Wargaming, Black Friday and You.

[Mulletproof]

This is not really a flame against Wargaming. More, it's an open letter as to how capitalism works.

 

Here's the deal: Wargaming NA must be making enough money off you not to care. You're buying their stuff at regular price, so why bother offering it to you at a discount? Take Black Friday, for instance. It's called Black Friday because it is traditionally the time of the year where companies expect to see their bottom line profit, or rise into the black on their spreadsheets (as opposed to red). To help that along, a retail holiday was created-- Black Friday. Given the pricing model we've seen for Wargaming North America during the regular season, I highly doubt World of Warships has this problem. To point, WoWS Black Friday offering shows it was aimed at a very specific demographic not indicative of a company in need of cash. This is further modified by the fact that Warships has no real competition whatsoever. At least not any sort of competent competition. Think about that, for a moment.

 

You can draw some parallels between this game and the United States firearm industry as a whole. More Black Friday deals exist here because of the proliferation of competition, but the savings compared to previous years just aren't there because the industry has been in the black for almost the entirety of the Obama administration. The gun industry felt no shortage of profit and thus less incentive to offer the outstanding deals people were hoping for. There are some anomalies in that, such as looking at AR parts and sales, but again, there's competition.

 

Another prime example exists in World of Warcraft. Pop Quiz: How long did it take Blizzard to finally offer some version of free-to-play? How many years? And even then, their only concession to the plague of free-to-play titles looking to usurp its subscriber base was to offer levels 1-20 for free. After that, you paid. Why? Why didn't they just buckle and compete as a completely free to play title? Because they didn't need to. They were making money hand over fist because their international subscriber base was invested and loyal. New players were still coming in. Why give your product away when people are willing to pay for it?

 

Which brings us back to Wargaming NA. If you're disappointed in Black Friday or Cyber Monday, you have only yourselves to blame. Warships has little to no monetary incentive to offer you anything. There is enough people buying their products to where a mass special is completely unnecessary to their bottom line beyond a specifically targeted special. Nor do I condemn the market segment that is supporting their profits. You see this as a reasonable price to pay for entertainment. Capitalism works. Supply and demand. There's competition in the Tank segment. Real competition. And imagine that, Black Friday is going on strong over there.

 

And just to make it clear I'm not ragging entirely on Wargaming, I appreciate a lot of the freebies they give out along the way. I just got Takao in port. I'm just not their target paying consumer, i guess.

[DOCTOR_CITADEL]

A fair assessment of the situation. +1

[Terrible_Turtle]

Pretty accurate.

 

While we're on the topic, I know a lot of people that were quite happy with the Thanksgiving sale. Sure, it was a bit pricey, but if you have the funds available there were some good deals. 

 

Individual ship sales come and go all the time. Bundles as massive as these are a rarity. 

 

The year of premium works out to be roughly 12 cents per day. That and the port slots are what got me to open my wallet. 

[Super_Dreadnought]

Good sir, have a +1. Fair and well reasoned imho.

 

Completely agree, the truth is that WoWs doesn't need to try all that hard because there's no reason to. Personally imho the most terrible thing that could have happened to WoWs is that Gaijin decided to make a game with fishing boats in it. That basically gave WG a free run to do whatever the heck they want with ships.

[ValkyrWarframe]

Well I'm glad I don't spend money on this game.

[Special_Kay]

As nitpick it's not really capitalism in video ship sense, but it is still a mostly-free market scenario where your analysis holds true.

 

Here's a quote where I explain what I mean, though it was directed towards someone who was being rather thick so please don't take the tone personally:

Capitalism isn't what you're implying it is. The idea is that the owner of the means of production (WG in this case) is allowed to set prices as they see fit. Part of what keeps a capitalist economy healthy is the consumers' freedom to shop elsewhere if prices are too high, which is why monopolies are detrimental. The problem is basic capitalist theory deals with physical goods, not licensing and virtual ship unlocks. We can't simply pop over to the nearest competing naval warfare game to buy their USS Texas if we don't like WG's price for it—video games in general and online games in particular are very good at tying you in so you can't go to a competitor without losing the use of everything you've already "purchased." It's not like buying a generic army men set to go with your name-brand super-villain mountain fortress toy, where you simply deal with the differences. That's why it's absurd to bring up capitalism.

 

 

It's also worth noting that the port slot and premium time discounts were substantial, and (unlike the ship bundles) accessible.

[RipNuN2]

They actually had a wide range of different bundles offered at varying prices to target different demographics. The port slot sale was a nice 50% off and rather inexpensive, the year of premium time was also 50 percent off, and then many ship bundles in between the premium time price point and the massive bundle. I think most of those complaining about the sales were only looking for one or 2 individual ships on sale, but considering the proximity of the Christmas holiday I think we are much more likely to see individual ship sales at that time especially with how gifting works in this particular title.

