Mike O'Briens's new response to high priced Mount skins

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @maddoctor.2738 said:

> > @Korval.3751 said:

> > MO:

> > > What our data shows is that higher-priced flashy individual items can work, and lower-average-price-per-item bundles can work, but lower-priced individual items generally don’t generate meaningful revenue to support the game. And the whole point of these items is to support the game.

> >

> > I work for a large E-commerce company and that makes a ton of sense and cents. There's a weird price point. Item priced too low are seen as not worth much or too common. Too high and it prices people out. Looks like Anet figured out the sweet spot that works to keep the game funded.

>

> I'd want to know how much revenue they get from players converting gems to gold

 

The price of the gems...

[Asum.4960]

> @LanfearShadowflame.3189 said:

> We don't know how much more work it takes to make a mount skin vs an outfit or a glider. Additionally how much work is it to do a complete reskin like the Reforged Hound and the Peacock Raptor (complete with distinct sounds, animations, etc) vs reskins like those in the Adoption Kit? Those are 400 gems a piece, which is right on par with gliders. They are also much more simple - basic recolors and minor tweaks to the models. The 2k gem ones are _almost_ different creatures in their reworks of the base skeleton. Its all about the work put into it, imo. Others may not see it this way, but to me this is no different than the beadwork ornament and candle covers I make. The very basic covers are $5 or $10 (depends on the size of the object its going over), the more elaborate ones range upwards of $40-$45. Because they require more time, more effort, more materials. With mounts a basic reskin just requires an artist, full reskins with animations, sounds, etc, require other departments - developers to map animations, sound techs, etc.

 

I'm pretty sure none of this really has anything to do with the work put into it.

Look at PoF and it's price and how that pays for the modeling and crafting of all the maps, of all the Forged Models, Awakened, Djinn etc., writing of story and dialoge, recording and voice acting, sound design and coming up with new mechanics, specialisations and balance work, or any other game release for that matter.

It works because you only create it once, and then sell it thousands, if not millions, of times.

 

A single model for 25€ has nothing to do with effort put in, they could sell the Mount skins for 20 cents and make a profit, but whale baiting simply makes more cash (it has to, otherwise companies wouldn't do it).

You also can't compare it to realworld material goods, since every one of those not only has a material cost, but also work time that goes into each creation that you sell.

Imagine you could make your candle covers **once** and then sell them an unlimited amount forever at no extra cost or effort. Would you be comfortable to keep seeling them at 20 to 40€ with thousands of customers, or would that feel greedy?

That's the benefit of digital goods and defending such high prices for a single ingame model based on effort put in is nonsene.

 

The problem of low gem prices just being bought with Gold to Gem, which I have seen a couple times now, isn't a problem either.

Firstly, for someone to buy gems with gold, someone else had to buy and then sell those gems for gold first, Anet still makes the money for the gem purchase.

Secondly, if Anet would continuously sell fairly priced high quality gem items, instead of putting them into gambling boxes like BLC or MAL, people would quickly run out of gold to buy gems with and buy gems directly as well due to impulse purchases.

If the gemstore is full of only absolute macropurchases for months, while people farm gold, ofc when there finally is a well priced item which people want, it just get's bought with gold instead.

To then turn around and say _"lower-priced individual items generally don’t generate meaningful revenue to support the game."_ is utter nonsense, you just never really tried.

 

The Prices are completely made up, and it just comes down to a marketing guy looking at skewed data with how business was done in the past, and calculating from that the likelihood that x people will buy the mount for 25€ as higher than 5x people buying the mount for 5€ or 50x people buying the mount for 50 cents.

And if one day they calculate that selling mount skins to only 100 players, who have been identified to spend insane amounts of money, for 5000€ a skin, then I guess that's what they will do.

 

I personally don't agree with that way of making business, where profit is looked at and calculated in a vacuum. But I guess enough people are fine with that by now, or even defend it. Why a human being in the position of a consumer would ever do that though, is beyond me.

[Deimos.4263]

I don't know what he was thinking. If this issue was dead, buried, and gone as so many of us on every possible side hoped...why poke at it again? Not smart.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @Asum.4960 said:

> > @LanfearShadowflame.3189 said:

> > We don't know how much more work it takes to make a mount skin vs an outfit or a glider. Additionally how much work is it to do a complete reskin like the Reforged Hound and the Peacock Raptor (complete with distinct sounds, animations, etc) vs reskins like those in the Adoption Kit? Those are 400 gems a piece, which is right on par with gliders. They are also much more simple - basic recolors and minor tweaks to the models. The 2k gem ones are _almost_ different creatures in their reworks of the base skeleton. Its all about the work put into it, imo. Others may not see it this way, but to me this is no different than the beadwork ornament and candle covers I make. The very basic covers are $5 or $10 (depends on the size of the object its going over), the more elaborate ones range upwards of $40-$45. Because they require more time, more effort, more materials. With mounts a basic reskin just requires an artist, full reskins with animations, sounds, etc, require other departments - developers to map animations, sound techs, etc.

