This thread went well off topic.
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This isnāt a free game, it is a game with a free-to-play revenue model. IP2 has to get paid, 505 has to get paid, servers cost money, web delivery costs money, updates cost money, Digital Bros. has to get paid, and so do their investors. If that revenue isnāt generated, this game vanishes.
This game is not just expected to pay its overhead, and if the profits donāt grow each year, it fails. It is a live service, and live services generate new content on a continuing basis to continue existing, there will always be ways in which new content is monetized to pay for the continued development of the game, thatās how it works.
If you are that mad about $10, I canāt see any other reason to be that mad than you swore an oath before Whomever not to spend one more dime on the game again and now youāre tempted to spend it.
Mental Health isnāt a laughing matter, but it truly may be time for a break if someone is stressed over a game trying to make money by asking for $10 bucks for something of value that will be available to those who donāt pay after an exclusive period for those who do pay.
When delves released and I felt angry over the pressure to redirect my resources into a gold sink that, at the time, had little obvious value, I took a break. During that 6 month break, I went to therapy. Obviously, for a lot more reasons than this game, but the core issue wasnāt the game, it was me. Since returning to the game, and taking on a GM role, Iāve had to employ just about everything I learned in that 6 months.
My affirmation of that point isnāt laughing, its a serious matter. Donāt dump heart-disease causing stress hormones into your body over a video game that has to make money to survive.
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I agree I bought the $50 armor and two months of ring of power for using Microsoft reward points. Itās a great system that many should take advantage of.
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Is the elite pass worth $10?
In terms of the history of past GOW monetary offers, yes it is. Itās cheap.
Gow however is not worth to me as near VIP 9 $10 more, period, for fluff.
I enjoy Gow, Iām continuing playing for now, but Iām no longer paying.
Firstly the devs in my view are on a money at all costs track. That track seems to preclude fixing broken content/bugs/problem issues that have been raised for some considerable time, over a money at all costs course.
I donāt buy any argument as a consumer about the current costs of developing. I broke down financials last week and GOW is very profitable. I donāt buy Covid either, the patch could have been delayed.
In those aforementioned financials (hidden later in reviews) were things that included offsetting prior contracts, buying out debt on tax and all sorts of things, yet GOW still made great profit last year, despite that.
So, they are already generating a great turnover to profit margin without Elite passes. Kudos.
Elite passes is the next step to increase revenue, and in turn profits. Thatās business, great and I run a business. In fact Iāve had several. Potions was a business master stroke for GOW in terms of income generation. Great.
However Iām not getting the quality of product that I as a customer desire. Iāve invested in GOW and enjoyed the ride but Iām voting not to spend until I get better value for my experience as a customer. And Iām not actually asking for much to be happier really, and my view seems to be shared by others.
I think that this message is lost somehow, that some, like me feel that we need a better product, than the one we may have invested in.
So it doesnāt matter to me - Elite pass is just not worth any more expenditure as of now, but it could change.
Fixing bugs/interface/standing up on promises to deal with faction delves and other matters are where Iām at, and should they occur, then I may resume spending.
For example for me, one major detriment to playing GOW is the interface.
The interface is turgid at best, and itās been confirmed itās designed that way.
We just got a brand new turgid interface with campaigns.
The theory behind the turgid interface is to āslow downā players generating resources.
What exactly does that actually do?
Are the devs worried that farming might let someone generate an extra 5k gold every 5 minutes or something. Well thatās what it seems.
Yet they could have fixed that in an instant by removing the clicks and altering the explore gold level modifier accordingly, if it was such a problem.
They created the modifiers.
Iām fairly confident players would be much happier with clicks removed at the cost of say 500 gold at explore 12. Yet we have this memory hogging interface of clicks seemingly to stay.
Just one example where the design thwarts progression and gets peopleās goat. Impeding playing games properly is not good long term strategy imho.
We have a litany of issues, often weekly where the lack of care and attention to detail is clearly apparent.
We had another this week. We also got the customer service response at the time, and then the āspinā thereafter to reconcile.
