I just want 80 pizza for one character and I need 40 more. A pizza option set at a couple bucks would be where I'd start at before getting in more. Note I said 2 dollars... not 5, not 7,not 3, 2 dollars which can be entirely different. To me it's the difference between a small online diversion and cash for milk for my cereal.
While it would be nice for the customer, the problem with very small amounts is that the fees from the companies handling the money start to eat badly into the earnings. It's generally not worth it for companies to offer very small transactions. There might be very little money left after all of the costs have been taken into consideration. That said, I of course don't know where the profitability limit lies with Blue Manchu's payment setup. How low would they be willing to go?
Also, their menu has limited space for the different options (which is how we lost the $5 option). There may be a way to condense all the raw pizza options, though. Or have a $1-10 option where you get 33 pizza/$, and you select the actual amount on the Paypal site.
I think $1.99 is too small to benefit due to transaction fees. $5 should be viable though, surprised they don't have that anymore -- I'm sure they could make room if that was the only problem for it.
Even if it is at a loss due to fees, if the rate is better players will migrate to the better offer usually, although if there isn't a low level option, they wont get a sale at all from some individuals. My self for example.
If it is a loss due to fees then there is no reason to use it. They need to make money somehow. Nearly every game with micro-currency has limits due to the expenses behind it. I'm surprised there isn't a $5 option though, since that seems viable.
They definitely need a lower tier. Not sure if they could swing $2 just because of the fees issue. I am really surprised that they ditched the $5 option. It seems to me like it would have been prudent to either modify the menu to allow for it or to have ditched the $100 option or moved that to the website. For me $5 isn't quite an impulse buy but it is a lot closer than $10. When you get to $10 I'm going to be doing a lot more mulling and you have also put yourself in with a much wider range of competition.
There's also the 'hot dogs come in packets of 8, hot dog buns come in packs of 6' (I forget the actual amount...) aspect to consider. End of the day, BM need to make money, and every fake currency ever made does this, the best example being MS Points. Honestly, if anybody ever actually managed to spend their points perfectly and end up with 0, I'd be amazed. The fact that you want that 40 pizza to get something but can only buy it in larger lumps is good the business - when you finally get tempted and buy it, you get your character, but then you've got more pizza left over to spend on this game and this game only, keeping you around, keeping you consuming. And then hopefully when you do buy more stuff, you end up with 70 odd pizza left sitting around...
A $5 increment would still end up with weird amounts of excess pizza like they want, right? The idea of nearly $10 going to waste is really deterring me from purchasing anything.
"Going to waste"? You can always convert it into gold! Either way, every intermediate currency system has "left overs" built into it as a psychological concept to make people want to spend more. League of Legends is a prime example.
Yeah, TheLAD already pointed it out. I'm saying a $5 increment still results in the same (beneficial, from Blue Manchu's point of view) phenomenon so it's not an argument against that option being made available. For me, having 9/10 of the pizza I purchase be excess is a psychological deterrent from spending money in the first place. 4/5 I could stomach.
Those of us still waiting for worthwhile gold dumps won't be greatly swayed by this point. I understand $s and pizza not coming out even. I think the unknown, even for BM, is whether a lower increment would bring in enough reluctant buyers to increase profits in the long run. If they're happy as-is, it will probably stay this way. If not, it seems like good "Limited Time Trial Offer" material.
That's not really possible. I haven't even stated a minimum pizza amount. Are you really going to assume 1 pizza for $2 couldn't make them a profit? Obviously it likely wood, well how about 2, 5, 10 pizza? There is a point where it is optimally profitable to player and to the retailer. The burden of the fees would likely mostly be on the player, is what I'm saying. The $1.99 doesn't vary, it's the pizza amount that varies.
At low enough prices, the costs to the developer are greater than the charged amount. It doesn't matter if they sell 1 or 100 Pizza for the price if they don't get one cent from the deal or even lose money from it. The amount of money charged has to be high enough to make sense for Blue Manchu. What that amount is, we don't know, they haven't told us how low they're willing to go. If I understood correctly, five dollars has been on offer earlier?
Burden of fees would likely mostly be on the player? But Blue Manchu pays the fees... Let's just assume and say Blue Manchu has to pay a $1 + 7% transactions fee (I'd assume it is a flat + percent since that's what it almost always is for credit cards). Selling pizza at a $1.99 increment isn't viable because they are essentially giving pizza away for no profit. If everyone started buying that then they'd make no money. There has to be a certain minimum amount they charge to make it worthwhile for them to offer it. That's why a lot of stores (sometimes illegally depending on the ToS of their credit card) will put a disclaimer saying "$20 minimum purchase for credit card use."
PayPal is very reasonable on fees (or was last I checked). If credit cards aren't, a $1.99 deal might only be viable for certain payment options. Or BM might prefer larger pizza quantities as a hook on a long leader, so to speak.