>

> I'm pretty sure none of this really has anything to do with the work put into it.

> Look at PoF and it's price and how that pays for the modeling and crafting of all the maps, of all the Forged Models, Awakened, Djinn etc., writing of story and dialoge, recording and voice acting, sound design and coming up with new mechanics, specialisations and balance work, or any other game release for that matter.

> It works because you only create it once, and then sell it thousands, if not millions, of times.

>

> A single model for 25€ has nothing to do with effort put in, they could sell the Mount skins for 20 cents and make a profit, but whale baiting simply makes more cash (it has to, otherwise companies wouldn't do it).

> You also can't compare it to realworld material goods, since every one of those not only has a material cost, but also work time that goes into each creation that you sell.

> Imagine you could make your candle covers **once** and then sell them an unlimited amount forever at no extra cost or effort. Would you be comfortable to keep seeling them at 20 to 40€ with thousands of customers, or would that feel greedy?

> That's the benefit of digital goods and defending such high prices for a single ingame model based on effort put in is nonsene.

>

> The problem of low gem prices just being bought with Gold to Gem, which I have seen a couple times now, isn't a problem either.

> Firstly, for someone to buy gems with gold, someone else had to buy and then sell those gems for gold first, Anet still makes the money for the gem purchase.

> Secondly, if Anet would continuously sell fairly priced high quality gem items, instead of putting them into gambling boxes like BLC or MAL, people would quickly run out of gold to buy gems with and buy gems directly as well due to impulse purchases.

> If the gemstore is full of only absolute macropurchases for months, while people farm gold, ofc when there finally is a well priced item which people want, it just get's bought with gold instead.

> To then turn around and say _"lower-priced individual items generally don’t generate meaningful revenue to support the game."_ is utter nonsense, you just never really tried.

>

> The Prices are completely made up, and it just comes down to a marketing guy looking at skewed data with how business was done in the past, and calculating from that the likelihood that x people will buy the mount for 25€ as higher than 5x people buying the mount for 5€ or 50x people buying the mount for 50 cents.

> And if one day they calculate that selling mount skins to only 100 players, who have been identified to spend insane amounts of money, for 5000€ a skin, then I guess that's what they will do.

>

> I personally don't agree with that way of making business, where profit is looked at and calculated in a vacuum. But I guess enough people are fine with that by now, or even defend it. Why a human being in the position of a consumer would ever do that though, is beyond me.

 

The problem is that what MO is saying makes no sense. There never was any data comparable.

The only items on that price range before were BUNDLES!

You can't really extrapolate a single item's value from a BUNDLE that usually is worth more than its price. So MO is absolutely talking out of is ass, because they have no basis of comparison for a single item costing 2000 gems.

The other single items that they've sold ALL fall within the price range that the majority seems to think is reasonable (800-1000 gems).

 

I know this will not work, but **i'd like to challenge Arena Net to show us the sales figures of the Forged Warhound, and the sales figures of the Balthazar Outfit on it's first release** (both have similar themes so you can't fault disparity of tastes for different numbers).

[LanfearShadowflame.3189]

> @Asum.4960 said:

> I'm pretty sure none of this really has anything to do with the work put into it.

> Look at PoF and it's price and how that pays for the modeling and crafting of all the maps, of all the Forged Models, Awakened, Djinn etc., writing of story and dialoge, recording and voice acting, sound design and coming up with new mechanics, specialisations and balance work, or any other game release for that matter.

> It works because you only create it once, and then sell it thousands, if not millions, of times.

>

> A single model for 25€ has nothing to do with effort put in, they could sell the Mount skins for 20 cents and make a profit, but whale baiting simply makes more cash (it has to, otherwise companies wouldn't do it).

> You also can't compare it to realworld material goods, since every one of those not only has a material cost, but also work time that goes into each creation that you sell.

> Imagine you could make your candle covers **once** and then sell them an unlimited amount forever at no extra cost or effort. Would you be comfortable to keep seeling them at 20 to 40€ with thousands of customers, or would that feel greedy?

> That's the benefit of digital goods and defending such high prices for a single ingame model based on effort put in is nonsene.

>

> The problem of low gem prices just being bought with Gold to Gem, which I have seen a couple times now, isn't a problem either.

