Stop Rotating Items on the Gem Store

[Super Hayes.6890]

Very few things crack me up as much as "out of stock" digital items 😒 Anet used to be all about breaking the mold. However, as others have stated, it is totally up to them how they want to market. And we do want them to profit so this game stays healthy 🤷‍♂️

[SinisterSlay.6973]

7 hours ago, TheNecrosanct.4028 said:

Trust me, studies have been done. It's a general marketing strategy. Sales and limited availability trigger people into buying. It's standard human behavior for the majority of the population. Yes, there will be exceptions, but exceptions are by definition not the majority. ANet's customers aren't categorically different from the rest of the population.

Someone should probably tell Walmart then.  They should leave their shelves empty.

 

Oh... https://slate.com/business/2015/01/target-closing-in-canada-these-pictures-show-why-it-failed.html  Target tried that already.

[SinisterSlay.6973]

11 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

 

But if you know what you want to buy and you know the item will be rotating in then how are you ready one day and not ready another day when it rolls in? Doesn't it mean you'd buy it impulsively if it was available, but then you decide you'd rather spend on something else instead? At which point... Good for you?

Sometimes but not really.  The money goes elsewhere.  Do you really hang onto $20 by your keyboard just in case something shows up for sale once a year?  Is this the only game you are playing where that $20 might go while you wait?

Yes I just convert gold to gems.  It works best for me, but not for anet.  But their marketing strategy is the polar opposite to how I shop.  Everything they do encourages me to not spend money.

Edited June 14, 2023 by SinisterSlay.6973

[TheNecrosanct.4028]

2 hours ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

Someone should probably tell Walmart then.  They should leave their shelves empty.

 

Oh... https://slate.com/business/2015/01/target-closing-in-canada-these-pictures-show-why-it-failed.html  Target tried that already.

Have you even read the article? If you think it works as an argument for your case, then it's obvious you didn't.

First of all, the gemstore doesn't have shelves. It's always full, just not always with the same items (though the majority of the gemstore is filled with items that are available indefinitely). So the image of a half empty store simply does not apply. Second of all, it's not dependent on supply. You can't treat digital articles the same as physical articles. Not all the same rules apply. Those are only 2 of the differences between the article and ANet's gemstore. If you've actually read the article you'd know that Target's problems in Canada had nothing to do with any marketing strategy. They didn't have the infrastructure to support such a large number of stores, the locations were bad, the stores themselves were in bad shape. It was a bad business decision hastily executed and they ended up shooting themselves in the foot.

ANet, on the other hand, has been running a game without a subscription on the basis of the revenue of game sales and gemstore purchases for 11 years now. If their tactics are so bad and detrimental, why are they working on a 4th expansion at the moment?

[Carnifex.3275]

Gemstore Ltd™ 

Create a problem -> present a time-limited solution -> profit. 

Edited June 14, 2023 by Carnifex.3275

[vandrefalk.6823]

Always amusing to see limited editions on the gem store, as if there isn't enough shelf space or enough stock... so you create limited edition by making it available only for a short time and get it sold to all who like it on introduction. Then you remove it, and gauge its popularity and bring it back to see a lot more purchases next time, because people fear it will go away again. And then rinse & repeat for profit.

 

Works like a charm, even on me who is awaiting the return of a few skins 🤣

[robertthebard.8150]

9 hours ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

Sometimes but not really.  The money goes elsewhere.  Do you really hang onto $20 by your keyboard just in case something shows up for sale once a year?  Is this the only game you are playing where that $20 might go while you wait?

Yes I just convert gold to gems.  It works best for me, but not for anet.  But their marketing strategy is the polar opposite to how I shop.  Everything they do encourages me to not spend money.

Depending on how badly I want something, yes?  At least, figuratively.  The cash won't be beside my keyboard, but if I have the cash to buy gems, or the gold to exchange for them, then I'll do it and bank them for future reference.

[Sobx.1758]

16 hours ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

Sometimes but not really.  The money goes elsewhere.  Do you really hang onto $20 by your keyboard just in case something shows up for sale once a year?  Is this the only game you are playing where that $20 might go while you wait?

Yes I just convert gold to gems.  It works best for me, but not for anet.  But their marketing strategy is the polar opposite to how I shop.  Everything they do encourages me to not spend money.

I wonder why you even typed out the first half of the post when you then continue with "Yes I just convert gold to gems" to basically negate any "potential reasoning" you wrote above it? What does putting physical money next to your keyboard has to do with anything here? Duh, are you somehow sending that 20$ bill to anet or something? Why can't you be more straightforward and truthful with the answer instead of making up these weird, unrelated to anything scenarios?

Edited June 14, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[RoseofGilead.8907]

15 hours ago, SinisterSlay.6973 said:

Oh... https://slate.com/business/2015/01/target-closing-in-canada-these-pictures-show-why-it-failed.html  Target tried that already.

"Rather than build its own real estate, it purchased leases on buildings that had belonged to Zellers, a “dying low-end retailer,” as Fortune puts it, whose locations were “dumpy, poorly configured for Target’s big-box layout, and were in areas not frequented by the middle class customers Target covets . . . But that wasn’t the real killer. Because it revved up so quickly, the company never had time to develop a working supply chain in Canada, which left its stores short on merchandise and full of empty shelves."

