Fremtid.3528 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. They've actually already done something similar to this. At the beginning of the exchange people used to say that the fee anet takes out was something like 10 or 15% both ways but my friend looked at it recently and did the math and said now its more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayrilana.1396 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > > > > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. > > > > Except that’s it’s not a false statement. If you believe otherwise then explain how. > > > > I really hope that your suggestion wasn’t serious. Not many people would appreciate that type of deception. > > Gems are paid for with money. The value of gems to gold and gold to gems is dependent on sales of gems as well. So gems, even when bought with gold, were originally price-pointed with money. If lowering gem values caused them to have any significant issues, then ANet has a spending problem - not an income one. No. Anet could somehow release a year’s worth of new gemstore items that cost nothing for them to create. If all of these were bought through gold->gem conversions then they didn’t make any money. There’s a good reason why expansions were not available for purchase with gems otherwise Anet would have been making income from them if they were on there according to you. Edit: Do to the two exchange rates being different, it’s not a 1:1 exchange. Buying 800 gems with gold is not the same as exchanging 800 gem for gold. The net effect of this is an increasing gold supply within the exchange which increases the gold->gem rate. The only way for this to balance is if ~1,182 gems are exchanged for gold for every 800 gems bought with gold. If the prices were collectively reduced in the gemstore, this would make exchanging gems for gold more enticing than buying with cash for gemstore items. They’d be losing potential income. Exchanges of bought gems with cash for gold could increase due to that rate increasing but I don’t see it matching the cumulative impact of all prices being reduced. I don’t even see it doing that if just mount skin prices were reduced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReaverKane.7598 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. > > Except that’s it’s not a false statement. If you believe otherwise then explain how. > > I really hope that your suggestion wasn’t serious. Not many people would appreciate that type of deception. It's a false statement because 99% of gems in the game are bought with gold, the game doesn't generate gems for you to buy with gold, it sells you gems someone else traded for gold. And since, with the exception of the 400 gems you get with achievements, all gems in the game are the result of someone giving Arena Net money, there is no loss for Arena Net. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReaverKane.7598 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 > @"Fremtid.3528" said: > > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. > > They've actually already done something similar to this. At the beginning of the exchange people used to say that the fee anet takes out was something like 10 or 15% both ways but my friend looked at it recently and did the math and said now its more. > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > > > > > > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. > > > > > > Except that’s it’s not a false statement. If you believe otherwise then explain how. > > > > > > I really hope that your suggestion wasn’t serious. Not many people would appreciate that type of deception. > > > > Gems are paid for with money. The value of gems to gold and gold to gems is dependent on sales of gems as well. So gems, even when bought with gold, were originally price-pointed with money. If lowering gem values caused them to have any significant issues, then ANet has a spending problem - not an income one. > > No. Anet could somehow release a year’s worth of new gemstore items that cost nothing for them to create. If all of these were bought through gold->gem conversions then they didn’t make any money. There’s a good reason why expansions were not available for purchase with gems otherwise Anet would have been making income from them if they were on there according to you. Dude, you're misunderstanding something... If someone doesn't buy gold with gems, there are no gems to be bought with gold. All gems in the game, except the 400 you get for 5000 achievement points are bought with money by someone. Arena Net always gets it's money's worth out of gems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashen.2907 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 If I choose to trade a little bit of my gold for some gems instead of spending real money then Anet received less income than they might have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuddy.6247 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > > > > > > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. > > > > > > Except that’s it’s not a false statement. If you believe otherwise then explain how. > > > > > > I