Originally Posted by thisisoverlord

Oh really,

People estimate this game has between 25,000 and 100,000 players. Personally I'm going to go with a conservative estimate of say 40,000.... now lets say 1/5th of the player base buy the 3 pack... that's $400,000.

How much time in 3D max do you think it takes to build a ship like the Vesta? How much money in electricity costs do you think it is to make it?

Seriously...

I reckon at best it cost them no more than $40,000 to build the Vesta, based on these very dodgy calculations. (remember a good designer is probably on $80,000 per year at most so I really don't think it took more than 3 months and two designers to do, do you??

Originally Posted by weylandjuarez

With something as unique as the Vesta, I think Cryptic should have priced it lower (and sold it individually) and I think they'd have gotten much more sales - one at least from me anyway.

Originally Posted by thisisoverlord

This is correct,

PW bought Cryptic Studios and it's games for $50 Million Dollars. Up to the 2nd Qtr this year PW made $24 Million dollars in net profit...

They have shareholders and staff to pay, they have projects that aren't retail yet requiring expenditure (Neverwinter)

and most of all they have fat bonus' to pay themselves.

People who think that the money they spend goes back to Cryptic to improve the game are so completely ignorant of how business works that it's not even funny. Heck all you have to do is look at the game it's a half assed bug filled mess at the moment that needs some serious TLC.

Originally Posted by xantris

It's half correct, because anyone who thinks you don't invest in a profitable endeavor to increase returns is so completely ignorant to how business works its not even funny,

Bottom line, if STO is turning a good profit, PWE will invest to expand that profit. Especially in their flagship title in the western market. Cryptic is hiring, do this isn't a difficult concept to grasp.

Originally Posted by unangbangkay

New ship, new "OMG TOO SPENSIVE" thread.

Look at it this way:

STO is free to play. The effective cost to play, not counting time and internet bills or other stuff, is $0. For an F2P game, STO is surprisingly generous, and PVP aside, is quite well-balanced. Case in point: the prison-grade restrictions imposed on free players in The Old Republic (INCLUDING artificially slowed XP gain). So there's that.

If YOU owned your own MMO or Star Trek singleplayer game (which would make your cost-to-play $0), one that had as much content as STO does now, ask yourself how much it would cost YOU to hire a programmers, artists, and other developers to design, model, program, and implement a 3 versions of the Vesta in your game.

Sure as hell it would cost MORE than fifty dollars (or 25 dollars).

From that perspective, it's practically a steal!

Plus, compared to the Odyssey pack you get a lot more value, with effectively 3 ship skins, and TWO set bonuses if you have all 3 consoles equipped.

Long story short: YES, it's expensive but NO, it's not "overpriced".

Originally Posted by temp3rus

STO's playerbase is one of the more affluent ones in MMO's, so yes they do think "we" can afford it.