Pay 2 Win Premium Tabs Features - why GGG lies

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Mannoth wrote:

And so the cycle continues:

1. A random person voices concern or negative feedback about premium stash tabs
2. Some people agree with him (random or not)
3. Some people bash him (usually the same persons from every thread of this type), sometimes randoms
4. Back to 1.

Usually neither side is willing to budge even a tiny bit in either direction of the discussion, at least of the posters who still post in these threads and so the threads proliferate ad infinitum.

Now if both sides actually value the other sides concerns or opinions we would have a valid and constructive feedback thread, by that I mean that the following (wall of text, you have been warned):

Spoiler

Side A (Stash tabs are P2W):
* consider that most of the revenue GGG gains is probably through stash tabs
* consider that GGG's vision of the game may have changed over the years
* consider that you can emulate full functionality by a proven 3rd party app which is open source

Side B (Stash tabs are not P2W, get out non paying bum):
* consider that games marketed as F2P shouldn't gate core functionality behind a paywall
* consider that not everyone has the means to purchase GGG coins (be it from lack of funds or literally no access to online purchases at the moment)
* consider that non paying members can still be a productive member of the community which in turn is good for the longevity of the game
* consider that some members are afraid/dissapointed by this change because to them it changed what GGG stands for (which may be a biased view or not depending on the future actions they take)
* consider that while you can emulate the functionality at the moment, and this is really important, 90% of the trades is done via public tabs which in turn means that there is a high chance of indexers dropping support for forum scrapping entirely and there is no way to pump item data into the internal data stream other than the premium stash tabs. Would premium tabs be a QoL feature then or a core feature? Think about it.

And as a last thing to consider, I leave to you to think about the chance of GGG ever supporting forum indexing if they release a ingame search of items.
Answer is exactly 0% because scrapping the forum in turns would cost them more than handing out 1 free premium tab (which is you know free because it's virtual goods) rather than devoting time to make a forum scrapper, maintain and update it.

Now if this happens the P2W / pay to play would entirely be true because if you think trade chat (aka cancer) is a good way to promote trading to new players all the while claiming it is on the same footing as indexing items I would laugh my ass off.
And if you thought party boards were used for trading now, just wait to see what happens if the above hypothetical event happens.

That being said at the moment they are 99% the same as using Acquisition from a functional standpoint.

Honestly both sides need to get over it. GGG doesn't owe them a got damn stash tab and GGG doesn't owe them a change in their business model just to make them feel better.

These posts are interesting to me, but sadly I think they are just missing all sorts of "real world" experience. OP seems to be angry that a company, that exists to provide a service to the public while making a profit, wants to continue existing - by making money from it's service base.

The company must always
1) make a profit
2) provide for it's employees and their families to continue operations
3) serve it's customers

IN THAT ORDER. In a NON-PROFIT model you see
1) Provide for it's employees / continue operations
2) serve customers
3) make a profit

But without profit, you can't provide for operations. ALL organizations MUST bring in capital.

If they have a very IDEALISTIC (read: unreasonably strict philosophically) player base, they must assess if these idealistic people PAY THEM ANY MONEY? If they get the majority of their money from the casuals, they will cater to THEM.

See, check this out - companies cater to THEIR CUSTOMERS. If you are part of a *small* group of people who do not want the company to make money (thus you won't pay 15 coins to upgrade your tabs?) then you are not relevant to that company. The company must ALWAYS serve it's 80% market base. If the company bows the knee to idealistic people like you, they will *go broke*... because you clearly do not like to pay for things (15 coins to uprgade), especially when you get emotional.

They want customers who will pay them money. PERIOD. But they also have a sort of niche to maintain. They have to keep some kind of hardcore style going, as that's their differentiation, and competitive advantage. However, it's the casuals who buy into this STYLE DIFFERENCE between this and D3 or GrimDawn. The casuals pay all these companies all of their profit, not you.

You're lucky GGG has some of their own ideology that keeps them pretty firmly rooted in the avoidance of P2W. Nothing OVERTLY P2W. If they were NOT, they would/could totally gear this game toward the masses, cash out, sell off, and never think about YOU again. That's the NORMAL gaming business cycle.

GGG has clearly avoided that gaming cycle, sustained growth, competitive advantage, style, and differentiation/image/brand - all the while avoiding P2W. I think people who WHINE about GGG making money on new innovations and how those innovations go against some ideal philosophy, are unrealistic cheap ass complainers, who don't even pay GGG's bills as they clearly don't buy much or support GGG much at all - for the most part.

I'm sure GGG knows EXACTLY who pays their bills and what they think... Data is extremely valuable in today's world and GGG isn't ALIVE AND WELL because they are ignorant of who pays their bills and who they should cater to. Make sense?

You cant win in this game unless youre racing, not even a fraction of a percent of players even go for the first 100 or first boss kill in a new league with a new expansion.

Sorry but you cant "pay to win" unless youre actually winning something, in this case its actually impossible to win unless racing for a material prize.

Sorry, anyone who thinks this is pay to win needs to go pay an actual pay to win game, you know one of those fucked nexon games or korean mmorpgs with thousands in macro transactions.

Also anyone who thinks the third party programs are "inefficient" is a joke. Theyre better than the premium stash tabs as stands right now, premium stash tabs offer absolutely nothing by comparison of what Acquisition or Procurement does.

-Sincerely, Someone who actually fucking trades alot and isnt using premium stash tabs.

