If you were in charge of deciding whether the game had a cash shop or did not have a cash shop what would you choose?

[Fueki.4753]

Aside from gambling on the random mount adoption licenses and the Black Lion Chests, the Gemstore we have now is the best possible monetization Arenanet could possibly offer.

 

Arenanet would have substantially less players if they had a subscription based model and the game would have even less content releases if there was no store at all.

[Cyninja.2954]

1 hour ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I remember discussing this with Vayne I believe (not the one that posts a lot currently but the other one) and we came up with a baseline per month based on the amount of people that were employed by Anet (after the layoffs) and an educated guess of what each person would make (we took a range of what game devs make in the seattle area) on average plus the cost of the building, utilities, etc. We came up with about 3-5 million per month.

 

That amounts to 36-60 million dollars per year just to keep the doors open. So you're on the right track and it shows that even at 52 million dollars, the profit isn't as much as people think and they need to make this amount every year. So that's just showing to from a different angle.

 

Having exact numbers is obviously ideal, or taking different approaches to assumptions since each can lead to new possibilities opening up thought wise.

 

I based mine on past performance within the scope of the last years, obviously performance before that was even better and harder to meet, assuming that any change to monetization has to at least perform as well.

 

Quote

 

In 2020 it was 52 million but in 2019 it was 50 million and that was the lowest ever in GW2 history. The years before 2019 were a lot better. So far this year, in the first two quarters, GW2 brought in around 27 million dollars so they should improve this year easily with the pre-orders already, but they kinda need to I think. NcSoft won't stand for the 50 million area without making more cuts I think and that led to massive cuts in staff in 2019 as we know. Of course developing an expansion does come with extra costs. So it will need to do really well. Before 2019 GW2 brought in revenues between 66 million dollars and up to 140 million dollars (in 2012 when the game launched). So 50 million dollars is not that great for Anet.

 

I think that many here don't really appreciate the pressure that Anet are under to just keep afloat, particularly the last couple of years.

 

I think many players just look at what is best for them, and why should they look beyond that, it is not our responsibility to do the companies work, which is why these threads often derail into gibberish or pure fiction. Unfortunately these same players are the first to be astonished when suddenly announcements are made about layoffs or closure.

 

Players were met with this harsh realization in 2019 though when massive layoffs happened, even if this was unrelated to GW2 but rather other projects. Suddenly everyone was interested in how to save Arenanet. Didn't even take 3 months for people to start demanding prices be reduced on the gem store.

 

Doom and gloom time:

- a studio can't survive on a single game alone for ever. They have to diversify in the medium or long run. As such, spreading work and financing other projects made sense. The mismanaging aspect came in when these side projects started to take to long

- stable revenue will not save this game or keep the doors open infinitely at similar content development. The game is aging, as do all games, as such the work and effort to maintain stable revenue increases

- NCSoft invested 139 billion billion South Korean won (118 million US dollars) into NCWest end of 2019. Now not all of this will have gone to GW2 and maybe not even all of it went to Arenanet, but some of it did. That is a possible indicator that the studio is already not generating enough revenue to support its self and all its projects. Simply put, recent revenue will NOT be sufficient to keep the game at the level of development it is seeing currently (aka the expansion has to bring in fresh revenue and revenue levels have to increase)

 

Optimism time:

- a new expansion is coming and no matter how it was financed, it has the potential to both increase player numbers as well as send a signal that the developer remains interested in the IP (and this game within it)

- revenue has improved slightly over the last few months/years

- a lot of returning developers to Arenanet is a good sign, both in that the studio has the financial means to secure payment as well as that developers are happy to return to a former employer.

- the "mismanagement" in the past was in part unrelated to GW2. As such there is potential that with more dedication to this game, a better balance can be found between content and this games development as well as future projects.

 

Quote

 

And yes, I do have a spreadsheet with all the quarterly numbers for GW2 lol.

