
What are they doing thats dishonest?
I haven't bought any Embers and I've been here since Kickstarter.
If you think Embers are too shady, don't play the game.
The website does not push the FOMO for me.
I just come straight to the Forums.
I learn about the new cosmetics via Discord notification or the Dev Livestream.
Then if I see something I think fits one of my alts, I go to the Shop.
If there's nothing that fits one of my alts, I don't go to the Shop.
Why was it the first thing you mentioned?
I've bought plenty of cosmetics over the years, and not messed with Embers. I'm not sure if that will be the case forever. But I'm not sure. The wiki doesn't really specify how Embers will be used, exactly, and I think that's because that hasn't been revealed yet.
But yes, if Embers is used the way some people assume they will be, they will push people to spend more. Of course they will, that is the only reason to ever use a currency scheme like this. Many MMORPGs use similar tactics. For example, Arc Games (they make Neverwinter, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and other games) uses a currency called "Zen". You can't directly buy things from them with cash, you have to first buy Zen and then you use Zen as currency. So if you want to buy a starship in Star Trek Online, it might cost 2700 Zen. You look and see that you can buy Zen in bundles of 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, or 10000. Zen is basically a penny per, so the 500 Zen package is $5.
If you want to buy that starship, you can't just buy 2700 Zen. You can buy a 1000 Zen package and a 2000 Zen package for $30 total and get 3000 Zen. You buy your starship, but now you have 300 Zen sitting around. You don't want it to go to waste, so you think, what can I spend it on. Oh, there's this neat uniform that's 400 Zen. Okay, I almost have enough, let me spend $5 and get another 500 Zen. Now I have 900. I can buy that uniform, oh and I'll get another uniform also 400 Zen. I still have 100 Zen left. I'll just let that sit until next time. And so on.
By forcing currency conversion, you do make people spend more. It's a somewhat shady (but very common) sales tactic. It's like gift cards. If you don't use up everything on a gift card, that leftover balance just rots. So it's use it or lose it, and since you're unlikely to make a purchase that uses only the balance of the gift card, to not waste the amount on the card you end up spending some of your real money.
In fairness to Arc Games, they are a bit more fair about it. There is currency you can earn in-game that can be converted to Zen, and vice-versa; if you have extra Zen left over you can convert it to in-game currency so it doesn't feel like it's wasted. They do lean heavily on pay-to-win, so they aren't saints in the least, but at least in this sense they aren't all that predatory with the currency conversion. But yes, they are tactics that are a bit "scummy" depending on your perspective. Personally it's not a big deal to me, because I'm so used to it from countless other games, but your mileage may vary.
That's not really fair. People can criticize an aspect of the game they don't like while still being willing to play the game and support the project. I think naming a class "Tank", having that as an in-game name is stupid on many levels, and Steven's explanation "they're going to call it tank anyway" is very weak justification for it. But whatever, I still love the game and can overlook something so minor. It's not a dealbreaker for me, just as Embers might be an irritation for a person but not a dealbreaker.
It would be one thing if someone was screaming that the game is a scam and we're all suckers for giving our money to a bunch of criminals, but all I see is someone with a gripe.
Agreed. Same with me. There's nothing predatory about what Intrepid is doing with optional cosmetics. I've bought many but ignore most of them because they don't interest me. Most months I don't buy anything because I don't like anything. No big deal.
If that's how the cosmetic shop will always work, that's awesome. I think the worry is that it won't be. All I can say is, don't stress about it before it happens. It could be that what we have now is what we'll have later, and to me that would be just fine.
As I said earlier, a major reason is simply international currency.
To Intrepid, it isn't a matter of using embers instead of USD. It is a matter of using embers instead of ;
USD
CAD
MXN
BRL
CLP
EUR
GBP
CHF
ALL
AMD
AZN
BAM
BGN
HRK
CZK
DKK
GEL
HUF
ISK
MDL
NOK
PLN
RON
RUB (maybe...)
MKD
RSD
SEK
TRY
UAH (hopefully...)
AED
AUD
BHD
HKD
IDR
ILS
INR
JPY
KRW
KWD
LKR
MOP
MYR
PHP
NZD
TWD
And I am bored of this now, and haven't even finished with the countries that I have played with MMO gamers from yet.
It is much easier from Intrepids perspective to have a limited number of transactions that require conversion from all of these currencies. Setting a specific number of ember packs allows conversion from all of these currencies in to what is effectively USD. This is far easier than having to convert each individual item being put up for sale to each of the above currencies (and the currencies I didn't even bother with, as I have not even hit Africa at all yet, and barely any of South America).