I can't believe that some ppl call GGG "greedy" or worse. Do you know a game company, let alone a free to play game company who delivers more free content to a game ? GGG produces more content for its f2p game than Blizzard does for the sub based WoW ! We're talking about some freaking stash tab at $4 a piece, you are SO entitled it's crazy.

Before I post the main section, let me say that I do not agree or disagree with OP, I have not given this much thought yet and I am NOT posting to defend or attack his argument. I am posting because there seems to be a slip in logic in this discussion.

I think most of you totally missed the point. OP is not commenting on whether or not a company needs money to survive or whether GGG is using this as a means of making money but, rather, he is talking about how this feature being sold by GGG is giving some players an "unfair advantage" (as he puts it).
His concern is that this is tending toward the Pay To Win model. He is NOT suggesting that GGG should not make money or sell things to players (since he has clearly stated that he does buy items such as regular tabs), he is suggesting that this particular item (premium stash tabs) with the shop feature appears to be pay to win.

Dawm and Tin Foil got it straight. Right on

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CentauriSoldier wrote:

Before I post the main section, let me say that I do not agree or disagree with OP, I have not given this much thought yet and I am NOT posting to defend or attack his argument. I am posting because there seems to be a slip in logic in this discussion.

I think most of you totally missed the point. OP is not commenting on whether or not a company needs money to survive or whether GGG is using this as a means of making money but, rather, he is talking about how this feature being sold by GGG is giving some players an "unfair advantage" (as he puts it).
His concern is that this is tending toward the Pay To Win model. He is NOT suggesting that GGG should not make money or sell things to players (since he has clearly stated that he does buy items such as regular tabs), he is suggesting that this particular item (premium stash tabs) with the shop feature appears to be pay to win.

We didn't miss any point. We disregarded the point as being baseless. In fact, I recall reading more than 2 replies that directly state there is no unfair advantage due to 3rd party programs being even better and easier. So it's been addressed. On it's face, it is baseless emotionalism to a non-issue.

So then we expanded the discussion to perhaps shed light on the subject surrounding the OP's post, which is directly and evidently relevant. make sense? Also, the points I highlight in my post all lead to the conclusion that even IF there were SOME advantage to stash tabs (IN GENERAL, and as trade enablers), that advantage would be appropriate to SELL, because this is a profit making company that must support it's operations, worker's and their families, as well as future potential existence/survival as an organization.

So EVEN IF GGG sells some advantage to players - it's OKAY DUDES! The game is still as fun as it was yesterday. ANY change is purely emotional fantasy and entitlement.

GGG also should NEVER be held to some previous moral philosophies. Those types of ideals CHANGE with TIME and REALITY as they go on to provide for their 70 families they employ. The RIGHT/MORAL thing to do is charge the players what is FAIR for *whatever* they can in order to provide for the people they are obligated to support - the employees of the company.

And I realize some hard left leaning people will literally hate me for having this perspective of the truth - but the other option is making no money or just a little bit of profit. With a LITTLE profit you can't make expansions. With a LOT of profit you can make LOTS of expansions. Pick your poison (which btw, I'm going to be making a poison build next lol)

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Tin_Foil_Hat wrote:

You cant win in this game unless youre racing, not even a fraction of a percent of players even go for the first 100 or first boss kill in a new league with a new expansion.

Sorry but you cant "pay to win" unless youre actually winning something, in this case its actually impossible to win unless racing for a material prize.

Sorry, anyone who thinks this is pay to win needs to go pay an actual pay to win game, you know one of those fucked nexon games or korean mmorpgs with thousands in macro transactions.

Do players actually "win the game" in those fucked nexon games or korean mmorpgs?

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Dawmz wrote:

I can't believe that some ppl call GGG "greedy" or worse. Do you know a game company, let alone a free to play game company who delivers more free content to a game ? GGG produces more content for its f2p game than Blizzard does for the sub based WoW ! We're talking about some freaking stash tab at $4 a piece, you are SO entitled it's crazy.

I'm not calling them greedy; that would indeed be quite silly. I am saying one thing the have on the main page describing PoE is false; Path of Exile has pay-to-win elements.

I do not think the best strategy for GGG is to revert the changes to the game; I think it's best to retract the statement.

why do u even care if it is pay to win or not. I dont care either. The company is trying to make money after all.

IMO, charging players to buy premium stash tab only to tell them to use 3rd party for item search index is more wrong than putting trade behind the paywall. wtf

IMO, the item search index should have been in-game the very first day public stash feature is announce.

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mark1030 wrote:

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Miazga wrote:

Im fully aware that the 3rd party programs still work, heck Im using one of the them for long time to manage my shop.

The point is that GGG added paid feature that give advantage over non paid features that are available to whole player base. As I said before, GGG will not back down, but they should have at least enough decency to inform people of their true intention behind it - making money.

What advantage? I've said it in other topics, but nothing has changed for me. Acquisition, after taking a few minutes to set up initially, does the exact same function. I drop item in shop tab. Acquisition tells poe.trade about it and it's listed within minutes. When a free alternatives stops existing, I'll jump on your bandwagon. But as of now you're not paying for anything you can't get for free.

And did you complain about those stash tabs you bought being p2w as well? The free alternative is alternate free accounts and characters. If you didn't complain then (or even if you did it didn't stop you from buying tabs), your moral highground is hypocritical.

Did you even read his quote, before replying? Actually understood it?
Or are you too busy white-knighting?

Read this snippet you quoted again.
Slowly.
Get to second paragraph, 1st line.
That is a great definition of p2w, and sadly it is happening right now - while you could argue it didn't happen before.

And no "there are 3rd party tools" is not a counter argument ffs Mark. The fact you even used it made my brain explode.