Cash Shop

SOE betide

Well it’s safe to say that the news that SOE has been sold, further cements my belief that the companies strategy hasn’t been great over the last few years.
For me personally the cash shop focus has been awful and abused to the point that many players stopped buying into the OP/Nerf cycle.

  • Release CashShop Overpowered Item
  • Pimp said item in and out of game
  • Wait the standard 2 to 3 weeks for it to become flavour of the month
  • Nerf item to standard levels
  • Count your profit Scrooge McDuck style
  • Repeat

I suppose the lining is that the new Daybreak Company aims to also focus on Xbox and mobile platforms freeing the development studio from the Sony bias.

As it stands the offering SOE still feels a little lacklustre and I wonder if we will see some cutting loose of the non-profitable games that are hanging around (not that SOE didn’t already do that recently) such as PS (original).

But at least Smedley will be around to buy crap loads of donuts.

Cost of living

I’m really enjoying my time back in City of Heroes/Villains. The Halloween event was really good fun and was great to have heroes and villains teaming together. Also it was nice to have an (new) revamped instance map tailored for the task rather than just a ring fenced slice of Croatoa.

The superhero game lends itself so well to the idea of the cash-shop and the foundations of this were established by the booster packs that Paragon Studios had introduced over the past few years. If you want a new costume part then just purchase that one part or the whole outfit if you prefer, or perhaps you’ve seen a new cape someone is wearing and decide your character would benefit from owning it.

Despite being a paying member (VIP) the shift move to the freemium model truely sank in with the release of the “Street Justice” powerset, which requires a cash shop purchase. Of course the cost was more than the 400 points that are given for being a VIP player. So you either have to wait 2 months or stump up the extra cash for points.

That said the cash shop items are nearly all cosmetic and thus don’t impact your gameplay if you don’t acquire them.
But to make the perfect costume you may have to buy some extra parts rather than using just the vanilla sets.

The general thoughts people have about the shop are very positive, even when compared to existing games that sport cash shop models.
Have you tried it out yet? What are your thoughts?