Updates on Ingress Store

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Comments


  • I have myself spend 550 USD on CMU, almost exclusively on frackers. With this pricing I'll also put a hold on my frackers.

    I understand that Ingress needs to be profitable but this price hike is just extortion. When almost nothing new has been added to the gameplay for years. It's the same with the price hike on anomaly character medals a year(?) ago, it made me only buy the smaller pack.

  • Just brainstorming here, but is it possible that the increased price on frackers is to help stop the farming bots? I mean, assuming they run frackers while farming for gear to sell, if they double the price on that, maybe it will deter them from continuing their business? Just a thought.

  • Instead of increasing the price of normal frackers, how about adding a new type of fracker that gives you the output of a fracked lvl 8 VR hack modded portal. Burns out after 10 minutes or 100 hacks.

    Gives players in low density areas a way to get high lvl gear but they still have to glyph hack to get the best results so its not just a straight pay to play scenario. It would likely sell like hotcakes giving a nice revenue stream.

  • It's inevitable that they will go down this route now with Prime, since they're not just bringing all the technical platform from Pokemon Go (and Wizards Unite), but also the constant events and monetization opportunities to in-game actions/concepts...

    Don't get me wrong on the events - I like events, but in Pokemon Go there's more of a special event now when there is NOT an event going on! You know we're addicts, and the FOMO* is strong with us (*fear of missing out)..

  • ZennZenn ✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2019

    @NianticBrian hey bud! I'm glad you're back on the team... Never stopped following you on Twitter.

    I think the common heatsinks bundle is clever and would make more sense at a better value. I think 20 would be better. That's two per portal... for 10 portals. At 3 hacks per portal... Fits nicely with how many folks will play this challenge.

    A speedrun too bronze might tempt 3 purchases of 20. That's 12 bucks to try to rush the cooldowns... Instead of $24. Plus if your buying heatsinks... You might also buy resos... the builder bundle can make sense for getting to the 3rd glyph sequence. That's close to $30 for the challenge badge and its encouraging gameplay. Some frugal folks will scoff but I get that this game needs to be solvent. Common heatsinks make sense. Common multihacks... Not so much, at least not at those numbers.


    How about 20 heatsinks and 5 multihacks. Or no multihacks even. This package is a good salve for squeezing some short gameplay in.

    You could also consider a bigger bundle... A little more value priced and catered to those who will solo the event at higher badge levels.

    Rare Aurora package... 60 common heatsinks and a chunk of resonators for helping upgrade. Value price it a little in comparison to the current bundle. This one package would allow for a speedrun to bronze... And I would certainly buy a few if I was trying to get to that purple badge.

    Catering some temporary bundles for challenges and events is very smart if you dial it in. I like this approach.


    Sidenote: I think purchased gear should not be able to be put in a quantum capsule. It's much too aligned with chaotic matter to replicate safely. ;)

  • SoylentGrienSoylentGrien ✭✭✭✭✭

    extortion - the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats.

    Who is forcing or threatening you to buy frackers?

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    In other words, this was enforced from people higher up. You sure you're not working for Hulong?

  • MoogModularMoogModular ✭✭✭✭✭

    Oh just realized NianticBrian is goliadtx! Doh!

  • I know business isn't free but ouch. Meet up bundles were great for group fracking parties. Oh well. Ingress won't be around forever without funding.

  • Yes in an ideal world, things might work well through these methods but then there are these pesky things like NDAs, lawyers and approval for information dissemination to the greater community of Agents.h

    The fact that is that Vanguards aren't Community managers or PR folks in Niantics' employ. If there is an expectation for Vanguards to be such a conduit for such potentially controversial issues just to prepare the ground, sadly that's now how things are setup and we'll just be facing the queries and (undeserved) angst directed with us with little to no answers (as we're likely asked or are directing these same (or similar) questions to the Niantic folks as well.

    That being said, yes Vanguards are generally known and well connected in communities and groups in their city/state/country/region, I daresay that such information reaches a much wider audience with posts from Ingress official on their social media channels which then gets reshared pretty quickly on various news tickets and chats and any other number of networks/platforms out there.


    TL:DR version - it isn't the role that Vanguards are empowered/expected to fill as early warning/beacons for good/bad news stemming from Niantic's actions.

    Maybe the FAQ about Vanguards might help clarify things somewhat in terms of what we do/don't. That's found here. https://niantic.helpshift.com/a/ingress/?s=agent-protocol&f=about-the-alliance-of-the-vanguards-program&p=web

  • These are end times. One person spitballing ideas to make Ingress sustainable.

  • Losifer026Losifer026 ✭✭✭
    edited August 2019

    Could you make a scanner redacted skin available for the prime platform? Just sayin, I’d buy that.

  • I'd love to be able to purchase the elusive 6th key locker.

