CHEAPER gem shop!

Can You GW2 creators make mode cheaper things on Black Lion Shop? Who's with me!

Besides the mount skins, most of the items in the Gem shop are reasonably priced. There are also frequently discounts on items, so I don't really see a case.

you do realize they make piss poor profits from the gemstore because of the gold to gems conversion? they NEED these prices so people will ACTUALLY spend money on their game. unless ofc you want content like raids and fractals and LS to have a price tag.

Lowering prices won’t make them much money. Most of the gem store items are cosmetic and their attractiveness is subjective. Lowering the price point isn’t going to suddenly make them more attractive to players that didn’t like them before.

@BOOTYVAPOR.5486 said:you do realize they make kitten poor profits from the gemstore because of the gold to gems conversion? they NEED these prices so people will ACTUALLY spend money on their game. unless ofc you want content like raids and fractals and LS to have a price tag.

Gold to Gems has an opposite: Gems to Gold. Enough players spend their real-world currencies to ArenaNet / NCSOFT to get in-game gold quickly, safely and legally. In fact, I stocked up on a bit of gold during the peak of the MountGate debacle because of the good exchange rate. I haven't unlocked a single mount skin yet.

@BOOTYVAPOR.5486 said:you do realize they make kitten poor profits from the gemstore because of the gold to gems conversion? they NEED these prices so people will ACTUALLY spend money on their game. unless ofc you want content like raids and fractals and LS to have a price tag.

Gold to Gem conversion is not a drop of profits, it's the opposite.Do you people not realize how this works?All gems sold on the gemstore with gold were bought by other people. And Arena net takes a big cut both ways, so they're not losing anything from that. Its simply Arena Net taking the Gold seller's business for themselves.

@BOOTYVAPOR.5486 said:you do realize they make kitten poor profits from the gemstore because of the gold to gems conversion? they NEED these prices so people will ACTUALLY spend money on their game. unless ofc you want content like raids and fractals and LS to have a price tag.

Trading gold for gems through the excange first requires someone to buy the gems with actual money, then a portion of those gems and gold are destroyed when anet taxes both parties for the currency conversion. Anet actually makes more money off of people that convert gold to gems than people that buy their own gems, because the person selling you gems for gold has to effectively throw away some of the gems to do so.

This is why the vast majority of new gems store items are untradable. Anet loses potential gem sales when people buy the unwanted RNG rolls of others in the form of black lion skin trades, as the design of loot boxes is intended to get you to spend more gems on a skin than you would if it were listed at the average price in gems required to acquire it by opening your own boxes.

When you pay gold on the TP for a gem store item, the gem cost to the person that actually acquired it is the same as if they kep it themselves.

However, when gem store items can not be sold on the TP, you are forced to trade gold for gems rather than gold for items, if you want the item without buying your own gems. This means the seller is forced to sell you gems through the exchange, and thus forced to destroy some of the gems they bought.

@Warweren.1930 said:Can You GW2 creators make mode cheaper things on Black Lion Shop? Who's with me!

Not I. I shall explain...

Would I buy more if things cost less? Honestly, this is only a maybe. Just because something costs less doesn't necessarily make me like it more. I might be inclined to purchase a few items for completion's sake that I wouldn't have previously because it costs less, but that's what sales are for. Conversely, if I like something a lot, I'm going to just buy it, either with cash or by dedicating my time to farm gold (generally just with cash though, that's just easier for me). Having it cost less just means I spend less in gems or a spend less time farming, which earns Anet less overall.

I don't think the slight boost in sales would offset the funds lost from simply lowering prices. You're asking Anet to directly impact their bottom line via their primary source of funding - the gem store. Reducing their funding means reducing their employees which directly results in less content for us, the players. So, no, not with you on this.

@LanfearShadowflame.3189 said:

@Warweren.1930 said:Can You GW2 creators make mode cheaper things on Black Lion Shop? Who's with me!

The problem is that they've decided to make the gem store their primary source of funding after supposedly moving to an expansion model because relying solely on gem store sails failed them.

Higher value, frequency, and cost expansions should have replaced free story updates and super-reliance on the gem store. Now we have mount skins that cost half as much as the expansion you're required to buy to use them, and expansions that are intentionally anemic in terms of skin rewards because of this business model. That means a worse deal for everyone. Higher cost gem store items for people that buy skins there, and lower amounts of ingame rewards for people that just want to play the supposedly "buy to play" content expansions.

I think it's okay the way it is. I'm a big alt-o-holic and I really like that the stuff I buy is account bound and not character bound. A lot of similar games charge more for single use stuff. Most of the stuff I buy is between $5-10 anyway and I consider that pretty cheap already.

