To build a better Coin Shop (Hear me out tho)

[fmvdog]

Cutting the BS, here’s my initial idea/concept: Make coin shop games have a set timer so they don’t stay around forever until someone buys the key and rotate what’s available on a regular basis, more so than “every 2 weeks”.

This way it doesn’t feel like forever until something actually decent comes along and we’re also not stuck for two weeks looking at the same uninteresting gubbins. If a game doesn’t get all of its keys “sold” off by the time it rotates, just keep it in rotation. Make it come back a little while later and advertise it as limited stock. Sure it’ll look daft when it’s something no-one really wants, but it ensures that you can still sell off all the keys without letting them just sit there for ages like a sad puppy going “please buy me”.

That, and introduce a new format of adding games. A couple of cheapo games, a couple of mid price games, and one big price games. So, to use previous games as an example, one batch of games could be One Finger Death Punch & Reigns, Tower of Guns & Mini Metro and finally Dead Cells. More concrete tier based pricing would work in its favour I feel. Obviously, it creates an imbalance where certain ones will expire more quicker and thus it’ll be left in a situation where there’s like one game that no one wants - in that case, slap a timer on that bad boy and say it’ll go back into rotation in 3 days unless you hurry and get it now.

Obviously, the actual posting time frame is inaccurate since pobody’s nerfect etc, and that’s fine. I have no actual qualms with when you post them. I just feel like a combo of more frequent rotation + a wider choice/selection of games to choose from would make it actually worth bothering to collect all these coins in order to get something real nice from the store.

I’m fully prepared for someone to shoot me down on several different parts of this, pick away at this as much as you feel like. I’m not good at business stuff so the feasibility of this idea is not entirely in my realm of expertise. I just ask that you be gentle and explain to me why X idea wouldn’t work. Ta for reading

[YQMaoski]

So of course, by default, no system is perfect, correct? Unless we live in an idealized world and my name is Pangloss and your name is Candide.

The biggest issue with your system is this would prompt more people to accrue more coins and fewer keys obtained due to timed rotation. On the other hand, my balance hovers around 3000-7000 b/c I keep getting games that show up, b/c Chrono admin folks like to read off my wishlist, for that I am very grateful.

But say a game comes up for 7500 and I want it, nobody else does, but it is timed, but I don’t have enough coins, then I am stuck. Either I go begging someone to gift it to me, which I know more than one person would, or I try my best to see if anyone wants to make a fair trade. I don’t really like trading coin-shop games, but that’s just me.

So that situation would leave me with a game that I want in the coinshop, nobody else wants it, but I can’t get it because I don’t have enough coins in the allotted time.

Granted, this doesn’t happen often, but it might.

I like the system the way it is, but certainly your idea is not bad. It’s just a different way of valuing the coins/games and the flow.

[anyamtikja]

i dont quite get what would improve if the system changed to the one you presented here

if you come back every day and there is a game that noone wants you will just get disapponted, you come to the site because you know the rotation is that day and what you see is that that notorious game came back once again that you did not want to buy the first time it was introduced, you have been seeing it for almost a year now, why does it still keep coming back??

and im not sure about the need to get rid of all the keys, they are free, i dont think chrono gets anything for giving them away, the more games there are in the shop the more inviting it is for new people

higher profile games tend to sell out quick so there already is a time limit in place kind of

did i misunderstand something do i seem rude sorry just tell me

[xist]

Literary hi five!

Good ideas OP.

[kovec]

I don’t have time to write a full reply right now but i want you to reflect on how your idea in bold affects potential new Chrono users. I also want you to consider how much work it must be to secure free keys every 2 weeks while you’re asking for more.

I don’t understand what exactly you’re attempting to “fix” with your suggestions. Could you describe the problem?

[coralinecastell]

Liked solely for the reference to Candide, which I love.

That’s what I have to contribute to this discussion.

