There is yet another gimmick in Mafia Wars. This one is called the Starter Pack or Booster Pack and like all the others it’s available “For a Limited Time Only!”. The Starter/Booster Packs bundle a bunch of items together and you are required to buy it with money rather than Reward Points. The offer I received was for 2 loot items, 3 Mime Crates, 30 Reward Points, +6 energy points, +6 stamina points and 2 punches on my Reward Card. All this could have been mine for $28.00. There is so much going on in the game right now that I figured I would get to it later but within an hour it was gone.
If you missed the popup, you will see it on the Featured Items Module.
Not all players got the same types of offers. My alleged discount was only 26%. Abby Dorine got a better offer for $15.00 instead of $28.00. She got the same items except the reward points were 160 instead of the 30 I was offered. This is rude of Zynga and definitely doesn’t balance the playing field. I have a feeling that players who already spend money are not getting the same deals as the ones who don’t. Or maybe it’s luck of the draw and the moral of the story is to wait until you get one that is decent. If you go to the Mafia Wars Loot Lady Fan Page, you can see a wide range of deals and none of there are photo shopped.
Zgembo Iz Skepceta got the same offer as I did for $28.00 but he only had to pay $6.00!
Dainius Kvedaras got an offer he couldn’t refuse when he ran out of energy. For $2.00, he got and energy refill plus 12 reward points.
Looking at the prices of reward points and the number some items cost, we can kind of figure out if the lowball discounts are a good deal or not. You can’t rely on the percentage that Zynga uses because they don’t factor in the best ways to get reward and skill points. Crafting timer speed ups and reward point discount offers can screw their “deals”. If I spent $30.00 without a discount offer, I would get 127 reward points. If they were 40% off, I would only spend $18.00.
| Items | Reward Points |
| Hammerhead Goggles | 35 |
| Three Mimes | 35 |
| Ringmaster | 35 |
| +6 Energy | 12 |
| +6 Stamina | 12 |
| Total | 129 |
Rather than devoting development time and resources to gimmicks, Zynga would be better off if they offered a quality product. Maybe players would want to spend money and wouldn’t need to be tricked. If you are lucky enough to get the too good to be true offers, jump on them because Booster Packs don’t stick around for very long.
| Article written by Jennifer Patterson, Creator of the MW Loot Lady Blog, The Mafia Wars Loot Lady Facebook Fan Page and Co-Host of The Informant Podcast.
All material is protected by copyright law
|
theres 3 different 'starter packs' you can purchase.
ReplyDeleteon the marketplace if you press the 'buy more' button. you get the reward points buy list; at the top is a 2nd tab for the different packs.
Theres packs for 6 / 8 and 15 dollars on mine with 30/80/180 reward points each.
I have a starter pack for $15 with 160 RP and Zynga will never see a single cent from me. ;)
ReplyDeleteI used to work for a company like this. Let me assure you: they have meetings where all they do is try to dream up new ways of sucking money out of your pocket. For management, it's their #1 priority.
ReplyDeleteWith all the different variations and prices I can't figure out if any of these are really a decent deal for me or not, and I certainly don't trust Zynga enough to believe that they are just because the hype says so, so I guess I'll just pass on them all. In other words - just another another FAIL as far as I'm concerned.
ReplyDelete$8 for 80RP, +6 energy, +6 stamina, 2 punches on reward card. I'll pass.
ReplyDeleteInteresting... At first it was offering me the "starter" packs for $6/$8/$15 so I bought one for $6, and now it's offering me "booster" packs for $28/$25/$45. Note that they contain exactly the same items. I think you're right Jen - People who haven't spent any money on MW are offered "starter" packs for really cheap, while People who have bought from Zynga recently get offered "Booster" packs which are three to five times more expensive.
ReplyDeleteI spend money and I got the "Starter Pack" offer at $6.00. I bought 4 of them, but only got the items for 1 set. My card was charged $6.00 4 times, but I only have 1 Ringmaster. Waiting to hear back from Zynga. Sometime after that, the price jumped to $28.00 for the "Booster Pack" with 30 RP. Oddly enough, they are also offering me a pack with 80 RP for $25.00, or $3.00 less than the 30 RP pack...
ReplyDelete