I appreciate that some people are going to dislike this post but can we just put aside the blind devotion to Klei for a second and discuss something objectively. To be clear, I have bought all the event skin packs (which look great) and sadly I will probably continue to do so even if they remain unchanged and, in my opinion, overpriced. I bought Don't Starve early during the beta back when there was very little to do other than collect manure and move spider dens around and despite getting DST for free I have purchased both it and Don't Starve for friends. I have 1600+ hours in both games combined. I'm happy to support Klei, they deserve it.
But...
These new event skins are making a mess of things in various ways. I know they're entirely optional and have no effect on game-play but wouldn't it be better if more people could enjoy them at no cost to Klei's profits? Currently we have a limited amount of time to acquire these event skins via drops, can unravel unwanted skins (for a pretty measly third of their crafting cost) and craft what we do want or can just straight up buy them from Klei. All of that is great! It all falls apart though when we look at the other ways these new skins were implemented and how they interact with the previous system.
PRICING
They are way too expensive for what they are. I don't doubt the effort that has gone into these skins but considering the effort that went into DS/DST and all its expansions and updates are they really worth a similar price to the base game? The Forge set was £11.99 iirc which is £1 more than the base game for 12 (functionally useless) cosmetic skin sets, compare that to Don't Starve's expansions which are only £3.99 each for potentially hundreds more hours of game-play. I personally think Don't Starve games have always been under-priced but that doesn't mean these skin prices are justified. It would be one thing if the skins were tradable/marketable since they would retain some value but as is you're buying them for you and you alone. Something is priced poorly here, be it the games being under-priced or the skins overpriced but the skins being priced so high makes me wonder if there's a more sinister reason for them being so expensive. I understand why the skins are not tradable/marketable and possibly why they are priced so high and we will get to that but slashing the prices would be one easy fix to the situation. Although not the best one.
DESIGN
Before the Forge event we had very simple, Elegant, inventory/marketplace interaction. There was one rarity (Loyal) that was not tradable/marketable and it mainly governed items rewarded to players for certain purchases or for completing certain tasks (which they can still do). Everything else was tradable/marketable. It was clean, it let players work towards skins they wanted at their own pace and there was never a reason to fear for not being able to get your "dream" skin. With the introduction of the Forge however, we now have skins and other items of all rarities that are not tradeable, not marketable and only attainable for a short while . It's now not a far-cry from the mess that is TF2's item trading "system" and I really hope we aren't heading down that road of each update adding a new mechanic, rarity or restriction to items to further complicate what was once a very open and honest system. I can't say for sure whether the system we have now is the final product but considering that the cost of these skins has increased from The Forge to Winter's Feast (£11.99 for 12 skins, £7.19 for 6 and I assume we get the privilege of spending another £7.19 next year to complete the set) I'm not filled with confidence that Klei has altogether good intentions.This might seem like nitpicking and I'm sure some people are thinking "why not just just make everything Loyal then" but that would only fix it on the surface, it doesn't help with the bigger issue.
VALUE
The event skins are completely worthless. The #1 reason for the skins not being marketable/tradable is more than likely to ensure more people buy them directly from Klei. If they could be sold on the SCM or traded with friends, everyone would just sell their duplicates for profit or buy the skins that they're missing and less money would go to Klei, right? Probably. But it doesn't have to be that way. The more encouraging explanation is that this way the skins remain "special" or "rare" like a badge of honour for participating in an event. But there's a workaround for that too. If the skins were only not tradable/marketable during events and became tradable/marketable once the event was over Klei would still make plenty of money. Lots of people bought the forge skins early on in the event so they could wear them and show them off during, these are the people that would pay any price for the skins, you're not going to lose those customers. Then there's the people that bought one or maybe two sets just for their main/favourite character but don't care about collecting everything. Then there's the absolute mad-men that bought enough of the £11.99 skin pack to be able to unravel it all and craft the entire collection from spools and the equally insane people that played enough Forge to collect/craft almost everything without spending anything. What does that leave us with? People that were never going to buy anything and people that would buy it if it was cheaper. Oh and lets not forget about the kids, the kids who don't have money to buy stuff but desperately want a certain skin and save up all throughout the event to buy that Wilson skin because they're all god damn Wilson but don't quite make it to that £1.99 goal. Think of the children Klei. As far as I understand Klei is supposed to get 10% of SCM sales for DST items so currently after the events end they make no more money from skins but if they were marketable there's money to be made there, money that might eventually make up for however much you lose from people waiting for the event to end to buy skins on the SCM.
