Less Gems for the Same Price

[wrw01]

Just happened to hit the Gem Shop button this morning and noticed that Rovio has decreased the amount of gems to be purchased for the same price. For example one use to be able to purchase around 5,200 gems for $99.99. Now it is 3,000 for the same price. They are even advertising a +75% increase on the reduced amount. WOW what surprise and to brag about it does not make a lot of logically sense!!!!

What does the Gem Shop page and function really cost Rovio to maintain that would justify such a dramatic decrease in gems for the same amount of money?

My uneducated guess on this matter would be, almost nothing. They are not supplying any tangible product for the $99.99. The gems are just a one time virtual purchase. Someone smarter than me in these IT matters can enlighten my knowledge on this subject.

In addition, I do not understand how reducing the amount of gems makes them more money.

If for some reason they did incur an increase in their costs, then why not spin it in a positive direction of increasing the price and adding more gems for the higher price. This way it is a win/win for them (they get more revenue) and also the players who may want to purchase gems will receive more gems.

With this present state of the Gem Shop, it has definitely motivated me not to purchase any gems. What a waste of money for less virtual product provided.

Topic

[Optimus_Pig]

“For example one use to be able to purchase around 5,200 gems for $99.99”

Interesting. So it looks like they are able to price regionally then, because the same thing would cost me $119.99.

I’m a Canuck.

Question though is whether they’re charging me US$119.99 or C$119.99?

[wrw01]

I received this response from Joonas. Good explanations for the changes.
**********************************

Joonas, Aug 21, 08:25:
Hello again,

and thank you for contacting us!

I can understand your frustration and this came as a surprise for me at first as well. After consulting the developers about this, they told me that the reasons behind this decision are multi-dimensional – First, the upgrading costs have gone through the roof and the developers are about address this issue in the upcoming updates. Second, there has been some distribution issues with the larger gem packs, so one way to reduce these problems is to reduce the amount of code of the gems, which in turn means fewer number of gems. The actions that have been done regarding this issue are not meant to rip off you or our other customers, the main reason is to make the game more easy to play and like in a real economy, we believed that the gems were suffering from a deflation. By making a virtual ”appreciation”, we believe that we can make the game work more efficiently and balance out the difference between different currencies in the game.

I know, that this might look like a harsh action at first, but when you look past the numbers, you’ll see that there won’t be any radical changes made to the gameplay. Even though you will get fewer gems, you’ll also need fewer gems to upgrade your characters etc. In a nutshell, the value of one gem has gone up, but at the same time the amount required to upgrade your characters will go down in the future. These things are used to fluctuate from update to update, this thing has happened in different Rovio games before and never has the sole purpose of these actions been to rip off our customers.

Hopefully this answers to your question, I also understand your frustration but I hope that you can see the reasons behind this change!

Sincerely yours,

Joonas
Rovio Support Team

[Optimus_Pig]

“First, the upgrading costs have gone through the roof and the developers are about address this issue in the upcoming updates.”

I wonder if that’s code for the costs of having to troubleshoot all the new bugs that crop up with each update?

“Second, there has been some distribution issues with the larger gem packs, so one way to reduce these problems is to reduce the amount of code of the gems, which in turn means fewer number of gems.”

Not sure how gem count correlates to the amount of code required. Wouldn’t it really just be the same line(s) of code, but with the quantity changed for each package? Now, if they’d reduced the number of gem packages then this statement might make sense.

Also, given that they’re offering bonus numbers of gems for the larger packs anyway, then that’s not really reducing the number of gems.

“Even though you will get fewer gems, you’ll also need fewer gems to upgrade your characters etc. In a nutshell, the value of one gem has gone up, but at the same time the amount required to upgrade your characters will go down in the future.”

I’d be curious to know how far in the future, and by how much. The thing that killed me was that after the big April update (v.1.4.25 or something like that) the gem cost of immediately completing an upgrade dropped by about 2/3!

[gemblung]

“…we believed that the gems were suffering from a deflation.”

Could it be because of china’s stock market crash? :p

[Optimus_Pig]

@20qmindreader

“may be it’s time to just start stockpiling gems, pigs and coins…may mean slower increase in my rank, but in the end, it’ll cost less to upgrade TFs…”

Yeah, my gripe is the arbitrary changes in the amounts of different stuff you need. So just when you think you’ve got it all figured out ….

[wrw01]

@optimuspig @20qmindreader

Your comments add some data to the mix of conversation. I wish I had the answers.

For now I am still playing and also stockpiling the pigs, coins and gems (the hardest to earn & accumulate) in trying to get ready for the next update.

In one of Rovio’s responses, to me over a month ago, it was only vaguely hinted that the “gear”, that each character has behind the “Select Character” page when the eyeglass icon is clicked, may come into game play with the next game update. I have noticed that they have added new gear for just about all 29 of the transformers from the last update. A number of the new items have three stars which may have something to do with its power or importance.