@BOOTYVAPOR.5486 said:you do realize they make kitten poor profits from the gemstore because of the gold to gems conversion? they NEED these prices so people will ACTUALLY spend money on their game. unless ofc you want content like raids and fractals and LS to have a price tag.

They make money on every gold<->gem exchange as the gems have to be purchased in the first place. LS has a price tag. It's just free if you log in when the episode is current, otherwise you must buy it. Raids/fractals are also not free. You must own the content they're set in.

@PopeUrban.2578 said:The problem is that they've decided to make the gem store their primary source of funding after supposedly moving to an expansion model because relying solely on gem store sails failed them.

Just because they started making expansions doesn't mean they've moved to expansions being their main income source. It sure helps, but keep in mind that they did lower the base price of the second expansion by forty percent ($50 vs $30). Even if they sold the exact same number of boxes as they did with HoT, they took a hit with that price drop. Granted we aren't factoring in how many more they may have sold due to the price drop, or how many may have done the bundle deal. Just on a straight 1 to 1, its a loss for them. They have to depend on boosting sales to offset it. We have no idea how successful that was. Beyond that, after the initial purchase period, sales typically drop off and they are back to relying on the gem store for a dependable income. This isn't really unlike any other MMO out there, even those that have a sub fee. though.

@PopeUrban.2578 said:Higher value, frequency, and cost expansions should have replaced free story updates and super-reliance on the gem store. Now we have mount skins that cost half as much as the expansion you're required to buy to use them, and expansions that are intentionally anemic in terms of skin rewards because of this business model. That means a worse deal for everyone. Higher cost gem store items for people that buy skins there, and lower amounts of ingame rewards for people that just want to play the supposedly "buy to play" content expansions.

They don't put weapon or armor skins (for the most part) in the gem store anymore, at our request. We get lots of outfits, but they've also told us that outfits are rather easy to make. So that should be expected. PoF did have more weapon and armor skins that HoT, which I think was a step in the right direction. Another 2 sets of in-game weapons were datamined with this patch and it sounds like they require crafting to make. You can take that or leave it as you may, but that's two more sets of skins coming into the game. It sounds like there was an armor set datamined as well, but due to spoilery-nature, it wasn't shared. I think they are moving in the right direction there, which is something we've asked them to do. So I don't agree completely with your "worse deal for everyone" thought line. Has it been bad? Oh yes. Has it gotten better? Yes. It can still improve.

Do I like or agree with 2000 gems ($25) for a single mount skin? Not unless it's an amazing skin with interesting animations, unique sounds, potentially unique footfalls, etc. In other words, lots of work to make it special. At which point it then becomes worth the cost to me. This is, of course, subjective. Obviously there are plenty of people that like the new skin since every time I turn around, I see someone else with it. To them, it's obviously worth the cost. Which, in the end, is all that matters. If enough ppl buy it, and it continues to fund the game I enjoy, I'll deal with it.

It's all well an good to demand they lower their prices, but considering the financials everyone always screams doom over, I say let them alone.

@GreyWolf.8670 said:

@BOOTYVAPOR.5486 said:you do realize they make kitten poor profits from the gemstore because of the gold to gems conversion? they NEED these prices so people will ACTUALLY spend money on their game. unless ofc you want content like raids and fractals and LS to have a price tag.

If a firend of yours , have the episode unlocked and invite you in the party and then START/ENABLED the episode , you get it for free .

When GW2 will be in ''auto mode'' just like GW1 , even if there is only 1 person playing and not spending a real money , he can still farm gold and get any gemstore item .But the price/rate will go up each time , but still he can unlock everything with more gold needed each time .Just like when the game was released in China , and 4 months later it was 1-2k gold for 100 gems .

Some1 spending money will keep these ''conversion rates'' to normal and not get a huge bump each time , for the rest of the 90% community .While the 90% of the community , are keeping the world alive

@Killthehealersffs.8940 said:If a firend of yours , have the episode unlocked and invite you in the party and then START/ENABLED the episode , you get it for free .

In LS2, you could experience the story if your friend owned the episode and started it as the instance owner. It didn't unlock it for you. You could not do any of the achievements or anything 'extra' beyond experiencing the story. Which was supposedly incentive to purchase it - to do those 'extras'.

I am not sure if this ability to 'experience' the story holds true with LS3 and LS4 though. Anet did state that you needed to have HoT for LS3, and PoF for LS4. Each episode comes with it's own map now, and I do not believe you can access that map unless you have the expansion at the very least (and then use teleport to friend). It may actually be inaccessible unless you have the episode. Someone may need to check this.