I get the whole free to play thing, because I also get that every business model is a compromise.
So, for players, we lose the monthly subscription fee. We can now drop into the game whenever we want.
On the flip side, of course, we now have to contend with a game that feels the need to hustle something out of us every day. They won’t be getting that $15 at the end of the month, so how about a dollar now. And how about we pile on things that people find popular… which in SOE games seems to be hideously ugly mounts… and dangle limited time specials?
Sure, fine, go ahead. It is all part of the deal, along with the repeated pleas for us to subscribe, which don’t seem to mind popping up during combat.
Fighting for your life? Think about going Gold!
But once in a while I see something comes up in the cash shop that makes me double take… like this bag. This $25 bag.
32 slots, 100% weight reduction, $25
This is one of the bags being offered up for a limited time as part of the EverQuest 13 year anniversary, and it is clearly an item targeted at the “whales,” the big spenders in free to play games.
More bags, more money
And it isn’t like this gets me angry or anything, it just makes me stop and stare and think, “Twenty five bucks for a virtual bag?”
And I know, I am somebody who bought a $25 sparkle pony in World of Warcraft, an item of no actual benefit really, as you have still have to buy the in-game riding skills with in-game currency. But I get that mount on all of my WoW characters now and forever. And the sparkle pony isn’t competing with any in-game crafted items.
The bag, on the other hand, does have utility… oh does it ever. Bags and bag space are always an issue for me. It also competes with the in-game economy and shows up on only one character. The latter wouldn’t be an issue for me if I knew who my main character was, but I have three characters I am working on in EQ, and I am not buying that bag for all of them.
Frankly, I am not buying that bag for any of them. It is twenty five bucks!
My brain keeps saying that, only in flashing red letters.
Of course, if you have to have that bag, you can get a price break if you buy four of them.
Buy four for the price of three!
Of course, this just makes my brain scream, “seventy five dollars worth of virtual bags?”
I am not even sure what sizes I can get in-game bags… I do not recall anything beyond 8 or 10 slots. But I will stick with those.
How about you? Are you ready to spend twenty five dollars for a 32 slot bag?
They are only available through April 15th, 2012.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I wrestled with this in mounts and now in STO with ships, and it occurs to me that we are not really paying $25 for a bag, or $10 for a mount, or $15 for a ship. We are paying $X for our enjoyment of the game, and as a reward for giving that size donation, here is a special, awesome widget for donating to us. Or at least, that’s how I tend to think of it. Perhaps if only to make myself feel better about it. After all, if I would have been paying $15 to that game this month anyway, whats the big deal if I am enjoying it, and give them $10, and now get not only the game, but the latest shiny as well?
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@HZ – That is certainly one way to look at it. But I opted for Gold after a week because it was cheaper than buying the classes I wanted to play, so I am paying that $15 a month.
I cannot, in any case, detach utility from the amount of money given when it is clearly an exchange of money for goods. This isn’t a bake sale to support SOE, this is a business and I want value for my money.
And, on the flip side, when I give money to, say, public radio, I do not do so to get whatever item they are giving away. And they only bug me a few times a year, not every time I tune in.
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It is quite possible to obtain larger bags in-game, without the monetary expenditure, but it’s not easy. Some crafted, most quested or drops from named in HoT or VoA.
Here’s a list:
http://eq.magelo.com/bags.jspa
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Have you looked at the in-game cost of large bags, though?
They had an in-game poll a year or two back where they gave a list of features they could add for the next expansion and bigger bags was one of the things that won. They’d said for years that the EQ engine would not permit bags larger than 10 slots, so bigger bags was a huge endeavor and one they had often said they wouldn’t do.
On Fippy, of course, large bags don’t exist yet. On Vox I can only imagine they are insanely expensive. Even on a mature server like Luclin even the smaller larger bags in the Bazaar were a lot more than I was prepared to pay and anything comparable to that 32 slot bag would be completely out of the question.
That said, I also wouldn’t pay $25 for an imaginary bag but then I wouldn’t pay $2.50 either so for me it’s not really about the cost. It’s more that the less space I have, the less useless crap I can collect!
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@Tommy – Thanks for that link!
One bonus I did not mention is that, among the rewards I have for purchasing various expansions, is 999 “one per character” 16 slot bags. So I have the 8 slot starter backpack, that 16 slot bag, and then whatever I pick up after that on every character.
Yeah, collecting less crap is a good side effect. I got burned on trade skills early on in EQ and have never really had the yen to get back to them. I tend to just vendor most everything… except, of course, for the huge number of items that are no sale. Why are so many drops flagged no sale?
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I’m not sure about a bag, but I did pay $30 for a virtual tank in WoT…among other purchases :)
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@Gank – I think I did that as well… or whatever the T-59 was going for at the time. But, to show how subjective this all is, I feel I got value for my money with that. And probably all the more so because I was not subscribed, nor was a traditional subscription even an option.
If you demand logic from my views on cash shops and free to play, I am afraid you may be disappointed. A lot of it is emotional and based on the relationship I have with a given game.
Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers that smell bad.
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I tend to become outraged (probably all out of proportion to the offense) by cash shop items like that and just stop playing.
(Not that I need much of an excuse to stop playing an MMO these days. The second week I spend grinding the same endgame dungeons and daily quests over and over is generally my last.)
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I cringe everytime the ‘go gold’ ad pops up in EQ2, it’s so in your face, it makes Turbine’s store adverts look subtle! Of course it usually pops up either when I’m in combat or when I’m crafting and risk missing a reaction event!
I made my first alt an outfitter/tailor as a reaction to the chronic bag space issues on my main and now level them both in tandem so I can keep progressing towards better bagspace. I guess it’s less of an issue in EQ2 though as bags seem easy-ish to make?
As a F2P player of EQ2 and DDO I strictly limit myself to ‘feature’ unlocks – the odd class, race or really useful stuff like shared bank slots. I have a rule against in-game items like weapons or mounts. Better to do the content and earn them in game. DDO’s store is more insidious than EQ2s though as you have to unlock quest areas and they have regular sales to tempt you to get more. I find it easy to ignore the EQ2 store generally.
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