[Ideas] Things people would buy in the Ingress Store

edited January 2020 in App Feedback (Archive)

Pay-To-Win is always a difficult concept to manage in Ingress, but Niantic needs to actually make enough money to pay the bills. @NianticBrian has told us that a subscription is coming, but we were having a discussion in IUENG about possible things you could put in the store.

Goals:

  • Items should not be unbalancing to the game, or cause you to win the more you pay.
  • Items should be repeatably purchased. Toast skins and Key Lockers are great, but they don't keep paying the bills.
  • Items should be either pre-existing or easily implemented. No coming up with new long range weapons, or gameplay changes.

A few from the IUENG discussion

From @Perringaiden : Sell R8s. Not X8s, not Aegis, not VR gear. Just R8s, in packs of 10, 20 or 50. Since you can only use 1 per portal it's not unbalancing, would allow rural areas and areas without P8s to have a starting seed, and it's something that people would buy regularly.

From @InvestigateXM : Double AP for a limited time, like Lucky Eggs in PoGo.

From @crystalwizard : Double credit for specific badges, such as 2 points for each deploy OR 2 points for each destroy (one item per badge type).

From @feistyzag : Rent extra lockers or storage space.

From @Perringaiden : Buy empty power cubes that can be 'charged' by walking with Adventure Sync. (like incubators)

On the flipside:

From @InvestigateXM : Provide Daily Tasks to allow you to gain a little bit of CMU.

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What other ideas do people have?

Post edited by Perringaiden on
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Comments

  • How about: VR items replicate in quantum caps, but a walking element affects the "dice roll", so every 10km walked there is a *chance* for a replication.

  • From @Perringaiden : Buy empty power cubes that can be 'charged' by walking with Adventure Sync. (like incubators) 

    A rechargeable one at that. I'm not buying a one-off like the (regular) incubators in PoGo unless it is something similar to a hypercube (but that still needs a lot of 'walking').

  • InvestigateXMInvestigateXM ✭✭✭✭✭

    Gahh, this. I'd love to buy multiple character medals, honestly, but that's because I want to give them away. I don't know why there was a move away from passcodes, but I'd love to get codes back or "store" the medals in my inventory to give them away to others.

  •  I'm not buying a one-off like the (regular) incubators in PoGo unless it is something similar to a hypercube

    I'd expect it to hold more in it, like maybe 1000XM x Level (with Recurse = 16), but the point is to have something that you buy repeatedly at a low cost, exactly like with Incubators.

  • Many of us have traditionally bought the "Load Out Cards" from anomalies and stored them for later use by giving the packs to people who needed them while on a mountain top or an isolated island. Being able to gift stuff would be great, including the other store packs.

  • oscarc1oscarc1 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I would pay for the ability to get more submissions, even just a pay-per-submission model would suffice. I love exploring and finding cool things to submit.

    Also, the PoGo crowd would jump on the chance to have unlimited submissions (that's good and bad at the same time lol), so there's potential for it to become a Ingress cash cow for Niantic

  • Yes! I used to saved them for agents in remote places, for an OP or just to thank them for something in particular. And I know many more agents who did it and would be happy to have that option :D

  • beardedtitbeardedtit ✭✭✭
    edited January 2020

    Think of it as a money v time thing.

    I can go out and and hack an almost infinite number of R7/X7 - but it takes time. Buying them would use my money instead of time. But the pricing would need to be low enough to be comparable.

    Paks of xmp and res would need to be reasonable large. Say 50 X6 (just big enough to be usable) or R8. Maybe 100 R3/4 (mixed).

    Similar sized packs of L8 cubes - for recharging that over-large farm that is just a statement of power - won't unbalance things too much.

    Possibly common shields, but nothing rarer. These take longer to hack, so can be more expensive.

    Not that I'm likely to spend real money, I only spend 'free' money in pogo.

  • edited January 2020

    Purchasing bursters however would be unbalancing because it's not just time vs money. Some people have far more money, and managing opposition gear sources is part of the strategy. Stopping people from farming X7s/X8s would be pointless if they can just turn around and buy 1000 X8s like some Russian bot store.

  • @oscarc1

    I would pay for the ability to get more submissions, even just a pay-per-submission model would suffice. I love exploring and finding cool things to submit.

    I would love this to be possible myself too.

    Also, the PoGo crowd would jump on the chance to have unlimited submissions (that's good and bad at the same time lol), so there's potential for it to become a Ingress cash cow for Niantic

    This would be a problem however. We're trying to find ways to incentivize Ingress purchases. Providing this in PoGo would not only draw money away from Ingress, but dampen the enthusiasm of Ingress submitters who would be seeing duplicates of PoGo submissions.

  • I've wanted to do a week long trip out of the west of Qld but one thing stopping me is only 14 subs, if we could buy yearly blocks of extras (like 100 or so) I'd be all over it.

  • mortuusmortuus ✭✭✭✭✭

    pogo earns huge money on the lucky eggs that double XP, ingress should have that also they would make tons on it i think..