My hope is that Intrepid put ember packs of similar quantiles to the price of the items they are selling. If they have an ember pack for that gives 2,500 embers, and sell mounts for 2,500 embers (even if they offer some free embers on top of this, as many games do), then the complaints that some people have that it forces people to spend more is simply unfounded.
Indeed it does.
LOL, that's nonsense. This fixes nothing. They still have to accept cash to buy Embers. So when they advertise the price of Embers, they have to tell you how much real money that will cost, and they have the same problem. An ounce of common sense will tell you why that doesn't work.
I am actually amused you'd think this makes any kind of sense.
They won't. I guarantee you that they won't. There isn't a snowball's chance in the desert.
Imagine you are Intrepid, and you want to release perhaps 150 items a year on the cash shop. You can either work out an appropriate exchange rate for each item, and advertise each item at that rate for each currency, or you can work out an exchange rate for three packs of embers, and then sell those 150 items a year based on embers, knowing that each region specific price is already taken care of.
Keep in mind, most companies do not simply charge a straight converted rate in different countries. They look at the economy of the country in question, and charge based on what that economy can support. Intrepid have already said they plan to do this with the games subscription, so there is no reason at all to think they would not do it with the cash shop as well.
Intrepid would not be the first game to do this if they did.
The problem is, many players can't see the evidence right in front of their face. Most games with their own currency give a bonus based on purchasing larger packs. This is standard. 15 - 30% is fairly normal.
Another thing that is standard is setting 1 currency unit to 1 US cent.
As such, in many games, you buy a $20 pack, and get 2000 currency, and also 15% (a $20 pack is usually where the bonus starts). This means you actually often get 2,300 for that $20.
Now, lets say the game wants to sell a mount for $25, or 2,500 of their currency. You can buy a $20 pack and a $5 pack, and get your $25 mount. However, because people are stupid (a *person* may be smart, but *people* are stupid) they see it as needing to buy a 2,300 pack and a 500 pack to get a 2,500 item. This isn't a deception on the part of the developer, it is actually the developer outright giving the player 300 units of currency for free, while selling that $25 mount.
This kind of thing is FAR more common than a a developer specifically pricing items and packs in a way that forces players to buy additional packs to get specific items, even if many players see both situations as exactly the same.
Please read my post. I am talking about shady tactics. Please read, and then read again.
Finally someone that actually uses their brains. That is the whole point. You can never get balance zero in 1 purchase, so you either "waste" money or keep buying until you can reach 0 balance, if that's even possible.
Also, there was controversy when IS redesigned their website. People criticized because the first thing shown was the pack sales and not in a good way.
You might not remember or weren't there, but for a company saying "dont buy packs" putting that as first thing, it's at least contradictory.
Again who is forcing people to buy embers?
Oh wow you get extra when you make a purchase.
Just keep it for the next nice skin you see?
Noone is forcing people to spend money, JFC if this is the argument then it's simple: people need to exercise some personal responsibility.
Alternate currencies do two things really well:
- they abstract some of the connection (or for some all) to the actual dollar amount. It’s a simple cognitive tactic to help make money easier to spend. It’s Disney dollars, Chuck-E-Cheese coins, and casino chips.
- they isolate the spending power of a dollar to the company, giving the customer a unit of credit, while providing the business with immediate revenue
You’re also going to create a SKU pricing structure for items that is going to accomplish a few things:
1. Create a blend of small revenues that will aggregate as steady volume (I’m curious if Intrepid will go here) with larger mid ticket items folks will ‘save up for’
2. Create a ‘puzzle piece’ structure where the purchasable denomination and the item price aren’t symmetric. This creates overlaps for smaller items, which make it easier to justify purchasing the next denomination because you’re only covering the difference, not the entire price of an item.
These are pretty basic pricing models, and you interact with similar models hundreds of times a day, everyday. So let’s not burn witches out of ignorance, Goody Proctor.
After checking with a professional on setting up these exact sort of systems you are right. It is definitely easier and will decrease their overhead and difficulty with coding their payment system. For those who are unfamiliar I linked their current policy[1] on paying subscriptions in embers in my sources cited below.
No matter how correct you are about it being easy though that doesn't change the fact that the way embers is currently set up (which is pretty traditional to all other mmos) is inherently manipulative and increases spending, no matter how 'pro consumer' they are. So let's lay down some basic facts and suppositions about Embers.