really hope that your suggestion wasn’t serious. Not many people would appreciate that type of deception. > > > > Gems are paid for with money. The value of gems to gold and gold to gems is dependent on sales of gems as well. So gems, even when bought with gold, were originally price-pointed with money. If lowering gem values caused them to have any significant issues, then ANet has a spending problem - not an income one. > > No. Anet could somehow release a year’s worth of new gemstore items that cost nothing for them to create. If all of these were bought through gold->gem conversions then they didn’t make any money. There’s a good reason why expansions were not available for purchase with gems otherwise Anet would have been making income from them if they were on there according to you. > > Edit: Do to the two exchange rates being different, it’s not a 1:1 exchange. Buying 800 gems with gold is not the same as exchanging 800 gem for gold. The net effect of this is an increasing gold supply within the exchange which increases the gold->gem rate. The only way for this to balance is if ~1,182 gems are exchanged for gold for every 800 gems bought with gold. > > If the prices were collectively reduced in the gemstore, this would make exchanging gems for gold more enticing than buying with cash for gemstore items. They’d be losing potential income. > > Exchanges of bought gems with cash for gold could increase due to that rate increasing but I don’t see it matching the cumulative impact of all prices being reduced. I don’t even see it doing that if just mount skin prices were reduced. They. Were. Paid. For. With. Money. No gems are generated with gold, they're generated with our purchases. If ANet struggled with additional revenue at their price points, it's a sign of a spending problem - not an income one. If I get $12,000 in student loans in September and I run my bank down to $0 by December, that's not a need to evaluate my income - it's a need to evaluate my spending. If everyone bought gems with gold for a year (which wouldn't even get to that point, but whatever, for the sake of the hypothetical here) - by the end it would cost such an astronomical amount of gold to get 400 gems people will be spending cash again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayrilana.1396 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 > @"ReaverKane.7598" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > > > > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. > > > > Except that’s it’s not a false statement. If you believe otherwise then explain how. > > > > I really hope that your suggestion wasn’t serious. Not many people would appreciate that type of deception. > > It's a false statement because 99% of gems in the game are bought with gold, the game doesn't generate gems for you to buy with gold, it sells you gems someone else traded for gold. > And since, with the exception of the 400 gems you get with achievements, all gems in the game are the result of someone giving Arena Net money, there is no loss for Arena Net. Never stated that gems entering the exchange were not bought with cash. I already explained myself further in a subsequent post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayrilana.1396 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > > > > > > > > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. > > > > > > > > Except that’s it’s not a false statement. If you believe otherwise then explain how. > > > > > > > > I really hope that your suggestion wasn’t serious. Not many people would appreciate that type of deception. > > > > > > Gems are paid for with money. The value of gems to gold and gold to gems is dependent on sales of gems as well. So gems, even when bought with gold, were originally price-pointed with money. If lowering gem values caused them to have any significant issues, then ANet has a spending problem - not an income one. > > > > No. Anet could somehow release a year’s worth of new gemstore items that cost nothing for them to create. If all of these were bought through gold->gem conversions then they didn’t make any money. There’s a good reason why expansions were not available for purchase with gems otherwise Anet would have been making income from them if they were on there according to you. > > > > Edit: Do to the two exchange rates being different, it’s not a 1:1 exchange. Buying 800 gems with gold is not the same as exchanging 800 gem for gold. The net effect of this is an increasing gold supply within the exchange which increases the gold->gem rate. The only way for this to balance is if ~1,182 gems are exchanged for gold for every 800 gems bought with gold. > > > > If the prices were collectively reduced in the gemstore, this would make exchanging gems for gold more enticing than buying with cash for gemstore items. They’d be losing potential income. > > > > Exchanges of bought gems with cash for gold could increase due to that rate increasing but I don’t see it matching the cumulative impact of all prices being reduced. I don’t even see it doing that if just mount skin prices were reduced. > > They. Were. Paid. For. With. Money. > > No