Tobold's Blog
Friday, June 26, 2009
 
How much money can you get out of a hardcore player?

You remember this weeks news of Aventurine asking US players to pay a second time for Darkfall? Amateurs, just amateurs, I'm telling you. The competition is far, far ahead of them. Mortal Online is auctioning the first of 999 copies of their limited edition on EBay, and the current bid is at $2,550. But no worry, the offer includes a lifetime subscription, so after just 15 years you'll have recovered your investment.

Okay, so they promise to donate the proceeds to Doctors without Borders. But nevertheless it is astounding how much money you can get out of a hardcore player. If they wanted, they could sell all 999 copies around this level, and they'd already have over $2 million before the beta even starts on July 6!
Comments:
Makes you think about the viability of auctioning off rare items in RMT type games.
 
If you actually read the newsletter (http://www.mortalonline.com/newsletter/25june2009/newsletter.html) you will see that they are only auctioning ONE limited edition copy.

Our Limited Edition, aka The Full Loot Bag, will be printed in 999 copies. Number one will be very special, and we have decided to auction it out on eBay during this weekend.
 
What makes you think this has anything to do with "hardcore" players? Wouldn't a collection-minded individual be more likely to spring for something like this?!?
 
I'll see your $2 550 and raise $20 700 and $100 000.
 
Wow. Just wow. Makes me wonder who actually has enough money to spend that much on a computer game. They'd better hope it's not crap :)
 
First, I'm not at all interested in Mortal Online. On the other hand, I think Doctors without Borders is a wonderful charity and I'm fortunate enough to be able to give significant amounts of money to charity each year. So, although $2.5K is an absurd amount of money to spend on a video game, if a game that I was excited about ran a similar charity auction to benefit a cause that I cared about, I would give serious consideration to making that kind of bid.
 
I think these guys are trying to ruin your Blog Tobold, just delete those repetitive comments, ban them, or lock up the comments until they find another forum to troll on. We need some "blue" actions here.
 
I think these guys are trying to ruin your Blog Tobold, just delete those repetitive comments, ban them, or lock up the comments until they find another forum to troll on. We need some "blue" actions here.

Agreed. Done.

If you actually read the newsletter you will see that they are only auctioning ONE limited edition copy.

Corrected the phrase where I said they would eBay all 999 copies. Hadn't read the newsletter, and the info was not on the eBay item page.
 
If people are willing to pay the money and it's going to charity, I don't really see any harm in it. Leveraging fanatics for the purposes of actually helping people instead of flaming others on the internet--not a bad idea.

(No problem with any deletions here)
 
Actually, probably should delete the two comment talking about deletion and this one as well. No point in leaving questions as to what happened. It's resolved.
 
2255 dollars for 999 copies isn't that bad :)
 
I'm a financial supporter of Medecins Sans Frontieres myself, and I think it's grand that the Mortal Online team are doing this. I salute you!
 
I wonder how much people would be willing to pay for the very first copy of an actually-anticipated MMO like SW:TOR or Blizzard's new game?

How different is it to pay $2000 for an exclusive first pass at a new game and lifetime subscription vs. buying a new gaming PC for $2000 every year or two?
 
The collectable market bears little relation to the intrinsic value of the collectable in question and anyway video gaming is a massively under-exploited area of collectables.

Video games are going to be one of the major media streams of the 21st century and at some point there is going to be huge money to be made on rare, unusual or key items.

Not saying that MO will be one such, but a $2k investment at this stage is a very small bet for a collector, especially if the charitable element allows a tax write-off as well.
 
I have to admit don't quite understand your point Tobold but then again I really really don't understand why Syncaine got so upset about this.

However that is all irrelevant now. He has gone and called you an asshole. Manly honour demands flame war.

/Grabs popcorn.
 
Meh. We've had our say. It's over.
 
qmdp: 'cause it's Friday ;)
 
It's an auction for charity, so you can't complain. People who have money to burn are doing a good organization a good turn.

I wish more MMO's would do something similar, like sell soundtracks or other goods for charity or even for profit. Considering how much we play them, it's odd that very few of the companies make merchandise to sell.
 
You're on a roll there Ed Zitr...errr Tobold. Maybe quality over quantity should be your mantra for awhile?
 
I love it how the package also has a trip in Malmö for free beer with the developer team and a feature I probably would love most: Patches sent ON DVD to your home prior to release. I find that almost orgasmic, no downloading 8 gigabytes of patches upon installing :).

I could also kinda use the jute bag :P.
 
(A trip in Malmö meaning traveling to Malmö is not included)
 
That's money in our society. There is a small number of people who have a few million € and more and They really couldn't care less whether something they buy once a year at max costs 50€ or 5000€.

They are just like you, Tobold, just at another level, and it is perfectly human and understandable.
 
Yeah, but its a gamble. I certainly would like to own the first edition of lets say World of Warcraft. But if I had paid $2500 for the first edition of Hellgate London, I'd regret it now.
 
Assuming you have something like 2000€ freeley disposable income the month, just take somebody who has 200.000€, which is easy to obtain with just 60 mio € on your bank account and a 4% real interest rate the year.

What is 25€ for you is 2500€ for them.

There are thousands of people out there who do have access to this kind of money (and the gap widens and widens ..). Therefore you will always find somebody willing to pay seemingly absurd sums of money for trivial stuff.

Once you own a certain amount you really couldn't care less about a few 1000€.
 
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