Gold ridiculously overpriced??

[g33kfest]

Am I the only one who seems to think its humerous to see how expensive some items are??

1500 gold for $109.99 - That's already a new copy of MW3 with change.

Then, theres a weapon "Limited" - "Menorah Fireblade" which costs 750 gold.. equating to $55.00, if you bought the 1500 pack of gold. Anyone else thinking thats a joke!? The game is free to play.. I don't get why you'd spend that on a weapon, just for pvp loot.

I'm on lvl 92, and never bought gold. I started with 10, did a survey and got given 10. My hourly income is $39,014, and I successfully loot anyone I need to basically.

I can't fathom the prices of these weapons in a free game. By the way, thats just one weapon.. to be used by one mafia.. Now imagine buying that weapon, or other gold weapons to outfit your mafia..

Hope your prepared to literally spend thousands while I loot you for FREE..

[Syn]

Yeah it is expensive, but I don't buy gold items. I only use gold for buildings. Also, I try to not buy gold until it's on sale. Because when it is, I act like this (http://i.imgur.com/yf4eS.jpg).

[Tramp Stamp]

If you think Crime City is bad, try Modern War. It's basically the same thing but everything is an order of magnitude more expensive.

[g33kfest]

Yeh, I downloaded MW, got to lvl 3 (for the gun) saw the prices and scoffed. I can't believe it sometimes..

@Syn

Hahahaha, I reckon that's how most people would act!

[fatacad]

Yeah it's way too expensive. I have a principle not to spend money in MMORPGs and right now i'm level 101 and in the top 15% of everyone else at my level stat-wise. Then again I played mafia wars ages back and Original Gangsters so I kinda knew how to play wisely from the beginning. You can be a powerful player and not spend any money, and you can be almost equal to any moderate gold player if you manage wisely.

[Dorian Gray]

It's probably better I don't go into my personal opinion on this matter. :mad:

All I would add is that Funzio is not alone in this business practice. As of November 1st Crime City was one of ten free games that helped make up the top 15 grossing games in the app store. All of these games give the player the opportunity to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

I myself bought the $20 stockpile of gold when it was on sale because I like/play the game a lot and saw some value in it. I also don't mind supporting the people who make the games I enjoy.

[g33kfest]

Dorian - thats not my point. Ofcourse we should support it, i'd be happy to throw $10 or so at them because I play it that often. But spending $10 will get me basically no where with their prices. If you think theres true value in spending the real money to actually gain an advantage over others who pay (and believe me - you'll have to spend a lot) then by all means.. do it.

[pooOnU]

I agree with the op that gold prices are ridiculous. However, it seems to be working for Funzio. It's a guess but their major revenue may be coming from the players who have the money to purchase lots of gold. If they were to lower their gold prices, they may upset these higher gold paying customers who are their bread and butter. The freemium business model has been gaining popularity amongst game producers, leading the pack is Zynga. I think the trend will continue.

[Anubis]

I'm sure it was RMT that pushed or gave MMO dev's the idea of selling their own gold to have complete control of their game.

You ideally need to spend 100-200$ to notice a difference from gold. $$$ buildings are best value for gold, because the higher your income the more expensive $$$ equip you will inevitably be able to buy. With weapons/armors the stats are relitively small gains but they are generally unbeatable gains for that slot. It doesn't help that it takes 2000 pieces of equipment to fill those slots.

[Joeycool]

Its not the gold that is overpriced... Its gold items that are overpriced!

I have thrown a bit of money into this game. When there have been sales. But only for gold buildings.

[Max Power]

People refer to this as a "free game". Then they come to this "free forum" to carp about gold prices.

While I respect their opinion to not buy gold, and I do believe that gold prices are awfully high, nothing about developing an internationally popular complex app and running a forum to support it is free.

[g33kfest]

However max - as a consumer, to play the game is free. And you don't think theyre awfully high? I'm comparing to a PS3 game. For example, I got MW3 for $78, I got NBA 2k12 for $88. No extras, nothing. And the only thing that seperates the better players to the worse players is talent. On this game, it's real money spent. You might spend over $200 on this game, and think about it, it's just an app you got for free. Someone else will spend $500, have more income, better weapons and better defence and beat you, and you'll have to spend more. It can be a vicious cycle if it drags you in..
Regardless, they need to make their money somehow.. If only the prices were more globally reasonable..

[g33kfest]

(You could.. and some people I'm sure have - spent more on this game than on their IOS device itself!)