gems are generated with gold, they're generated with our purchases. > > If ANet struggled with additional revenue at their price points, it's a sign of a spending problem - not an income one. If I get $12,000 in student loans in September and I run my bank down to $0 by December, that's not a need to evaluate my income - it's a need to evaluate my spending. If everyone bought gems with gold for a year (which wouldn't even get to that point, but whatever, for the sake of the hypothetical here) - by the end it would cost such an astronomical amount of gold to get 400 gems people will be spending cash again. Read my post. Just because gems entering the exchange are most likely bought with cash, does not mean that Anet is making money. Nowhere did I state that gems are generated with gold so please stop making it out as if I had said that. It’s not a necessarily a spending problem as I had shown in my post. The more people that choose to purchase gems with gold for gemstore items instead of cash is lost cash sales on the gemstore items. It takes considerably more gems to enter the exchange, than what’s taken out, to balance the exchange rates. Furthermore, if gemstore prices were all reduced, it entices players to more likely exchange gold for gems. How many do this will vary depending on their own person thresholds. The number of gems purchased with gold will increase so the number of gems exchanged for gold would need to match that increased rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReaverKane.7598 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 > @"Ashen.2907" said: > If I choose to trade a little bit of my gold for some gems instead of spending real money then Anet received less income than they might have. Well, that's a different thing. Gems already in the system don't cause a loss to Arena Net, since they're paid for. The rest is a hypothetical. It's more likely that people who would trade gold for gems wouldn't buy gems either way, and because that would create a even more emphasised "Pay to Win" perception, it would also reduce the amount of players in the game, because more players would be dissatisfied with the gem-store in a pay to play game. This would eventually also reduce the profit of players selling gems for gold, which in turn would result in less gems being bought. What you people forget is a simple fact: the Gemstore is for whales. And whales will use two services from the gemstore, they buy items and services from the gemstore, and they also buy **GOLD** from the gemstore. Gold which is supplied by **other players** and is resold by Arena Net. This alone is probably (i'm guessing though) their most steady source of income (not the greatest but the most constant, i'd wager). So players that sell gold for gems, are actually being a product, or at least a supplier of Arena Net's, not a liability. > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > > > > > > > > > > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. > > > > > > > > > > Except that’s it’s not a false statement. If you believe otherwise then explain how. > > > > > > > > > > I really hope that your suggestion wasn’t serious. Not many people would appreciate that type of deception. > > > > > > > > Gems are paid for with money. The value of gems to gold and gold to gems is dependent on sales of gems as well. So gems, even when bought with gold, were originally price-pointed with money. If lowering gem values caused them to have any significant issues, then ANet has a spending problem - not an income one. > > > > > > No. Anet could somehow release a year’s worth of new gemstore items that cost nothing for them to create. If all of these were bought through gold->gem conversions then they didn’t make any money. There’s a good reason why expansions were not available for purchase with gems otherwise Anet would have been making income from them if they were on there according to you. > > > > > > Edit: Do to the two exchange rates being different, it’s not a 1:1 exchange. Buying 800 gems with gold is not the same as exchanging 800 gem for gold. The net effect of this is an increasing gold supply within the exchange which increases the gold->gem rate. The only way for this to balance is if ~1,182 gems are exchanged for gold for every 800 gems bought with gold. > > > > > > If the prices were collectively reduced in the gemstore, this would make exchanging gems for gold more enticing than buying with cash for gemstore items. They’d be losing potential income. > > > > > > Exchanges of bought gems with cash for gold could increase due to that rate increasing but I don’t see it matching the cumulative impact of all prices being reduced. I don’t even see it doing that if just mount skin prices were reduced. > > > > They. Were. Paid. For. With. Money. > > > > No gems are generated with gold, they're generated with our purchases. > > > > If ANet struggled with additional revenue at their price points, it's a sign of a spending problem - not an income one. If I get $12,000 in student loans in September and I run my bank down to $0 by December, that's not a need to evaluate my income - it's a need to