 

I do have all the NCSoft quarterly reports, though I've been to lazy to actually make a spreadsheet. I usually just read through them out of pure interest.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[Aplethoraof.2643]

Presumably if I were in charge - I wouldn't want to be fired.

 

So I'd either say:

1) Cash Shop

OR

2) No Cash Shop, sub fee

OR

3) No Cash Shop, higher base price, high price per expansion, also sell mini-expansions that would normally be larger updates.

 

#3 might be a little dubious since it isn't constant income (if there was say. . .a DLC every month or every 2 months, it could be).

 

#2 and #3 leave room for my successor (after I leave this job) to add in a cash shop (cash shops can be added in at any time).

 

So I'd pick #1 for sure, since it is harder to add in a sub fee or increase the prices of expansions suddenly than add in a cash shop.

 

TL;DR - Yes I'd put in a cash shop.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Aplethoraof.2643

[yann.1946]

15 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

This makes me realize how alien the world of finance is to normal people.

This absolutely is a reasonable statement from a normal perspective (no sarcasm).  It is absolutely reasonable to say there is such a thing as an upper limit, i.e. a point of satiation.

Unfortunately, that is not at all how corporate finance works.  In the world of corporate finance, a business must exceed RoI (Return on Investment, the common metric to measure a business's growth rate).

In this world of finance, zero growth means your business is dead and might as well not exist.  Not meeting the RoI means the business is failing and will be dead soon.  Meeting the RoI means the business is doing the bare minimum to get by, and if nothing is done about it it will eventually fail and die.  Exceeding the RoI is the normal state of business.

ArenaNet is owned by NCSoft, which is a very conservatively-minded corporation.  If ArenaNet is not exceeding expected growth, NCSoft will start to intervene.  If ArenaNet is even slightly below expected growth, NCSoft is intervening whether ArenaNet likes it or not.

Whether this is a horrible mindset for the general global business community to have is often debated.  

 

I'm mentioning this to put things in perspective that corporate finance is very very different from the rest of the normal world.

 

Its not actually that weird of a mindset.

Nobody wants to just break even at the end of the month in a normal household. In general as far as im aware people like to save or buy bigger houses etc.

 

 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Cash Shops with loot boxes are how game companies that have to support servers typically make their money now. The more successful games are the one that do not include Pay2Win elements in their cash shops.

[yann.1946]

OP ill actually engage with your hypothetical.

I would choose a cashshop, but with a more seperated version of what they sel and dont so theirs no overlap with in game reward types.

The reason for this is that i think its better can buy if they feel like they dont have enough time.

 

TBH i think the hypothetical is actually interesting, but its a question people would find difficulty relating to as it appears to be a bad faith question and people dont deal with hypothethicals well. 🙂

[Maikimaik.1974]

18 hours ago, Southerncarl.2740 said:

You guys are way overthinking it.

 

Let's try this another way. If money wasn't an issue for Anet would you like to have the ability to pay for certain items in the game with real world money or would you prefer that those items are only attainable through doing in game content? Which would you choose?

Obviously if money wasn't an issue at all  and they were able to keep developing the game without requiring any income, a cash shop would be completely unnecessary and kinda weird to include.

 

But that is so far removed from reality that I don't understand the point of this question.

 

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

6 hours ago, nosleepdemon.1368 said:

The point I was making is that ANet could have remained a privately owned company if it were making enough money.

How would they have 'made enough money' before ever releasing a game?

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

5 hours ago, Danikat.8537 said:

Although at that point the company was making no money. NCSoft bought Anet early in the development process for GW1 (which was the studios first game), so at that time they had no products to sell and hadn't made any income, let alone profit.

 

I suppose in the OP's hypothetical world where they don't need money they could have carried on developing the game with no investment - no money coming in from anywhere at all - because apparently in this world game developers don't need money to live.

 

But back in the real world they didn't sell to NCSoft because they'd tried and failed to make enough money on their own. I assume they knew from the start they'd need outside investment and got their game concept to the point where they could pitch it to potential companies then started shopping around for a suitable investor, which ended up being NCSoft.