[ButtesVonToota]

 

The history of the term Black Friday has its roots in Philadelphia where it was used as a derogatory term of shop lifters who took advantage of large pedestrian crowds to commit crime, it has nothing to do with how businesses operate profits and losses. The more modern myth of that sales boosting nature of the day is largely in relation to retailers who have seen continuous declines in in-store sales where as manufacturers are less reliant. In the case of WG, they own the supply chain so they likely don't need to make up for losses with a big blowout, but that does not make them hugely profitable. There is no way to verify their profitability as they are privately owned and last earning statement was in 2012.

 

Second, the analogy to the gun industry is in my opinion not comparable. Gun sale trends are as much a result of socio political trends as they are a function of supply and demand. Yes that benefit to the gun manufacturers may mean fewer aggressive sales, but not the same as a commodity.  

 

Finally, just because they are the only game in town when it comes to WW2 warships in a game of this nature does not mean they own all demand. There are other games, players come and go, again not a commodity. With that in mind, if WG is highly profitable and doesn't need to run sales, so be it, but I think more people were annoyed at the unnecessary bundling than disappointed by a lack of massive price cuts.

[TangledThorns]

You're a schmuck if you didn't jump on the discount for year of premium time. I'm at over 600 days of premium time

 

[Special_Kay]

The history of the term Black Friday has its roots in Philadelphia where it was used as a derogatory term of shop lifters who took advantage of large pedestrian crowds to commit crime, it has nothing to do with how businesses operate profits and losses. The more modern myth of that sales boosting nature of the day is largely in relation to retailers who have seen continuous declines in in-store sales where as manufacturers are less reliant. In the case of WG, they own the supply chain so they likely don't need to make up for losses with a big blowout, but that does not make them hugely profitable. There is no way to verify their profitability as they are privately owned and last earning statement was in 2012.

 

While you're basically correct, the history of calling Fridays with bad things "Black Friday" goes back a lot farther than racism in USA. It may have been surreptitiously chosen to make a subtle racial epithet, but there's ample non-racial precedent for it.

[SandraSmiles]

 

You can draw some parallels between this game and the United States firearm industry as a whole. More Black Friday deals exist here because of the proliferation of competition, but the savings compared to previous years just aren't there because the industry has been in the black for almost the entirety of the Obama administration. The gun industry felt no shortage of profit and thus less incentive to offer the outstanding deals people were hoping for. There are some anomalies in that, such as looking at AR parts and sales, but again, there's competition.

I purchased more than a few fine grade rifles and shotguns under the Obama Administration.

The problem came with the False Flag of the Bush Adm and the Patriot Act-

Chuck Schumer was long off the map

[Captain_Doll]

Which brings us back to Wargaming NA. If you're disappointed in Black Friday or Cyber Monday, you have only yourselves to blame. Warships has little to no monetary incentive to offer you anything. There is enough people buying their products to where a mass special is completely unnecessary to their bottom linebeyond a specifically targeted special.Nor do I condemn the market segment that is supporting their profits. You see this as a reasonable price to pay for entertainment. Capitalism works. Supply and demand. There's competition in the Tank segment. Real competition. And imagine that, Black Friday is going on strong over there.

 

I agree to some extent. But WG also needs to keep the player base "happy" and people talking about the game. Even if it means not gaining a profit. To illustrate, take the Corvette, Camaro, and Mustang. The Honda Accord outsells all of these cars combined. Following a basic capitalistic approach, Ford and Chevy would be better of directing manpower to 4 door sedan segments. However, what many car companies learned is having "hot" cars gets car enthusiasts talking, which in turn generates sales for other vehicles.

 

 

I'm not disagreeing with you. Just felt WG missed a little with the sale. There was a lot of hype in the forums followed by a general let down. I doubt WG will feel a pinch; but, I like to hope they listened to the communities displeasure.

 

 

But what do I care. I purchased a damn buddle.

 

[Deputy276]

Something I noticed was how quickly the discount on Port Slots were removed from the Prem shop. Maybe you can still get them with gold, but not with cash money any more. I'm guessing more profitable to WG to use gold rather than sell it for real $$.

[Special_Kay]

Something I noticed was how quickly the discount on Port Slots were removed from the Prem shop. Maybe you can still get them with gold, but not with cash money any more. I'm guessing more profitable to WG to use gold rather than sell it for real $$.

 

Actually unless you're buying doubloons in rather small amounts, the in-game doubloon discount was significantly cheaper.

 

Also, I just checked and it's still available. If you don't see it it's because you bought it already (it's limited, one per account) or you aren't logged in on the store page you were looking at.