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Seriously? I don't know anyone who spent money there. They collect free coin for day and buy the package. When they use "real money" it's from Google brewards.

    But, yes, I agree a double XP thing would be useful and wanted. But could be splited in more items instead not just one giving double ap i every thing. Maybe one 2x in links and fields. One for capturing and destroying. And one for 2x hacking.

  • PoGo made $900,000,000+ in Revenue from it's store in 2019. That's not from Google Survey rewards. People buy incubators, people buy incense, people by lucky eggs.

  • Yep, my other half buys incubators and other things.

    I've bought 5 key capsules, about $20 in pogo when I started and £15 for the last anomoly.

    Plus 2 phones, loads of money for 4G data, car fuel (etc).

  • EvilSuperHerosEvilSuperHeros ✭✭✭✭✭

    Double credit for specific badges, such as 2 points for each deploy OR 2 points for each destroy (one item per badge type).

    Nope, this is just being lazy and degrades the badges themselves. Go out and play if you want to work on a badge. Platinum and Onyx badges are obtainable, they just take some work and time.

    Being able to gift passcodes for a Character Medal, or gear (as in the loadout cards that many agents still have on hand) should be a big one. I've given away old codes for NL Van badges as well as Character codes at previous IFS events. I'm running out of usable codes, and no new source for me to buy them from Niantic.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭

    Double credit for specific badges, such as 2 points for each deploy OR 2 points for each destroy (one item per badge type).

    Straight no. Medals should stay fair.

    Extra space for rent is a thing I was always advocating against, too.

    Otherwise sounds OK.

  • oscarc1oscarc1 ✭✭✭✭✭

    My last paragraph was geared towards the Pogo players that have Ingress accounts that just want to submit and create new portals. If they had the ability to buy more submissions in Ingress, they would jump at the chance and spend that money in Ingress.

  • edited January 2020

    Oh definitely, but do you think the Niantic CxO's wouldn't jump at the chance to make even more money by offering it in PoGo too? 😉

  • HydracyanHydracyan ✭✭✭✭✭

    Nonsense. Create it with the intention of benefiting and targeting other game userbase? That's not making Ingress lucrative, that's shoving up pokemon revenue inside Ingress. As @Perringaiden said, it's better to do it in each game.

    Unless Niantic are giving na **** to ingress players community, this would be a good strategic to masquerade the origin of revenue and pretend ingress is doing well by luring players from other game just to make them waste money.

    If they ever add paid proposals, should be done simultaneously in all games that this is enabled.

  • 100 % agree with the ability to gift things such as gear. That should have been part of Ingress for a very long time.

  • jontebulajontebula ✭✭✭✭✭

    I hope Niantic never relese subscripon in Ingress Prime. Make Ingress Prime very bad with subscripon. @NianticBrian

    Always bad P2W

  • could you please post some suggestions for things that people would want to buy in the store instead of just making negative comments.

  • jontebulajontebula ✭✭✭✭✭

    I think more agents stop play Ingress Prime if Niantic relese subscripon in Ingress Prime and P2W. If @NianticBrian listen and understand Niantic dont relese subscripon and P2W.


    Free CMU when Ingress Prime have adventure sync from Pokémon GO is good. More agents use it.

  • I think more agents stop play Ingress Prime if Niantic relese subscripon in Ingress Prime and P2W. If @NianticBrian listen and understand Niantic dont relese subscripon and P2W.

    Could you tell us what in the subscription is pay-to-win? AFAIK no-one else has information about what's contained in the subscription so I'd be interested in what makes you think it's that way.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭

    Could you tell us what in the subscription is pay-to-win?

    More inventory space.

  • So key lockers are pay-to-win? That tired old argument doesn't really matter, even if it's oft repeated. You still have to gather the items to make use of the space.

  • 1valdis1valdis ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited January 2020

    So key lockers are pay-to-win?

    Yes. People just got used to them, and 500 keys don't influence a battle outcome unlike from 500 Aegis.

  • Sure, but someone can have 500 Aegis right now. Having more space doesn't prevent that, nor does it mean you can get 500 Aegis in any short period of time, or ever if you need to keep using them.

    Extra space matters to things like Bursters. And the major difference in more space, is how much travel time between where you get the gear and where you use the gear. Yes, people could use it for more keys, but that's usually less urgent, and there's enough semi-retired players to hold long term storage of keys. Yes it could hold more R8s, but you can only deploy one at a time. Yes, you could hold 500 extra Aegis, but those semi-retired players could do that too.

    Right now there are enough people playing with "family accounts" or backpacks, that if extra storage was an I Win button, they'd already be winning hands down. All that extra storage really does, from a subscription, is give people who aren't cheating, an opportunity to have a level playing field with those who are. Because people who are cheating are far less likely to subscribe each of their accounts for extra space.

    That's why I say it's a tired old argument that doesn't really matter. The Subscription method is actually one of the best implementations of it.

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