Just like Manaworks is doing. 

[Rogue.8235]

6 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

Its not actually that weird of a mindset.

Nobody wants to just break even at the end of the month in a normal household. In general as far as im aware people like to save or buy bigger houses etc.

Breaking even is zero growth, which is considered a dead business that might as well not exist.  But yeah, I don't think it's strange; however, there are many people that have not studied finance.

 

I've given more thought to alternative revenue models for the video game industry.  I'm really glad I don't work in it because this is a very frustrating exercise. Consumers repeatedly demonstrate an unwillingness to purchase games at increased prices, which is why the $60 for a base game doesn't budge.  

The problem is that costs are ever-increasing.  You can't increase prices to match as you won't sell anything.  Offering more stuff to justify a price increase only further increases costs.  

There is a general animosity towards "cash shops" and paid DLC.  It's not enough of a general sentiment to require the industry to scramble for an alternate solution, but it does exist.

So the hypothetical problem is how to maintain regular income without the use of cash shops or dlc?  

Subscriptions come to mind, but I have not read the Mintel reports on that topic.  I also don't have the data to do my own analysis (nor the time).  However, are there alternatives to subscription, cash shop, and paid DLC?

This is something I really cannot figure out.  The market segments for video games are extremely resistant to change (I do have access to those IBISWorld and Mintel reports).

 

 

The question posed by the OP, absent the strange premise of a cost-free world, is an extremely complex subject.

 

Side Note:  I'm selling the ability to donate gold to me in-game.  For just 10 gold, you can donate up to 500 gold to me!  Hurry now while supplies last!

 

[Urud.4925]

I love the way it is. I'm actually quite baffled to see a 9-year-old MMO still able to make money selling useless unimportant stuff.

 

No offense here, I really admire how they put some effort to create vanity items, continuously, rather than just adding a new skin every 3 months and relying on p2w stuff, like most of the old MMOs, when they stop to get new players and have to milk the remaining ones. The fact that the player base is generally older than in other MMOs, may help.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Urud.4925

[yann.1946]

8 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

Breaking even is zero growth, which is considered a dead business that might as well not exist.  But yeah, I don't think it's strange; however, there are many people that have not studied finance.

I think it has more to do with looking at it from the consumers side. People dont want to pay in general so theyd prefer a world where you dont even though even their own household does not work that way. 🙂

8 hours ago, Rogue.8235 said:

 

I've given more thought to alternative revenue models for the video game industry.  I'm really glad I don't work in it because this is a very frustrating exercise. Consumers repeatedly demonstrate an unwillingness to purchase games at increased prices, which is why the $60 for a base game doesn't budge.  

The problem is that costs are ever-increasing.  You can't increase prices to match as you won't sell anything.  Offering more stuff to justify a price increase only further increases costs.  

There is a general animosity towards "cash shops" and paid DLC.  It's not enough of a general sentiment to require the industry to scramble for an alternate solution, but it does exist.

So the hypothetical problem is how to maintain regular income without the use of cash shops or dlc?  

Subscriptions come to mind, but I have not read the Mintel reports on that topic.  I also don't have the data to do my own analysis (nor the time).  However, are there alternatives to subscription, cash shop, and paid DLC?

This is something I really cannot figure out.  The market segments for video games are extremely resistant to change (I do have access to those IBISWorld and Mintel reports).

 

 

The question posed by the OP, absent the strange premise of a cost-free world, is an extremely complex subject.

 

Side Note:  I'm selling the ability to donate gold to me in-game.  For just 10 gold, you can donate up to 500 gold to me!  Hurry now while supplies last!

 

 

[Gehenna.3625]

16 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

TBH i think the hypothetical is actually interesting, but its a question people would find difficulty relating to as it appears to be a bad faith question and people dont deal with hypothethicals well. 🙂

That is just blatantly insulting.