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

[anyamtikja]

so im going to take this as a compliment that my post was better made more sense or something like that because you liked my post as well and your reason to like the post of @YQMaoski was a reference to a book i should have read but didnt but that is not the reason im writing this all i was trying to say is that my post was likeworthy without any cool references so im happy that people liked it and i even got the nice reply badge

[Gnuffi]

@fmvdog

explain to me why X idea wouldn’t work

you’d probably need some of the cat overlords for that, seeing as we are not privy to the finer details of the inner-workings and can mostly just guess and speculate what’s going on

my guess would be it would could be partially too much work/cumbersome, and more importantly, too expensive

as it’s set up now, it’s my understanding that most of the times chrono sources the coin shop games, by buying them straight up form the devs, they are not free
so, tossing random numbers out, lets say they get 500 keys every 2 weeks, for a $ each, that’s 500$ every 14 days “in marketing costs”
then slap that to X increased days rotation, and not only would the “work” of acquiring the keys to hand out add up, the compiled straight costs from the keys would too

but, it’s smart eggs that visit on chrono, so they’d just say, “but hey Gnuffs, because we reduce the available time, and increase the amount of days for fresh inventory, we just reduce the amount of keys per release and then make it still add up to only 500, yay smart huh!?”
sure, but remember back to both popular games, and semi popular games that sold out either instantly or even just in a few days? you then just get backlash from dissatisfied customers about “not enough keys”, -now multiply that by Xtimes reduced key supply to be able to “reasonably” meet the increased stock turnover days.
(and that’s just from the people that had the coins on hand but couldn’t get, before all the ones coming in with “time zones” or "missing 10-100coins etc etc etc.)

then ofc, adding, “regularly” (to be able to satisfy the concept or just the "we got used to"demand) higher tier games would definitely add increased costs. As it stands now we are not getting a “guaranteed” 20+$/“new release” game every 2 week, Dead Cells was definitely the odd one out, even the previous higher priced games we’ve had, has usually had the benefit of a bit of age to it, to where it could be conceivable that chrono might have gotten a nice deal on it, -compared to what "current in demand #1"games people might want/prefer in the shop for the “high tier section” would cost

since in the end, chrono might be paying for the games with the marketing idea in mind, but 1000coins or even 40k, they still, technically cost “us” nothing. So even if they make bonus store sale from the coins being there, they still have to be “out of pocket”, -to get them into ours.

anyways, that’s my idea why it, might, not exactly work out, as simple as costs and workload being too high to make enough gain from to be worthwhile. ,
but hey that’s just one rando dude on the interwebs speculating about a business he knows absolutely nothing about , tho i’m guessing Chrono has put a bunch of thought into how they could make the coin store both beneficial to them and customers, in a way they could maintain and be viable for their business

(not saying i would reject an idea of Chrono tossing a surprise in that i would spend my 20k coins on , tho personally i’m okay with the current biweekly temptation too)

[fmvdog]

All very good counterpoints! Thank you all for reading and giving feedback on it. You’ve all raised a lotta good points that I didn’t think of. I still think that perhaps the Coin Shop needs a little rejigging much the same way that coin collecting got, but it’s perhaps safe to say that doing it exactly the way I said wouldn’t be too beneficial for any party!

Here’s some individual replies:

@ YQMaoski , I definitely understand that rare case scenario and it’d be super annoying if it happened to me and all. The more coins / fewer keys balance is also a key factor that I completely failed to take in. Ta for that.

@ anyamtikja , In my concept, the rotation would be set up so that if one game showed up and it didn’t get 100% claimed, it wouldn’t re-appear until a certain amount of time had passed, e.g. a month or something. RNG based rotation would probably make this concept even more hellish, haha. Also by “get rid of the keys” i meant the whole 0-100% claimed bar. I’d imagine the Chrono folks are happier if that bar gets fully filled rather than be left at 40% for ages.