[Garrison64]

I'd honestly like to know who is supporting the ridiculous gold prices in this game. 750 gold for one item!?! That's more than $50 for one single item which is just plain stupid. I don't like paying that for an entire game to be honest and for pure Single Player games I often wait until they hit the used shelf just for that reason. Then you have a game like Skyrim that cost me $60 and I've already gotten over 130 hours on it without being required to spend another penny and I feel I got plenty of value for my expenditure. What do I get for spending the same amount on a single weapon in Crime City? Yea, nothing except a few more attack and defense points.

The people that are supporting this are morons with too much money or no self control. My biggest fear is that such out of control support for a financial strategy like this will eventually lead to the same thing from bigger game producers. What happens if a series like CoD or MW decide you have to pay to have the better weapons instead of just allowing you to unlock them by playing? Trust me if they feel that enough people are willing to support that structure they will move right over to it and laugh as they fill their bank accounts with money spent by fools. I don't like this at all. I've spent my $5 on this game which is all I feel it is worth to be honest and that's all they'll get from me. The rest of you suckers can keep blowing money on your digital hardware and support the downfall of the gaming industry in all it's greedy glory.

[Max Power]

I'd honestly like to know who is supporting the ridiculous gold prices in this game. 750 gold for one item!?! That's more than $50 for one single item which is just plain stupid. I don't like paying that for an entire game to be honest and for pure Single Player games I often wait until they hit the used shelf just for that reason. Then you have a game like Skyrim that cost me $60 and I've already gotten over 130 hours on it without being required to spend another penny and I feel I got plenty of value for my expenditure. What do I get for spending the same amount on a single weapon in Crime City? Yea, nothing except a few more attack and defense points.

The people that are supporting this are morons with too much money or no self control. My biggest fear is that such out of control support for a financial strategy like this will eventually lead to the same thing from bigger game producers. What happens if a series like CoD or MW decide you have to pay to have the better weapons instead of just allowing you to unlock them by playing? Trust me if they feel that enough people are willing to support that structure they will move right over to it and laugh as they fill their bank accounts with money spent by fools. I don't like this at all. I've spent my $5 on this game which is all I feel it is worth to be honest and that's all they'll get from me. The rest of you suckers can keep blowing money on your digital hardware and support the downfall of the gaming industry in all it's greedy glory.

I hear your points and I won't say I disagree, but it is clear that Funzio is going for a boutique strategy rather than a Wal-Mart strategy in terms of pricing. They will have fewer sales, but higher margin on each sale. It's certainly not for everybody. You can compare the pricing of stationary home PC games, and that's fair, but people who buy gold compare it to other things, like a weeks worth of morning coffee at Starbucks or the monthly price of their cable bill. For some players, $50 is nothing.

As far as competing on a level field with gold players? There are 8 million people playing this game. I never had any illusions of "winning".

It's all good in the hood, I respect both strategies. One thing free players who complain of on a free forum should remember though, your opinion is noted, but ultimately worth what you invested in it.

[Ghost3]

I ran into one last nite, easily $700+ worth of gold items and buildings

Had 4 100gb famas a couple 200gb vehicles and armor pieces and the list goes on, more notably he had about 50 pieces of each low cost gold items for all slots AND he had 13 of the gold explosives... I mean seriously?

The guys name was d and if he attacks you it blends into robbed so u never get to c the name without revenge

[whocareswhatmynameis]

agree with most posts.

one thing i would like to add: i feel FUNZIO made the right call is making instantaneous expansion/upgrades/constructions exuberantly expensive. that, i believe, has created a fairer condition where non-gold players can compete with gold players. barring that, we would have had a situation where people who didn't invest in real money would be driven away from the game on mass.

[Tramp Stamp]

The simple answer is that video games are priced at what the market will bear. The market is accustomed to paying a particular average price and if that price rises and/or if the standard game becomes less playable due to a "play to play" policy, then the market will simply shrink and there will be less income for game producers. This will force even higher prices to recoup costs from a shrinking base and could essentially lead to a death spiral in the worst case scenario.

More realistically, there is heavy competition for entertainment dollars and while everyone in every industry would like to tithe their customers, most "boutique" style games just don't make it because they don't generate value to a wide audience.

That's not to say that an industry-wide correction due to low value has never occurred because it has, but it seems unlikely to happen again due to the maturity of the video games industry.

[Tramp Stamp]

we would have had a situation where people who didn't invest in real money would be driven away from the game on mass.

This is intentional and addresses the "chicken and egg" problem where Funzio needs to monetize their audience but needs an audience to monetize. From a consumer perspective the prices seem all out of whack but from a game balance perspective it actually kinda works.

