Recent developments in mount skin pricing.

Well, the original 30 pack was the best deal if you wanted all the skins, and even if you wanted just the good ones, from what I've seen of people trying to get the good ones via the random license method on the "old" licenses. The 30 pack was 9600 gems and 3 of the 10 packs is 10200 gems. The one person I watched buy via random 10 packs didn't get one of what most people consider to be a good skin until number 30, and 2 of the "good" griffon skins were in the last 10 pack. Anyway, the new licenses with the option to choose really are NOT worth it unless you want very few skins, as even choosing the "good" skins from the bunch will cost you in excess of buying all 15 of the new skins via the random license. Given this, I have concluded that the mount skin licenses where we can choose are priced too high for most people who buy mount skins. Given this trend, the recent news from Mike O. that mount skins in the future will have no random option and there will only be some variant on fixed pricing or choose your skin (correct me if I'm wrong as I can't find this item of info and got it second hand), I'm assuming that future mounts will be on the average priced unfavorably for all but those who buy mount skins rarely. Do the math for your own situation and tell me what you think is a reasonable price for a mount skin where you buy the gems with real money, as opposed to gems to gold.

Given this trend, the recent news from Mike O. that mount skins in the future will have no random option and there will only be some variant on fixed pricing or choose your skin

Here are the two posts by O’Brien on mounts (this forum and Reddit) that I found. One is 6 months old. The other is 4 months old. I was unable to find a quote from O Brien that says mount skins in the future will have no random option. Unless you can find a newer post and quote it I’m going to say the source you heard was incorrect.

This forum

Mike O Brien.4613Hi,

We made a commitment to you in March 2012 that we’d fund GW2 live development through non-pay-to-win microtransactions. We try different ideas, but we always hold true to that commitment. We’ve been collecting and discussing your feedback on the Mount Adoption License, and today I’d like to acknowledge and respond to the concerns you’ve raised, and to share our perspective with you.

You have valid concerns about random boxes. We hoped that the design of the Mount Adoption License would be reassuring. In this case, we made some missteps:

At a time when there’s a lot of debate about random boxes in gaming, we should have anticipated that a new system with a random element would cause alarm.We released mount skins with three different purchase models, but with the majority of skins released so far through the Adoption License. It’s easy to perceive this as intentionally channeling you toward randomization.The Adoption License is a large set at 30 skins. We stand by the work our artists put into each skin, but it’s understandable to see this as pushing down the odds of acquiring any one skin, and to worry that we might add more skins to lower the chances further.Here are some of the benefits we had in mind when designing the Mount Adoption License:

You get a brand-new, unique mount skin every time, for a substantial discount versus an individual purchase price.It uses a progressive mechanic. Every license gives you a new skin to use and increases the odds of acquiring any remaining skins.You’ve requested variety, and this is a way to support variety. Individual sale is a mechanic that works with a few, flashy skins. Using a grab bag mechanic gives us leeway to create skins to suit a wide range of player tastes while offering a lower price per skin.Microtransactions can be polarizing, and we’ve received both positive and negative feedback on the license. We won’t change the existing >license in a way that would invalidate the investment players have made, but I want to confirm to you that our next planned mount skin releases will focus on individual sales like the Reforged Warhound and bundles like the Spooky Mounts Pack. We will not add any skins to the currently available Adoption License, thus not pushing down the odds of acquiring any one skin in that set.

We appreciate the thoughtful feedback many of you have provided, and that you hold us to high standards for monetization. It’s been a challenging but wonderful goal to support live development and Living World purely through optional microtransactions, and it’s your support that’s made that possible. Thank you.

And this post on Reddit

Mike-OBrien-ArenaNet 4 months agoHi,As I wrote in my previous response, it’s been a wonderful challenge to support all Living World and Live content development for a game of this size, for five years and counting, purely through the sale of optional microtransactions. We laid out our guiding principles for GW2 microtransactions in March 2012 and we've held true to them ever since. My motivation is to continue to stay true to those principles while also continuing to fund Live content development. I recently apologized for our missteps with the Mount Adoption License. Still, mount skins are purely cosmetic, thus in many ways an ideal embodiment of our goal to support the game with optional microtransactions.Most of us have two relationships with the GW2 gem store. One relationship is that of a customer: we purchase things when we want them for ourselves and agree with how they’re bundled and priced. Another relationship is that of an interested party: we know that ArenaNet funds Live development through the sale of gems for cash, and we enjoy playing new content like today’s release, so we hope that the gem store does well enough to keep supporting content development. We might say, “I wouldn’t buy that!”, but if enough people buy it that it supports ongoing Live development, we’re still happy.Mount skins are style items, and style items have some unique challenges. They’re subject to individual taste, so except for the very flashiest items, individual style items will have limited sales. Also, GW2 isn’t setup to support an enjoyable experience of browsing through a large catalog of style items, so players tend not to do that. 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.GW2 is a content-rich online world with no monthly fee, so it’s a great overall value, with microtransactions doing the heavy lifting of funding continued development of the game. It shouldn’t also be our goal to have the lowest-priced microtransactions. In that case, the only logical outcome would be that we could afford to make less content than other developers, and I think that’s not what any of us are looking for. I love our current pace of content development and I hope we can support it for a long time to come.We’re all in this together. It’s obvious in your posts that you’re thoughtful and motivated to see the game do well. You balance between loving the game and not always agreeing with how gem store items are bundled or priced. That’s fair. We have a commerce team that lives that dilemma every day. We’re all doing our best for the long-term health of the game.Thank you all for your passion, and again, thank you for your continued support of Live development.~ MO

