Steam Summer Sale 2020!

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Your friends waited. Coulda had the cars, coulda been racing already, but waited. I'm only posting to be the 100th responder to a sale S397 organized to save some users money. Thanks S397.
 
Since I actually buy everything as soon as it appears (regardless of whether I use it (Formula E, Kart), the sale does not concern me. But I do have some points that could be improved.



Finding:



It's difficult to find the content, this should be the easiest way at all, divided into cars, tracks and bundles. There should also be one that contains everything.



Already purchased content:



Should be subtracted from whatever I buy, to stay with the above example, I'll buy the All Bundle at some point and then subtract what I already have.



What I absolutely don't understand is that some people complain that a bundle already contains content that they own but the price is still cheaper than before, what's the problem?
 
stonec said:
That's not how it works and those numbers are completely unrealistic. Most of the active followers of rF2 have probably already bought the two strong pack if they have the GTE pack. The specific case where you own GTE and not two strong pack must be a small percentage, but ok, let's go with 10%. Of those 10%:

- How many really had any intentions to begin with to buy the two strong pack at any time in the future?
- The fraction of the 10% that intended to buy two strong pack, of those how many are really going to care that they now have to pay 1-2 euro more in order to get those two missing cars?
- Don't you think there will be income gained as well when new customers buy one larger pack instead of picking and choosing from the smaller ones? (the obvious answer is yes, that's why larger packs are sold, in order to attract people to buy content in bulk)

I cannot fathom people don't see that larger packs are the only way to limit fragmentation as long as the requirement is to own all car content running on a server. It's a complete no-brainer and will make life easier for everyone. I'm a long time supporter and I frankly couldn't care less that I already owned part of the content I now decided to buy again. Those couple of euros lost means nothing if that will go towards providing a better online competition format in the future since that will benefit me as well.
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I think it's worth to answer this post, because it shows why we will never have successfull public online racing with many participants if sales are setup like this one. Except when the online service is so good - as Lazza mentioned - that people are less sensetive to high prices, but we are getting into iRacing territory here and we aren't at that point yet. I am looking at this whole issue from the perspective of good examples in the industry that offer a similar structure (mods, open platform, many DLCs, no option to race against content that you don't own ...) and see how it is done there and maybe improve a bit on where that system struggles. And there is only one answer: Assetto Corsa.

The question if income can be gained by new users and how much is moot and you can't answer it. The entry price level into rF2 has infact been raised and you will notice this once this sale is over even more and if packages stay as they are now. Another problem on top of that: the steam shop of rF2 shows a) prehistoric screenshots and videos from early S397 days and b) basicly no discounts and c) nothing you get when you buy one of the items as no item has any screenshot or any info attached to it except for a not so easy to oversee price tag. Why aren't the fantastic DLC videos and screenshots with Ferrucios and Darches hooked up in the shop for one thing and why aren't there discounts presented all over the place so that people actually see what they get for their money? Product placement is my daily income and I can tell you that what is offered in the store is objectively just bad. Just take a look into the AC shop and in comparison into the rF2 shop and you see what I mean. Don't get me wrong , I don't expect AC prices and 88% discounts on everything, but why not 5%, 10% or even 25% on everything with the old packs and everyone would be happy? So you expect new users to spent atleast 30 or 40 Euro now during a sale on stuff they don't know or see with their own pair of eyes, wich is a risk for them when they can get alternative, better presented content for less money and with more populated servers somewhere else. What do you think, what are new users gonna do? To sum it up: you don't know how many will end up buying rF2, but I can garantue you that alot more will buy AC or even ACC during this sale (Yes, you get four high quality international laserscanned legendary tracks there for 12,74 Euro and you see what you get there in amazingly presented videos and screenshots). And don't be fooled, Kunos isn't the only player here.

Now about people who know the game and what you know for sure: you would be surprised how many people own only a part of the content and it's a common practice for games that offer this option, because users have the freedom to do so. Infact the majority of games I own on Steam that offer DLC, are fragmented (with AC and ACC being exceptions). This situation could have actually been easily avoided with proper data investigation, polls on Steam, Discord or here in the forum together with the information that they will phase out old packs. I know, Marcel and the rest of the team have been very busy, but then please don't change running systems and keep it simple. Kunos never reshuffled their DLCs, faced similar issues of people needing all the content and shipped their content in many different DLCs (Porsche pack 1, 2, 3 ... ) at a low entry level price point to make the purchase attractive for everyone. And guess what, they never had to worry about community fragmentation as discussed here because they didn't make the content more expensive for the concurrent users in a sale and everbody just bought the stuff. That's never gonna work and as allready said, I am very surpised that we are still running in circels with that topic. And yes, 1 or 2 Euro make a difference because it gives people a negative signal. Do people really think that people are more likely to spend money, if stuff get's more expensive in a sale? I can't help but I feel fooled. It makes the whole concept of a sale useless, where you plan to reach out to as many people as possible.

Now if anyone finds the urge to tell me to go play AC or ACC, I still prefere rF2. But I am not blindely ignoring why Kunos had such a success with their products and why our server browser is a ghost town in comparison (besides technical issues with the UI). I just think that we sometimes should watch beyond our beloved rF2 bubble to make it more attractive for new users and ourself.
 
Honestly most companies in all aspects of your life do not look after current users / members / clients, ect.... they are always going after new customers with better deals. I totally understand ppl's frustrations but we have allowed business to treat us this way, most of your necessities in life treat you exactly the same way EG: phone, elec, internet, gas, ect...
 
wmann said:
What I absolutely don't understand is that some people complain that a bundle already contains content that they own but the price is still cheaper than before, what's the problem?
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This is already explained multiple times. I'm trying not to repeat myself or help create circular arguments. Just consider the total spend in various scenarios.

@Binny that's true, I just don't want to move :p One thing that's bothered me over time is people buying content they don't want, to support S397. I get the support, but you don't reward (and encourage) the wrong behaviour. If I'm not really interested in new content and feel some development is lagging, I'm inclined to wait until things change before I say thanks, here's my money.

But, if in a month a competition system was running races every hour or two across different content, with thousands online and all day racing to be had, I'd strongly consider buying all the content so I can join in.
 
Current users just got one new free item and one free update to old item.
Most companies in all aspects of your life do not offer free idem and upgrades just like that.
But it isn't enough for hard-to-satisfy crowd.
Current users are jealous of potential new users that the latter will get a better deal.
Selfish?
 
Filip said:
Current users just got one new free item and one free update to old item.
Most companies in all aspects of your life do not offer free idem and upgrades just like that.
But it isn't enough for hard-to-satisfy crowd.
Current users are jealous of potential new users that the latter will get a better deal.
Selfish?
Click to expand...

Its been explained numerous times in this thread already, but no one can help you understand it.
 
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