 

The problem with his hypothesis is that it's not complete. As I said earlier, if there are no consequences to not have a cash shop, then people will always choose it. So it's the hypothesis that is the problem here and not the people responding to it.

[yann.1946]

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

That is just blatantly insulting.

I disagree. 

Edit: please explain how it is insulting. 

Quote

The problem with his hypothesis is that it's not complete. As I said earlier, if there are no consequences to not have a cash shop, then people will always choose it.

But that's what the question is about. Would people not want the cash shop. 

Their are people who like the conversion of gems to gold for example. 

Isn't that an interesting question? What are the advantage of a cash shop outside of the monetary aspect. 

Quote

So it's the hypothesis that is the problem here and not the people responding to it.

It's both that have "problems" here. 

It is true that the hypothetical has problem  like I said it seems bad faith and looks to far from reality. 

But player engament with the questions also is problematic because almost nobody actually bothered to think about the in my opinion interesting question of what a cash shop brings outside of the monetary value. 

Are their possible additions of cash shops which increase average enjoyment of the game. 

Edited September 10, 2021 by yann.1946

[Gehenna.3625]

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

I disagree. 

Edit: please explain how it is insulting. 

When you make a sweeping generalization that "people don't deal with hypotheticals well" then it is implied that that's the case here and that implication is insulting.

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

But that's what the question is about. Would people not want the cash shop. 

Their are people who like the conversion of gems to gold for example. 

When there is no cash shop this conversion is completely unnecessary, so it wouldn't exist if there was not cash shop. So this is not even a consideration in that scenario.

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

Isn't that an interesting question? What are the advantage of a cash shop outside of the monetary aspect. 

That's not the question the OP asked and outside of instant gratification there are no advantages and instant gratification can be achieved in game as well.

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

It's both that have "problems" here. 

I disagree with that, because the hypothesis is faulty and therefore you can't judge the responses. You need a proper hypothesis to make that judgement.

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

It is true that the hypothetical has problem  like I said it seems bad faith and looks to far from reality. 

And this is why.

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

But player engament with the questions also is problematic because almost nobody actually bothered to think about the in my opinion interesting question of what a cash shop brings outside of the monetary value. 

The discussion is based on a weak premise and as such there is only the monetary value to consider. There is NOTHING that a cash shop brings that couldn't be done in game.

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

Are their possible additions of cash shops which increase average enjoyment of the game. 

Again there is nothing that a cash shop can do that cannot be done in game, except bring in money for ArenaNet

 

[yann.1946]

20 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

When you make a sweeping generalization that "people don't deal with hypotheticals well" then it is implied that that's the case here and that implication is insulting.

This generalization is just a natural consequence of people connecting their arguments to reality. You yourself agreed that its to far from reality, but that shows exactly why people dont deal well with hypotheticals. 

Quote

When there is no cash shop this conversion is completely unnecessary, so it wouldn't exist if there was not cash shop. So this is not even a consideration in that scenario.

Yes, so their could be value in having a cashshop to allow this conversion to exist. Now you can say that this converstion should not exist, but that is something we could debate about and not really a forgone conclusion.

Quote

That's not the question the OP asked and outside of instant gratification there are no advantages and instant gratification can be achieved in game as well.

Well from their other responses assuming they where in good faith thats exactly what they asked. 

While it is true that you could hypotheticly have this instant gratification inside the game, dont you think having this in the game is worse then in a cashshop?

Quote

I disagree with that, because the hypothesis is faulty and therefore you can't judge the responses. You need a proper hypothesis to make that judgement.

False, to make deduction you dont need "true" hypothethicals. You dont even need realistic ones.

Their function is to seperate the thing people are interested in from all the other things that might conflate.

This responses also proved my statement about people being bad with hypotheticals, if it gets to far from reality people stop actually considering the implications.

Quote

And this is why.

 

Quote

The discussion is based on a weak premise and as such there is only the monetary value to consider. There is NOTHING that a cash shop brings that couldn't be done in game.

