1600 Gems for a Jade Bot Skin

[Kaliwenda.3428]

9 hours ago, Julischka Bean.7491 said:

Lisa skulks into the thread.

Skulks because everything I have read is negative...and I bought the thing 🤔

No I am not skulking...Yes, it is priced too dear,  and, well, yes it could better be served being priced same as mail carriers, but, I suppose the Devs have to recoop their development costs  although this is a bad way of doing so.  If this skin was cheaper in price they would actually, probably, make more money.

That said, I have it.  (1) I love cats, (2) l love cute things, (3) I want to support Anet and (4)  I use the ziplines, charge the batteries and fill up on the buffs multiple times every day,  so I do see the kitty quite often.  Often enough that I felt somewhat comfortable buying it at the price listed.

It has very cute buff-filling  and battery- filling animations which make me smile...I am my mom's 24 hour caretaker (Dementia) and am still self- quarantined as I don't want her to catch COVID. Where I live the new variant is on the rise and making the local newspapers headlines...stupid college town bringing in students from all over the world 🙃.

So, to me, something that makes me smile, and feel joy, is worth the 20 bucks.

 That said, other than the price, I wish the kitty escorted the Zipline platform same way as the original Jade Bot does.  

It sits at my character's feet enjoying the ride when it could be using its wings and cute animations to escort the disc.

If it escorted me on the disc, I would see more cute animations, plus, the chonky kitty might lose some weight 🥰

There, my  thoughts of the new Jade Bot kitty 🤗

 

 

 

Hugs to you and your mom.  I'm glad that you get a smile from seeing your chonky Jade Bot kitty.

[Cait Sith.4650]

4 hours ago, AgentMoore.9453 said:

This skin isn't the first example of predatory monetization in GuildWars2, it's just the latest. I wish it would be the last, but I doubt that too.

Mmhmm. Indeed, it's not.

[voltaicbore.8012]

It's expensive, but I don't really care so much about the price (as people have been saying, overpriced things are nothing new to the game). 

It's the aesthetic I have problems with. It just has the same out-of-place vibes that come from nonsense like this. 

Sure, many other cosmetics that look silly have long existed in the game. However, this cat just seems a bit too far out of line for me. I wish I could express exactly why I feel the cat is worse than the other weird stuff we already have, but sadly I can't.

[Ashen.2907]

12 hours ago, Justine.6351 said:

They have to pay their workers and keep the lights on.

Indeed.

300(ish) employees, $80k average dev salary for ANet's geographical area, x1.3 cost to employ multiplier for ANet's area. 2years development for the expansion. Total payroll cost for the period of the expansion's development: 62 million dollars. Now lets say only half of the team worked on the expansion. That is 31 million dollars in payroll costs alone. At 30 bucks a pop the expansion would need to sell a million copies just to cover payroll for its development. The reality is that expansions are likely loss leaders, or nearly so, where the micro (macro in some cases) transactions are where the company makes any profit at all.

[Vash.2386]

I would love to know how many people have bought it. 
 

I can only assume the reason for the high price is that they want to make people buy gems with cash instead of converting in game gold. 

 

[Ashen.2907]

16 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Don't buy it. Vote with your wallet. Players have the power in this sort of situation. A product that no one buys will either have its price reduced or not see further development. Want to have an even greater impact? Let ANet know that you will not be spending money on the game as long as this item is priced as it is...and stick to it.

Otherwise, every single purchase is evidence that ANet chose the correct price. If it meets projected sales numbers then it will be followed by new options at a similar price. 

Sorry to  say folks that I wasn't able to stand by my suggestion. I got home from work last night and one of the first things my wife mentioned was how adorable this thing is....so my household bought one. You folks stay strong though!

[Lottie.5370]

14 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Indeed.

300(ish) employees, $80k average dev salary for ANet's geographical area, x1.3 cost to employ multiplier for ANet's area. 2years development for the expansion. Total payroll cost for the period of the expansion's development: 62 million dollars. Now lets say only half of the team worked on the expansion. That is 31 million dollars in payroll costs alone. At 30 bucks a pop the expansion would need to sell a million copies just to cover payroll for its development. The reality is that expansions are likely loss leaders, or nearly so, where the micro (macro in some cases) transactions are where the company makes any profit at all.

