Where's the Web Gem Store?

[RockinTalvin.9824]

Hey ArenaNet, I heard you like money. Every company likes money.

So why not implementing a web frontend for the good ol' Gem Store? I'm quite sure that your revenue will skyrocket, if you offer a service like this. And here's the reason:

There are two ways to play Guild Wars 2:

1.) Playing the actual gameSure, if you're playing the game, you're playing the game. Running around, killing stuff, checking ah, doing fractals, etc, etc, you know the stories.

2.) Playing the "meta game"Everybody will agree, that there is a whole "meta game" around Guild Wars 2, where people are doing things like

• Checking YouTube-Videos
• Trying out new Builds
• Communicating via forums, reddit, etc.
• Doing research to find new crafting-recipes, farming-routes, boss-guides, etc.
• Checking out weapon and armor skins

I'm quite sure that this "meta game" is played by a big bunch of players all day long and on all devices they own. At work, at school, in bed, heck even on the toilet! I even dare to maintain, that a big fraction of the player base spend more time on the "meta game" than actually ingame.

To flesh out this example:Imagine a dad who works at the office. His time to play the actual game is really limited to the evening hours, when the kids are in bed and his wife is doing whatever she likes. But.... he's got little preserved time slots during the whole day, where he plays the "meta game". Checks a new build in the lunch break. Tries to find the next cool pistol-skin on the bus. You get the picture. So, he's actuallay preparing himself over the whole day, to get the best out the 1-2 hours in the evening playing the game. I think, this scenario is quite common among a big part of the player base.

Now, where's the connection to a Web Gem Store? I think people are propably (even more!) willing to spend money on the game during the "meta game"! Why? Because it's their only way to interact with the game while not being ingame. They already spent hours after hours (cumulated!) researching a new cool raptor skin. Or laying out a plan to craft a legendary weapon, but inventory space is too limited. Following the AIDA-Principle of marketing, you've already got their ATTENTION, INTEREST and DESIRE. All that's left is enabling the ACTION. And this is where a Web Gem Store will shine: by using the Web Gem Store, people are able to satisfy their urge to "do something" for their character. And you, ArenaNet, are making money.

Living in an age of multichannel & omnichannel e-commerce, people are naturally expecting, that they are able to buy wares on all channels and devices. Not being able to do so, will limit your ways to generate revenue and leaves the customer unsatisfied.

So! Looking forward buying my stuff on my mobile!RockinTalvin

[On a side note: I wouldn't mind being able to do ALL stuff, that's NOT actually killing things, on my mobile, like: using the AH, gearing my toon, speccing my build, managing my bank and my inventory, etc. - all this stuff leaves me engaged with the game. And this is the first step towards a transaction.]

[Danikat.8537]

I'm not at all convinced by your reasoning, even when I'm looking at stuff online when I can't get into the game I'd prefer to preview it in-game too before actually making a decision. But I would like to be able to buy gem store items through the website, because I often travel for work or family stuff and so I'm likely to miss limited time offers and sales. I think it was the War Eternal Supply Drop where I literally had a 3-hour window to buy it at the discounted price (which was up for a full 7 days) and that was only because my plans changed at the last minute. There's been other special offers I've missed completely because it was up for 2-3 days when I was away and had no way to log into the game.

I'd only do that for things I already know I want to buy - I'm not going to purchase a new outfit just because I'm on the forum on my phone and happen to see it's been released because without the ability to preview it on my characters I have no way of knowing if I want it or not. But for things like bank tab and character slot sales it would be helpful.

[Friday.7864]

It always bothered me how I have to log into the game to check what's on sale.When people have to travel (which a lot of the players do) it's often impossible to find the time or a computer to log into the game.And lots of us are waiting for items we know we want without needing fancy previews and stuff. Be it because they rarely appear on the store or because we're waiting for a sale. Being able to check that on a phone whenever you feel like would be nice, to say the least.