evaluate my spending. If everyone bought gems with gold for a year (which wouldn't even get to that point, but whatever, for the sake of the hypothetical here) - by the end it would cost such an astronomical amount of gold to get 400 gems people will be spending cash again. > > Read my post. Just because gems entering the exchange are most likely bought with cash, does not mean that Anet is making money. > > Nowhere did I state that gems are generated with gold so please stop making it out as if I had said that. > > It’s not a necessarily a spending problem as I had shown in my post. The more people that choose to purchase gems with gold for gemstore items instead of cash is lost cash sales on the gemstore items. It takes considerably more gems to enter the exchange, than what’s taken out, to balance the exchange rates. > > Furthermore, if gemstore prices were all reduced, it entices players to more likely exchange gold for gems. How many do this will vary depending on their own person thresholds. The number of gems purchased with gold will increase so the number of gems exchanged for gold would need to match that I increased rate. No it isn't?! Because there's still as many if not more people buying gold with gems than gems with gold!! If people stopped buying gems with gold, then the people who buy gold with gems would stop doing so, which would impact gem sales! There's more opportunities to buy stuff with gold than with gems. The evidence for this is that whenever there's a lull in gemstore items or a influx of gems from selling ultimate editions, the prices of Gems rapidly drops, and dramatically so(1), otherwise it's more or less constant, which means there's a good balance of gold buyers to gold sellers. Arena Net has all the information, and the tools to control prices and demand of gems, and they stick to this model, do you really think that if they were losing money they'd keep it? (1) One Month prior to PoF Launch (27 August 2017) gems had peaked at 33 gold per gem, by PoF's Launch they had droped 9 gold to 24g per gem, and kept dropping to 22g per gem (a ~30% drop) until Halloween Patch on October 17 which came with the first mount skins pack, and hiked the prices back up. Then later prices peaked again with the Mount Adoption license. But never above the prices from August 2017, which means there's a pretty good balance between supply and demand. 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Ayrilana.1396 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 > @"ReaverKane.7598" said: > No it isn't?! > Because there's still as many if not more people buying gold with gems than gems with gold!! If people stopped buying gems with gold, then the people who buy gold with gems would stop doing so, which would impact gem sales! There's more opportunities to buy stuff with gold than with gems. The evidence for this is that whenever there's a lull in gemstore items or a influx of gems from selling ultimate editions, the prices of Gems rapidly drops, and dramatically so(1), otherwise it's more or less constant, which means there's a good balance of gold buyers to gold sellers. > > Arena Net has all the information, and the tools to control prices and demand of gems, and they stick to this model, do you really think that if they were losing money they'd keep it? > > (1) One Month prior to PoF Launch (27 August 2017) gems had peaked at 33 gold per gem, by PoF's Launch they had droped 9 gold to 24g per gem, and kept dropping to 22g per gem (a ~30% drop) until Halloween Patch on October 17 which came with the first mount skins pack, and hiked the prices back up. Then later prices peaked again with the Mount Adoption license. But never above the prices from August 2017, which means there's a pretty good balance between supply and demand. This is based on what would happen if gem store prices were dropped. I’m not arguing about how things are right now. If prices dropped, more people would be enticed to purchase gems with gold. In order to maintain the current exchange rates at that time, roughly 1182 gems would need to be exchanged for gold. So for every 800 gems that players buy with gold ($10 value) Anet will need to have players buy $14.78 worth of gold through gems. That is to maintain the current exchange rates. If gemstore prices are dropped, in order to maintain the current exchange rates, the amount of gold bought with gold would also have to increase for the long term. If not, the amount of money they could have made from those who chose not to purchase gems with cash (who would have done so before the prices were dropped) will not be compensated by additional gem sales for gold in order to maintain current rates. In your example, prices dropped due to the ultimate edition for the expansion. You then had more gems entering the exchange system than what was being taken out so rates changed to reflect that. When the mount package came out, there was the typical spike in the rates due to players converting gold for gems. This happens with every update in the gem store whether it be an introduction of new items, the return of others, or sales. The reason it went back and stabilized was