1. Embers is basically a gift card. It is there to capture your money into Intrepid's bank account directly on purchase. The moment you buy embers, IS gets your money and you can't spend that anywhere else or ask for a refund to exit the system because of some future pr disaster or just falling out of love with the game.
2. Gift cards have proven effects on increasing spending because they are separated from real money. They remove the 'pain' of purchasing from the act of purchasing the item. [2]
3. Currently you cannot buy only 1 ember. You must buy them in 'packs'. Unless IS standardizes their prices this will ultimately leave many customers in situations where they 'need to buy a whole other pack'. Different items WILL have different costs and 'packs' are inflexible relative to this problem.
4. It is not possible for Embers to represent prices at 1:1 if you start giving 'bonus' embers. This makes mental calculations significantly harder for the average person and make transactions less transparent. Now throw in something like 'stuff going on sale' and you have a completely opaque purchasing system.
5. The more opaque purchasing is, the greater the consumption [3][4]
Some of this is unavoidable, some of it is not. After all you can't really get around the foreign currency effect on purchasing distortion.[5] However, the more Intrepid makes things transparent, the more likely it is consumers will be able to more easily calculate their purchases. One possible solution? Having a quick reference chart displayed on the purchase page for embers for common cash shop items ember cost and the price of those embers relative to whatever currency(with a healthy dose of legal disclaimers) you have selected to pay for the embers is one such way IS can help ease the transparency of purchases.
Additionally if IS gives us a way to buy 1 ember rather than 'set packs' it will allow us to 'buy as much as we need and no further'. There are a large amount of benefits this would have in disrupting the manipulation posed by a 'pack only' system. It decreases the opaqueness of the purchase. It decreases the dissociation of pain from purchase. It also prevents the situation where you are eternally trapped in the system of 'in store credit' which compels people to want to capture that value over and over.
As things stand though, Embers are opaque and the 'bonus' they give distorts pricing calculations for the average consumer and are therefore 'only there for THEIR benefit'.
source:
[1] hiding the youtube link in a spoiler
[3] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1027444717586 (I know this requires a sub, so I'm providing an alt link for a different article that says the same thing but uses less rigorous reasoning and data scrutiny)
[4]https://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/transparency.pdf
[5]https://www.researchgate.net/figure/STUDY-5-CURRENCY-AND-COUNTRY-OF-RESIDENCE-INTERACTION_fig1_24099144
[6]https://www.psychologyofgames.com/2020/01/the-perils-of-in-game-currency/ A summary of some the research here in a much easier to read format.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
They also granted Embers. So with a currency, the game can allow you to be able to gain some, through playing. I'm not saying it will. But the battlepass did
Its much easier for currency conversion. You can set the price fixed in embers and you only have to adjust the price to purchase embers for various currencies around the world. Otherwise you would have to do a currency conversion for every currency on every item in the cash shop.
It also allows people to get "more bang for your buck" deals by spending $50 and getting bonus embers & holding on to them for later rather than just $10 for the one item you want right now. If you simply deposited $50 into your account this creates a dilemma where you now have $40 remaining and it becomes an accounting nightmare because different countries have different laws and since you haven't actually purchased anything yet Intrepid is acting more like a bank holding your money rather than have sold you a product. So instead you don't buy cosmetics with money. You buy embers and that is the extent of the real money transaction from an accounting and legal perspective. Everything else is now simply in game transactions.
Having a single in-game cash currency isn't a red flag. The problem is when you have several different types of currencies and conversions between them. This creates the convoluted mess of pay to win.
Of course, I'm just going to let the extra 300 Zen sit around until the next time I want to purchase something.
How is the extra 300 Zen "going to waste" ???
Facts: You can't spend it elsewhere. Until you make another purchase it is wasted money. Embers are not money, they are a credit on your account you can only spend on IS.[2] Your choices are therefore to accept it is lost or buy more packs of embers in order to make an additional purchase. There is no in between. It is either wasted or used
Humans hate loss and avoid it when they can.[3]
Speculation: Account balances like this are a manipulation to get you to spend more money by pushing on that desire to avoid loss.They don't have to be built that way. They could build them such that you can buy exactly the amount you need. But they don't. And why they don't is quiet clear to me at least.
Sources:
[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/go to waste
[2] https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Embers
[3] https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/loss-aversion
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Yhr9WpjaDzw
I don't agree with your use of loss aversion. Loss aversion implies someone is going to take something from you, meanwhile the excess embers remain on your character until you need them again for a future purchase. Loss aversion would be more like Nexon's premium currency NX, which disappears after 90 days of not being used. That is predatory.