[gearedbeast]

 So I've been eagerly waiting for Iune's skin from her bio. More excited for this skin than a new weapon or character to be honest, but everytime I think about it I also think about the price and constantly question how much I'm willing to pay and if it's even ethical for them to charge a high price.

So honestly, I did buy Shae's when it was the highest priced skin to purchase. Even though I knew a skin for $20 was just stupid I prioritized my love for the art and design of this game. The character designs are main reason I love this game as much as I do in  the first place and supporting it didn't seem like a bad idea,  but ethically I knew it was a dumb move.

Till this day I'm dating how much would I spend now. I Question if I should let my love for whatever design push me or think more business like.  I noticed most fighting games charge $10 for a CHARACTER. Would you pay $10 for a skin when something much more practical cost less?

Would you, Or is it more about your personal taste, amount be damned (to a point)? This could also hurt people that think higher of their money and that's what I'm debating.

[ScerCkan]

 i wouldn't spend more than $5 for a skin. I would feel like an idiot spending more than that for an aestethic item.
 And for the people saying we have to support the developers and all that bullshit give me a break, I would say a good amount of people who play this aren't swimming in cash and got priorities in real life.
And the people saying but theres tickets that let you earn mercury points.
Unless you have a dedicated group of people following you blindly, It's almost unreal to get one of those disgusting overpriced skins, And it's even harder when this game doesn't allow EU and US people play together (It baffles me that this is even possible in 2018)

[gearedbeast]

I respect that.  Arguing that you should buy skins to support the devs is completely unreasonable, but it's fair if someone do it of there own will. 
Something I got a problem with is valuing money. I ain't rich by a long shot but have expensive habit of commissioning artist, and becausr I value the art of the game above anything else I honestly didn't feel that bad buying the skin, but I still totally think it's least good way to spend my money.

[Imperium]

Considering you get charged for the campaigns, I don't even think cosmetic items should be for sale. It isn't as if this game is a MOBA, where you get access to everything (the game modes) EXCEPT all the skins.

Smite has way more characters than Raiders, and waaaaaaaaaaaay more skin variation. They also have premium skins and alternate colors, as well as mastery skins.

If Raiders could ramp up the skin variety, and include a bunch of skins you can buy with tickets or gold, then have real money skins for cash (but then those skins should be more special than just looking different. They should, at least, change the way your character ability looks.

Similar to how Poseidon, from Smite, will have different versions of the Kraken ultimate appear depending on the tier-4 skin you're using.

That being said, I think those skins should stay within the realm of $5-8 US. Why? Probably because the ENTIRE DLC, THE CHARACTERS THEY UNLOCK, AND THE FREAKING WEAPONS THEY ALLOW YOU TO UNLOCK cost $10.

I also think $10 per DLC, considering what you get, is fairly reasonable. Since this isn't exactly a long drawn out game with a lot to do and explore. You're forced to do PvP or at least co-op to make any progress and are tethered to queue times, shoddy MMR mechanics, dealing with antagonists, RNG, and repetitive objectives.

A game like SFV was charging like $3-5 US per skin. A game like Injustice gave you all the customization items for free, but sold character packs or characters themselves for cash. A game like Paragon had skins for $5-15 US, but was also giving them away for free in loot boxes you could win all the time from playing the game.

I think the solution is to add alternate colors of the default skins, make them purchasable with gold/tickets, and then bring down the price of new textures to $5-8 dollars. I'd be tempted to spend money that way. There is no realm where I would spend $20 or $30 for a damn skin. That is insanity. I don't give a shit how much work it took to do. One skin costs more than all DLCs and the 3 characters you unlock - as well as all the weapons you can get from the DLCs? Nah.

My guess is they keep the skins that high because someone will invariably buy it. There are always people with tons of expendable income. But it looks really greedy and opportunistic to players that exercise caution when companies look like they wanna pull a fast one on you.

Then they have sales to bring the price down to more reasonable levels and capitalize on sales-mentality, where people opt to purchase skins because they're normally so damn expensive.

[gearedbeast]

So an alternative title for this was going to be "boycott skins?". If the game was more popular they would've been crucified on the spot. It wasn't until they tried charging  $60 that the community had enough and called therm out on it which makes me question how much others in the community are willing to spend since not  a lot of backlash was given for $20. 

[Level9Drow]

Then you guys wouldn't like World of Warcraft, they charge you $15 a MONTH on top of the cost of the expansions that can run from $20 to $40. And on TOP of that they charge $20 for mounts. rrrrrrrrrrrRIP OFF.

But I would honestly be ok with $5 to $10 for skins for raiders. I wouldn't get all of them and I would only get the ones I really like for the characters I like. So it wouldn't be that bad.

