On a “Sense of Pride and Accomplishment” and Gen Ani
Tldr: the infamous pride and accomplishment quote at least demonstrates that’s EA knows how to monetize their games.
- Gen Ani release fails to create value and only dangles exclusivity (which isn’t enough for non-collectors)
- The best way to deal with this may be to figure a fix for increasing his viability while at the same time re-releasing him to try to allow more players to unlock him.
On November 12, 2017, a community account for EA, CG’s parent company, made the most downvoted comment in Reddit History. When asked if the price tag equivalency of $80 made sense for unlocked Darth Vader, an EA Community account responded that “The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.” This quote makes more sense than the current Gen Anakin release, and not just because of the price tag. Let that sink in.
EA gave players an option, to trade their valuable time or money to achieve access to a powerful character. This makes sense, it both created an atmosphere of exclusivity (having him before the “masses” unlocked him) and gameplay. To parallel this, Gen Ani at the moment allows players who unlocked but could not 7* him exclusivity (until the event invariably rolls around again), but gated the usage until their ability to 7* him. This creates less value in the mind of the customer, compounded if they could visualize the literal mountain of gear equivalency that the GET could purchase. This reduces the amount of players willing to spend on him. And yes, we saw a massive uptick in spending, which I am sure is expected every single major event. But for the number of tracked unlocks (as we as a community only have part of the picture), we can still conclude there were considerably less unlocks and spending than previous events. In business terms, this means that a 50% jump in weekly sales is great, but not as great if you were expected to pull a 75% jump (not to mention fatigue in spending following events OR lost players resulting from an event, of which there are some vocal and known players).
Additionally, CG forgot the one biggest rule of freemium games. For (almost) any content, you must allow players to purchase their way past any gates. I get it, the GET is about stalling an entire currency and capitalizing on the increased spending while that currency is tied up. But you’re losing money if there is no way for players to skip that farm. Moreover, due to event fatigue and frustration, you may discover that the timeline means many players will slow their purchases until they see the next event/how things play out. We cannot pay to gear characters if there have been no new character releases to gear.
Final thought, is that I’m sure many of us assumed that the emphasis on world first Geo TB was supposed to be a big deal. This probably won’t happen until Ep 9 drops a new viable FO team (and the associated GP increase that comes with). Why on earth you are having the Gen Ani 7*, g13 timeline be possibly AFTER that event (and after LS Geo TB drops in Nov) is beyond me. I would have thought that pressuring resources right now would make sense, as you can always create new gear bottlenecks via new teams and reworks.
Hopefully, CG will issue a statement early next week that will address this lack of viability (for their sakes, hopefully one that doesn’t cause mass refunds). There are obvious solutions (GET swaps, GET awards, even moving the gear gate of 7* higher to relics), and there are less obvious or desirable ones (a kit change, mass upgrading of shards). Either way, CG, I implore you to follow the good side of the team that CG_Carrie embodied and address the community with some statement. Actions would be better, but a statement is probably your bare minimum.
Tldr;
CG is making the EA statement of “pride and accomplishment” seem reasonable.
We could really use actions to address this Gen Ani issue.
- Gen Ani release fails to create value and only dangles exclusivity (which isn’t enough for non-collectors)
- The best way to deal with this may be to figure a fix for increasing his viability while at the same time re-releasing him to try to allow more players to unlock him.
On November 12, 2017, a community account for EA, CG’s parent company, made the most downvoted comment in Reddit History. When asked if the price tag equivalency of $80 made sense for unlocked Darth Vader, an EA Community account responded that “The intent is to provide players with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different heroes.” This quote makes more sense than the current Gen Anakin release, and not just because of the price tag. Let that sink in.
EA gave players an option, to trade their valuable time or money to achieve access to a powerful character. This makes sense, it both created an atmosphere of exclusivity (having him before the “masses” unlocked him) and gameplay. To parallel this, Gen Ani at the moment allows players who unlocked but could not 7* him exclusivity (until the event invariably rolls around again), but gated the usage until their ability to 7* him. This creates less value in the mind of the customer, compounded if they could visualize the literal mountain of gear equivalency that the GET could purchase. This reduces the amount of players willing to spend on him. And yes, we saw a massive uptick in spending, which I am sure is expected every single major event. But for the number of tracked unlocks (as we as a community only have part of the picture), we can still conclude there were considerably less unlocks and spending than previous events. In business terms, this means that a 50% jump in weekly sales is great, but not as great if you were expected to pull a 75% jump (not to mention fatigue in spending following events OR lost players resulting from an event, of which there are some vocal and known players).
Additionally, CG forgot the one biggest rule of freemium games. For (almost) any content, you must allow players to purchase their way past any gates. I get it, the GET is about stalling an entire currency and capitalizing on the increased spending while that currency is tied up. But you’re losing money if there is no way for players to skip that farm. Moreover, due to event fatigue and frustration, you may discover that the timeline means many players will slow their purchases until they see the next event/how things play out. We cannot pay to gear characters if there have been no new character releases to gear.
Final thought, is that I’m sure many of us assumed that the emphasis on world first Geo TB was supposed to be a big deal. This probably won’t happen until Ep 9 drops a new viable FO team (and the associated GP increase that comes with). Why on earth you are having the Gen Ani 7*, g13 timeline be possibly AFTER that event (and after LS Geo TB drops in Nov) is beyond me. I would have thought that pressuring resources right now would make sense, as you can always create new gear bottlenecks via new teams and reworks.
Hopefully, CG will issue a statement early next week that will address this lack of viability (for their sakes, hopefully one that doesn’t cause mass refunds). There are obvious solutions (GET swaps, GET awards, even moving the gear gate of 7* higher to relics), and there are less obvious or desirable ones (a kit change, mass upgrading of shards). Either way, CG, I implore you to follow the good side of the team that CG_Carrie embodied and address the community with some statement. Actions would be better, but a statement is probably your bare minimum.
Tldr;
CG is making the EA statement of “pride and accomplishment” seem reasonable.
We could really use actions to address this Gen Ani issue.