because the changes were due to the demand/supply sides. However, dropping prices is different as that would shift the curves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndigoSundown.5419 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 Why is ANet moving more towards higher-priced individual items and bundles? There are a number of possibilities that have not been touched on in the back-and-forth about gold-->gems. As the game ages, a number of things can happen. + The rate at which new players adopt the game slows. Veteran players drop out, permanently or temporarily. The overall active player population has likely decreased. Inactive players are not, as a rule, going to spend money on a game they are not playing. + Utility items (e.g., extra character, bag and bank slots) do not get added at the same rate as players can acquire them. That means that utility items are likely not contributing to ANet revenue at the same percentage as when the game was younger. + Assuming ANet wishes to continue to push out content and sale items at an attractive rate, their costs are not decreasing, and may in fact be increasing. + Items requiring a lot of gold enter the game at a slower rate than gem-store items. This means that players inclined to buy gold with gems have less reason to do so until the next infusion of gold-required stuff (like the Griffon mount). + In all likelihood, the pool of players who are willing to spend large amounts of real money (for gem-store items, or for gold) is also decreasing, although sinking large amounts of cash into a game may lead to that population remaining closer to static than the overall pool of players. So, ANet is likely faced with the need to generate similar or greater revenue from a smaller pool of players, with a potential drop-off in revenue from utility items. One answer to that dilemma is increasing the price of store items. The downside to that for ANet may be that the pool of players who are not deterred by higher prices may at some point diminish past the point where their contribution will be "enough." So, ANet also uses other tactics deigned to promote spending by the players who are deterred by higher ticket prices -- namely limited-time offers and sales on lower-priced items. Maybe not, but maybe worthy thinking about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReaverKane.7598 Posted April 27, 2018 Share Posted April 27, 2018 > @"IndigoSundown.5419" said: > Why is ANet moving more towards higher-priced individual items and bundles? There are a number of possibilities that have not been touched on in the back-and-forth about gold-->gems. As the game ages, a number of things can happen. > > + The rate at which new players adopt the game slows. Veteran players drop out, permanently or temporarily. The overall active player population has likely decreased. Inactive players are not, as a rule, going to spend money on a game they are not playing. > + Utility items (e.g., extra character, bag and bank slots) do not get added at the same rate as players can acquire them. That means that utility items are likely not contributing to ANet revenue at the same percentage as when the game was younger. > + Assuming ANet wishes to continue to push out content and sale items at an attractive rate, their costs are not decreasing, and may in fact be increasing. > + Items requiring a lot of gold enter the game at a slower rate than gem-store items. This means that players inclined to buy gold with gems have less reason to do so until the next infusion of gold-required stuff (like the Griffon mount). > + In all likelihood, the pool of players who are willing to spend large amounts of real money (for gem-store items, or for gold) is also decreasing, although sinking large amounts of cash into a game may lead to that population remaining closer to static than the overall pool of players. > > So, ANet is likely faced with the need to generate similar or greater revenue from a smaller pool of players, with a potential drop-off in revenue from utility items. One answer to that dilemma is increasing the price of store items. The downside to that for ANet may be that the pool of players who are not deterred by higher prices may at some point diminish past the point where their contribution will be "enough." So, ANet also uses other tactics deigned to promote spending by the players who are deterred by higher ticket prices -- namely limited-time offers and sales on lower-priced items. > > Maybe not, but maybe worthy thinking about. You're not wrong, except that the game apparently isn't losing players, and it's also quite apparent in-game, you see a lot of new and returning players if you care to look, so there's no risk of the game losing money. As i see it, the mount skin pricing was an example of Arena Net reaching too far and too greedily. Especially with the mount adoption licences (which btw, along with dye kits and BL chests might make the game illegal in at least Belgium and the Netherlands - both countries have declared Loot boxes illegal gambling, more to come) and the "premium" skins. One was a bit on the toxic gambly side, the other was just extremely