[LordDraco3]

I think the point regarding some skins costing more than all 4 campaigns combined, or even more than 1 campaign, is argument enough for invalidating high costs.

The dev post that made me make an account here argued that skins take a lot of work to make, but that essentially tells me that they value the work of a character model at a much higher rate than the entire rest of the game itself. The campaign DLC are set at a great price, it was low enough for me to even buy Alien Myths before I even actually *liked* the game because I figured $10 is cheap enough to give them game a chance. But skins costing $20-$45 at the most now is still insanity. Their sales are nice, but unpredictable.

I did go ahead and buy the Konstatin skin I have been wanting, since it didn't seem like it would be getting a sale any time soon. And I know that I want the Hive and Iune skins that we should hopefully be getting soon. I just hope they continue to put them out at reasonable prices, since I don't remember the last new skin we got.

[gearedbeast]

Technically Schneider alternate skin would be the newest if it came out with the release of the character. I don't know how much it cost so I can't say anything on it expect I don't like the look.
On Konstantin: his UNIT CH-041 is only $10 and I actually like it a lot but never could bring myself to purchase it.  Guess I don't like it that much, or i still feel a certain kind of way about the incident that caused you rake make an account. Still having a tad trouble forgiving them on that.

[ScerCkan]

The dev post that made me make an account here argued that skins take a lot of work to make

That sounds like a cheap excuse to be able to have something expensive to sell, and of course they targeted the skins for this purpose because they knew there's always that group of people that throws their common sense out the window and buy them.
The real problem is that if people allows and support this behavior of course they're going to take advantage of that

[gearedbeast]

The dev post that made me make an account here argued that skins take a lot of work to make

That sounds like a cheap excuse to be able to have something expensive to sell, and of course they targeted the skins for this purpose because they knew there's always that group of people that throws their common sense out the window and buy them.
The real problem is that if people allows and support this behavior of course they're going to take advantage of that

That's why I considered a boycott.

[XjabberwockieX]

The absolute most  I would spend on a skin, and have spent is 20$ for Shae's glamorous Nun Custodia. Generally im fine with dropping 10$ on a skin if it's a very different look for a character I enjoy playing (Mikah's rare) but some of the prices are ridiculous. Ginebra's slave skin is terrible looking and like 40$. I am enjoying the skin sales released with weapons recently. Ginebra's sabretooth getup was a nobrainer and easily her best skin. I even went and snagged Kon's rusty pilgrim because it was discounted.

[ScerCkan]

My turning point was when i was planning to buy the reborn skin for alicia until I saw the scummy tactic they threw at players to make them buy MP twice to get it, because that's the most popular skin for her.  It costs 1250 MP and they only sell a pack of 550, 1200 and 2500 MP at the store.
When i saw that i said fck that i rather play with her original skin

[gearedbeast]

My turning point was when i was planning to buy the reborn skin for alicia until I saw the scummy tactic they threw at players to make them buy MP twice to get it, because that's the most popular skin for her.  It costs 1250 MP and they only sell a pack of 550, 1200 and 2500 MP at the store.
When i saw that i said fck that i rather play with her original skin

That's another thing that I completely forgot about that indeed make Mercurysteam look real dishonest.

[LordDraco3]

Yeah I bought Kon's Unit skin because I always liked/wanted it (As if the avatar doesn't give it away!) and the pricing isn't too bad on it. Plus I have grown to love this game and MS, despite certain issues that continue to be a problem, this being one of them.

Agreed, it's not good at all to purposefully price your stuff just slightly higher than is buyable so the consumer has to buy multiple packs of the imaginary currency.

I know another argument they have used in the same discussion of prices is that you can get some of these points through the ticket system, (and yes I have collected enough since I started playing to even afford the Red Death skin that I want, but I spent some of that on Alicia's Wardog skin when it went on sale) but that is still poor pricing. It was also an issue with Ginebra's skins because they cost more than the BIGGEST bundle of points, which just doesn't make sense. It would be like if Warframe released a single cosmetic that could only be bought for 10,000 Plat-- we all know the playerbase would raise hell over a scummy tactic like that.

[Imperium]

If all skins were $5, it would vastly increase the likelihood that I would buy more than a couple.

If they're $10-15, highly unlikely that I will buy, but if I do it will only be skins for my absolute favorite 1-2 characters.

If they're $15+, I'm never purchasing them.

And the presence of extremely expensive skins makes me not even want to buy the cheapest skin. Because, again, it feels super shady and opportunistic. You're trying to take advantage of people with $20-60 skins.

And just because other games have done it doesn't make it any better.