> Firstly, for someone to buy gems with gold, someone else had to buy and then sell those gems for gold first, Anet still makes the money for the gem purchase.

> Secondly, if Anet would continuously sell fairly priced high quality gem items, instead of putting them into gambling boxes like BLC or MAL, people would quickly run out of gold to buy gems with and buy gems directly as well due to impulse purchases.

> If the gemstore is full of only absolute macropurchases for months, while people farm gold, ofc when there finally is a well priced item which people want, it just get's bought with gold instead.

> To then turn around and say _"lower-priced individual items generally don’t generate meaningful revenue to support the game."_ is utter nonsense, you just never really tried.

>

> The Prices are completely made up, and it just comes down to a marketing guy looking at skewed data with how business was done in the past, and calculating from that the likelihood that x people will buy the mount for 25€ as higher than 5x people buying the mount for 5€ or 50x people buying the mount for 50 cents.

> And if one day they calculate that selling mount skins to only 100 players, who have been identified to spend insane amounts of money, for 5000€ a skin, then I guess that's what they will do.

>

> I personally don't agree with that way of making business, where profit is looked at and calculated in a vacuum. But I guess enough people are fine with that by now, or even defend it. Why a human being in the position of a consumer would ever do that though, is beyond me.

 

This is an asinine way of looking at this. How many people worked on the mount skin? How long did each spend? How much is each paid per hour? Was anything sketched by hand and consume any type of "real world" material? We know they don't do everything digitally all the time. Even if the stockpiling of the skins was factored in as part of PoF development, thats still time and effort. Both of which are money. Marketing is only one component. For kittens sake, Anet has to pay their employees a livable wage. Stop disregarding this factor, it does play a role. Claiming they can sell a skin for "20 cents" and make a profit is absolutely asinine because you refuse to look at any other factor.

 

You don't like the price. You don't like Mo's reasoning. And that's all perfectly fine. So don't buy it. You can tell them you don't agree with the price both by stating such as well as by not buying it, but there's absolutely no reason to be unreasonable about it. I don't like the price either, but you don't see me being a complete douche about it. Its a nice skin, I just won't buy it for that price. There will be plenty of people that will. There will be plenty of people that continue to purchase other things from the store that they consider 'reasonably' priced. And there will be people that farm their little lives away to trade gold for gems to get all the above.

[Tekoneiric.6817]

I don't understand why they aren't pushing the GW universe towards other media forms; books, movies or maybe even a Game of Thrones like series. The TV and movie industry is starved for fresh content. It would help them pay for keeping the games running without charging excessive prices for gem store items. They could use the game engine to story board it to market the media rights.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @LanfearShadowflame.3189 said:

> This is an asinine way of looking at this. How many people worked on the mount skin? How long did each spend? How much is each paid per hour? Was anything sketched by hand and consume any type of "real world" material? We know they don't do everything digitally all the time. Even if the stockpiling of the skins was factored in as part of PoF development, thats still time and effort. Both of which are money. Marketing is only one component. For kittens sake, Anet has to pay their employees a livable wage. Stop disregarding this factor, it does play a role. Claiming they can sell a skin for "20 cents" and make a profit is absolutely asinine because you refuse to look at any other factor.

>

> You don't like the price. You don't like Mo's reasoning. And that's all perfectly fine. So don't buy it. You can tell them you don't agree with the price both by stating such as well as by not buying it, but there's absolutely no reason to be unreasonable about it. I don't like the price either, but you don't see me being a complete kitten about it. Its a nice skin, I just won't buy it for that price. There will be plenty of people that will. There will be plenty of people that continue to purchase other things from the store that they consider 'reasonably' priced. And there will be people that farm their little lives away to trade gold for gems to get all the above.

 

Look up Scale economy. Selling a lot for lower prices > selling a few at higher prices.

And Gem store stuff is the PERFECT medium for this, because the initial cost is fixed, and there's no added cost for quantity increments. The issue is that Arena Net aren't economists (the one economist in there obviously sux, because the only thing he ever achieved with changes was mess up the economy so much he had to vow never to mess with it anymore), and they're US American.

I'm sorry, not trying to insult anyone, but there's business practices in the US that are simply abhorrent to the rest of the civilized world (look up the net neutrality issue, and Health costs), which inures the country's population to those less savoury practices. So what is simply regarded as toxic and predatory in Europe, for example, might seem perfectly fine in the US, because its the Norm.

 

[alcopaul.2156]

the same reason that few people buy ducati motors, porsche cars and rolex watches. flashiest items are not for the masses.

