Endlos.4852

It's a trick to exploit people. Especially those prone to gambling or addictive, obsessive behavior. The mounts with the unique features probably take a reasonable amount of development time. The mounts that are just pattern swaps (with the quantity of dye channels we should have had at release on the standard mounts) are probably incredibly easy to bang out once the original template was made. The pattern swap mounts, just from a sheer "effort to produce" standpoint absolutely aren't worth $5 or 400 gems, considering we got baseline, barely-dye-able versions in a paid expansion pack less than two months ago. However, the more unique models are probably worth a little bit more than the 400-gem lotto tickets. The gimmick is to take a few things that are considered "good value" and then put them in a lottery with a huge pool of things that are "bad value" and then charge a flat fee for chances at the pool. The "low" gem cost of 400 for something unique and stuffed with particle effects seems like a great deal, so it entices people to gamble. Then you have a large amount of potentially undesirable "consolation prizes" that the customer is more likely to get, which then triggers the behavior that can make a person spend more and more until they get what they want. This would be the sunk cost fallacy or, for a common expression, "Throwing good money after bad." In other words, if all the mounts were awesome, people would only ever gamble until they got any skin for the mount(s) they cared about, then would stop. By having a large variety including mostly "plain" mounts, they get to fleece players longer, as those players open contracts only to get stuff they didn't necessarily want or won't use, driving them to buy more contracts until they get the shiny, awesome mounts. That's why we got 30 dumped on us at once: to increase and pad out the "chase" for the fewer and more unique ones, increasing sales at the expense of corporate morals. They're counting on that buyer's remorse to mix with "well if I already spent X and didn't get what I want, I might as well keep spending until I do get what I want." That's why people are throwing around the word 'predatory' in this and many of the other posts here and elsewhere.

I'll be more pointed and less editorial this time: I bought the ultimate edition of PoF when I returned to the game about a month before the expansion launch.I spent a decent amount more than that on the gem store between then and now, catching up on various cool cosmetics that were added in my post-HoT hiatus, as well as snagging some older stuff as it returned to the store or fit new concepts I had for characters and the PoF specializations.I probably did not spend enough cash to be considered a whale, but I imagine I was decent revenue as a ~2 month returning player.I will not buy gems or convert gold to gems as long as this current mount skin implementation exists as it is, but I may endeavor to continue enjoying what I can of the game while no longer financially supporting it.According to the support site, you have to submit a ticket just to remove your saved credit card info from your account, as there is no automated process to remove the info unless you do it while making another purchase.I would have happily bought some of the mount skins, perhaps paying even more than 400 gems per skin, if they were available in a manner that did not feel exploitative to me. I adore that Siberian Husky Jackal. It's like the bestest thing ever. However, I'm not going to throw a random amount of money into a system that will very likely give me a bunch of skins I don't want and won't use until I get that one skin or something else I could feel satisfied with.