 

No one is arguing that they shouldn't sell things, no one is asking them to be free, some of us are just sharing how we feel the price is way too high for what you get for it - especially compared to the prices of other items in the store (e.g. you can get a trio of mount skins for the same price, and you can see them whenever you like, for as long as you like). With the jade bot skin - you see it for a limited amount of time (1-3 seconds) and it does not even apply in all instances of using your jade bot (Canach Coin collecting is the one that comes to mind, but there were other places that it did not apply also).

 

Some of us believe that if it was priced lower, we definitely would have bought it. Selling more at a lower cost could bring more profit than less sales at a higher cost, and also keep part of the playerbase happier - but of course none of us have any way of telling this.

[Ashen.2907]

14 minutes ago, Lottie.5370 said:

 

No one is arguing that they shouldn't sell things, no one is asking them to be free, some of us are just sharing how we feel the price is way too high for what you get for it - especially compared to the prices of other items in the store (e.g. you can get a trio of mount skins for the same price, and you can see them whenever you like, for as long as you like). With the jade bot skin - you see it for a limited amount of time (1-3 seconds) and it does not even apply in all instances of using your jade bot (Canach Coin collecting is the one that comes to mind, but there were other places that it did not apply also).

 

Some of us believe that if it was priced lower, we definitely would have bought it. Selling more at a lower cost could bring more profit than less sales at a higher cost, and also keep part of the playerbase happier - but of course none of us have any way of telling this.

Selling at a lower price might be more profitable, or it might not. The only people with sufficient data to make an educated guess is ANet. I am 100% positive that they want to make as much profit as possible, so the question is why do some people think that ANet is purposefully subverting their need for profit?

Honestly I think it is overpriced for what it is, and cannot disagree with others saying that it is priced too high for them, but much of the response has been arguments about this being deceptive or predatory, and how ANet is already making money off of the expansion...so I put some spitballed numbers out there to show that expansions arent as profitable as some people seem to think. And, the reality of the matter is, the price would likely be lower if the ability to convert gold to gems didnt exist.

So, yeah I think that the price is high too...and some people are actually arguing against them selling things

Edited July 20, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Labjax.2465]

5 minutes ago, Lottie.5370 said:

 

No one is arguing that they shouldn't sell things, no one is asking them to be free, some of us are just sharing how we feel the price is way too high for what you get for it - especially compared to the prices of other items in the store (e.g. you can get a trio of mount skins for the same price, and you can see them whenever you like, for as long as you like). With the jade bot skin - you see it for a limited amount of time (1-3 seconds) and it does not even apply in all instances of using your jade bot (Canach Coin collecting is the one that comes to mind, but there were other places that it did not apply also).

 

Some of us believe that if it was priced lower, we definitely would have bought it. Selling more at a lower cost could bring more profit than less sales at a higher cost, and also keep part of the playerbase happier - but of course none of us have any way of telling this.

I wouldn't bother trying to explain to people who take bad faith positions like that with numbers pulled out of their backside. Anet is definitely not struggling to make a profit. If they were, the game would have been shut down. And the expansion was almost certainly profitable all on its own.

They are just trying to put you on the defensive and make you sound unreasonable for criticizing. I've seen this type of thing in so many different ways online over the years and I often make the mistake of trying to explain only to be dismissed anyway.

[Ashen.2907]

13 minutes ago, Labjax.2465 said:

I wouldn't bother trying to explain to people who take bad faith positions like that with numbers pulled out of their backside. Anet is definitely not struggling to make a profit. If they were, the game would have been shut down. And the expansion was almost certainly profitable all on its own.

They are just trying to put you on the defensive and make you sound unreasonable for criticizing. I've seen this type of thing in so many different ways online over the years and I often make the mistake of trying to explain only to be dismissed anyway.

