Why does VisuStella MZ cost more than RPG Maker MZ

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The Question This question has been asked for a while now. I figured we should touch upon it. The question is: "Why does VisuStella MZ's All Waves Collection library cost $100 when RPG Maker MZ itself costs $80?" Or some variation of it. Usually something along the lines of it costing more than RPG Maker MZ itself. The Answer Short Answer That's because you're looking at the cost of an entire plugin library versus the individual plugins that come along with it. Don't look at it as one product. Instead, look at it as 50+ products (or more specifically, 63 plugins as of Wave 8). The Long Answer That's because we've made plugins over time for the All Waves Collection library. In this library, there are 63 plugins as of Wave 8. Each plugin that is made has its own individual cost. Buying the All Waves Collection is entirely optional and you could easily buy the plugins individually for $3 to $15 each or by the waves they are a part of for $25 each. Individually, each plugin costs $1.59 each (rounded) if we're going by the $100 All Waves Collection bundle or $2 to $3 each (rounded) if we're going by the Waves format (of 8 to 10 plugins each). If we're to compare the total cost of all the plugins inside of the library (as of Wave 8) by their individual costs, we would get the following: Savings How much money does buying a Wave save versus buying the plugins individually? Wave Total Purchase Cost Saved 2 $66 62% 3 $65 61% 4 $63 60% 5 $76 67% 6 $70 64% 7 $82 69% 8 $72 65% How much money does buying a the All Waves Collection versus buying all Waves separately? Waves Bought Total Cost Saved 4 Waves $100 Break Even 5 Waves $125 20% 6 Waves $150 33% 7 Waves $175 42% The purchase of the All Waves Collection is equivalent to the purchase of 4 waves. The purchase of the All Waves Collection means you have saved 42% of the money you would have spent otherwise buying the individual waves separately. Keep in mind, this is assuming that we don't have the 25% per wave discount system going on. For clarity on what the 25% per wave discount system is, it means that for each wave you own, the total purchase price of the All Waves Collection will cost $25 less up to a cap of $100, which means you essentially get the All Waves Collection for free if you were to buy 4 of any combination of wave bundles. The discounts are cumulative. If you own one wave, the All Waves Collection costs $75. If you own two waves, it costs $50. If you own three waves, it costs $25. If you own four or more, it's free. This means if you are unsure if you want to commit to buying the All Waves Collection bundle, you can safely purchase them by waves instead until you are sure the All Waves Bundle has met the value for $100. Unfair Comparison = That said, we want to make mention that the comparison of the entire VisuStella MZ All Waves Bundle collection library cost to the cost of RPG Maker MZ is unfair. Once again, because you are not purchase one product, you are purchasing many. Let's take a look at some other examples: RPG Maker DLC Let's take a look at all of the available DLC for RPG Maker MZ by checking RPG Maker MZ on the compatibility list. As of the date this article is written (April 24, 2021), Category Total Cost Relative Cost to RMMZ's $80 Animations $76 95% Battlebacks $344 430% Characters $1236 1545% Enemies and Battlers $886 1107% Event Backgrounds $154 192% Generator Parts $70 87% Music and Sound $2167 2708% Recommended $239 298% Tileset $1373 1716% User Interface $185 231% Voice Pack $693 866% End of Article