Sexist TP Costs?

[Dissonance]

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[the7crowmisfits]

Here we go again~

lolzzzzzzzzz

[timoteoandre]

+1 for this.

The price is already ridiculous when it costs more than a token, but paying even more for a sprite because my character is female is insane.

[the7crowmisfits]

i still prefer my female toon butt in 3d

[og_lop]

But a digital hairstyle costs almost nothing when compared to the profits they make off of it - a few hours of extra development time would be paid for in less than a handful of purchases.

I’m sorry but on behalf of all of the artists specifically digital artists and animators, I will say that this statement is false considering the training needed to accomplish this as well as the competition they have to face just to get their work approved, featured, and sold in a game.

A hairstylist gets their payment directly from clients.
A digital artist gets paid by their employer. Payment they receive may not even scale depending on the number of purchases of that hairstyle.

So don’t compare them.

[tiffanyzh989]

I’m fairly sure the artist would just receive a flat pay, regardless of how much the hairstyle is priced in game. The only loss would be to the company as a whole (which could possibly affect the artist’s future pay, but most likely not by much).

I also sincerely hope that all their training did not culminate at just a couple of hairstyles in a game. If their career is in this, they’re doing more than just a few hairs. If you try to split their hard work learning and training up between the different things they’ve done and will do, those hairs didn’t take very much.

[wickedDesigns]

I apologize if I was unclear with my wording here. I was certainly not trying to imply that creating in-game art is either cheap or easy.

In fact, I believe we are in complete agreement that digital and physical haircuts are so completely different when it comes to creating them that there is no point making a comparison (which many people have done above).

My statement was regarding the perspective of the game publisher, who both sets the prices of the hairstyles and profits when they are purchased (or at least when TP is purchased in order to acquire them). If a more complicated hairstyle takes a few more hours of development time from the artist/developer, this is still just a one-time sunk cost. If the publisher pays the artist differently at all for this more involved hairstyle, that difference will amount to the wage cost for the extra couple of hours of development time. Since the premium hairstyles in this game cost almost $20 a piece in TP, those few hours of pay would be covered with a mere handful of purchases.

Not only that, but if it is true that far more people purchase female hairstyles (which many people seem to believe and does seem to me like a logical conclusion), then those extra purchases would more than cover the cost of increased development complexity.

If we are just looking at paying for the cost of the art, it would actually make sense that more popular hairstyles should be cheaper, the result of dividing a slightly higher development cost by a much greater number of purchases. That’s not how games with micro-transactions work though. The primary expense of the game is the overall system and then ongoing server, employee, and maintenance costs. All of these are spent in order to attract players who will then want to spend money on things like hairstyles (which have extremely minor cost to create compared to these other things). Thus the prices of hairstyles have nothing to do with their development costs, and everything to do with how much players desire to run around in this world with a more customized character.

[che_extreme]

If we are just looking at paying for the cost of the art, it would
actually make sense that more popular hairstyles should be cheaper, the
result of dividing a slightly higher development cost by a much greater
number of purchases.

It is almost never the case that a product in demand is reduced in price while the demand is high. In fact, the opposite is true (price can be increased to either ramp up higher scale production or increase profit margins on said product).

[ophiuchu]

Uhh the point was in terms of payment. Maggi the person in question here is either on the company’s payroll or gets commissioned for their work. Someone who works in a Salon or as a Barber usually has flat prices set out for walk-ins and get tips. It’s still kind of funny that despite what ever they paid Maggi she isn’t paid any extra on top for having the female hairstyles being more.

So the debate about this is pretty silly. They basically are just gouging customers and nobody gets more but prolly Mr. Kim himself.

http://toswiki.treeofsaviorgame.com/people/maggi - If you want to know more about Maggi by the way she is amazing.

[Yamashio]

Some retards here are going full retard.
Not agreeing with something doesn’t mean we don’t understand why it’s done.

Fine, it’s business. They want money cause they have a higher population of said gender.

I still think it’s wrong. But at least they are not charging almost 2x the price for Female Costumes.

Also, people have the right to play the gender they want, if you don’t think so, you are a prejudging inbred.

[Haseo]

Its called supply and demand. There are more people want to beautify their waifu instead of hunking their guy. Including myself.

[rlavix]

The worst thing is that in kTOS it’s the same price for both men and women.

[ophiuchu]

They didn’t have founders pack either. But yet people debate this supply and demand stuff. It’s just simply gouging the foreign player base because they were in debt or greedy.

[che_extreme]

greedy

It’s a business. It has to make a profit for it to stay afloat. Chances are, the higher prices that we pay and the various business schemes they implemented here serve to subsidize the lesser markets they are also working in. Good or bad for the consumer, profit has to be made.

[corsiritsmeurbrother]

Since this thread’s about TP-bought hair, I just want to share something that bothered me for a while.

For a very expensive hairstyle this sets a precedent for future long hairs to look clipped due to the head seemingly being rendered as a 2d sprite. While the prices between premium male and female hairstyles are very questionable, don’t you think this kind of clipping makes it very regrettable that you even bought one to begin with? I mean, I would have wanted the hair if it never had issues but this issue goes to the default shaggy long hair as well.

I know there are still countless of very important issues ahead, but if IMC gets to the point that they need to sell premium hairstyles fresh from Korea, this will probably remain as a huge turn-off.