The only bad faith is your strawman argument. I NEVER claimed that ANet struggles to make a profit.

My numbers were based on approximations from ANet (team size), listed price tag for the expansion, publically available data as to average salaries, publically available information on average cost to employ, and math you should have mastered in the third grade.

At no point did I attempt to put Lottie on the defensive for her criticism of the price. I AGREED WITH HER (repeatedly). I also have suggested that people boycott the item in order to convince ANet to lower the price. 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[ShroomOneUp.6913]

15 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Selling at a lower price might be more profitable, or it might not. The only people with sufficient data to make an educated guess is ANet. I am 100% positive that they want to make as much profit as possible, so the question is why do some people think that ANet is purposefully subverting their need for profit?

Honestly I think it is overpriced for what it is, and cannot disagree with others saying that it is priced too high for them, but much of the response has been arguments about this being deceptive or predatory, and how ANet is already making money off of the expansion...so I put some spitballed numbers out there to show that expansions arent as profitable as some people seem to think. And, the reality of the matter is, the price would likely be lower if the ability to convert gold to gems didnt exist.

So, yeah I think that the price is high too...and some people are actually arguing against them selling things

your spit balling however assumes that the amount of money used to make the expansion is reflective of the salary developers get. but as with EVERY SINGLE company under a publisher its is not to pay the wages/saleries of developers, it's to increase the profit investors and managers get even MORE. and im not talking about anet here. I talk about NC soft. for example "blizzard" didn't become the diablo immortal developer on its own, it's because bobby needed a new yacht very week. while nc soft is not as extrem they are still business men in the same vein. and so any money making is merely a means to increase the already existing profits. NOT to pay devs more. never was and never will be.

[Chichimec.9364]

11 hours ago, Julischka Bean.7491 said:

Lisa skulks into the thread.

Skulks because everything I have read is negative...and I bought the thing 🤔

No I am not skulking...Yes, it is priced too dear,  and, well, yes it could better be served being priced same as mail carriers, but, I suppose the Devs have to recoop their development costs  although this is a bad way of doing so.  If this skin was cheaper in price they would actually, probably, make more money.

That said, I have it.  (1) I love cats, (2) l love cute things, (3) I want to support Anet and (4)  I use the ziplines, charge the batteries and fill up on the buffs multiple times every day,  so I do see the kitty quite often.  Often enough that I felt somewhat comfortable buying it at the price listed.

It has very cute buff-filling  and battery- filling animations which make me smile...I am my mom's 24 hour caretaker (Dementia) and am still self- quarantined as I don't want her to catch COVID. Where I live the new variant is on the rise and making the local newspapers headlines...stupid college town bringing in students from all over the world 🙃.

So, to me, something that makes me smile, and feel joy, is worth the 20 bucks.

 That said, other than the price, I wish the kitty escorted the Zipline platform same way as the original Jade Bot does.  

It sits at my character's feet enjoying the ride when it could be using its wings and cute animations to escort the disc.

If it escorted me on the disc, I would see more cute animations, plus, the chonky kitty might lose some weight 🥰

There, my  thoughts of the new Jade Bot kitty 🤗

 

 

 

If you like it and are okay with the price, then buy it. If you don't like it, or think it costs too much, then don't buy it. It's that simple. Oh, and remember, however you feel about it, that's just your opinion. Others will have different opinions. Different strokes and all that. Personally, I wouldn't buy this skin. However, I had to caretake both my parents before they died and I know how hard that can be. If this jade bot skin brings some smiles and joy to Lisa, I'm glad that it was available for her to buy.

[Ashen.2907]

39 minutes ago, ShroomOneUp.6913 said:

your spit balling however assumes that the amount of money used to make the expansion is reflective of the salary developers get. but as with EVERY SINGLE company under a publisher its is not to pay the wages/saleries of developers, it's to increase the profit investors and managers get even MORE. and im not talking about anet here. I talk about NC soft. for example "blizzard" didn't become the diablo immortal developer on its own, it's because bobby needed a new yacht very week. while nc soft is not as extrem they are still business men in the same vein. and so any money making is merely a means to increase the already existing profits. NOT to pay devs more. never was and never will be.