[procsyzarc]

Prices are very high but the thing I really don't like about this game is how you can buy weapons etc that have stats far greater than weapons you get by normal means so they need to be expensive because if you could get them for say 10 gold each and someone could buy 1500 gold and get 150 weapons there would be no way non gold buyers could compete.

Gold should be used for speeding up upgrades, changing stats, cosmetic uses, changes classes, re filling energy/stamina etc like it is in other games. Buying weapons that have stats 10 times higher than the best wepons you can get without gold is stupid and if they were cheaper would mean only gold buyers would play and the player base would die off and the gold buyers would get board and quit and the game would die.

[Max Power]

This is intentional and addresses the "chicken and egg" problem where Funzio needs to monetize their audience but needs an audience to monetize. From a consumer perspective the prices seem all out of whack but from a game balance perspective it actually kinda works.

Its like Facebook or any other user generated content site on a way. The site or game needs free players to provide the numbers for the people who pay.

Facebook would not get advertisers without the free content providers, and Funzio wouldn't have any gold buyers if there weren't so many free players to rob.

I have a feeling they covered this when wooing investors....LOL!

[audufrane]

I'd honestly like to know who is supporting the ridiculous gold prices in this game. 750 gold for one item!?! That's more than $50 for one single item which is just plain stupid. I don't like paying that for an entire game to be honest and for pure Single Player games I often wait until they hit the used shelf just for that reason. Then you have a game like Skyrim that cost me $60 and I've already gotten over 130 hours on it without being required to spend another penny and I feel I got plenty of value for my expenditure. What do I get for spending the same amount on a single weapon in Crime City? Yea, nothing except a few more attack and defense points.

The people that are supporting this are morons with too much money or no self control. My biggest fear is that such out of control support for a financial strategy like this will eventually lead to the same thing from bigger game producers. What happens if a series like CoD or MW decide you have to pay to have the better weapons instead of just allowing you to unlock them by playing? Trust me if they feel that enough people are willing to support that structure they will move right over to it and laugh as they fill their bank accounts with money spent by fools. I don't like this at all. I've spent my $5 on this game which is all I feel it is worth to be honest and that's all they'll get from me. The rest of you suckers can keep blowing money on your digital hardware and support the downfall of the gaming industry in all it's greedy glory.

I couldn't agree more, you took the words right out of my mouth and placed it perfectly on this topic. Too bad Funzio doesn't listen to any of the feedback dedicated forum members are putting out there. All they care about is $$. What. a. shame.

[g33kfest]

You can compare the pricing of stationary home PC games, and that's fair, but people who buy gold compare it to other things, like a weeks worth of morning coffee at Starbucks or the monthly price of their cable bill. For some players, $50 is nothing.

It should be compared to stationary gaming because that's were we game, at home. Rarely I game properly outside of home even on the iPhone, because well, theres a time and place to game and there's a time for socialising.
Who are these people spending $50 a week on coffee? $7 a day?? Who ever is buying a $7 cup of coffee EVERY DAY should take a look at themselves, because that's a joke, and it doesn't make the prices of gold items on here any more reasonable. Compare it to weekly groceries for a single person or a uni student. I'm a uni student and my fortnightly groceries cost me $100~$120.

Or I could buy a weapon on here every week and starve.. Yeh.. The prices are definately fair.

[Justintubbs01]

I totally agree also, yes it makes the game more challenging because only certain number of members spend money on gold but it is still outrageous. Posting this forum however is useless... As stated above, FUNZIO does not care about what we think. They want the most money possible. And if ppl are paying for it then why change. Funzio has 2 great games, I love them. But when you step back and take a look at what you are really playing-it equals a pointless game, utter waste of time and money, and a waste of 6months of your life. You will reach a certain point when the game is pointless to you which in turn = Funzio maximized their profits on you, and a new member has now taken your place.

[Leetfeet]

I couldn't agree more, you took the words right out of my mouth and placed it perfectly on this topic. Too bad Funzio doesn't listen to any of the feedback dedicated forum members are putting out there. All they care about is $$. What. a. shame.

This argument worked before. Now that Funzio ran a questionare asking what we wanted more of in the game AND followed up by giving us more buildings, it is completely void.

However Funzio's buisness strategy remains clear; Wanna pay to get ahead? Then you shall pay.

[g33kfest]

well, hopefully they have another one where you can opt to vote to earn gold from challenges..

even small increments to give players a taste of it. And hey, that might even make people spend money.. Win/Win? :cool:

[Justintubbs01]

Actually I agree with the statement above!

[xclusiv]

i could of bought a ps3 with 2 games with the money i spent on gold, i think it is over priced, but the game is to addictive and the gold will get you eventually