Iāve always been one to give credit where itās due for GOW. Like the latest batch of doom weapons, like the reversal of the Sunspear nerf etc.
This latest example just reinforces my view that Iām not getting a product that wants me to spend more money. Itās shoddy, itās sloppy and itās showing.
Another final thing, as a customer you always have the right to exercise satisfaction or dissatisfaction without having to stop your involvement or emotively blow a gasket and sack in.
Let me give an example.
A well known broadcaster in the UK charges money for their services. When Covid started live services were effected, sports. Originally it had littke intention of allowing people money off for not having live sport. Customers complained and fairly swiftly the subscription payment and the equivalent of elite passes was also stopped (box office orders refunded).
Customers continued to use the service at less cost until live sports resumed, when the subscription kicked in again.
Great job, consumers changing business practice for a better experience due to raising issues and not cancelling their overall subscription.
Satisfied customers staying loyal. In the end good business sense.
So, thereās my logic, I may pay if the product is better, but I absolutely wonāt pay when the āno careā train blasts ahead.
Mr Train pull in at the station and take a breather, fix up your engine and have some maintenance and a well earned refit, then get back on the track and load up with more happy riders. 
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Since when devs are asking to players what they want? 
All the cosmetic pets can be Mythic with an huge amount of gems. You will be able to do the same if one day this pet appears in a Saturday cosmetic pet event 
.
That is only because of GoW was always over-generous. Players are so used to get everything Day 1 of the release of the new things.
You know there are plenty of players that does not have a hoard of keys so they can get the new monthly mythic for sure. These players are already in this situation. Feeling bad to join them?
And me too. And others too. That is why they are trying new ways to get some dollars.
I wonder what could make a player like you give them dollars?
Itās like if a drug dealer gives I a highly addictive drug free the first time or few
Then starts charging uš
twenty five cents a joint 
This is literally what I said, with the added note that it costs $50+ in Gems to ascend the Pet in an event if you opt not to spend $10 for the pass.
That āover-generousā (or āthe way games SHOULD BEā) is the reason I and others spent money in the first place. You know, to reward GOOD behavior instead of seeing yet more of the same stuff that gives the mobile game industry a justifiably bad name/reputation.
Iām not joining them at all. I have enough Diamonds to craft 5 or 6 mythics. Iām not sure what your point is here other than an attempt at insulting or trying to shame me, and thatās just rude.
By focusing on things like bug fixes, gameplay improvements, QOL, and overall customer-friendliness. If you have been reading my posts you already know this.
Some people donāt mind going to a restaurant that has cheap food but lousy service, because their focus is on getting a cheap dinner. I prefer to go to restaurants with awesome service because at that point the cost of the food doesnāt matter - Iām going for the experience, not the cost of the end product.
This.
And this.
This is a perfect example of how I feel.
Ding ding ding.
For the record, I didnāt report the post. I was being truthful when I said I didnāt care if I was being laughed at. Iāll admit to being curious why he posted it at all and backscrolled several times to see where said laughing occurred, but considering others have attacked my position far more openly, this felt rather benign.
And againā¦itās not the $10. The cost is literally nothing to me in terms of my gaming budget.
Itās the fact that the company is using predatory psychological practices to push people into spending instead of focusing attention on making a more player-friendly environment (bug fixes, balance changes, QOL, etc.) as has been mentioned numerous times already.
If youāre allowed to lump all non-spenders into a āwell, youāre really just tempted to spend and mad that you canāt, for reasons you decided yourselfā group, then am I in turn allowed to lump spenders into a āwell, youāre just sheep jumping at a good deal on paper while refusing to see the manipulation going onā group? Seems awfully petty, doesnāt it?
I donāt care if people buy the passes. I think if you enjoy the game and approve of the business practices, you should support the company with your money. I also think those who donāt approve of the practices have the right to make their case as well, and I think both sides can make their statements without resorting to personal attacks/shaming/etc. Iām not sure why this is so hard for some folks to understand.