[Asum.4960]

> @LanfearShadowflame.3189 said:

> This is an asinine way of looking at this. How many people worked on the mount skin? How long did each spend? How much is each paid per hour? Was anything sketched by hand and consume any type of "real world" material? We know they don't do everything digitally all the time. Even if the stockpiling of the skins was factored in as part of PoF development, thats still time and effort. Both of which are money. Marketing is only one component. For kittens sake, Anet has to pay their employees a livable wage. Stop disregarding this factor, it does play a role. Claiming they can sell a skin for "20 cents" and make a profit is absolutely asinine because you refuse to look at any other factor.

>

> You don't like the price. You don't like Mo's reasoning. And that's all perfectly fine. So don't buy it. You can tell them you don't agree with the price both by stating such as well as by not buying it, but there's absolutely no reason to be unreasonable about it. I don't like the price either, but you don't see me being a complete kitten about it. Its a nice skin, I just won't buy it for that price. There will be plenty of people that will. There will be plenty of people that continue to purchase other things from the store that they consider 'reasonably' priced. And there will be people that farm their little lives away to trade gold for gems to get all the above.

 

How on earth did they concept and model all the base mounts, all variety of Forged, Awakened, Choya, Iboga, Forgotten, Hydras, Djinn, Junundu's and on and on. Model characters like Vlast, designing all the maps, create story instances, writing, voice acting and designing Elite Specs all for a combined price of 30€, if a single model based on a previous skeleton and animation work, costs 25€ for them to make a living?

AAA games would cost easily 10000€ per box by that logic.

 

I get that human brains didn't evolve to comprehend the nature of unlimited goods and how easily they can generate profit by making a product once and then selling it hundreds, thousands of times at no additional cost, but come on.

 

You factor a piece of sketch paper into the price of a digital good that can be sold thousands of times at no additional cost, generating potentially over hundred thousand Dollars in revenue?

That's insane thinking.

 

You also completely disregard that a lower price means more units sold (again, at no additional cost, unlike material goods).

Nobody is asking for Anet to go hungry here.

 

Also you don't need to keep telling me not to buy these skins, when I already stated in this thread that I will not.

That doesn't mean that I can't still criticise the pricing that lead me to that decision, considering I want to support Anet, but not at all costs.

 

My main argument being that this business practice is bad for the game long term and why, also seems to be disregarded in favour of insinuating entitlement and that I'm just crying about the shiny I want being to expensive for me.

So let me just say, I wouldn't buy any of the 2000 Gem mounts so far even if they were 400 gems, they are just not my thing.

 

I couldn't care less about a couple of skins, I'm concerned for the future of this franchise and the gaming industry as a whole.

Lootboxes and macrotransaktions are a bubble, and you can't just keep blowing them up forever without them bursting one day.

[Torolan.5816]

> @Tekoneiric.6817 said:

> I don't understand why they aren't pushing the GW universe towards other media forms; books, movies or maybe even a Game of Thrones like series. The TV and movie industry is starved for fresh content. It would help them pay for keeping the games running without charging excessive prices for gem store items. They could use the game engine to story board it to market the media rights.

 

Because the story of GW does not make sense on many levels and is full of turns just for the heck of it. And believe it or not, Dystopia is not really popular with the target groups of fantasy novels. A really good and popular series can have some plotholes(TWD and the guaranteed zombie affliction for example), but it can´t afford to be n ocean with some solid isles in it.

 

Let´s take D&D as a classic example. There are three movies, one is a total trainwreck, one is so-so and the last one is just a bomb, not a total bomb. Why? Because D&D has a diehard fanbase, but nothing else. Nobody understood why luring a beholder of all guards possible away with a thrown stone(it has a 360° line of sight) is a supremely bad idea, or why the Dwarf was a homeless barbarian and comedic relief, the list goes on and on. I would argue that the critically burned alive Dungeon Siege with Jason Statham was still better than the best D&D movie by a wide margin. The best thing about D&D in any other media than RPG was a very, very old cartoon series.

[LanfearShadowflame.3189]

> @ReaverKane.7598 said:

> > @LanfearShadowflame.3189 said:

> > This is an asinine way of looking at this. How many people worked on the mount skin? How long did each spend? How much is each paid per hour? Was anything sketched by hand and consume any type of "real world" material? We know they don't do everything digitally all the time. Even if the stockpiling of the skins was factored in as part of PoF development, thats still time and effort. Both of which are money. Marketing is only one component. For kittens sake, Anet has to pay their employees a livable wage. Stop disregarding this factor, it does play a role. Claiming they can sell a skin for "20 cents" and make a profit is absolutely asinine because you refuse to look at any other factor.

