Unit Store Prices

Is anyone else having the unit store prices keep changing?
In Australia last week Odin's were $159.99.
Then they went down to around $87 and now up to $164.99.
Also the daily class crystals went down to $5 and now up to $8.

Comments

Vegeta9001

Kabam don't really have much input in the prices. That's all handled by Apple/Google it's why android and iOS prices differ in certain countries.

pseudosane

Kabam has no control over the prices. These are set by Google/Apple app stores. They are the ones setting the prices here.

Jefechuta

In Spain prices didnt change at all, they are still the same

Colinwhitworth69

Kabam has no control over the prices. These are set by Google/Apple app stores. They are the ones setting the prices here.

They certainly have some control over the prices. It's their product.

MrSakuragi

Kabam has no control over the prices. These are set by Google/Apple app stores. They are the ones setting the prices here.
They certainly have some control over the prices. It's their product.

Kabam would decide the tier the product should be in but don’t explicitly set the tier pricing. But yes, there is a level of control on both sides.

Lokx

I was hoping with the introduction to possible side loading in the next ios that kabam would allow users to download the game from the web and use their own store rather then apple. This would mean a reduce fee for some items as they would no longer need to pay the 30% to apple or play store.

Keltan

Yeap same situation in Malaysia as well

pseudosane

Kabam has no control over the prices. These are set by Google/Apple app stores. They are the ones setting the prices here.
They certainly have some control over the prices. It's their product.

@DNA3000 had a good explanation for this. I'll let him explain. But as i understand, they give the "tier rating" of their item, and the app stores allocate the price and take their cut.

Kabam Jax

Hey Summoners,

A little more information about this topic:

Apple recently implemented a massive change to their pricing system. Our team began making adjustments to the Google store, but an issue was identified with Apple's new system. We reached out to Apple who acknowledged there is indeed a problem.

We're still waiting to get more information from Apple, while also trying to make our what adjustments we can to bring them more in line with what's intended.

I'd expect things to continue to shift around a bit until the dust settles.

SummonerNR

For the nitty-gritty from Apple, here are several links regarding Pricing/Tier/Tax changes.

Most recent Pricing Tier updates (probably part of the cause of the recent problem). Part of this had been screencap'd (in black) earlier in this now-merged thread. And sounds like similar Google adjustments had also been made too, from Jax above.
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=dbrszv62

Earlier Tax and Currency changes (and more broadly, a peek at how Apple deals with Currency specific changes)…
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=g8dce2t4

Detailed Price Point (Tier) lists for those changed countries in prior article above. It shows you HOW a developed-specified Price Point translates into an actual “dollar” amount in that currency, as an example (even though only a few currencies are detailed in it).
https://developer.apple.com/support/downloads/price-tier-updates/mVuHzUTLW8A3n4bvJzP3/App-Store-Price-Tier-Updates-February-2023.pdf

Azdef

Hey Summoners,

A little more information about this topic:

Apple recently implemented a massive change to their pricing system. Our team began making adjustments to the Google store, but an issue was identified with Apple's new system. We reached out to Apple who acknowledged there is indeed a problem.

We're still waiting to get more information from Apple, while also trying to make our what adjustments we can to bring them more in line with what's intended.

I'd expect things to continue to shift around a bit until the dust settles.

The issue is there on Android as well.

NUTTA

Personally I'm glad the prices went back up. Easy not to spend when the prices are a rip off.

DNA3000

Reading this seems like it’s all in kabams control now
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=qzex35ch

No, its not.

That update refers to a number of changes made to the way the App store's pricing works, but you have to a) understand how app stores work and b) read everything carefully to understand what that announcement was explaining.

I explained most of this a few years ago but here's the basics:

First, app developers do not directly set prices for items. They set an item tier code. An Odin might be a tier 50 item, say, and there's a chart that says in the US, a tier 50 item is $99.99 (I'm just making up numbers here, I don't have the chart memorized and they recently changed everything: see below). So Kabam knows that in the US, an Odin will cost $99.99 USD. But they have no control over what a tier 50 item will cost anywhere else. Apple and Google control that. They decide what that item code will cost in other countries, with other currency. This is often not just about currency exchange, but also cost of business for them in various parts of the world.

The notice from December 2022 talks about more price points. That's because originally the item codes were spaced apart. There was an item code for $49.99 and $54.99 but nothing in between. You could not price something $52 USD at all. Apple added more codes so there was more fine grained options for setting prices, especially at higher amounts.

They also announced that for developers not based in the US, rather than setting prices with the fixed standard based on USD, they could set their prices using their home currency as the base, and have all other regions float relative to that. So if you are a UK developer, rather than setting something as having a base price of $9.99 USD and having your own currency fluctuate, you could set it as a fixed amount in pounds and have the rest of the world fluctuate. This is *not* the same thing as allowing developers to decide what everything costs in all regions. You get to pick one, and the store automatically converts for all other regions out of your control.

The announcement in 2022 also specified that those changes were for subscriptions not one-time purchases. One-time purchases were going to be updated with similar changes in 2023. In other words, now.

This announcement https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=dbrszv62 is the follow up, where changes are being rolled out to one-time in-app purchases, which is basically all MCOC in-app purchases.