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You really think that a company is going to create their business around philanthropists who one day to another will close their wallet for X reason? My guess is that IP tried that but did not generate enough profits.
And we donāt know the cost of GoW, only the revenue.
I never talk about diamonds so I was talking about missing a Mythic on its exclusive week after release.
That was just a question, no need to do a drama.
These things are not the ones that bring new players and are generally costly for no profit. So not their priority.
And they have a planning to follow, etc.
So if I understand, you will prefer to pay 50$ for the current Elite pass, but that they focus more on what bug fixes, etc.?
Welcome to the F2P world.
We can agree to disagree but please do not twist my words into something I did not say.
However, to answer your question, thanks to price anchoring and $50-90 being the āgoing priceā for a random mythic ($50 Growth Pack/Path to Glory, $90 average to get one with VIP chests) offering the battlepass for $50 for a guaranteed mythic, weapon, legendary, epic, pet, etc. would still quite likely be considered a great deal by a lot of players.
Iāve purchased the Path to Glory before, so itās entirely possible Iād buy something like this at that price point. I canāt give you a āyesā or a ānoā because the reality is weāre not in that situation. All I can do is tell you that historically yes, Iāve purchased $50 packs that contained a mythic troop.
This is the difference between being happy with how the game treats customers, and not being happy with how the game treats customers. When Iām happy, Iāll spend $50. When Iām not, I wonāt spend $10.
IP2/505 are choosing the āprofit over allā path. Thatās fine. Itās a model that has been proven to be incredibly lucrative by many other mobile games. It doesnāt mean it wonāt be called out for what it is. Remember that at the end of the day, itās love for the game and wanting to see it made better that makes a lot of people post. If we truly hated the game, weād just quit.
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Just my 2c here.
I am at VIP level 9 (almost at 10), I regularly pay for stuff just because I want to support the game + speed up my progress.
But seriously, the āpay us to get non-shitty rewardsā approach is pretty insulting.
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There are a lot of gripes i totally agree with. Standing on principle is all well and good, but that requires sacrifices. The sacrifice here for Standing on principle is that you donāt get the same thing that paying customers get. Your choice.
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Because you prefer to āpay us to get shitty rewardsā?
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What do you mean then?
But when 20-30 GoW lovers come here to complain about the exact same thing with the same arguments on this forum that creates bad reputation to the game. New players seeing that could just leave because of that.
I prefer to minimize the impact of this new patch better than saying Illuminati things like ānext campaign the pass will be at 50 dollarsā, etc. (this sentence is not specially for you).
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So you want to hide it from them? I mean that is what āUncle Samā would do.
Be a better person, let the truth speak for itself.
The truth is this has been escalating with each patch for a long time. We have said these things time after time and they all end up happening. Lets not pretend this time will be different. It never is.
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Minimize and hide are too different things.
What truth are you talking? It is only your point of view. And not mine.
I played some other F2P games and GoW is by far the most generous one. So for me the Elite Pass is just a standard F2P way to get some dollars.
The truth is we have surely no knowledge about F2P business plan, that 505 games has some and thanks to that GoW is still alive and making good revenue (I did not say profits).
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Itās emphasized by the fact that there are so many issues with the game that have been ignored completely as time has gone on. Now they want us to pay money or wait minimum 4 weeks for newly released troops, and we all know itāll end up nowhere near the minimum unless our complaints change things.
In ranked pvp Iām 205-15 right now, and at least 30-40 battles have been against the same opponent. Heās 44-0 on offense, 66-64 on defense. Iāve played 4 separate times today over a 14 hour period and he still is constantly there every 2-4 battles.
This is 1 example out of many of a system that has needed fixing for a long time, most things seem hastily thrown together from class talents, to world events, pvp, weapon levels, and a lot of troops in general. Maps and arena are basically irrelevant except to brand new players.
Very bad direction, donāt know who in the hierarchy is to blame, but this is the worst update by far as it changed the whole dynamic of new content to a paywall.
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It feels like you are deliberately being obtuse, but okay then.