> >

> > You don't like the price. You don't like Mo's reasoning. And that's all perfectly fine. So don't buy it. You can tell them you don't agree with the price both by stating such as well as by not buying it, but there's absolutely no reason to be unreasonable about it. I don't like the price either, but you don't see me being a complete kitten about it. Its a nice skin, I just won't buy it for that price. There will be plenty of people that will. There will be plenty of people that continue to purchase other things from the store that they consider 'reasonably' priced. And there will be people that farm their little lives away to trade gold for gems to get all the above.

>

> Look up Scale economy. Selling a lot for lower prices > selling a few at higher prices.

> And Gem store stuff is the PERFECT medium for this, because the initial cost is fixed, and there's no added cost for quantity increments. The issue is that Arena Net aren't economists (the one economist in there obviously sux, because the only thing he ever achieved with changes was mess up the economy so much he had to vow never to mess with it anymore), and they're US American.

> I'm sorry, not trying to insult anyone, but there's business practices in the US that are simply abhorrent to the rest of the civilized world (look up the net neutrality issue, and Health costs), which inures the country's population to those less savoury practices. So what is simply regarded as toxic and predatory in Europe, for example, might seem perfectly fine in the US, because its the Norm.

>

 

I'm aware of the concept. Its something I've discussed to some extent previously. Obviously the object is to make the most profit off of any item in question. Mo stated what their data showed, which I'm going to take with a grain of salt. They have the info, we don't. We can't see it and make any assessments ourselves, so I'm going to take him at his word. He hasn't proven himself false as yet, from my perspective. The assumption being made here is that _if_ it were a lower price point it would sell more. We have no way of verifying that, and unlike anet, we have no data to track trends. We only have the few here on the forums that say they "would" buy it, and I'm sure some that say they would in the long run wouldn't. If it doesnt work out for them, they'll change it. We've seen them do it before.

[LanfearShadowflame.3189]

> @Asum.4960 said:

> You also completely disregard that a lower price means more units sold (again, at no additional cost, unlike material goods).

 

I'm not going to bother addressing anything else. I don't have the time. But this...this line is an _assumption_. Which the reality of may or may not be true. We have nothing to back this up though. No trends for gemstore sales on which to base anything. Based on _other_ things, based on our own actions, and so on we assume that it would sell more if it were a lower cost, and that _isn't_ necessarily true. Being a lower price doesn't make someone like it more, for example. So that person isn't going to buy it regardless.

[Thelgar.7214]

> @Shirlias.8104 said:

> > @Thelgar.7214 said:

> > Spooky Mounts Pack - 1600 gems - 320 gems each. Cheap because seasonal and possibly lesser utility? Will this carry over into holiday weapon skins and such?

> > Random Mounts - 400 gems each.

> > Individual mounts - 2000 gems each.

> > Would be nice if Anet would just give us a straight answer as to whether we'll see mount skins in the 800-ish gem range or if 2000 gems is going to be the standard for individual mounts. If some mounts are going to be expensive and some reasonable, then that isn't that bad. But if our only options going forward are holiday mounts, random mounts or expensive mounts, that sucks.

>

> Err, Random mounts Pack was 9600, which is exactly 320 gems per mount as the spooky pack.

> It is obvious that outside the bundle mounts cost more ( 25% more ).

>

> Individual mounts do have work behind them if compared to recolor or slightly reskins, and there's no disagree about this.

> About the price i am not sure ( as i am not sure about the effort needed in order to create an outfit, an amor or a mount. Which requires more time i mean ).

 

Random mounts are 400 each. At 9600, they weren't random and required a bulk purchase at a high $120 price point (and that package isn't available anymore). The 10-pack bundle of random mounts which is available costs 3400 (340 each - a 15% discount). So it isn't obvious that outside a bundle there is a 25% price increase. None of which has any relevance on the point that it would be nice to get a straight answer as to whether there will be non-random purchases at the 800-ish price point.

 

As to the effort of creating a mount skin, it seems unlikely to take close to three times as long to create as an outfit which is what the difference in cost is - 2000 vs. 700. This again wouldn't have any relevance in regard to it being nice to getting to know if 800-ish mount skins are going to be coming. It could be the initial prices are high to cover the costs of developing the meshes and tools or because it is taking longer because the system is new (as initial prices often are higher until manufacturing efficiency improves).

[IndigoSundown.5419]

> @Asum.4960 said:

>

> How on earth did they concept and model all the base mounts, all variety of Forged, Awakened, Choya, Iboga, Forgotten, Hydras, Djinn, Junundu's and on and on. Model characters like Vlast, designing all the maps, create story instances, writing, voice acting and designing Elite Specs all for a combined price of 30€, if a single model based on a previous skeleton and animation work, costs 25€ for them to make a living?

