Unintended Consequences

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         I am not attempting to suggest in this post that the ability to sell prestige is either good or bad.  Rather, I intend to support the suggestion that the ability to sell prestige in the game does have consequences; whether these are intended or not is something that can only be known by the developers.
        
        
         

        
        
         Arguing that obtaining gold from selling prestige is equivalent to obtaining it by selling resources produced in one's city or gathered from the map is disingenuous.  Obtaining gold from prestige is nearly instant and requires barely any interaction with the game mechanics (other than obtaining a few items from the market needed to produce the prestige item).  Obtaining gold from items produced within the city requires having the relevant building and production time creating the items; similarly obtaining gold from harvested items requires having buildings AND devoting harvester time (as well as time collecting the items).  Even making gold by market arbitrage requires significant interaction with the game, as well as assumption of some risk related to increases or decreases in price.  (Not to mention serving a desirable purpose in making the markets more efficient.)  Selling prestige is thus not equivalent either in requiring skill or time to any other game activity.  
        
        
         

        
        
         Insofar as "pay to win" means "obtaining an advantage from payment that would otherwise require skill or time," selling prestige therefore qualifies as pay to win.  Personally I think that pay to win should more properly be defined as "obtaining OVERWHELMING advantage from payment that would otherwise require skill or time," and I am not convinced that selling prestige meets that criteria.  On the other hand, I haven't had to fight prestige sellers.
        
        
         

        Those who suggest that prestige does not affect troop building are conveniently ignoring the fact that being able to have low taxes (courtesy of selling prestige) allows one to produce more resources and research points, thus supporting more troop sov.  Juicing production of research points and possibly even other resources with prestige also allows more troop sov.  So a prestige seller and/or user can not only support more troops but produce them more quickly.  Does this make Illy pay to win?  Not with concerted opposition from many non-coiners, but it definitely weights the scale in that direction more than had been the case previously.
        
         

        
        
         There may be other unintended consequences of prestige sales.  For example, if much of the gold from prestige sales is used to support large armies, that is gold that is sucked out of the economy.  This can lead to deflation, a drop in the prices of other commodities.  It is hard to tell whether the current collapse of commodity prices is related to this effect or to a balancing between the costs of commodities produced within the city and items that are harvested from outside the city.  (With the increased bonuses from crafted equipment, the value of troops produced with in-city items falls in relation to items gathered from outside of the city; it is hard to tell how much of the current collapse of city commodities is related to this effect.)
        
        
         

        
        
         Whatever the cause, deflation in commodity prices decreases the ability of non-paying players to make up gold values through sales of in-game items, increasing the advantage to the paying player.  This effect may be balanced by corresponding deflation in the price of prestige items, but assuming a willingness to spend large sums of real-world money (which are not that large in comparison to some games), prestige is essentially an unlimited resource for the paying player, so the decline in prestige prices will not have the same effect as deflation in commodity markets has on the non-paying player.
        
        
         

        
        
         All of these effects, however, pale in comparison to what I see as the main consequence of the ability to sell prestige for the game of Illyriad.  I am referring specifically to the effects on the developers' profit model.  Previously the game depended on spreading prestige purchases among a large number of players; because there were a limited number of things one could do with prestige, the amount of prestige any single player might be motivated to buy was limited.  Although increasing the number of cities substantially increased this amount, it was still limited.  However, as a result of the ability to sell prestige, the demand for prestige became if not unlimited at least substantially less limited, since demand could now be spread among multiple players.
        
        
         

        
        
         What this means is that Illyriad is now (potentially) substantially more dependent on a relatively small group of high-spending players.  As long as these players are still spending, the developers have little incentive to either improve the game for the large majority of players OR to attract substantial numbers of new players.
        
        
         

        
        
         It is this last fact that is most concern to me in terms of the long-term health of Illyriad.  The developers have made changes in the past year or so that allows them to extract substantially increased income from the existing, declining playerbase.  (Selling prestige is one; increasing the number of cities is another.)  The developers thus have less incentive to attract new players.  But the community needs new players to keep the game lively.  New players bring fresh perspectives and new skills.  They remind us what we love about the game.  And they replace established players who for reasons of life events or boredom cease to play.
        
        
         

        
        
         The bottom line is that wringing more and more money from a smaller and smaller group of players WILL have consequences for the game long-term.  This is the consequence, intended or not, that has me most concerned.
         
        

Edited by Rill - 01 Mar 2016 at 15:51