I didnt claim that it was to pay devs more, or anything of the sort. I was merely describing (in part) how much it cost to develop an expansion over the course of 2 years with a particular team size, average salaries, and average cost to employ. I really do hope that ANet has some sort of profit sharing program for its employees, or at least a good 401k matching program, but I dont have any information on that with which to make even an estimate. 

I completely understand that compensation can be excessively top heavy these days, which is particularly obnoxious when not tied to performance.

 

[ShroomOneUp.6913]

6 minutes ago, Ashen.2907 said:

I completely understand that compensation can be excessively top heavy these days, which is particularly obnoxious when not tied to performance.

its exactly this point that makes estimates kinda moot. its about maximizing profits. and you can only maximize if you already made profit.

[Ashen.2907]

1 minute ago, ShroomOneUp.6913 said:

its exactly this point that makes estimates kinda moot. its about maximizing profits. and you can only maximize if you already made profit.

Well, you can go from not profitable to profitable via profit maximization techniques. Profit exists on a number line. The same technique that moves you from one positive integer.to the next higher may be able to move you from a negative, past zero, to a positive. 

[Freya.9075]

The price it too high. Hopefully they will reduce it for future bot skin releases. 
 

i did however get the skin as I am a sucker for cute things. Totally worth the gold for me. I use the skiff a lot and the kitty pushing it is the cutest thing ever! Hopefully they will look at this topic though as some points in it are valid. 

[Dodskrigaren.8759]

I mean every game with a cash shop has predatory pricing. To one degree or another. Some companies are worse offenders than others (Hi EA, Hi Blizzard) but almost all of them have cash shops that the people outside the player base can look at and go "Really, that's kind of a lot for that."

 

And for games where actual real world cash is the only way to get the item in question, they probably aren't wrong.

 

Games where you can get cash shop currency from playing the game itself (like buying gems for gold) makes it a bit harder to say something is predatory or overpriced. You kinda have to look at who the target audience probably is for the item.

 

I don't think when they set the price for this, it was really aimed at folks who buy gems with cash (although they do like it when we do, I mean, they are a business.) I think they were looking at the vets who have the gold reserves to buy 1600 gems for something like this. Sure, those gems were paid for by someone in cash (at least I don't think A-net does something like CCP does where they seed a certain amount of PLEX on the market every month), but eh, some people are always going to be willing to sell the gems they can pay cash for to get gold in game they don't want to farm.

 

It is cute though. I don't even have a Jade Bot yet and I'm tempted. I won't get one. But kitten it's cute.

[Zephire.8049]

It wouldn't surprise me if it was set intentionally high to generate this reaction so they can charge 1200 for future skins and people will be okay with that because it makes it seem the developer listened and it's cheaper than what it appeared to be. I can't remember the exact term for it but it's common in cash shops—especially mobile ones—as a psychological trick to make people okay with high prices because "they could have been higher".

Start low and you can't go up without looking greedy and making customers upset. Start high and you can go lower and customers will praise you for lowering the price and listening to feedback even if you still charge more than the item's worth.

[Gorem.8104]

I just love that we'll have no idea how well this sold ever in game, purely because we cannot see other players Jade bots. We can see their mail carriers and their tools and such, but bots? Nope. 

 

Which is a good thing cause this bot does not fit the game aesthetics anyway. 

[Labjax.2465]

1 minute ago, Zephire.8049 said:

It wouldn't surprise me if it was set intentionally high to generate this reaction so they can charge 1200 for future skins and people will be okay with that because it makes it seem the developer listened and it's cheaper than what it appeared to be. I can't remember the exact term for it but it's common in cash shops—especially mobile ones—as a psychological trick to make people okay with high prices because "they could have been higher".

Start low and you can't go up without looking greedy and making customers upset. Start high and you can go lower and customers will praise you for lowering the price and listening to feedback even if you still charge more than the item's worth.