> AAA games would cost easily 10000€ per box by that logic.

 

Ever hear of a loss leader? MMO's make money via long term sales. The box price defrays expenses, but the box is what gets people in the door. WoW makes $50 per expansion pack, but rents access to the game for $15/month for the 23 months between packs (one month comes free with box). $345 > $50. That rental fee is where they make money. The same thing applies with shop-based monetization. Free to play games don't even have box fees, yet they make money.

 

> I get that human brains didn't evolve to comprehend the nature of unlimited goods and how easily they can generate profit by making a product once and then selling it hundreds, thousands of times at no additional cost, but come on.

>

> You factor a piece of sketch paper into the price of a digital good that can be sold thousands of times at no additional cost, generating potentially over hundred thousand Dollars in revenue?

> That's insane thinking.

>

> You also completely disregard that a lower price means more units sold (again, at no additional cost, unlike material goods).

> Nobody is asking for Anet to go hungry here.

 

Free to play games are also difficult to comprehend. Even with the lower production values, they are able to make the game, produce some content updates (never enough, but that's also true with WoW) and make a profit. Those shops tend to have a mix of lower-priced items for the minnows and higher-priced items for the whales. I doubt that those F2P games would keep corporate management happy based only on $2-$5 item sales.

 

> Also you don't need to keep telling me not to buy these skins, when I already stated in this thread that I will not.

> That doesn't mean that I can't still criticise the pricing that lead me to that decision, considering I want to support Anet, but not at all costs.

>

> My main argument being that this business practice is bad for the game long term and why, also seems to be disregarded in favour of insinuating entitlement and that I'm just crying about the shiny I want being to expensive for me.

> So let me just say, I wouldn't buy any of the 2000 Gem mounts so far even if they were 400 gems, they are just not my thing.

>

> I couldn't care less about a couple of skins, I'm concerned for the future of this franchise and the gaming industry as a whole.

> Lootboxes and macrotransaktions are a bubble, and you can't just keep blowing them up forever without them bursting one day.

 

I understand both the concern for the game and the desire for entertainment frou-frou items at reasonable prices. I'd like to believe that lower-ticket items (there still are quite a few in the store, it's just that mount outfits are not among them unless you want the RNG approach) are the best approach for the game's financial viability. Given the explicit statement in the Reddit post (versus the easily-missed allusion in the original response), apparently bigger-ticket items are going to be a regular thing in the GW2 store going forward. You're choosing to believe that ANet is making a mistake. However, as Lanfear says, they have the data and we do not. Maybe, just maybe, there are enough GW2 whales playing and paying to make a difference in the bottom line.

 

Surely you've noticed the declining revenue from the store over the time when almost all style items were $10 or under? I have. Based on revenue in initial sales quarters, HoT outsold PoF by a lot of units. Maybe this quarter will show a big revenue spike for PoF. Maybe it won't. Fact is, game populations tend to shrink over time, with a few exceptions. Smaller population means lower-ticket items attract a smaller number of buyers. Maybe once tastes are factored in (as do you, I found neither 2K gem mounts appealing), selling 50 items for 2K each is better than selling 120 for 400 each. (numbers pulled from thin air; for illustration only)

 

Food for thought.

[Leo G.4501]

> @Asum.4960 said:

> A single model for 25€ has nothing to do with effort put in, they could sell the Mount skins for 20 cents and make a profit, but whale baiting simply makes more cash (it has to, otherwise companies wouldn't do it).

> You also can't compare it to realworld material goods, since every one of those not only has a material cost, but also work time that goes into each creation that you sell.

> Imagine you could make your candle covers **once** and then sell them an unlimited amount forever at no extra cost or effort. Would you be comfortable to keep seeling them at 20 to 40€ with thousands of customers, or would that feel greedy?

 

I love these arguments.

 

There are so many other costs involved, it's not so easy to just assume. So what is stopping someone else from copying your candle cover design and making money off of it? You gonna trademark it? What if someone already copied it, you gonna sue? What if someone accuses you of copying them, are you going to defend yourself? How about distribution? Do you ship your magically infinite candle covers? Or do you have some sort of website that you use to distribute them? Packaging? How about advertisement?

 

You can assume it's greed but unless you've got the books in front of you, how can you tell? Again, you can thank your lucky stars that Wildstar exists so that GW2 isn't the 1st choice on the chopping block.

 

[Loosifah.4738]

> All I can say is goodbye I am done with games that are complete microtransaction messes. Wow is far cheaper at 15$ a month.

