On Gemstore Item Availability

[Arnox.5128]

If I recall correctly, I read in a blog post from ANet that gem store availability would be majorly improved, but it looks like there's still a bunch of items that are still being pulled from the store. This greatly disappoints me. ANet why do you make it so hard for me to give you money?

[phandaria.4891]

Artificial scarcity. It increases the chances of people buying said stuff when the item is not always available, hence there will always be item rotation.

[jokke.6239]

59 minutes ago, phandaria.4891 said:

Artificial scarcity. It increases the chances of people buying said stuff when the item is not always available, hence there will always be item rotation.

It also decreases sales from people who won't be around when the items are available.

Or from the casual player who plays a couple times a year, but has plenty of money to spend.

Those won't be able to find much at once in the store as it is currently

 

I'm not convinced they actually earn more from the way they do sales

They have never tried anything else and most games don't seem to follow this model

They should try to have all items available for a couple months, and just do weekly rotations of sales, just to test it out imo

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by jokke.6239

[Danikat.8537]

They said it would be improved, they didn't say everything would always be available. I suspect they still want to keep some form of artificial scarcity because even though it will lose some sales to people who can't log in or don't know they want it at that time apparently over all it increases sales (and not just in MMOs).

The main change I've noticed is that items which used to be discounted for 24-48 hours now often get discounted for a week or more. The bank tabs, bag slots and character slots are the main ones I remember. In previous years it was quite common for big sale periods like March or August to have lots of 1 day sales, now the same things are up at the same price for longer.

[Kattliadi.1507]

As a casual newish player I had to wait nearly a YEAR for the hummingbird skimmer skin to come back to the store.  Its a beautiful skin and totally worth the money, I was ready to buy it right away...and had to wait months and make sure I didn't miss it just to give them some money.  Finally got it, but ugh - not something I'm likely to do for a casual buy.