overpriced. Judging from what's apparent in-game, The 2000 gems "premium" mounts didn't sell nearly as well as any of the other solutions. So this might simply be the case of Arena Net misjudging the hype and the statements from MO simply an attempt to smooth things over and justify the extreme cash grab (or they might simply be the carrot that pulls people towards the mount adoption licenses, that's not an unheard of marketing strategy). Time will tell if this was effective for Arena Net, or if it failed, but there's no doubt that in the context of the overall gemstore, Mount skins, especially the 2000 gem ones are overpriced. And the other options are nowhere near properly viable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuddy.6247 Posted April 28, 2018 Share Posted April 28, 2018 > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > > > > > > > > > > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. > > > > > > > > > > Except that’s it’s not a false statement. If you believe otherwise then explain how. > > > > > > > > > > I really hope that your suggestion wasn’t serious. Not many people would appreciate that type of deception. > > > > > > > > Gems are paid for with money. The value of gems to gold and gold to gems is dependent on sales of gems as well. So gems, even when bought with gold, were originally price-pointed with money. If lowering gem values caused them to have any significant issues, then ANet has a spending problem - not an income one. > > > > > > No. Anet could somehow release a year’s worth of new gemstore items that cost nothing for them to create. If all of these were bought through gold->gem conversions then they didn’t make any money. There’s a good reason why expansions were not available for purchase with gems otherwise Anet would have been making income from them if they were on there according to you. > > > > > > Edit: Do to the two exchange rates being different, it’s not a 1:1 exchange. Buying 800 gems with gold is not the same as exchanging 800 gem for gold. The net effect of this is an increasing gold supply within the exchange which increases the gold->gem rate. The only way for this to balance is if ~1,182 gems are exchanged for gold for every 800 gems bought with gold. > > > > > > If the prices were collectively reduced in the gemstore, this would make exchanging gems for gold more enticing than buying with cash for gemstore items. They’d be losing potential income. > > > > > > Exchanges of bought gems with cash for gold could increase due to that rate increasing but I don’t see it matching the cumulative impact of all prices being reduced. I don’t even see it doing that if just mount skin prices were reduced. > > > > They. Were. Paid. For. With. Money. > > > > No gems are generated with gold, they're generated with our purchases. > > > > If ANet struggled with additional revenue at their price points, it's a sign of a spending problem - not an income one. If I get $12,000 in student loans in September and I run my bank down to $0 by December, that's not a need to evaluate my income - it's a need to evaluate my spending. If everyone bought gems with gold for a year (which wouldn't even get to that point, but whatever, for the sake of the hypothetical here) - by the end it would cost such an astronomical amount of gold to get 400 gems people will be spending cash again. > > Read my post. Just because gems entering the exchange are most likely bought with cash, does not mean that Anet is making money. > > Nowhere did I state that gems are generated with gold so please stop making it out as if I had said that. > > It’s not a necessarily a spending problem as I had shown in my post. The more people that choose to purchase gems with gold for gemstore items instead of cash is lost cash sales on the gemstore items. It takes considerably more gems to enter the exchange, than what’s taken out, to balance the exchange rates. > > Furthermore, if gemstore prices were all reduced, it entices players to more likely exchange gold for gems. How many do this will vary depending on their own person thresholds. The number of gems purchased with gold will increase so the number of gems exchanged for gold would need to match that increased rate. Explain how revenue suddenly stops being revenue? This is taking a massive amount of failed logic on your end. In the same post you say that gems aren't generated with gold, yet claim just a mere two sentences later that if more people buy gems with gold that it's lost revenue. Say it with me: The revenue has already been made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ayrilana.1396 Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > @"Cuddy.6247" said: > > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > > > @"starlinvf.1358" said: > > > > > > > > @"Ayrilana.1396" said: > > > > > > > > Lower prices may also make converting gold to gems for enticing that spending real world money. This would be money that Anet doesn’t receive as a result. