The companion app premium and the mogcoins are bad deals

[LauraAdalena]

Short and sweet title says it all, and here’s why:

(This is in US dollars, adjust to your local pricing)
Premium: 5$ per month gets you
1. A retainer, which costs $1 a month

2. And extra saddle bag, which is basically a fraction of a retainers inventory without features on the go, so about 10/15 cents a month

3. Organize sadlebags and retainers, this should not cost money to do. It’s free.

4. 10 kupo nuts storage. I’m not dumb, 10 or more should have been the default and not the premium even in a world where this is a good deal. (Let’s call it free then)

5. 2x Kupo nuts. I have no calculations for these, but since mog coins do the same thing I’ll use their technical value and say it’s about 20 cents per IF YOU USE THEM EVERY DAY, which let’s assume you don’t (since if this goes through there will be months you don’t) and also put a huge DISCLAIMER on that price that the Mog Coins are discussed below. So for now, 8 x 20 cents = 1.60

Already it’s a rip off with a product worth 2.75 cents per month being sold for less than double that.

Now let’s add in why Mog coins are a joke:

So far, all we know they do is allow you to buy and sell from the market board and adjust prices They don’t let you send out retainers remotely, they don’t allow you to do anything else. Just that. Meaning, it’s not even worth the 20 cents per they are worth (coming from 1USD divided by 5 at min price) for something you can just wait to get home to do for free.

The premium service is a rip off, and is technically only worth 1.15 cents. Don’t let people fall for it.

This is not paying for servers or anything to keep the app up as far as I’m aware, and if they really wanted this money so bad to keep servers running they’d just sell me more carbuncle gear (because Yoshi P knows I’d buy it).

Yes, I know there’s already a thread on the app itself but I feel one needed to be made about the prices. Hope anybody finds this helpful.

EDIT: I get a lot of people are saying that my idea for how much the nuts are and how much retainers are. My final price was based off of a month where a person DOES NOT SPEND A NUT (the worst case scenario, if you would). However, if you take advantage of all of the features it will definitely be worth more to you. I'm mostly taking how I believe it would be seeing as I don't see people logging in daily to use features or even using them forever.

As for the saddle bag and retainer, first off my numbers were wrong and I was tired last night. it was 2 dollars for a retainer, I apologize.

However, another person below mentioned that a retainer is 6 tabs of inventory and a saddlebag is 2, therefore is about 1/3 of the price and not the about 1/4 or lower I provided. This is false. I was entirely basing the retainer vs saddlebag as a retainer being with features included (such as ventures, marketboard sales, etc) vs a carrying bag that gives you a couple more tabs of inventory. Without the features I consider a saddlebag about half as valuable, so $1 at most. And then the value of that would then be a third of what its worth, (I didn't want to take it that low on my original post above, but I'd pay personally a dollar at most if it gave me more space than a 2 tab saddlebag.)

My adjusted final price of how I feel it's worth would still be about $3.50 given prices and more loose definitions on prices of the mogcoins. I personally think that it still is not worth it especially given the state of the app currently and the overall value of the options given and how some of these features should have been included at the base free price given the fact that other apps (Warframe and WoW) allow similar features without paying.

[HakaseNyan]

Short and sweet title says it all, and here’s why:

(This is in US dollars, adjust to your local pricing)
Premium: 5$ per month gets you
1. A retainer, which costs $1 a month

Is a retainer really included? Also, retainers are $2 a month last I remember.

[DrWho2010]

the ability to recruit another retainer is part of the premium plan yes. you can go over the max amount of retainers by subbing to the premium plan.

i always sub to the view of if you don't need it don't get it. I don't need this app so I'm not going to get it. simple. don't need to whine about it either. i manage just fine with my 4 extra retainers and my 2 free ones.

[Iscah]

I don't really have an opinion on the premium app being good or bad (I won't be using it myself, but good luck to those who want it), but it seems that you're deliberately driving down the estimated value of each piece because you're not happy with it.

If a retainer (5 tabs of item storage) is $1 per month, a saddlebag (2 tabs) could be considered to be worth 40c.

I expect the app is targeted at people who will use those Kupo Nuts each day (or at least frequently enough that they won't overflow the storage limit). The free version gets one nut anyway, so the maximum premium value is one per day = 20c x 30 = $6.

The 10-nut limit doesn't have a placeable value but it does mean you can use ten in one session instead of spending smaller amounts more frequently.

So by that logic, the value per month is actually $7.40 for a $5 payment, plus the other 'free' features you listed.

(Edit to add: alternately, if $2 is the correct USD rate for a retainer, that makes it worth $8.80. Alternately for $5 of value, the nuts cost less than 8c each. OR with nuts valued at 20c, you could miss 12 (at $7.40) or 18 nuts and still break even on the subscription price.)

Personally I agree that it doesn't seem worthwhile to pay for the transactions when you can do it for free at home, but for people who are willing to do that, it seem that the app subscription pays for itself.

[Luna-M]

Is a retainer really included? Also, retainers are $2 a month last I remember.

In premium plan, yes.

[Luna-M]

I expect the app is targeted at people who will use those Kupo Nuts each day (or at least frequently enough that they won't overflow the storage limit). The free version gets one nut anyway, so the maximum premium value is one per day = 20c x 30 = $6.

The app, I think is targeted towards people like myself, hardcore crafters that really need a 10th retainer and saddlebag. I won't use any coins and the kupo nuts is to limited to get anything done. Even when capped at 10 it won't really cut it for me if I need to relist or price adjust 30-40 items.

We don't need to turn this into another wherever it's P2W debate (we have 100s of pages of that already, use search) and i been pretty vocal where i stand on that.

[Iscah]

We don't need to turn this into another wherever it's P2W debate (we have 100s of pages of that already, use search) and i been pretty vocal where i stand on that.

Don't worry, I wasn't at all intending it that way. My point was more to Laura, that for calculating the (maximum potential) value of the app, you do need to work from the maximum amount of nuts received, not just "what people may or may not really get because they'll go over the limit sometimes".

[Kurando]

The premium service is a rip off, and is technically only worth 1.15 cents. Don’t let people fall for it.

Although the app does need a lot of work, I'm sure players can decide themselves if the premium option is worth the cost or not. Would I get more from subbing to this than just paying for a single extra retainer? Yes I would so I honestly would consider going for this option but to each their own.

The opinion on the JP side of things is that they are actually looking forward to the premium option. Fancy that eh.

[Theodric]

The app has left a rather bad taste in my mouth and it makes me worry about the future direction of not only the game itself but Square Enix as a whole. I've been happy to throw money at this game for various cosmetic features in the past. I'm one of those guys who bought the Shiva and Odin statues not for the statues themselves but the emotes that came with them. Yet I refuse to purchase the app, even though I could easily afford to. I'll be keeping a close eye on it and similar offerings as the developers have already stated that the currencies tied to the app will be used for other things in the future. Which brings us to the classic 'slippery slope' argument.

[Beckett]

Are you really surprised? This is the company that charges $5 for limited use furnishings and $30 for mounts.