Yeah I don't know the term for it either, but it's definitely a thing and it's a tactic they've been using in monetization for games for a long time now. Push something extreme -> face backlash -> pull back some, but not all the way -> get praised for listening -> something worse than before is now normalized - > repeat until the normal is the nightmare we have today.

Tho sometimes it seems they just skip the "pull back some" step and see if they can ignore the outrage until it goes away. That seems to be more the approach for this game w/ regards to monetization.

[Gorem.8104]

7 minutes ago, Zephire.8049 said:

It wouldn't surprise me if it was set intentionally high to generate this reaction so they can charge 1200 for future skins and people will be okay with that because it makes it seem the developer listened and it's cheaper than what it appeared to be. I can't remember the exact term for it but it's common in cash shops—especially mobile ones—as a psychological trick to make people okay with high prices because "they could have been higher".

Start low and you can't go up without looking greedy and making customers upset. Start high and you can go lower and customers will praise you for lowering the price and listening to feedback even if you still charge more than the item's worth.

Pretty much, predatory mobile gaming tactics one o one. 
It makes you look so much better this way and you still rip people off. This is honestly the games worst mtx in its store. You are essentially spending $20 and gaining nothing. 

Edited July 20, 2022 by Gorem.8104

[Ashen.2907]

26 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

I just love that we'll have no idea how well this sold ever in game, purely because we cannot see other players Jade bots. We can see their mail carriers and their tools and such, but bots? Nope. 

 

Which is a good thing cause this bot does not fit the game aesthetics anyway. 

We might be able to make solid guesses in the broad sense based on whether or not this item's price declines significantly and additional skins added. If we see no further, or very limited, development of jade bot skins it would be a solid sign that it didnt sell well.

[Mickey.4207]

On 7/20/2022 at 12:21 AM, Sobx.1758 said:

Ok, that's pretty funny. I wouldn't say it's outrageous because I'm not interested anyways -if someone wants to splurge 1600 gems on a jadebot skin, then hf with that 🤷‍♂️

Like you mentioned, 400-800 would probably be more in line with what it is, but it would still be all the same to me tbh.

It is outrageous though. If could keep my jade bot out as long as i want i might even spend 1600 gems but for something you see for few seconds at a time it's crazy price

[DexterousGecko.6328]

When people defend insane pricing with "you don't NEED it" why would they price things any differently?

 

That said, I'm worried they're going to try to force jade bots into future content.

[Batel.9206]

Can people stop saying this is "predatory"? It isn't. It's overpriced.

What would be "predatory" is if, for example, the jade bot was advertised as a free service that you get with leveling up the masteries in End of Dragons. And it is...for a little while, or for a limited amount of uses. If you want more/different uses, more time to use it, and/or use it in competitive modes for a stat boost, you have to pay. (That, incidentally, is pay-to-win.) Or if the advertisement was that it had x skill or y ability, but only by paying for it does it actually gain those abilities because it didn't have them in the free trial (and that wasn't obvious from marketing), that's predatory and wrong. If the jade bot or this skin was marketed as something that you absolutely need to be competitive or successful in the game (and you had to pay to get it), then it turns out its actual contribution to gameplay is so negligible as to be almost nonexistent, that's predatory.

That's not what this is.

This is a hilariously overpriced cosmetic skin for something that is used so little it may not be worth it. But it isn't predatory. It's pretty clear this is a purely cosmetic skin, like absolutely every other skin in the entire gem store. It isn't advertised or marketed in any way as to trick anyone into thinking this changes the jade bot's abilities, stats, or anything about it apart from looks. If someone wants to shell out that amount of gems for a cosmetic change - okay, go right ahead. They know what they're getting: a skin. That's not a trick, that's not a deception, that's not misleading, it's just terribly overpriced...but predatory? No.

Stop using that word - you devalue its meaning. It's like the boy who cried wolf: when/if something comes along that genuinely IS predatory pricing or marketing, no one will take it as seriously as they should because everything else has been falsely called by that term.