Prologue:
Hi all!
Resident polling prinny chronosanct here! Before going into the meat of this post, I would like to urge people who haven’t voted in the poll where I’m getting data from to please do so HERE.
I want the polls to have a smaller margin of error (so 600-1000 responses would be ideal!)
That said, even if someone decides to read the preliminary conclusions I’ve reached and votes to change the trends that are currently in place, if they don’t actually follow through when the game actually launches, then it will only lead to a worsening of what I am about to describe. So uh… feel free to do whatever helps you sleep at night I guess…
So if you’ve already VOTED and you are ready to brave a wall of text please continue on below!
There’s also a Tl;dr at the bottom if you’re lazy.
Objective and Definitions:
Some people commented that the poll that I put up was ‘dumb’ for lack of a better term. Why does it matter how many people buy tokens they ask?
Some of the questions I wanted to answer with that poll:
- Is it the case that F2P players will be able to easily obtain tokens?
- How fluid will the token market be and what trends can be expected in the future given current token buyer distributions?
Before proceeding, I also want to define what I mean by P2W:
I personally define P2W as in-game game-play advantages that a paying player can access, but that a F2P player cannot.
Importantly, this definition is not a [Yes/No] label. If cash shop item [Magic Boots of +50,001 WIN] is easily obtainable by F2P players, I would not call it P2W. If however a cash shop item is possible to get but not practical to obtain, then it becomes increasingly P2W as the chances of actually obtaining the item as a F2P player decreases.
Example (in my opinion) of higher P2W tendencies: Yes Timmy, you too can become a magic scroll owner if you just spend 36+ hours grinding in dungeons that you are limited to playing 2 times a day! It’s totally possible and a fair playing field!
Many people have argued that tokens are not P2W because although they provide game-play advantages, F2P players will be able to reasonably obtain them.
I hope most people will agree that if tokens can not be reasonably obtained by F2P players, then they become increasingly P2W, because token game-play bonuses essentially become advantages that only paying players can obtain.
Results:
Okay! So what do the current data actually show? As of 3/27/16 results of the poll show:
35% - 0 token players (F2P)
55% - 1 token players
1% - 2 token players
1% - 3 token players
0% - 4 token players
8% - 5+ token players
The margin of error of these polls is ~6% which means that F2P no (0) token players could be as high as 41% of the iToS population or as low as 29% of the iToS population. The same applies to the other results but with a lower bound on 0 [i.e. it is impossible for negative 5% of the population to be 3 token players]
It is also important to note that the results of these polls come only from these forums. I am assuming that most of the people here are more hardcore fans of imc/ToS and are more likely to pony up money. So keep in mind that the 2,3,4,5+ token players are probably overestimated and the F2P players are probably underestimated. (Thanks @12ahl3!)
What does this all mean for iToS?
Based on these results one might say, oh hey look! Things aren’t so bad! It looks like ~8% of the player population is providing ~40% of all tokens, which should cover the ~35% of F2P players who will want to buy tokens.
In my mind though, this distribution is scary! ~8% of the population is supposedly spending $90+ dollars a month on tokens!! What in the world happens if just 1% or 2% or 3% of those players leave? If it’s just 3% of those players leaving then we already have a deficit situation where ~5% of the F2P will be hard pressed to find any tokens. The other problem is that the token purchases are not well distributed. There are hardly any 2,3, or 4 token buyers so they cannot really be expected to help alleviate the token demand when ■■■■ hits the fan. So over time, token silver prices will climb (there will likely be price crashes here and there in price like all markets), but that eventually token price will become so ridiculous that F2P player will just quit because the situation has converged on a P2W scenario.
The other thing to note, is that if ~8% of the population is selling ~40% of all tokens then they are going to have a lot more in-game money than pretty much anyone else. That means their attributes will be higher, they will have more purchasing power, they will be able to manipulate markets more easily by buying out items and then slowly selling them at more profitable margins (limited to 5 entries on the market of course, but they’ll have time). I’m not saying this necessarily will happen, but we are talking about human nature here…
Is there precedence??
Here is what has happened in EVE online which instituted a similar service (PLEX)
PLEX in EVE is basically 30 days of game play time in an in-game tradeable form. So players could buy PLEX and sell it to other players for the in-game currency ISK.
This is similar to how players will be able to buy Tokens and and sell them for silver to other players.
Why is plex getting so high so fast lately?
Why are plex prices rising so fast?
Current PLEX price: ~1+ billion ISK
2012 PLEX price: ~260+ million ISK per PLEX (see graphs)
Here is a chart of PLEX prices over just one year
DISCLAIMER: Tokens are different from PLEX in the sense that you can continue playing the game even without a Token… but that also just means that you can continue grinding for more silver to try to save up to buy tokens. Inflation, hoarding, and relative lack of supply is likely what drove PLEX prices up and are likely factors which will be at play in this game as well.
Note: imc will likely have no desire or interest to keep Token prices down because they want players to spend money buying Tokens
What can/should be done??
Basically controls need to be put in place. Here is what I would probably recommend:
1) Make tokens cost less in real life (increases supply)
2) Prevent excessive hoarding of tokens by individual players (token hoarding caps of maybe 3 or 4 per account would be reasonable)
There is still the possibility of people pre-hoarding when they expect an increase in token prices Thanks for pointing this out! @nizidr
3) Take steps to prevent excessive in-game currency inflation (better start coming up with some good gold sinks imc!)
Otherwise we might as well call Tokens P2W because normal F2P players will not be able to afford them. This may become increasingly true as time passes by.
Other complications I didn’t really factor in:
This analysis is also complicated by the fact that some fraction of those 1 token buying players will presumably want to switch to using in-game funds to buy tokens at some point (not everyone is okay with paying ~$18 a month for an mmo to be ‘competitive’). They will have a higher starting leverage point in terms of purchasing power because of additional dungeon runs and ability to sell more on the market. This will further make life not fun for F2P players.
@nizidr makes another great point regarding this issue:
Closing and disclaimers:
Disclaimer: I have invested $10 into iToS so far to check out the founders month. We’ll see how things go and how receptive imc are to feedback.
As always, feedback is much appreciated. I have tried to be unbiased in my analysis, but feel free to point out bias where you see it. I would also love to be wrong about this analysis so if I’ve overlooked anything major that changes everything, please feel free to talk about it below!
Tl;dr:
Prediction 1: iToS token purchases are unbalanced which will lead to increasing token prices over time
Prediction: iToS token implementation will not be sustainable for F2P players in the mid to long term. Those players will likely quit once prices reach a back breaking point (in my opinion).
Maybe we don’t care about what happens to iToS over the mid to long term. If so, just ignore this post.
Staff shoutout!
@Staff_Julie, @STAFF_Ethan, @STAFF_John, @STAFF_Shawn, @STAFF_Ines