@ kovec , Touché, this awkwardly thought out system I’ve come up with would be rather unfair to new customers. The mindset would definitely end up in a state of “Oh, I want this game, but I don’t get coins fast enough, thus by time I have enough, the games have changed and thus it’s not really worth the effort”. That, or they’ll just see the entire set up as a bit BS haha. As I mentioned, I don’t know of the logistics of anything behind the scenes nor do I know any sort of business stuff, so I’m fully aware how inconceivable some parts of my idea could be. It’s less I’m trying to fix it and make it feel a bit more varied and worth actually going to. At the moment, it’s not exactly in a better state: save up coins, hope you visit the shop at the right time enough to get the game worth getting otherwise you’re sh*t out of luck and stuck for a while constantly staring at a load of guff no bugger wants (as proved by the fact that some of the games there currently have been sitting out for at least 3-5 months now.) The expiry date and rotation concept is a vague attempt to fix the issue of games sitting out for such an absurdly long time.

@ Gnuffi , Yeah the time/cost factor is definitely the big obstacle that’s really blocking any kind of big change up from happening, I agree. And also the quantity issue…that’s even worse. I’ll admit the tiered concept was something I came up with on the spot to kind of feel out more ideas and such to make the shop feel a bit more worth it; if it were to be implemented I would probably say leave those super high tier games to once in a while; one every quarter of the year, perhaps? Special holidays? Something like that since, as you said, doing it on the reg would probably just bankrupt Chrono lmao.

I mean honestly I feel like with enough workshopping here we’d probably actually figure out a decent fix-up for it seeing how well all these ideas have rebounded off each other. Shame we’re not the staff, mind. Anyway, thanks again for reading my text dump and teachin’ me as to why it wouldn’t work haha. Genuinely appreciate it, since this thing has been sitting in my head for a while and only just now mustered up the courage to actually post it.

[kovec]

@fmvdog

The expiry date and rotation concept is a vague attempt to fix the issue of games sitting out for such an absurdly long time.

Why do you consider this to be an “issue?” From what i’m gathering, it’s just that you’re tired of looking at the “stale” games. This isn’t really a site issue, this is more just your own personal issue. If it’s not the every other Friday when new coin shop games are added, then don’t visit the coin shop. It’s not the main focus of the site anyway.

@fmvdog

It’s less I’m trying to fix it and make it feel a bit more varied and worth actually going to.

Reducing the number of games in rotation at a time isn’t really making it more “varied,” it’s doing the opposite.

@fmvdog

I’d imagine the Chrono folks are happier if that bar gets fully filled rather than be left at 40% for ages.

Nope. Actually if it sticks at 40% for ages, and we meet someone who happens to want that game, we can advise them to grind out the daily coins because it’s very likely that the game will still be available when they accumulate enough coins. Again, i think it’s just that you don’t want to see the “stale” games. They aren’t hurting anyone by being there.

[fmvdog]

All fair points. I’ll fully admit: what I’ve been saying isn’t fully thought through and is rather selfish since, as you said, this only fixes a problem specific to me.

But you must agree, seeing how a lot of other folks who have read and replied here have done so, that the coin shop needs just a slight change up to keep it fresh for the long time users. It ain’t just about the newbies, it’s about the dedicated customers too.

[PeteMcc]

Have to say out of all the similar forum topics that have come up about changing the coin shop this has by far the most civil, well done everyone gold star for all.

[anyamtikja]

I added it to my profile picture :))))))))))))))))))))))
its too small but if you click on my name it can be seen well
now im like a sheriff

[delenn13]

@anyamtikja

now im like a sheriff

Howdy, Partner!

[coralinecastell]

Your posts are always so adorable for some reason I can’t quite place and they positively make me want to die.

I wanna put you in a lil bottle and protect you from all the evils of this harsh world.

/endofweirdpost

[Fraggles]

Here’s another interesting Super Mario powerup you could try on.

[PeteMcc]

How dare you bring bowsette memes to this topic let alone this forum. Shame on you. I may have to take my star back now. /s