But the question is not whether it could be done, its about if it should be done. I understand that it might be difficult to fanthom but seriously ask yourself the question: Are their things which are good for the game, but you would not want them to be in game rewards.

Quote

Again there is nothing that a cash shop can do that cannot be done in game, except bring in money for ArenaNet

 

Its not about what can, its about what should be done.

Edited September 10, 2021 by yann.1946

[Mungrul.9358]

Having recently tallied up how much I've spent on GW2 in the past year and coming up with an... uncomfortable figure, to say the least, I have quite strong opinions.

 

I think a lot about how GW2's economy is designed is exploitative. There's no "flood protection", so to speak, or upper-limit on how much a player can spend, and this seems specifically designed to maximise the potential profit from "Whales" (that despicable game economist term for players who spend a lot).

Yes, there's an argument that ANet aren't responsible for how much people spend, but when so many of their systems are designed to trick people in to spending, and necessarily dehumanise their customers (hence the term whales), there's no way this argument can completely dismiss concerns.

 

This feeds back in to currency in the game having very little value, and material quantities for crafting becoming bloated in order to maintain pressure on players to convert cash to gems to gold.

 

On top of this, gems exist as a layer of abstraction in order to obfuscate the real world cost of things in the gem store. People may scoff at this, but it's proven to work. There's numerous papers written on this, and it's taught to people studying game monetisation systems.

 

And remember, the house always wins. The economy is NOT designed in order to favour the player.

 

With that said, I think that a cash shop is the only way I am comfortable with ANet funding the game.

For online games, it's very much like what Winston Churchill had to say about democracy:

"Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…"

 

I just think they need to take a serious look at how the GW2 cash shop works.

I have some reform ideas:

 

1: An upper monthly limit on how much players can spend in the shop.

This would show a degree of responsibility on ANet's behalf, instead of dehumanising their user base.

 

2: Get rid of Black Lion Chests and Keys before more countries ban loot boxes.

The writing's on the wall for random loot boxes, and momentum is building worldwide to legislate them out of existence.

Instead of trying to wring every last penny from them, it would be wise of ANet to get ahead of the legislation. Such a move would buy goodwill, both from players and the press.

 

3: Remove gems as an intermediary abstraction layer.

Showing prices of items in real world currencies would help people control how much they're spending in the game. And again, shows a  level of respect for players as human beings instead of targets to trick in to spending money.

 

4: Only sell cosmetics.

ANet have increasingly sold abstract game concepts that would otherwise be considered free quality of life upgrades in most other games (or at most, earned through regular gameplay).

Storage expansions (shared slots, bank and bag), infinite tools, gear & build templates, teleport items (world boss and home portals, etc.), all should be earned through gameplay and not sold through the store.

The only exception I would make would be character slots. Extra character slots should always be paid for.

 

Of those suggestions, the only one I see them realistically adopting is point 2, and even then, I don't expect them to get rid of Black Lion Chests and Keys before they've been made illegal by a majority of countries.

 

Of course, getting rid of them also means there are numerous items that would have to be made available through other means, as they can currently only be obtained by opening chests. See infinite extractor, bank access, hairdresser contract, etc.

The ones that affect cosmetics, such as the hairdresser contract, I'm fine with having a price in the shop.

However, I'm less convinced about things which improve quality of life, as I strongly believe such items monetise abstract systems should be available to all players.

 

That's pretty much it, except I would probably also do away with the concept of "sales". Digital items are effectively infinite, and using sales to promote false scarcity in order to drive players to buy is just icky.

I don't have a problems with seasonal items, but keep them seasonal. IE, don't sell Winter's Day cosmetics in the middle of summer.

[Gehenna.3625]

1 minute ago, yann.1946 said:

This generalization is just a natural consequence of people connecting their arguments to reality. You yourself agreed that its to far from reality, but that shows exactly why people dont deal well with hypotheticals. 

People don't deal well with faulty hypotheses. That's what's going on here.

