I understand that English is not your first language (you do better than a lot of native English speakers, by the way), but these two statements directly contradict one another. The impulse buyer will more than likely be temporarily annoyed/upset/outraged (pick your level
), but if the impulse buyer keeps playing, he will still impulse buy. Psychological fact of life.
The statements don't contradict each other at all. Each predicates itself on the irrationality and emotionally-driven nature of the impulse buyer's mindset in the moment of impulse rather than in non-purchase moments of anticipation prior or in post-purchase hindsight, focusing on perception of subjective value at the point of sale versus objective value in the long term based on cost-benefit. I'm saying this as someone who makes a living understanding psychologically driven consumer profiles; I only have a living wage because I continuously analyze how pricing and availability affect consumers on both a conscious rational decision-making level and subconscious or impulsive irrational decision-making level. It's not a psychological fact of life or games like the ones INNO produces would collapse.
You're thinking of the true addict, not the impulse buyer. True addicts are the ones who pour thousands of dollars into games like these to the point where quitting would feel like "losing" on the same ego-driven level that motivates them to spend so much in the first place, and those are an entirely different consumer profile altogether. Impulse buyers are more analogous to casuals in MMORPGs who will buy things in the cash shop because after working all week they don't want their game to feel like work, either. And these are the players who are a.) the primary revenue-generating player base for companies like INNO, and b.) the ones most likely to be split into two separate consumer groups who will either stay because eh, whatever, sure it's annoying for a bit but it's not worth getting upset about, the whole "toad in the frying pan" metaphor where if you turn the heat/financial imbalance up slowly enough, they won't feel it until it hits break point. The other half will wander away, because of one core tenet of this market:
Games like FoE are a dime a dozen.
There are a ton of competitors out there, and they will find these impulse buyers the same way FoE did, through random ad or word of mouth, etc. And because of the nature of the impulse buyer, these shiny new things will appear to offer more value than this game that suddenly doesn't have the same luster when it's not as easy to achieve instant gratification for the same cost and effort. And they will be lured away by the ease of startup in the new game that's currently at the short beginning of its expanding time + cost cycles, until that game loses its intrinsic value on an emotional (vs. financial and subjective level, but still also impacted by feelings tied to financial investment) level and the impulse buyer moves on to something else.
I would guess that either:
a.) INNO may not change the prices at all, but may keep the promise to over our heads long enough to motivate a rush in diamond purchases at the price tiers that are planned to change, resulting in a significant revenue swell; once that revenue swell dies off INNO will announce that after listening to player feedback, they won't make the changes after all. Players, relieved, will stay and will feel as though both their consumer dollars are valued and that they're getting the value they pay for. INNO keeps its cash sink. (Honestly, not likely. This is a tactic that has been used by some companies, but it relies too much on the predictability of subjective behavior easily influenced by community conversation on unpredictable tangents, and it's really more fringe speculation than anything at all likely to happen.)
b.) INNO is preparing an ad push to attract new players as old ones die out; one thing I've noticed as I play is players deleting because they can't get enough people in their taverns or can't connect with enough people, and accounts going fallow. That's inevitable in any game with a lifespan as long as FoE and varying levels of player interest and commitment; players fade in and fade out. But if INNO sees a deficit of committed players which in turn is affecting the playability of the game in a community environment, then it's necessary to make the push to attract new players. What's critical is to raise the prices before new players are drawn into the game, so that once the initial wooing period of adoption bonuses and discounts has passed to ensure the player has made enough of an investment to feel it would be a loss to quit mid-progression, those prices aren't "raised" to the new players. They're accepted as the existing baseline, having not known the previous pricing schema. The revenue from these new players accepting the new price scheme as the default and investing into it at cost (especially since a percentage of them will always be high-rolling addicts and an even larger percentage will always be microtransaction impulse buyers who make up the majority cash flow) will more than make up for the loss of players disgruntled by the new pricing and who would have slowed their spend anyway, making it an acceptable loss scenario. (Much more likely and frequently a tactic used when games with long running periods see a lull in typical player churn.)
What is not involved here, however, is INNO really caring about how individual players feel as a whole. Of course they want to keep their general player base happy, but it's motivated largely out of a desire for profit, and not out of any actual personal investment in your feelings. (With some notable exceptions, I'm sure. No doubt many of the devs who put hard work into making this game enjoyable and coming up with unique events, etc. feel a personal connection to the players and want them to have a good time. But those devs have to answer to the bean counters, and the bean counters are less invested in you and more invested in what gets you to spend the most money in a sustainable way that involves both long-term incremental revenue streams and short-term burst revenue streams.)
I wish consumers made rational purchases, honestly. It would make my life a lot easier. *laughs* But there are too many factors involving income levels, psychological conditioning from availability or lack thereof of readily disposable income, free time, personal preferences for entertainment value and enjoyability metrics, individual biases, etc. An impulse buyer on a tight budget will tell themselves they can't afford 99c on a book by a self-published author they've never heard of, for example, but then spend $9.99 on a book by a favorite author that they literally cannot afford although the 99c book actually was within their budget, because the book by the favorite author is something they want (plus if the $9.99 book is a publisher book it carries with it a higher percentage that quality expectations will be met)--and desire overrides practicality and rational purchasing decisions the majority of the time.
Uh. Wow, I didn't mean for this to get that long. Sorry. Like I said, this is kind of my job, and even if it frustrates me I also enjoy it, so I get a little talkative when breaking down consumer profiles and purchasing scenarios.
But anyway. As for me, as an impulse buyer...this is a casual game where I can throw away a little disposable income for a minor dopamine rush at completing an era during a couple of days off, but my emotional profile isn't invested enough in the game to create the sort of long-term loyalty where I feel it would be too much of a loss of time and money invested to wander away from what I've already built. They provided their entertainment value in the moment and now they're static pixels standing as a legacy to fun I had in the past. So it's very likely that I'll wander off as I have from other games in the past, moving on with no hard feelings because the perception of value in the purchases I make here has changed my enjoyment of the game, and no longer made it quite as worth remembering to check in or keep up with my timed obligations.