I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore. They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

@Martimus.6027 said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore.The game costs money to keep running. They have to keep paying for artists and writers and servers and rent and janitors and secretaries and advertising and toilet paper and everything else a business needs to pay for. If they don't charge for things that have value but 'have no production cost anymore' where is the money going to come from?

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

If they lower the prices, they may sell more, but then they have to keep cranking out new low-priced items at a faster rate, because people have bought everything they want. And if they crank out stuff at a faster rate, how do they sell stuff when the market gets saturated? At what point do people stop buying because 'That jackal mount isn't different enough from the last twelve they put out for me to care' or 'The new sword skin is pretty, but I already have 500 and don't need more sword skins.'

While I felt the first RNG selection was overstretched (too many similar skins, too big a pool to choose from) I thought the second one was much, much better. Nearly all the skins were amazing, much higher chance of getting something you wanted. And it was great to be able to get them at such a low price. I think I bought about half, got many wonderful skins.

If it's true that there won't be a cheap RNG version of new skins any more, then everyone's just going to have to pay full price for everything. That's the price of 'success' in your battle against the discounted RNG skins.

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@"Martimus.6027" said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore.The game costs money to keep running. They have to keep paying for artists and writers and servers and rent and janitors and secretaries and advertising and toilet paper and everything else a business needs to pay for. If they don't charge for things that have value but 'have no production cost anymore' where is the money going to come from?

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

I"m not arguing for an extreme, here. I'm arguing for cheaper therefore more sales. Not practically-free-so-literally-everyone-has-it as you are implying that I meant.

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore.The game costs money to keep running. They have to keep paying for artists and writers and servers and rent and janitors and secretaries and advertising and toilet paper and everything else a business needs to pay for. If they don't charge for things that have value but 'have no production cost anymore' where is the money going to come from?

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

I think you will find that whatever price you believe is reasonable, you will have plenty of people claiming it's still too expensive and demanding it go down further. When does the price stop going down, if they lower it every time someone complains?

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore.The game costs money to keep running. They have to keep paying for artists and writers and servers and rent and janitors and secretaries and advertising and toilet paper and everything else a business needs to pay for. If they don't charge for things that have value but 'have no production cost anymore' where is the money going to come from?

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

When have they ever lowered the price because everyone complains?

And if they did, what happened? People bought it that ordinarily wouldn't....

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore.The game costs money to keep running. They have to keep paying for artists and writers and servers and rent and janitors and secretaries and advertising and toilet paper and everything else a business needs to pay for. If they don't charge for things that have value but 'have no production cost anymore' where is the money going to come from?

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

I am not really against them lowering prices, but I can see the issue in doing it as an across the board measure for people complaining.

It sets the precedent for people to complain more until prices go down further. They will just keep picketing until as was said above people expect items to cost virtually nothing, because as you are trying to claim they are worth virtually nothing, but that just isn't the case.

Not only do the servers cost money to run, items cost money to maintain. They had to not only program the items (hiring artists and developers) but also find ways for the items to interact with the world appropriately; lets specifically speak about mounts. Some skins might cause issues where others didn't, that now involves more work that didn't originally go into production, and now that item which you thought only cost a certain amount initially actually costs much more to keep maintained.

I find the prices as they currently are to be more than fair, especially compared to others games I have played. If you must just wait on sales, as they aren't too rare and do make purchases more palatable.

@DarthFurby.3970 said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore.The game costs money to keep running. They have to keep paying for artists and writers and servers and rent and janitors and secretaries and advertising and toilet paper and everything else a business needs to pay for. If they don't charge for things that have value but 'have no production cost anymore' where is the money going to come from?