1 minute ago, yann.1946 said:

Yes, so their could be value in having a cashshop to allow this conversion to exist. Now you can say that this converstion should not exist, but that is something we could debate about and not really a forgone conclusion.

The issue, again, is really money. And I don't say it shouldn't exist. You are putting words in my mouth and I find that very uncool of you. I said it was unnecessary or rather it wouldn't exist. That's not the same as it shouldn't exist. Please look up the difference between wouldn't and shouldn't if you do not understand it.

1 minute ago, yann.1946 said:

Well from their other responses assuming they where in good faith thats exactly what they asked. 

While it is true that you could hypotheticly have this instant gratification inside the game, dont you think having this in the game is worse then in a cashshop?

Nope. Why would it be worse? 

1 minute ago, yann.1946 said:

False, to make deduction you dont need "true" hypothethicals. You dont even need realistic ones.

Their function is to seperate the thing people are interested in from all the other things that might conflate.

This responses also proved my statement about people being bad with hypotheticals, if it gets to far from reality people stop actually considering the implications.

That doesn't make people bad with hypotheses, it makes them good with hypotheses.

1 minute ago, yann.1946 said:

 

But the question is not whether it could be done, its about if it should be done. I understand that it might be difficult to fanthom but seriously ask yourself the question: Are their things which are good for the game, but you would not want them to be in game rewards.

Its not about what can, its about what should be done.

It's not difficult to fathom and that's another insult, it's very condescending. And there are two problems with the "should" The first problem with that is that you put that word in my mouth when I never said it and secondly what should be done is subjective and there you also need to consider the consequences of each thing you want. Why? Because you may say you want it or it should be done, but when you consider the consequences of a choice you might find that actually it's not something you want.

 

 

[yann.1946]

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

People don't deal well with faulty hypotheses. That's what's going on here.

 

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

The issue, again, is really money. And I don't say it shouldn't exist. You are putting words in my mouth and I find that very uncool of you. I said it was unnecessary or rather it wouldn't exist. That's not the same as it shouldn't exist. Please look up the difference between wouldn't and shouldn't if you do not understand it.

I never said you said that it should not exists, i argued that that is a way you caould argue if you wanted to.

Thats not putting words in your mouth. 

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Nope. Why would it be worse? 

Because it places an extra barrier between the instant gratification. 

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

That doesn't make people bad with hypotheses, it makes them good with hypotheses.

No. The better people are with hypothethicals the more easily they engage with more extreme/unrealistic hypothethicals.

That is because the point of hypotheticals is NOT representing reality, their a tool of analysis to see why things happen the way they do and to get away from the understood reality.

The easiest example is that in physics lack of friction is assumed lots of the time even though we know that that that is not the case.

Also theirs a type of proof where you assume a premise you think is faulty, completely accepting that premise, and then from their proving it false.

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

It's not difficult to fathom and that's another insult, it's very condescending.

I did not try to be insulting, im sorry. But this is literary what you said, that it is to far from reality to actually work with.

Also something being difficult to work with is not an insult in my book, i constantly have to deal with difficult topics and if someone said that they are difficult i would completely agree.

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

And there are two problems with the "should" The first problem with that is that you put that word in my mouth when I never said it

I did not, i replied to a response where you use could and said that that is not the question that is being asked. Nobody asked the question whether the could implement all these things in the game.

They asked whether they should.

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

and secondly what should be done is subjective and there you also need to consider the consequences of each thing you want.

Exactly, thats why its an interesting conversation. 

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Why? Because you may say you want it or it should be done, but when you consider the consequences of a choice you might find that actually it's not something you want.

I mean, thats obvious. That is as i said above why the conversation is interesting. You give me these reasons why it is difficult (which i agree with), but thats exactly why the question is interesting.

[Gehenna.3625]

24 minutes ago, yann.1946 said:

 

I never said you said that it should not exists, i argued that that is a way you caould argue if you wanted to.

Thats not putting words in your mouth. 