 

Buh-Bye. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

 

P.S. You don't need to spend a single dollar on the cash shop micro transactions to play this game; It's all cosmetic stuff. So the comparison to that horrible game WoW is invalid.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @LanfearShadowflame.3189 said:

> > @Asum.4960 said:

> > You also completely disregard that a lower price means more units sold (again, at no additional cost, unlike material goods).

>

> I'm not going to bother addressing anything else. I don't have the time. But this...this line is an _assumption_. Which the reality of may or may not be true. We have nothing to back this up though. No trends for gemstore sales on which to base anything. Based on _other_ things, based on our own actions, and so on we assume that it would sell more if it were a lower cost, and that _isn't_ necessarily true. Being a lower price doesn't make someone like it more, for example. So that person isn't going to buy it regardless.

 

Sure, but a lot of people that actually will like it won't buy it because he can feed his family with that money.

We don't have the data, but, except for the Warhound, which, looking at sightings in game, there aren't that many... Most people i've asked saw at most a couple of them.

Now look at any outfit in the game that costs 800 gems. As soon as it comes out the game gets flooded with people wearing them. So it's not hard to be fairly certain, even without data, that the price did influence the sales negatively.

 

Sure we don't have the data... But no data is presented... Why is that? I mean, they could show us Sales revenue of The warhound, vs sales revenue of outfits, in a comparable amount of time. Sure it wouldn't change the fact that it's expensive, but it would vindicate their point of view. Yet they won't produce it, because MO's statement is likely just a smokescreen, because nothing in the game has ever been sold at that price-tag that was a single cosmetic item, so what data did they have?

Bundles? It's right there in the description, the actual value of the bundle is higher than the gem cost.

Gathering tools? Permanent Contracts? Both have actual usability and bring QoL, not just cosmetics. So i'm curious, what metrics did they use to predict sales and establish a price?

I'll tell you what: HYPE.

[Biff.5312]

The whole speech says basically nothing. It also fails to recognise the difference between objecting to an expensive item that we may not think is worth it, and an item we have to gamble for. If all the mount skins were available at 1000 gems, I would be far more likely to simply buy the one I want. They might even get more revenue this way, as a lot of people don't want to gamble on a long shot.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @Biff.5312 said:

> The whole speech says basically nothing. It also fails to recognise the difference between objecting to an expensive item that we may not think is worth it, and an item we have to gamble for. If all the mount skins were available at 1000 gems, I would be far more likely to simply buy the one I want. They might even get more revenue this way, as a lot of people don't want to gamble on a long shot.

 

This is mostly about the 2000 gem ones, not the RNG. All in all Mount skins are problematic... They overestimated the hype.

[Loosifah.4738]

> @ReaverKane.7598 said:

> > @Biff.5312 said:

> > The whole speech says basically nothing. It also fails to recognise the difference between objecting to an expensive item that we may not think is worth it, and an item we have to gamble for. If all the mount skins were available at 1000 gems, I would be far more likely to simply buy the one I want. They might even get more revenue this way, as a lot of people don't want to gamble on a long shot.

>

> This is mostly about the 2000 gem ones, not the RNG. All in all Mount skins are problematic... They overestimated the hype.

 

Which is why everyone wants them; right?

[Biff.5312]

 

> This is mostly about the 2000 gem ones, not the RNG. All in all Mount skins are problematic... They overestimated the hype.

 

Is it? I mean that is a stupid price, translated to real dollars it's not reasonable. But, I would also simply never buy it. Most of the complaints I've been seeing are not about this single item - they're more about the evident choice of either paying too much for a chosen skin, or paying too much because you have to gamble on a reasonably-priced skin.

[Esterie.7409]

This is my $.02 on the matter, so take of this what you will.

 

If they had released a few more 5-skin bundles like the spooky mount pack before additional 2,000 gem individual skins, perhaps the blowout wouldn't be quite this big because the gem/skin cost and value is more inline with how the majority of us expected it to be (kind of a bummer you need to commit to 5 skins if you only like 1 or 2, however). But we can only acquire skins via three methods:

 

1 30-skin RNG box

2 2,000 gem individual skins

1 5-skin pack

 

While my ideal situation for mount skins was for them to be priced similarly to gliders at 400-800 gems each, the 5-skin pack is the most desirable to me out of our current acquisition methods for the quantity of skins compared to the cost (and seeing exactly what I'm purchasing, something the RNG box does not do... being RNG and all). I wish we had more 5-skin packs to choose from, so that it wouldn't seem that the focus is primarily on the more expensive 2,000 gem individual skins (which I think this is too high a price point to begin with, individual skins should never cost close to the price of an expansion).