[Trise.2865]

It's on the NCSoft store.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

@"Friday.7864" said:It always bothered me how I have to log into the game to check what's on sale.When people have to travel (which a lot of the players do) it's often impossible to find the time or a computer to log into the game.And lots of us are waiting for items we know we want without needing fancy previews and stuff. Be it because they rarely appear on the store or because we're waiting for a sale. Being able to check that on a phone whenever you feel like would be nice, to say the least.

Rejoice! You can check items offered or 'on sale' with this Stickied thread: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/458/news-gemstore-items-new-returned-sales#latestNo need to log in.

[Donari.5237]

@Friday.7864 said:It always bothered me how I have to log into the game to check what's on sale.When people have to travel (which a lot of the players do) it's often impossible to find the time or a computer to log into the game.And lots of us are waiting for items we know we want without needing fancy previews and stuff. Be it because they rarely appear on the store or because we're waiting for a sale. Being able to check that on a phone whenever you feel like would be nice, to say the least.

That's not what the OP is talking about, though. If you just want daily info on what's currently on sale, keep up with the sticky at the top of this forum. It's player run but it's accurate, reliable, and timely. I think the longest I've seen the info wait to go up after store reset is an hour; most of the time it's anywhere from five to twenty minutes as a rule of thumb. Reset is at 9 am Pacific, conveniently at noon my time.

As to purchasing when not logged in, hmm. I agree with Danikat that I want to personally preview most things. Also, though I do have reasonable self control on my purchasing (helped by the fact that I actually can afford anything I want from the store these days so it really does come down to 'do I like this enough to use it' factors), I like the mild braking effect of waiting to get in game and then needing to go through the Digital River PayPal process to collect the gems. It gives me lots of moments to realize that no, this cool thing is real neat and all but in just a few days I won't be bothering using it any more. I don't travel, there is almost never a day in which I can't log in if I desire.

For those who travel a lot, yes it could be good. On the other hand, how many ways do we want to make it possible to do game stuff without even logging in? I mean, presumably no one would buy stuff in the store of a game they weren't planning to go play at some point to use said stuff, but still. I'm not violently against the idea, but I lean to an uneasy reaction to it. I can just imagine the derision of the vocal detractors of the game as they shout about cash grabs, ANet wanting us to spend money even when we aren't playing, etc.

[Friday.7864]

FACEPALMWhen you can't log into the game to buy the items there's no point in checking what's on sale :cry:I mean, you can preview almost everything on your character by using the wardrobe. Then you just wait for it to show up on the store.I just clicked buy when aviator sunglasses showed up.

[XatraZaytrax.2601]

If not being able to envision it on your character is an issue, such a store could gave model blanks for each race so you can get a good idea of what it looks like.

[Nash.2681]

For more than a year there are more and more threads in the support forum of people having payment issues out of a sudden.I'd rather have them get their payment systems unbugged or at least set up some real customer service before they even think about new possibilities of generating cash.

[Tinker.6924]

A gem store on the web, no. I don't even see how that helps the "meta game"

What would help the meta game? All of your character details accessible though Anet's website.

In world of Warcraft, if i want to talk about my build, gear, appearance, etc... with another player on their forum I can just do this,https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/character/us/dalaran/Tinkerrific

And there it is. 99% of all the info that exists about my character right there just as it was when I logged out.

If I want to do the same thing in gw2 I have to go to a 3rd party website like gw2skills.net and then spend the next 10 minutes filling out all that info and eventually I can share a fractional amount of details about my character and...

THAT IS STUPID

It's an absolute chore and in the end, people only get a small bit of insight.

I know some people will claim that freely and easily accessible info about your character will allow mean people to be extra mean. And yes about 5% of the time when character data was brought up on wow's significantly more toxic and nasty forums that happened. But even then it doesn't negate the 95% of the times when sharing and discussing that info was incredibly beneficial to everyone involved.

That's what we need