Now if the bigger issue is rarity/prestige then there's a simple fix for that already in the current system. Timeless. Similar to there being an option to unravel an item, why not let players turn it into a marketable version which in turn removes a (Timeless) tag that all event items now come with. So you can either keep your super special event item or sell it on. Those that wait until after the event to get an item don't get the "rare" version. Both these options imbue the event skins with some resale value, which would make the current pricing more palatable.
THE OPTIONS
These are just my suggested fixes, feel free to make your own. I've seen a fair bit of discussion about this and I'm interested to hear others objective opinions.
1. Lower the prices
Not the best solution, I think there's better workarounds that suit what I assume are Klei's and the communities needs. I also doubt refunds are on the cards so this doesn't grandfather in very well.
2. Make everything marketable
Again, I'd suggest this only happening after the event ends, similar to how there's a trade restriction on TF2 items bought from the shop/SCM a similar timer could be added to items to show when they will be tradable/marketable. Or not, make it a surprise after the event ends. If rarity is an issue keep in mind that players can only craft up to one of a skin that they don't already own, so extras would only come from drops and people couldn't stockpile skins they think will be rare when the event ends. All duplicates could even turn into spools when an event ends if you want to be extra mean about it.
3. Timeless Skins
All event skins come with a (Timeless) tag and are untradable/unmarketable until you choose to craft it into a tradable/marketable version that loses the tag. You get your super special skin, and little Timmy gets the Wilson skin he so desperately wanted but couldn't afford during the event.
4. Marketable/Tradable Spools
This is a sort of compromise. If you could craft spools into a box/bundle of spools type item and sell it on the SCM or trade it to friends it would be the simplest workaround. You'd be able to get some value back out of event skins if you ever wanted to sell them, they wouldn't be completely worthless, Klei would make money from the SCM sales, people that didn't buy skins before because they were a poor "investment" might be tempted to if they had resale value. I'm pretty sure this would only net Klei extra profit, is there a downside?
5. Wildcard
Stop selling skins sets and start selling chests instead. Make everything tradable/marketable right from the start of an event but purchased chests have a higher chance for better items. Make the chests cheap enough that any left over money in peoples steam wallets might get used on them.
THE GOOD ENDING
Klei is still working out the kinks in the system, skin prices are subject to change/lower in price and some of these suggestions have already been thought about and might even be planned in the future. The prices are high because Klei feels they are worth that price or they assume not many people will buy the sets (it's Common for smaller businesses to charge more due to a smaller customer base but if there's a large enough customer base it makes sense to sell more of something for less). If this is the case, assuming there's a way, it would be nice if Klei looked into the event skin sales percentages vs active players percentages and tested out if selling them at a lower price (maybe half) for the next event net them double the sales (effectively keeping the profit the same but letting more people enjoy the skins).
THE BAD ENDING
Klei has realised that they can sell skins at a high price with no resale value and people will still buy them either to support them or for fear of not being able to acquire the skins in the future. The problem here is eventually people won't care anymore, the reason I was so happy to spend £11.99 on the Forge skins was that I felt like Klei deserved that money for all the hours I have enjoyed in DS/DST but with the introduction of the Winter's Feast skins and the fact that more events are planned I'm not sure if I can justify spending £20 or more on (functionally) nothing every year. It's especially irritating when I could be spending half that if the prices were halved and someone else who didn't buy the skins previously due to them being expensive made up the other half. By far the most worrying thing though is these skins not being tradable/marketable, it seems like a very calculated move when you combine it with the emphasis on collecting the new collections page has. Almost as if it's a way to exploit money out of completionists, of which there are many on steam (me somewhat included). Buy it now or never.
I apologise if this seems like a very glass half empty outlook but I can't help but notice the scent of foul play here, whether intentional or not. Steam quickly transformed into a massive collectathon with trading cards/badges/achievements and it's all targeted towards a certain demographic that either enjoys it or hates to have to participate. I'm somewhere in the middle but I'm not a fan of what Klei might be doing here. I hope I'm wrong and just making nonsense out of logical business decisions but who knows. I'm sure some of you reading can't wait to call me an idiot that's overthinking it but I'm only saying all of this because I've had six or more years of being a Loyal customer and thinking of Klei as one of the best devs and I'd hate to see them become like (almost) everyone else.
TL;DR With their current implementation are event skins worth the money?