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

People are going to complain no matter what ,about everything, always. That's a constant. If the goal of the store is to make money, then lowering the prices a reasonable amount would do just that. It does not cost them one penny to maintain a mount skin after all production of the skin is said and done. Once the mount skin is finished, it's finished, and they don't have to "make more" mount skins to provide supply for demand. These are virtual items that do not exist except in binary code. It takes up a tiny amount of HD space at a server somewhere just like it does on my PC when I have patched the game. Further, before it gets brought up, I don't think arguing that it costs them bandwidth for the transactions to take place is a valid argument, either. That's a lilliputian drop in an oceanic planet of a sea, comparatively.

While we are at it, "complaining" has a subjective meaning. This is very simple. I"m not going 'WAA WAA TOO EXPENSIVE AND I WANT IT." I am simply stating that, I am unwilling to give money for these items because of their current price. If they are lowered (in some instances substantially) I would consider it. As it stands, I don't consider it. It's very straightforward and logical.

@"Shroedingers Chupacabra.2978" said:Well, the original 30 pack was the best deal if you wanted all the skins, and even if you wanted just the good ones, from what I've seen of people trying to get the good ones via the random license method on the "old" licenses. The 30 pack was 9600 gems ...

So for USD that is 9600/800 .... yeah, not sure what you call a "great deal" but that is more than the most expensive expansion pack.

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@"Martimus.6027" said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore.The game costs money to keep running. They have to keep paying for artists and writers and servers and rent and janitors and secretaries and advertising and toilet paper and everything else a business needs to pay for. If they don't charge for things that have value but 'have no production cost anymore' where is the money going to come from?

Just like traditional game companies handle it?When I buy a game (I call it "milestone") I pay 60€. That's the price for all the stuff you mentioned. The ready product. When I buy HoT I laid down money (milestone) and when I bought PoF I bought a milestone. E.g. I bought Borderlands für 50€ and later the season pass. And then I played all the game with the levels, the sounds, the maps, the story. All got paid: Artists, writers, animators, programers. The office space, the power bills and the cleaning lady's toilet urinal cake that she puts in the staff's restroom. Still I got several DLCs with it.

Yes yes, there is a living world update schedule, but if they use that as smaller DLCs of 5 or 10€ I would be fine, too. You can see where greed paired with your argumentation leads to: Square Enix and Final Fantasy XIV. They have expensive milestones, they a monthly fee, they have a cash shop and now come up with an expensive mobile app. They keep inventory space small so that you almost "need" to rent virtual retainers - as inventory space mules. So you pay, pay, pay, pay and pay, and then there is merchandise.

So, while I think a cash shop is fine to treat me things here and there, please do not over-estimate the cost of the software industry. This is not 1994 anymore where id Software created DooM with like 10 guys, but if a company can not survive with their pricing, they might change their business model or relocate their ressources. What's next? Entrace fee for a supermarket or your local bank because the light is on, the AC running and the staff is in the shop even when nobody is shopping and all that costs money?

Also, aNet can recycle a lot of things, e.g. the game engine, sound effects already in the game, the model of Rytlock has not to be done again anymore etc., and other aspects can reach the break-even-point comparably fast.

@Martimus.6027 said:

@DarthFurby.3970 said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore.The game costs money to keep running. They have to keep paying for artists and writers and servers and rent and janitors and secretaries and advertising and toilet paper and everything else a business needs to pay for. If they don't charge for things that have value but 'have no production cost anymore' where is the money going to come from?

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

People will constantly complain about everything, that much is true, but that doesn't mean by answering their complaints once will solve the problem in the future. It is never that simple and people will always try to try to make a less into more.

That example with the skin was just an example, and your analysis wasn't exactly true and rather rudimentary for what it takes to keep items in production and maintained.

It is your choice whether or not you want to give them money, if you feel it isn't worth spending than close the gem store and walk away. In the effort you took to make these posts you could have tried farming gold to convert into gems to buy those items, or earned the money to the same. But you threatening not to make any transactions due to pricing as a lone party won't hurt the longevity of the game in the least.

I was quite vocal about the first round of mount skins being locked entirely behind RNG. The Istani release was far superior because it gave us the choice; we just didn't realize that it would be as hard a choice to make. I mentioned it elsewhere, that I too, wanted them to be in the 600-800 gem range for mount skin of choice. Ultimately, picking the price point that they did forced people to seriously consider RNG (and given the smaller pool of skins to draw from, this was more attractive). In hindsight and relative to my purchasing power, etc., this was a very balanced presentation of options. If I'd gotten what I'd wanted, I would have purchased a few choice skins quickly. As it stands... I went the RNG route! I should note that I'm quite satisfied with my purchases, having done the mental exercise, compared the options and made the decision.