That wasn't Target trying an artificial scarcity tactic and having it backfire. That was Target making poor choices (ie. opening too many stores without making sure supply can keep up with demand) and being unable to keep business going.

[Gerebos.1065]

For me I am glad they keep rotating because it saves me lots of money.

When I get hyped for a certain type of something and I get hyped quite often ,for example Nature or Sand or anything else and I would like to buy the themed skins and I cannot find any of it its a bit annoying at first then my hype  goes and my money remains xD

The outfits which I bought are from hypes which happened to be in the store at the moment xD

 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

i wouldn't mind the rotation if items came back with at least some frequency, but some items have never returned. there's novelties and mount packs that we only saw once or twice.

Edited June 14, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Oriens.5630]

I agree but unfortunately I think this is a marketing ploy. Other games I have played do the same thing. Possibly it's to get you to make a spur of the moment decision based on FOMO.

[jason.1083]

On 6/11/2023 at 9:56 PM, Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:

I can't even count how many times I see an armor or a skin on someone and I go to check the gemstore and its not available. My latest example is that its dragon bash, I want to make a dragon bash themed outfit, so i make up armor in the wardrobe and go to the gemstore and all 4 of the pieces I need to create the outfit aren't available.  Same thing happened with the mount skin that I wanted, where it wasn't available for over a YEAR in the gemstore and it took me complaining on the forums for you guys to bring it back (canthan menagerie mount pack).  By the time the items are available to purchase in the gemstore my desire to buy them or the festival or the inspiration to create something new using them has passed and i end up not buying them.

I don't know how long it takes to rotate all of the items in the gemstore, but I would say that at any given time there is only 1/6th or 1/8th available at any given point?  Meaning more often than not you can't get what you want, and this happens every time i get the urge to buy something.

I don't know what psychological benefit you guys THINK you're generating by having artificial scarcity, but its annoying and I've passed up on probably 10 items now at this point because they aren't available when I get the urge to buy them.

Please just stop rotating and make everything in the gemstore available, its ridiculous at this point.

Agreed, it's not appealing when you look at it like that, but consider that Anet has avoided a lot of abusing practices, a lot of which are worst than the fear of missing out on an item, like for example, subscriptions, battle passes, straight up selling power and better items, let them have that at least, for the gemstore to work you don't just need good stuff being put there, because if they never went away a lot of people would wait for something else to release, without worrying that the item they're thinking about getting will go away. And the most important thing, they made it so you can actually buy everything from the gemstore with in game currency. The method might not work on you, but it's tried and tested over the years, it works on enough people to make it worth it.

Yes fear of missing out is a little bit abusive, but it's innocent compared to what they could be doing, and what other companies are doing currently. If you're gonna complain about something in this game the micro transaction system should be the last thing on the list.

[Dreams.3128]

On 6/11/2023 at 4:16 PM, Jumpin Lumpix.6108 said:

yah i hear ya, i guess they don't care, fine with me, i was going to buy 5 "dragon themed" gemstore items because of dragon bash, that i don't have.  None of them are available, so I'm buying none.  When they are available, dragon bash will be over, so no point in buying them.  I also like how everyone acknowledges on here that the psychological benefit of generating scarcity in capitalism and how it works so well, but they dont focus on the negative psychology thats generated when people become irritated with the same psycho dynamic. which will most assuredly result in me not buying anything.  THey act like that doesn't count or its not a real thing thats happening or LOL. or whatever.  I guess everyone in this country enjoys being irritated or seeing others irritated like  lord of the flies.

 

You act like other first world countries don't do this. At all. Go look at Korea, Japan, China, literally any well developed country ever. It is not just 'this country' it is teeming in every aspect of our world that YOU refuse to see. This is not a singular problem, this is a multi-faceted problem that will requires years, hell even decades to fix. This will require changing the mindsets of thousands, maybe millions of people who play games just like this and perform practices just like this.

While I empathize with your frustrations because I've been waiting for certain items myself, there is a level of ignorance sitting within your statement when you are trying to pin the blame on one particular country. If you wish for change, you BE that change as well as the rest of us that are unhappy with the developments of MULTIPLE societies that have adopted capitalism as a benefit, instead of a detriment. 

Also using Lord of the Flies as a reference is just..so out of touch I don't know where to begin. Yeesh.

[jokke.6239]

On 6/11/2023 at 10:03 PM, kharmin.7683 said:

Well established marketing tactics would disagree with you.  If FOMO didn't work to make more profits, companies wouldn't engage with it.

Having all items available all the time + doing FOMO discounts could work too.

Might work better, many games do this.

[Sylvari.2953]

I've said this before but I'll say it again. It doesn't matter how much Anet want to sell me stuff, I will NOT buy anything I don't need RIGHT NOW. FOMO does not work on me AT ALL. So many times I get a sudden urge to buy a Gem Store item but it's not available. I wait and wait and waaait until I lose interest in the item... So when it comes back x months later, I just don't want it anymore! And this is why I rarely buy things in this game.

I prefer FFXIV's cash shop, everything is available all the time and if I get that sudden urge to buy an item, I just open my wallet and buy it. I spend A LOT more money on XIV because of this (besides the monthly sub). 🤷‍♀️

[jokke.6239]

oh right, forgot how confused everyone is on this forum 😆