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Thats kind of a false statement given that the Gem exchange is almost identical to EVE's Plex market in concept. In fact, if Anet really wanted to manipulate the market, they can inject and retract Gems from the exchange, since the prices are all system driven rather then buyer/seller defined like the TP is. Lower the gem price of an item, but lead up to it by bleeding the gem supply to inflate prices. That has a 2-fold effect- Players are sinking more gold for less gems, which promotes just buying gems directly. And secondly, encourages people to buy gems to sell to the exchange for more gold. Time it along side something which will cause a lot of TP trade volume, and you can immediately sink the majority of that traded gold via fees. Its a balancing act... but one thats entirely possible if you know where the trigger thresholds are. > > > > > > > > > > > > Except that’s it’s not a false statement. If you believe otherwise then explain how. > > > > > > > > > > > > I really hope that your suggestion wasn’t serious. Not many people would appreciate that type of deception. > > > > > > > > > > Gems are paid for with money. The value of gems to gold and gold to gems is dependent on sales of gems as well. So gems, even when bought with gold, were originally price-pointed with money. If lowering gem values caused them to have any significant issues, then ANet has a spending problem - not an income one. > > > > > > > > No. Anet could somehow release a year’s worth of new gemstore items that cost nothing for them to create. If all of these were bought through gold->gem conversions then they didn’t make any money. There’s a good reason why expansions were not available for purchase with gems otherwise Anet would have been making income from them if they were on there according to you. > > > > > > > > Edit: Do to the two exchange rates being different, it’s not a 1:1 exchange. Buying 800 gems with gold is not the same as exchanging 800 gem for gold. The net effect of this is an increasing gold supply within the exchange which increases the gold->gem rate. The only way for this to balance is if ~1,182 gems are exchanged for gold for every 800 gems bought with gold. > > > > > > > > If the prices were collectively reduced in the gemstore, this would make exchanging gems for gold more enticing than buying with cash for gemstore items. They’d be losing potential income. > > > > > > > > Exchanges of bought gems with cash for gold could increase due to that rate increasing but I don’t see it matching the cumulative impact of all prices being reduced. I don’t even see it doing that if just mount skin prices were reduced. > > > > > > They. Were. Paid. For. With. Money. > > > > > > No gems are generated with gold, they're generated with our purchases. > > > > > > If ANet struggled with additional revenue at their price points, it's a sign of a spending problem - not an income one. If I get $12,000 in student loans in September and I run my bank down to $0 by December, that's not a need to evaluate my income - it's a need to evaluate my spending. If everyone bought gems with gold for a year (which wouldn't even get to that point, but whatever, for the sake of the hypothetical here) - by the end it would cost such an astronomical amount of gold to get 400 gems people will be spending cash again. > > > > Read my post. Just because gems entering the exchange are most likely bought with cash, does not mean that Anet is making money. > > > > Nowhere did I state that gems are generated with gold so please stop making it out as if I had said that. > > > > It’s not a necessarily a spending problem as I had shown in my post. The more people that choose to purchase gems with gold for gemstore items instead of cash is lost cash sales on the gemstore items. It takes considerably more gems to enter the exchange, than what’s taken out, to balance the exchange rates. > > > > Furthermore, if gemstore prices were all reduced, it entices players to more likely exchange gold for gems. How many do this will vary depending on their own person thresholds. The number of gems purchased with gold will increase so the number of gems exchanged for gold would need to match that increased rate. > > Explain how revenue suddenly stops being revenue? This is taking a massive amount of failed logic on your end. In the same post you say that gems aren't generated with gold, yet claim just a mere two sentences later that if more people buy gems with gold that it's lost revenue. Say it with me: The revenue has already been made. I’ve explained this several times already. Earning $1 or earning $2 are both considered earning revenue but clearly one is better than the other. Re-read my posts as I don’t see the benefit in having to repeat myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samnang.1879 Posted May 1, 2018 Share Posted May 1, 2018 the randomized mount skins are definitely cheaper, and i love that we have both options as i'm content with buying the randomized ones. i can't believe ppl will twist into a pretzel about randomized = gambling = being bad for children just to make anet not release them and the non-randomized licences end up being 1200 gems... -_- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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