You responded to my saying that it would be unnecessary in that situation. There was no could or should about that. So, yes you are putting words in my mouth when later you say that I said it "shouldn't be".

Quote

Because it places an extra barrier between the instant gratification. 

That makes no sense to me, in fact that sentence doesn't make sense to me. The cash shop puts a barrier of gems between the instant gratification and a player. So why would it be worse in game?

Quote

No. The better people are with hypothethicals the more easily they engage with more extreme/unrealistic hypothethicals.

That depends on your idea of "better". My "better" relates to people seeing through unrealistic ideas. Yours is described below:

Quote

That is because the point of hypotheticals is NOT representing reality, their a tool of analysis to see why things happen the way they do and to get away from the understood reality.

The easiest example is that in physics lack of friction is assumed lots of the time even though we know that that that is not the case.

Well ok, so that's what you mean with better. However, what's the point in using hypotheticals that we already analyzed ad infinitum on this forum?

Quote

Also theirs a type of proof where you assume a premise you think is faulty, completely accepting that premise, and then from their proving it false.

Well, by itself that's a logical thing to do IF there are indications that a premise might be wrong. However, that premise would have to be broader in my view

Quote

I did not try to be insulting, im sorry. But this is literary what you said, that it is to far from reality to actually work with.

Fair enough, but show me where I LITERALLY said that. You won't be able to because it's your interpretation of what I said and not what I literally said. And I already indicated why your interpretation is not correct.

Quote

Also something being difficult to work with is not an insult in my book, i constantly have to deal with difficult topics and if someone said that they are difficult i would completely agree.

By itself it's not. However, who are you to say that I have difficulty with it? You replied with it to my comments, so that implies that you are talking about me. You really should be careful with what you say and also how you say it.

Quote

I did not, i replied to a response where you use could and said that that is not the question that is being asked.

Again I didn't use the word could in what you quoted at that time. I said it was unnecessary.

 

I'll quote the passage for your convenience:

1 hour ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

When there is no cash shop this conversion is completely unnecessary, so it wouldn't exist if there was not cash shop. So this is not even a consideration in that scenario.

As I'm saying there is no could or should in this.

 

And you responded to it with this:

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

Yes, so their could be value in having a cashshop to allow this conversion to exist. Now you can say that this converstion should not exist, but that is something we could debate about and not really a forgone conclusion.

So that's where you magically pull out the "should". All I said was that it wouldn't exist. I made no judgement on whether or not it should exist.

Edited September 10, 2021 by Gehenna.3625

[Maikimaik.1974]

3 hours ago, yann.1946 said:

But that's what the question is about. Would people not want the cash shop. 

Their are people who like the conversion of gems to gold for example. 

Isn't that an interesting question? What are the advantage of a cash shop outside of the monetary aspect. 

But that's such a weird question. 

 

That's like asking of you were willing to pay for a bus ticket even though public transportation is free where you live. 

Obviously not. 

[yann.1946]

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

You responded to my saying that it would be unnecessary in that situation. There was no could or should about that. So, yes you are putting words in my mouth when later you say that I said it "shouldn't be".

i quoted the part of the conversation this was about.

1 hour ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Quote

But that's what the question is about. Would people not want the cash shop. 

Their are people who like the conversion of gems to gold for example. 

When there is no cash shop this conversion is completely unnecessary, so it wouldn't exist if there was not cash shop. So this is not even a consideration in that scenario.

I gave the example of the conversation as something some people might consider a good thing from the game.

 

To which you said as quoted that this conversion would be unnesecary without a cashshop. which i agree with but

 

i responded with the statement that the conversion in itself is an incentive for the cash shop to exist. My whole point being that if you agree with the gem to gold exchange a cashshop is nessecary to make it usable. 

The shouldnt be was merely pointing out that thats one avenue to argue against it.

 

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

That makes no sense to me, in fact that sentence doesn't make sense to me. The cash shop puts a barrier of gems between the instant gratification and a player. So why would it be worse in game?

Yes, gems are a barier so it might be healthier then just giving instant gratification.