If Anet had picked a lower price point, they would have seen more "early adopters" and possibly higher revenues overall. Profitability would increase with higher revenues and a static cost (development/release). However, the revenues from mount skins are likely meant to fund further development (ongoing costs, or one could consider it that), and we can't underestimate the impact of what I would call the "swing point" (gem cost low enough that many potential "early adopters" would convert gold to gems rather than buying more gems) If the price was low enough, gold would be the primary method of mount skin acquisition, at least to meet any sense of "urgency". Players could then farm gold to replace, which means no new revenue for Anet for any mount skins acquired this way.

TL;DR - Price was strategically chosen to encourage balanced sales of RNG and chosen skins, primarily through gem purchasing (real revenues for Anet)

@DarthFurby.3970 said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@DarthFurby.3970 said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore.The game costs money to keep running. They have to keep paying for artists and writers and servers and rent and janitors and secretaries and advertising and toilet paper and everything else a business needs to pay for. If they don't charge for things that have value but 'have no production cost anymore' where is the money going to come from?

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

I can't farm gold right now because I am at work and I am replying to these forum posts as something to pass the time between seeing patients. Please don't assume what I think, feel, and am doing at any given moment.

Saying I won't buy something because I think it is too expensive is most certainly not some kind of threat. That's a ludicrous thing for you to refer to it as, quite frankly. But I can't control your thought processes or logic. You're just incorrect. It's a shame you would even perceive it as a threat.

They have sales routinely. Why do they have sales? Because it increases revenue and moves product. If you guys are so concerned about the items being reduced in prices too much, why aren't you making forum posts arguing against there being sales at all? Let me be clear; I am absolutely not saying I want everything to be free or dirt cheap. I am simply stating that if they reduced the prices of the gem store across the board a reasonable amount, they will make more money.

@Martimus.6027 said:

@DarthFurby.3970 said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@DarthFurby.3970 said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@"Cragga the Eighty Third.6015" said:

@Martimus.6027 said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore.The game costs money to keep running. They have to keep paying for artists and writers and servers and rent and janitors and secretaries and advertising and toilet paper and everything else a business needs to pay for. If they don't charge for things that have value but 'have no production cost anymore' where is the money going to come from?

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

Well threat might have been a bit strong, but I was just saying as a lone party saying you won't make purchases until prices are dropped isn't going to make much of an impact. I am sure they know and get that all the time.

They have sales to show promote purchases due to a decrease cost of what they are telling you they value the item. People see that and think they should buy it because of the momentarily decreased price. I am not concerned at all, and they can do whatever they want, I just like taking the hard to argue for positions and making arguments for them. I just find the prices fair as they are, and if they go down I will just end up buying more ontop of tbe money I am already frivolously spending. Perhaps that wouldn't be the best thing for me personally.

I am not against them dropping prices, I just think relative to how other games prices the same or similar items this is fair. There will always be someone that thinks it is too expensive regardless of actual worth or cost, it is difficult to actually say which cost is the fair or correct cost.

@DarthFurby.3970 said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@DarthFurby.3970 said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@DarthFurby.3970 said:*

if they go down I will just end up buying more **

:)

cough

@Martimus.6027 said:

@DarthFurby.3970 said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@DarthFurby.3970 said:

@Martimus.6027 said:

@DarthFurby.3970 said:*

if they go down I will just end up buying more **

:)

Honestly that would probably make my partner quite cross, they already aren't pleased with my in game spending.

There is an argument for both sides, guess we just have to see what happens.

It's not a bad track to let them be expensive, for a while. Let the early adopters pay for the premium of ownership and prestige, then re-release the skins 6-12 months later on sale, then let them stick around at their original payment structure (RNG + Direct Buy) after that.

Or release the mount skins through the Statuette method, like we're seeing with outfits and wings. (Such a minor thing, but so much :+1: for this!)

But, I also wouldn't mind seeing a release cycle like:•Release new skin set via the License method. Direct buy at increased price. (Maybe give a slight discount on bundles: RNG x3 for 1000 gems and Direct x2 at 2000 gems.)•When that set is cycled out, it's gone for a while. 6 months is generally safe. Let people enjoy things for a while.•Old releases come out in the Adoption Bargain Bin (maybe give that a nicer name :P), including the super premium skins like Peacock raptor and Warforged dirtdog. Tickets go on sale for 20% off for a short time after the previous release lands, then it goes back to 100% pricing after 2 weeks.And, boom, a content cycle that feeds itself and eventually leaves the content available on a permanent basis while allowing timely players to obtain them early or on sale at a later date.