 

**TL;DR** - My major issue at the moment is the seeming focus on the more expensive (overpriced) individual skins instead of 5-skin packs.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @Biff.5312 said:

>

> > This is mostly about the 2000 gem ones, not the RNG. All in all Mount skins are problematic... They overestimated the hype.

>

> Is it? I mean that is a stupid price, translated to real dollars it's not reasonable. But, I would also simply never buy it. Most of the complaints I've been seeing are not about this single item - they're more about the evident choice of either paying too much for a chosen skin, or paying too much because you have to gamble on a reasonably-priced skin.

 

Exactly, the problem is that we're losing both ways, so there's no real choice in the matter. But this latest response was mostly on the excessive prices.

[Asum.4960]

> @"Leo G.4501" said:

> I love these arguments.

>

> There are so many other costs involved, it's not so easy to just assume. So what is stopping someone else from copying your candle cover design and making money off of it? You gonna trademark it? What if someone already copied it, you gonna sue? What if someone accuses you of copying them, are you going to defend yourself? How about distribution? Do you ship your magically infinite candle covers? Or do you have some sort of website that you use to distribute them? Packaging? How about advertisement?

>

> You can assume it's greed but unless you've got the books in front of you, how can you tell? Again, you can thank your lucky stars that Wildstar exists so that GW2 isn't the 1st choice on the chopping block.

 

How does that translate into the digital economy in a game? Nobody can just copy a GW2 mount and sell it GW2 as well.

What you are saying is, that gamedevs are in an even better spot than someone with a infinite product they only have to create once to sell forever.

They also have complete control of the economy the product is in and no competition or copycats while also completely lacking distribution costs.

 

Microtransactions are better than a literal goldmine, even without Lootboxes and bloated prices.

 

Your post is worded in a way as to refute my arguments while doing the arguing for me, which is kind of confusing (I can't tell if you were being sarcastic).

 

E:/

> @IndigoSundown.5419 said:

> You're choosing to believe that ANet is making a mistake. However, as Lanfear says, they have the data and we do not. Maybe, just maybe, there are enough GW2 whales playing and paying to make a difference in the bottom line.

 

It really comes down to this. We simply don't have the numbers, so both sides of the argument can only speculate.

Was PoF a Loss-Leader or did it rake in thousands in profit? How much staying power will the product have in continuous sales?

Is the Gemstore declining, if so why?

Is it the lack of actual microtransactions for impulse buyers, or do we need more whale baits?

And which of the two is better for the games ingame economy and community long term?

 

At the end of the day, I'm not pretending to know all the answers, especially without having access to the data.

I'm just sharing my convictions and assumptions based on what I do know in the hopes of inspiring some people to look at the situation from a different angle, or come up with their own by engaging them in a discussion, which could in turn feed into and inspire my view.

 

I'm just not onboard with the starving game dev because game's are so expensive which runs contrary to everything we observe in the growing games industry.

[crashburntoo.7431]

I keep going back to the idea that the original adoption license skins could be released either by mount category or individually at a reasonable price (600 gems for specific or mount type, maybe 800 or 1200 gems for a specific, "premium"... the options are numerous). Here's what you accomplish by releasing "specials" or "save the animals!" adoption drives:

 

- **Increased sales volumes**, somebody will buy it with reduced or eliminated RNG if they're interested in the content

- **Customer satisfaction**, you've given us more options and a chance at items that some people liked but absolutely wouldn't chase under the RNG model

- **No additional effort**, ok, maybe not zero, since you need to come up with a marketing strategy, but no new development... the skins exist already

 

It's a low effort, high reward project. I get that there could be a waiting period, but even that is debatable. With a higher gem cost for reduced or eliminated RNG, cycling through these skins over the next 6-24 months would still leave the RNG adoption licenses as a lower cost per mount alternative. I think what I and many others were most upset about was that this plethora of mount skins was saved up and released all at once and completely locked behind RNG.

 

I'd really like to encourage Anet to look at this option. To me, it's low hanging fruit, and it's a great way to further apologize for the mount adoption release that was received so poorly. You can keep your 2000 gem Ultra Legendary mount skins coming. I won't buy them; the value will just never be there. However, others may be interested. I watched hundreds of dollars worth of aesthetic value go poof in Marvel Heroes Omega earlier this week, so I'm far more critical of my purchases and the inherent, long-term value.

 

Edit: My tangent became the message... regarding MoB's post, I find it very reasonable. I'm glad that they provided a little more insight, and I find it curious that flashy and package items have gotten more attention. I get that it can't be a shopping catalog, but careful releases on a schedule with variety in content and purchase options will always maximize your customer base. They can't be everything to everyone, but over time, they can cover a lot of bases. I hope they do give some serious thought to the idea above.