Up until now, every bike has been available to earn as a reward for doing something in game. You could buy advantages through outfits, but the bikes were still available for free to those with enough skill, perseverance, and time.
This changes with the Bandito. It is available for purchase with real money, and no other way. For those of you considering buying it, think very carefully about the message it sends to Ubisoft. Are you prepared to spend $30 for the ultimate tier 2 bike? $45 for the bike that will crush every tier 3 record you have ever set?
All new bikes (KTM, Stallion, Agent, even Donkey) were available for money at some point for those who missed them, failed to win them and were willing to pay.
I'm pretty sure it's the same thing with Bandito, the offer will expire and we will get a chance to earn blueprints in some future event.
@H-Refr: bike blueprints were available through events first, afterwards missed blueprints could be purchased with gems, gems that you could buy with money, but you could also earn in game.
If any event would allow blueprints to be earned, it would be the Midnight Circuit, since it introduced us to the Bantido. They have explicitly said this is not the case. I think Cisco makes a good point: the real money outfits have never been made available otherwise, so it makes sense the real money bike will also not be available otherwise.
I would be thrilled to be proven wrong, but I doubt it.
Pay to win boys and girls.
This time for real. I am not cool with this at all, but I also don't really care anymore because RL is just trying to squeeze every ounce out of this game, and it's just sad. This used to be cool.
Now they want $25 for the Agent, WTF? That bike is useless, I think only wanted $14 for it last year.
I'm still holding out hope that we get some event similar to the KTM event where we can grind to win it. Maybe the pre event sale gets some people to buy it who would have won it but were willing to pay for the privilege of getting it first.
Like everyone else, I'd like to get it for free instead of paying for it but I don't blame them for slapping a price tag on it. I don't recall any job I've ever had where we weren't trying to figure out ways to increase revenue. There's always some VP trying to get a bigger bonus. I'm sure the game biz is no different.
I think you are confusing revenue with profit.Originally Posted by DMac3221 Go to original post
In any case, creating a paywall for game content that promotes a pay-to-win mentality usually results in displeased customers. They may get a spike in revenue in the short term but at the cost of a reduced customer base and lower profits in the long term. There is a fine balance between quality of service, customer retention, and profit and RL/UBI seem to be getting it pretty wrong at the moment.
What makes you think that?Originally Posted by shfing Go to original post
With the Bandito, it sure looks like Pay To Win has been taken to the next level and I have doubts they will change it later. If they do.. it will probably be done via dribbling out a few blueprints each season (ie spreading it out over months to keep you playing the bunker).
IMO, what I see here is a game that is on its last stages of the development cycle:
... increased number of bugs presumably caused by reduced development/QA staffing (probably moving on to make other games or the follow-on to this one)
... more blatant attempts (like this) to suck money from the diehard players (you dont have to play nice when you know the game is 3 years old and will be replaced at some point)