@"Martimus.6027" said:I'm arguing for cheaper therefore more sales.According to Mike O'Brien, "more sales" translates into less income.

We can see the same thing working in other industries: sellers of the fancy can make more money selling fewer units than their competitors who have to work a lot harder to produce a lot more cheaper units to sell.

It turns out that one thing that the people who spend the most money on the game enjoy is having stuff that not everyone else has. Two ways to give those customers what they want are: offer exclusive benefits for spending more and offering very expensive items, that are fancier than standard-priced fare. The first is close to offering a two-tier, subscription system and is therefore a non-starter for GW2. The second still allows people to fund purchases via gold.

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce.While true, it's not the only relevant cost factor. On the whole, it costs providers nothing to add one more phone or internet customer. Once the infrastructure is in place, you can add millions of customers for the same price (outside of customer service). So partly their pricing is designed to help fun past & future infrastructure improvements.

The same holds true for studios. It literally costs nothing to produce one more single player license (once the system is in place), one more music MP3, and so on. But if we paid nothing, we'd have no games, no studio-produced music, etc.

I don't like this new system because it puts things outside my budget. And I think ANet completely mishandling the rollout of the MountFits, especially the pricing. But all the same, I don't think they did anything wrong or even overly mercenary. They are trying to keep the game cheap & virtually free for folks like me, while getting those willing to pay more to... well, pay more.

Arguably, it's somewhat communistic: from each (whale) according to their ability to pay, and to each (cheapskate like me) according to their needs. (Although, strictly speaking, that's also ideal capitalistic pricing: suck as much money out of everyone as you can get for the same service.)

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@"Martimus.6027" said:I'm arguing for cheaper therefore more sales.According to Mike O'Brien, "more sales" translates into less income.

They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce.While true, it's not the only relevant cost factor. On the whole, it costs providers nothing to add one more phone or internet customer. Once the infrastructure is in place, you can add millions of customers for the same price (outside of customer service). So partly their pricing is designed to help fun past & future infrastructure improvements.

Without all the financial facts and bottom lines at our disposal, I guess we really can't make any kind of generalized judgement or determination about it all.

I just want stuff to be cheaper so I feel more inclined to buy it :)

@Martimus.6027 said:I just want stuff to be cheaper so I feel more inclined to buy it :)

Me, too.

I understand why ANet is doing this. Regardless, like everyone else, I would prefer to pay less to have more shinies.However, in the absence of Mark Z paying ANet to make games for us for free, I'm happy with any gem shop pricing that allows ANet to sell expacs for US$30 without any subscriptions.

Hmmmm....it's interesting that someone said people will do gold to gems if they lower the price point. I've actually farmed gold for the higher priced skins, not the lower priced ones, as I feel a significant lightening of my wallet with the mounts priced in the 1200-2000 range. I agree with one of the posters that around 800 might make me feel that the skins were "worth that amount of real money". If it's any higher than 800, I'm seriously contemplating the gold to gems route or not buy at all, which I did with one mount skin when I ran out of gold. The skin is back but more expensive and I still won't be buying it on principle this time. TY first poster on the correction. I will check my second-hand source to see where he got the info.

Also, I'm spend a significant sum at the gem store, but never to get a more pricey rarer item. If a less expensive one looks better but everyone has it, I will tend to buy that one if it's a choice. So, first is "what are the best looking rare or not?", and second is "is the value there?" I used to work doing testing that included reports recommending pricing for items, so I can see the "50 dollar virtual monocle" a mile away. (That refers to riots in a certain other MMO in response to a publisher's spokesperson mentioning people buying $2000 Japanese designer jeans (equating the game players to these people who think nothing of affording these jeans) .

@Martimus.6027 said:I make pretty good money and can afford to buy stuff off the store I want, but part of having money is recognizing when something is just too expensive. These items, once created, have no production cost anymore. They're virtual items that cost nothing to produce. If they want more money, they could easily lower prices across the board and make so many more sales. I would buy more if the prices weren't so high.

Yeah, the prices aren't very good. Between black lion chests, mounts, black lion weapons and other additions to the gem store a month can end up costing like $50-75 to stay on top of. The prices are a little fudgy. At this point I think I'd rather just get all of this stuff as game rewards and in collections and pay a $15/month membership sub that doesn't have any benefits to it other than supporting ANet's delivery.

@Cuddy.6247 said:At this point I think I'd rather just get all of this stuff as game rewards and in collections and pay a $15/month membership sub that doesn't have any benefits to it other than supporting ANet's delivery.

Can't you already do that? Buy US$15 of gems each month and simply never spend them?