[Molonious]

I was looking forward to purchasing some individual ships, but the money stayed in the wallet this year. I am not against big bundles, but when that is all that is offered, its a turn off.

[BubbleRapper]

If you're disappointed in Black Friday or Cyber Monday, you have only yourselves to blame.

 

That statement makes no sense whatsoever. Most of the people who are disappointed in the Black Friday "deals" were people who wanted.. well, deals. In other words, most are NOT the ones who are buying lots of WOWS products at standard prices (or at all). The people who buy tons of WG products year round that keep WG in the black long before Black Friday comes around are people who obviously neither need nor care much about special discounts since they're already willing and able to buy so much at regular prices.

[SkaerKrow]

So what you're saying is that you can reach a point where you have so much money that you can arbitrarily afford to obtain less? Wow, that sounds like a really good problem to have!

 

I haven't heard about anyone wanting super discounts, what I've heard is people being disappointed that the only offering for the holiday were bundles, with no special ala carte content offered for people not in the market for bundles. 

[H_Skillet]

You're a schmuck if you didn't jump on the discount for year of premium time. I'm at over 600 days of premium time

 

unless you're getting tired of playing the same old game over and over and over and over ..........

[suleiman71]

Not every day a good, well reasoned, and unbiased assessment is made on how WG's marketing and sales works. +1

 

WoWS's play base isn't just made out of sperm whales, though. I've spent a lot on Warships, but almost never in amounts exceeding $50 at once. The spending demographics are definitely varied.

[Flamadiddle]

It's good to know that wargaming is doing so well. I can look forward to new content in ships, I guess.

 

On the otherhand, I was willing to spend 50, maybe 60 dollars on a ship or two. Instead of wanting some of my money, wargaming wanted all of my money. It was the go big or piss off fashion of the sale that kept me from spending. It took me a year to swallow that if I wanted a new ship I'd have to buy it with flags and doubloons I didn't want. Multi ship bundles 'only' smelled of a fart blown in my direction.

[TurboT]

As someone who owns virtually every Prem ship in this game already, who is happy to support the game at times when these items come out and not hold my wallet saving for a big sale, it bummed me out some.

 

I was prepared to buy the one or two premium ships I don't own (Kutuzov mainly) if there was a special, instead, other retailers got my money.   

 

Even if I DID NOT have most of those ships already, I still would never spend 530 Canadian at one time on a video game.  Its different to me if I spend some each month as I don't buy titles to other games or console games etc, but never in my life could I drop that kind of money at one time on something as niche as a video game.

 

Sorry, I don't believe the bundles were 'fair' to regular supporters of this game.. however, they don't need to be fair, they can do what they want, that is just my opinion.

 

[OOM911]

I have to say I was disappointed, I was looking forward to getting my hands on some new ships... But for charges of 100-500 dollars just for one ship that I want... I mean sure you get a lot of gold, but I don't need gold right now nor do I want it.

What this sale really needed was more options. Keep the packages but offer the individual ships for normal prices or create a shopping cart system, where if you buy so much you save so much off the top...

 

I seriously think they would have made more money if they offered more options for people... 

 

Oh well maybe the next sale will be better.

[Mulletproof]

Not every day a good, well reasoned, and unbiased assessment is made on how WG's marketing and sales works. +1

 

WoWS's play base isn't just made out of sperm whales, though. I've spent a lot on Warships, but almost never in amounts exceeding $50 at once. The spending demographics are definitely varied.

 

Very true. And I didn't want to muddy the initial waters by going too deep. Your comment affords the opportunity to do so, however.

 

WoWS isn't exactly too great at content creation aside from the Pokemon Boats aspect of the game and even then that only lasts so long. Unlike Warcraft, I just don't see Wargaming producing enough here to sustain long term interest. Eventually the Sperm Whales are going to have all the boats they care about, let alone pay over $100 again just to get one or two they like. The game offers almost no real content to spend doubloons on for those now sitting on a massive excess. Wargaming has ensured their "content" either feeds the grind or goes to winning harder. There is sooooo much opportunity here its almost criminal for whomever is managing this game.

 

I suspect once the sperm dries up (sorry, just have to keep the analogy running), Wargaming will become more generous and creative with ways to spend the now massive surplus of doubloons their whales are sitting on. I mean, really consider that, Wargaming. You've painted yourself into a really good corner here by ensuring your highest paying players now have a surplus of currency has very few ways of being spent easily or quickly, especially with specials ensuring players have over 700 Repair II's and crap.

 

 

 

 

Didn't realize Black Friday had any other connotation. Interesting.

[DOCTOR_CITADEL]

The year of premium works out to be roughly 12 cents per day. That and the port slots are what got me to open my wallet.

 

Exactly. I did the same; well worth the money. 

[SCygnus]

Repeating what has already been said, but the premium offer was excellent.