    Or, how about being able to buy expansion room for your key lockers? Let them hold 100, 120, 140, 160, 180, or 200 keys each? You could charge per 20 key upgrade (on ALL lockers!).

    I like to pay for useful, permanent things. How about selling a VR duping Quantum? Or let us pay to upgrade each Quantum we have to permanently dupe VR? Same dupe rules and rates as before.

  • rz231rz231 ✭✭✭

    Hey you friendly producer! Doubling the price of fracker and calling this "economically sustainable". This is nothing but a slap in the face for all of us.

  • I used to buy frakkers for our meet ups and all. But 4 euros a frakker thats a no-no. Ill buy me a beer instead. You went too far guys.

  • I would pay for a media capsule though.

  • @jsylvis thanks for bumping the Reddit thread. I’m considering options to sell Xmps and Res. At events, players can buy kits that include, for example, 10 XMP at your level. The kits seem popular, I haven’t seen negative threads about them, and I’ve seen requests from remote players who want to buy them. If we moved those into the Store, would people feel differently?

  • Can we please, please, please get this. Hell even collector key locker would be absolutely fantastic.


    @NianticBrian There are examples showing that running promotions is a better way to increase revenue than increasing price of an item (https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_deep_discounts_really_affect_your_games.php) brings in more revenue than trying to sell without discount. If the key problem is to increase revenue, would you consider this type of approach then doubling the price. With higher cost you will price out people who were on the verge and drop in volume. I think that by adding key lockers, collector locker, and running promos on fraker bundles around anomalies, you will increase revenue more than doubling the price will do.

  • jsylvisjsylvis ✭✭✭✭
    edited August 2019

    Personally? I would think making high-level weaponry available at an appealing cost point would border on balance concerns around being able to pay to have effectively unlimited "best" weaponry. X7/X8 are exceptionally effective and X8s have natural scarcity due to L8 portal scarcity. My local blue community is swimming in gear, though, so we would largely pass up on it anyway.

    Being able to buy Pokeballs doesn't really imbalance the game. It lets you pay to bypass time mechanics in farming with no direct impact to other players. XMPs, though... That directly enables you to compete in the PvP aspect of Ingress and bypassing that farm stage is a very real advantage over a player who opts not to do the same. Resonators would enable you to build and I, personally, don't see that being taken as a huge problem. You could theoretically deploy forever but wouldn't be able to drop $10 on, say, everything you need to take down a field anchor.


    I would imagine this would be an excellent idea to float to the general forums and/or Reddit for feedback. Building the perception of soliciting widespread feedback for something like that would go a long way to preventing (or, at least, mitigating) negative/inflammatory reactions.

  • A suggestion I haven't seen in quite a while is API access. I know it'll probs have to wait until we're on the new servers though...

    I've spent about $30 AUD on API credits in Resources (another AR game) at about $6.50 for 2500 credits/calls, and this is just to get my own data from the game on a regular basis (This game has tons of data to play with though).

  • @NianticBrian (I know this will need to wait for new servers but...) We need new, creative, out of the box items to buy. Keylockers were great, Frackers were great. Why not sell Ito+ and -? Those are items that are meant to save time, but aren't necessarily going to flood the marThe problem is balancing time saving with pay-to-win. There was huge upheaval when Niantic started selling very rare shields and things (even though you do with those anomaly loadouts). I think with the anomaly load outs though, the scarcity makes it more acceptable, maybe. Can we pay to have a restock portal at our First Saturday? A good one, like the anomaly one? One that only works for a little bit? This community /wants/ Ingress to succeed. Hopefully some of the ideas for new items that have been around for the last 5 or 6 years that were never realized, now can be.

  • InvestigateXMInvestigateXM ✭✭✭✭✭

    What about the 6th key locker that was part of the 5th year anniversary? I'm sure there are quite a few that missed it or started after it was distributed. Of course I don't know how the servers work, but I'd imagine it should be quick and easy to implement, as the code for it is already there on both Prime and Redacted. No one should have something against it, new players get a 6th key locker (which is requested a lot btw) and the ones that got the anniversary pack had luck and didn't need to pay for it.

  • I'm one of those people in video games that always plays support characters. Sell me buffs that I can use on my teammates nearby.

  • Put the avatar/friends thing into ingress. Add some of the old shirt designs from past anomalies. I've spend money in Pokemon on avater items. Give us ways to earn small amounts of CMU in game. (after completing banners or something. Or maybe if you get the various Aurora badges) I think people might be more open to wider items being available, if there's also a way to slowly earn cash, like Pokemon.

  • Have you seen the IFS Restocking Portal Output?!


    There are other suggestions I've raised that would be great to help support FS... a key one I think that could be done with the current servers would be short life FS beacons (around 10-15 minutes) so Organisers can use them like shards or volatile portals. Another one for maybe the new servers might be FS shards?

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