tiffer67:
CharlemagneRH:
I guess it does add up, but how much did GI-SD's cost back in June, July, and early August, before all that stuff went on sale? I think something around 150 credits, so 20 credits more (i.e. 132) would still be cheaper than the price that we were paying back then.
So long as WGT keeps in mind that they are supposed to be trying to do us a favor here, hopefully we will be satisfied with the result.
I have just had a look at all my transactions over the last month. Between buying for myself and gifting to others, I have spent 6497 credits on balls.
I've got a fair number in my bag but an increase in price of 15% would add nearly another 1,000 credits to that total. Multiple the increase across all players and overnight WGT has a big increase in revenue.
I don't know what you're doing with your balls, but that is 174 balls, or 5.8 balls per day.
I use more along the lines of 2 balls per day, and I suspect that your usage is 3 per day, so regardless of however many you bought (I can buy 300 sleeves of balls right now, but that doesn't mean I use 900 balls in a month,) we are really talking about a 350-500 credit increase, not 1,000, and that your real total usage is about 3,500, not 6,500.
That said, I conceded the point that it does add up and is not insignificant. If they are 130 credits, though, that will still be cheaper than they used to be, and I'd also like to point out that in that same month in which you have spent ~3,500 of credits on balls, you have probably spent 24,000 credits on RG entry fees.
As far as sustained vs. lump-sum revenue goes, that is actually somewhat irrelevant. Probably 250 clubs are bought every day, so that is, in fact, very sustained revenue. Of course, when new clubs come out, WGT will see a spike in revenue (and a drop in outstanding credits amongst those who have accumulated credits through RG/MPC play), but I doubt it really matters much to them whether they get $75k in a typical month, but spike up to $250k in a month in which new clubs are released, or $100k/mo that is as steady as a surgeon's hand. Money is money... and the only point at which this will become an issue is end-game where there are already great clubs out there releasing even better clubs would make the game ridiculous, which would make releasing new and improved clubs impossible.
Now, if you want to complain about money wasted on mapping out courses that are never added to general gameplay, whose data is simply discarded whimsically even though it probably cost $250k to fly people and equipment out, collect and process into data that the game engine could actually work with, and rigorously test or adjust it after players complained about a bug, or if you want to complain about how RG's are used to subsidize extravagant golfing trips for only a select few, then I am right there with you. I am here to get the set of (real life) G15 clubs from the Elite
Collection store, so that I might someday make a youtube video of myself
driving the ball 300 yards, then thanking WGT for the clubs, so I am as
interested as anyone in saving my credits... but the price of balls is not too high on my list of gripes. I want to see WGT waste $250k on sending out 125 sets of IRL clubs, not the collection of data for courses that are never added to general gameplay or a 5-day golfing trip for "some dude." I might dislike Iconian, but I think he deserves a set of golf clubs for all of the effort that he has put into the game, and it would be pretty awesome to have 200+ members on these boards who have gotten an awesome set of IRL clubs from WGT, and I'd much prefer to be three months away from getting my own set rather than a year. Trust me... I am worried about this stuff too! ;)