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

That depends on your idea of "better". My "better" relates to people seeing through unrealistic ideas. Yours is described below:

For me that defeats the purpose of hypothethicals. 

Ofcourse what youre talking about is an important skill, but it is something that should be done after having engaged with the hypothethical.

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Well ok, so that's what you mean with better. However, what's the point in using hypotheticals that we already analyzed ad infinitum on this forum?

Honestly ive never seen this hypothethical been used.

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Well, by itself that's a logical thing to do IF there are indications that a premise might be wrong. However, that premise would have to be broader in my view

Well its just one avenue where we care about premises we think are false.

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Fair enough, but show me where I LITERALLY said that. You won't be able to because it's your interpretation of what I said and not what I literally said. And I already indicated why your interpretation is not correct.

I quote

1 hour ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Quote

It is true that the hypothetical has problem  like I said it seems bad faith and looks to far from reality. 

And this is why.

Is this not you agreeing that it is to far from reality?

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

By itself it's not. However, who are you to say that I have difficulty with it? You replied with it to my comments, so that implies that you are talking about me. You really should be careful with what you say and also how you say it.

Well i said that it was difficult to fanthom because the above quote.

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Again I didn't use the word could in what you quoted at that time. I said it was unnecessary.

Ill quote the thing i responded to.

 

1 hour ago, yann.1946 said:

Quote

The discussion is based on a weak premise and as such there is only the monetary value to consider. There is NOTHING that a cash shop brings that couldn't be done in game.

But the question is not whether it could be done, its about if it should be done. I understand that it might be difficult to fanthom but seriously ask yourself the question: Are their things which are good for the game, but you would not want them to be in game rewards.

Quote

Again there is nothing that a cash shop can do that cannot be done in game, except bring in money for ArenaNet

 

Its not about what can, its about what should be done.

 

Here you mention that these thing can be done in game. This is the part i responded to stating that the question was never about whether it can or cannot be done. It was about whether it should be done.

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

I'll quote the passage for your convenience:

As I'm saying there is no could or should in this.

 

And you responded to it with this:

The thing you quoted was not what that part of my response was about, so why bring it up?

11 minutes ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

So that's where you magically pull out the "should". All I said was that it wouldn't exist. I made no judgement on whether or not it should exist.

That was the whole point i was making in that part of my response. You gave statements which where not answers to the questions which about whether the cashshop should be in a game without a need for it financially.

[yann.1946]

8 minutes ago, Maikimaik.1974 said:

But that's such a weird question. 

 

That's like asking of you were willing to pay for a bus ticket even though public transportation is free where you live. 

Obviously not. 

Not completely, the question is whether allowing the bypass of certain parts of the game can improve the average gameplay experience, and whether its better this bypass should be easily accesible or not.

On top of "is their value to allowing showing of rl wealth in a game?"

[mikansei.5742]

While we're in this hypothetical utopia where Anet magically has all the funding they could ever need to develop the game without any kind of cash shop, I also want world peace and a pony.

[Astralporing.1957]

On 9/8/2021 at 5:14 PM, Southerncarl.2740 said:

Ok had a feeling people would worry about the sub thing or how the game would make money. Lets say that they could make enough money from the one time purchase of the full game and individual expansions what would you pick? Still keep the cash shop?

Sure, if they could finance the game just from box sales (and without increasing prices of those to absurd levels), cash shop would no longer be needed, and should be dropped (or at least significantly reduced in scope). That's a big if however, one that makes the whole situation purely hypothetical. In reality, dropping cash shop would require introducing another source of income, and the only one that could take its place would be a subscription.

 

To sum it up - basically, as it has been mentioned several times, the only purpose for a cash shop is to bring in money. It's not needed for anything else. So, if money is not a problem, cashshop becomes something you can easily do without. Unfortunately, that basic assumption (of money not being a problem) is just plain untrue. You cannot sustain a game like GW2 just out of box sales. As such, the question is pretty much pointless.