But just to make sure people understand what these changes are, they are *not* allowing Kabam to set whatever price they want where ever they want. The primary changes are:

- Kabam can now set item codes for a wider range of different prices. They can price things "in-between" price points they used to be forced to use in the past.

- Kabam could, if they so chose, set their base pricing to be something other than US dollars, which is the default standard. They could, for example, set their base pricing in Canadian dollars if they wished, and if they did all in-app purchases would then be priced relative to Canadian dollars not USD. However, everywhere else would still be auto-converted by the App stores, and Kabam would still have no control over that.

- Kabam can theoretically block certain regions from getting access to certain bundles. Previously, with some minor exceptions, when Kabam sold an in-app purchase, they had to offer it everywhere. They couldn't sell Odins in the US but not in Mexico, for example.

There's a minor change as well, where if you live in a place where prices don't typically get set to XXX.99 you can choose whether prices show as XXX.99, XXX.95, XXX.90, or XXX.00, just to make prices look like how they generally look in your region.

The recent chaos probably comes from the combination of item codes shifting around and glitches due to the roll out of all the new features globally.

Azdef

What's the point of the disagree? I can see the random inflated prices in front of me....

phillgreen

Dammit, price has been "fixed" on Android.

I should've bought the cheap odin and an even cheaper bunch of apology flowers with the savings...

Keltan

Dammit, price has been "fixed" on Android.

I should've bought the cheap odin and an even cheaper bunch of apology flowers with the savings...

Yeap back to the "Normal" price tag... 😔

Wrestler420

It honestly baffles be why they have things so expensive when they could make alot more money with a better dollar value for us the consumer. Rwally regretting holding off on not buying an additional odin when war 100 canadian instead of 140ish with tax. Especially considering they are not putting the money back into the game to fix issues that have been in the game for over a year now. So frustrating. They definitely don't care like they use to when the game first came out with the product, feels like a cash grab now

Colinwhitworth69

Reading this seems like it’s all in kabams control now
https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=qzex35ch
No, its not.

That update refers to a number of changes made to the way the App store's pricing works, but you have to a) understand how app stores work and b) read everything carefully to understand what that announcement was explaining.

I explained most of this a few years ago but here's the basics:

First, app developers do not directly set prices for items. They set an item tier code. An Odin might be a tier 50 item, say, and there's a chart that says in the US, a tier 50 item is $99.99 (I'm just making up numbers here, I don't have the chart memorized and they recently changed everything: see below). So Kabam knows that in the US, an Odin will cost $99.99 USD. But they have no control over what a tier 50 item will cost anywhere else. Apple and Google control that. They decide what that item code will cost in other countries, with other currency. This is often not just about currency exchange, but also cost of business for them in various parts of the world.

The notice from December 2022 talks about more price points. That's because originally the item codes were spaced apart. There was an item code for $49.99 and $54.99 but nothing in between. You could not price something $52 USD at all. Apple added more codes so there was more fine grained options for setting prices, especially at higher amounts.

They also announced that for developers not based in the US, rather than setting prices with the fixed standard based on USD, they could set their prices using their home currency as the base, and have all other regions float relative to that. So if you are a UK developer, rather than setting something as having a base price of $9.99 USD and having your own currency fluctuate, you could set it as a fixed amount in pounds and have the rest of the world fluctuate. This is *not* the same thing as allowing developers to decide what everything costs in all regions. You get to pick one, and the store automatically converts for all other regions out of your control.

The announcement in 2022 also specified that those changes were for subscriptions not one-time purchases. One-time purchases were going to be updated with similar changes in 2023. In other words, now.

This announcement https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=dbrszv62 is the follow up, where changes are being rolled out to one-time in-app purchases, which is basically all MCOC in-app purchases.

But just to make sure people understand what these changes are, they are *not* allowing Kabam to set whatever price they want where ever they want. The primary changes are:

- Kabam can now set item codes for a wider range of different prices. They can price things "in-between" price points they used to be forced to use in the past.

- Kabam could, if they so chose, set their base pricing to be something other than US dollars, which is the default standard. They could, for example, set their base pricing in Canadian dollars if they wished, and if they did all in-app purchases would then be priced relative to Canadian dollars not USD. However, everywhere else would still be auto-converted by the App stores, and Kabam would still have no control over that.

- Kabam can theoretically block certain regions from getting access to certain bundles. Previously, with some minor exceptions, when Kabam sold an in-app purchase, they had to offer it everywhere. They couldn't sell Odins in the US but not in Mexico, for example.

There's a minor change as well, where if you live in a place where prices don't typically get set to XXX.99 you can choose whether prices show as XXX.99, XXX.95, XXX.90, or XXX.00, just to make prices look like how they generally look in your region.

The recent chaos probably comes from the combination of item codes shifting around and glitches due to the roll out of all the new features globally.

You should make a DNA3K chatbot using all of your posts as the dataset. In long run might save you some time by not having to repeat yourself.

Deemonbala

@Bashlord now check bro Indian currency again increased

DNA3000

You should make a DNA3K chatbot using all of your posts as the dataset. In long run might save you some time by not having to repeat yourself.

I could, but then someone might get lonely.