I will not go to a restaurant with crappy food, no matter how good the service is. I incorrectly assumed that this would be understood. I suppose there are some masochists out there who would happily pay through the nose for an F-class meal.
Sometimes a bad reputation is earned. Just because you disagree with it does not mean it should be silenced or minimized.
Correct, but we can make logical assumptions about the business plan based on the behavior of the company.
When I picked up GoW nearly 4 years ago, the game was incredibly generous to F2P players. The game literally threw resources at you, and if you were an active player who could cut it in a higher-tier guild, you could make a pretty crazy Gems income from LTs.
That generosity from the company resulted in generosity from me. I spent enough money my first 6-8 months in the game to hit VIP 6.
Then the nerfs started. The game started changing. A whole slew of Gem sinks were added. Resources were further cut. LTs were gated off behind an additional 30m gold. And now, an obligatory $10 payment to have the chance to earn rewards beyond a pittance for a 10-week campaign, with a massive time/resource gate imposed on players who do not make the purchase.
Based on the mobile industry standard, it is quite possible GoW is still considered āgenerousā, but compared to 4 years ago, GoW is almost unrecognizable.
The ābusiness planā has rather obviously been to push harder and harder on monetization. Newer players might simply be ignorant to how things were before and not know this, but anyone who has been around for more than a couple years has likely seen the writing on the wall.
Right, so now GoW is ājust another F2P gameā. The reason I invested into the game in the first place was because it wasnāt like other F2P games.
I understand that times change and that it was probably quite obvious to the companyās leadership that āother F2P gamesā were more profitable because they focused harder on making money.
I understand that a businessās objective is to make as much money as possible.
Iām not inflexible here. I know the game isnāt going to revert back to the state it was at when I was happily throwing money at it. I donāt expect it to go back to that. I have been willing to spend money if there is some focus made on making the game better for the players and not just better for the company. Unfortunately, I havenāt seen any changes targeted at making the game better for players. Only changes focused on making things better (financially) for the company. And now, with the battlepass and what are (in my opinion) the manipulative practices being employed to encourage players to buy it, I am no longer willing to spend. The company has finally crossed the line into territory that I am unwilling to financially support.
Obviously the new game direction is working, because the game is generating substantial revenue. Thatās fine. They donāt need my money. I enjoy the game and the community enough to keep playing for now, but even I can recognize that there is likely a little sunk-cost fallacy at play. My days here are numbered. Itās simply too early for me to be able to tell what that number is.
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I prefer āget non-shitty rewards if you complete everything, and get significantly more of them if you pay usā.
For example, 2 glory keys for getting 50 stars, 10 glory keys for getting 50 stars with Elite.
Look,maybe for you this is all fine, but Iāve been playing for 3.5 years and I know it could be better. If youāre used to Hearthstone-type apps, just play those instead maybe? I want to bring back the game I started playing.
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Devs cannot give us too much new things for free. Maybe start to play for entertainment better than for rewards.
Sorry but I am a day 1 player so yeah I surely go through more things than you, like the infinite task loop (that was super generous).
My guess: devs came from Puzzle Quest with good intention, but no knowledge about how to manage a F2P. So they try the āplayers are our friends, letās talk with them, letās believe that they will give us dollars only because they love the gameā.
It works some time, but then players were less generous, ānothing to buy, we have already somethingā. Then devs disappear from the forum because of death menace and lack of time (true story).
At some point, 505 games look at GoW and surprise āyou do 
with monetization, but you survive. I am sure we can do way better.ā And then they start to add what can we expect from a F2P.
End of my guess
I also want a lot of QoL, a troop black-list for GW, etc. but I am still playing this game 10-20 hours using their server, using the new troops that they designed/illustrated, etc. So I am okay to pay my ārentā of 10 dollars every 11 weeks 
.
But I still donāt get the ādevs are giving us less rewards, so I will boycottā. They are the ones that gives so they have the right to choose how much they give.
If your grandma is giving you 10 dollars for your birthday, and then only 5 dollars because of X reasons (like having some new grandchilds), you are going to āboycottā her?
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