Mounts at 2000 gems actually ARE ok and here's why (xpost from reddit)

[Bunter.3795]

I see it come up all the time "somebody paid for these gems" you all seem to not pay attention to achievement points in this game. At every 5,000 AP interval (5k, 10k, etc) you are given 30g and 400 GEMS. Now take those 400 gems for the first 5k achievement points, multiply it by a conservative 1 million users and you get 400,000,000 gems that no one had to purchase. Sure a lot of people spend them in the store but not all do and they can convert them to gold just like a person who has paid for the gems.

I'm not saying that every person sells their 400 gems, I know I haven't, but everyone is given those gems to use however they feel like and Anet hasn't been paid an extra dime for them.

Personally I'm fine with whatever price Anet wants to charge for every single item in the gem store. If I like the item and I feel the price is right (to me) I'll buy it. If I don't like the item or I feel it's too expensive, I DON'T BUY IT. All this whining on the forums coupled with the hyperbole and over-dramatization is just ridiculous. In a digital game where Anet knows exactly how many accounts are active and how many purchases are made they know better than anyone here whether the price is "right" or not.

Sure you can voice your opinion as to whether or not you'll buy it but to accuse Anet of exploitation or predation of it's customer is just pure BS. No one is pointing a gun at your head to purchase these items, no one is given an in game advantage when they do purchase them and you don't. Voice your feedback like some have "2,000 is just too much for me" etc but leave all the rest out of the forums

[DarcShriek.5829]

@Ronorra.1530 said:A lot of kitten to excuse an extravant pricing model... "$25 is the industry standard for MMO mounts"? You are talking about the same MMO that charges people 15 pop per char to migrate alone... what are you thinking?

I feel it is futile to post all the points to explain why this pricing and model is wrong on so many levels and I rather keep it with mentioning that I was very willing to spend gems in the gemshop (plenty of outfits and gliders) to help Anet but when I started to see lootdrops that were sold in the gemshop while they obviously should have been drops from raidbosses, I stopped with that. And now that Anet is going in that direction even more with more RNG, more expensive items and even less rewards obtainable during normal play it feels for me that the time is come not to vote with my wallet because Anet doesn't seem to care about that, but to vote with my time.

An artist should feel free to post whatever price they want on their creation.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@castlemanic.3198 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:I’m failing to see how the transactions from the gemstore done with gold doesn’t cost Anet money. Cost in this sense being that they’re not gaining any real world currency from the transaction. The impact of converting from gold-gems does increase the appeal of doing the reverse. However, how much benefit they obtain from it is debatable. Similar to why expansions are not sold on the gem store.

Haven't Arenanet themselves said that players only actually buy the gems players have exchanged to gold?

I could be wrong but remember something about that, which, if true, means that Arenanet lose no money whatsoever from gold to gem exchange, since every gem being exchanged for gold has been bought by someone's real world money.

Yes but you’re missing what I’m saying. They’re losing on the transaction, which I stated in my post, as they’re not obtaining real world dollars. Purchase 2500 gems with gold. Does the exchange rate change? No or at the very most a few silver.

Someone purchasing $50 worth of gems with gold doesn’t impact the gem->gold rate enough to appeal to a player to convert $50 worth of gems to gold. It’s not a 1:1 relationship as the exchange rate doesn’t change enough to make up for it.

[GreyWolf.8670]

@nottsgman.8206 said:

-$25 is the industry standard for MMO mounts. Even in games with larger player bases and a required subscription.do you have an example of other games where mounts are $25 (apart from WoW)? I'm honestly curious

IMO WoW doesn't count as there is more than one mount of each type available in the game.

[GreyWolf.8670]

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:Guys, you're replying to the points that the reddit poster made about "alternatives to expensive skins". But the reddit poster wasn't suggesting them like they're attractive alternatives - they're obviously far worse than expensive skins, which was his point.

You people would cripple this game just so you can have your unicorn ponies cheaper.

Yeah, sure, that's it. You do realize some of us are now planning on never spending a dime on this game because of their new gem store behavior? How is that helping the game? I do not care if the game is financially crippled is this is what it will be for now on.

[GreyWolf.8670]

@Bunter.3795 said:I see it come up all the time "somebody paid for these gems" you all seem to not pay attention to achievement points in this game. At every 5,000 AP interval (5k, 10k, etc) you are given 30g and 400 GEMS. Now take those 400 gems for the first 5k achievement points, multiply it by a conservative 1 million users and you get 400,000,000 gems that no one had to purchase. Sure a lot of people spend them in the store but not all do and they can convert them to gold just like a person who has paid for the gems.

I'm not saying that every person sells their 400 gems, I know I haven't, but everyone is given those gems to use however they feel like and Anet hasn't been paid an extra dime for them.

Personally I'm fine with whatever price Anet wants to charge for every single item in the gem store. If I like the item and I feel the price is right (to me) I'll buy it. If I don't like the item or I feel it's too expensive, I DON'T BUY IT. All this whining on the forums coupled with the hyperbole and over-dramatization is just ridiculous. In a digital game where Anet knows exactly how many accounts are active and how many purchases are made they know better than anyone here whether the price is "right" or not.

Sure you can voice your opinion as to whether or not you'll buy it but to accuse Anet of exploitation or predation of it's customer is just pure BS. No one is pointing a gun at your head to purchase these items, no one is given an in game advantage when they do purchase them and you don't. Voice your feedback like some have "2,000 is just too much for me" etc but leave all the rest out of the forums

Yes, 400 gems every 5000 achievement points. That's not even work factoring in.

[Bunter.3795]

@GreyWolf.8670 said:

@Bunter.3795 said:I see it come up all the time "somebody paid for these gems" you all seem to not pay attention to achievement points in this game. At every 5,000 AP interval (5k, 10k, etc) you are given 30g and 400 GEMS. Now take those 400 gems for the first 5k achievement points, multiply it by a conservative 1 million users and you get 400,000,000 gems that no one had to purchase. Sure a lot of people spend them in the store but not all do and they can convert them to gold just like a person who has paid for the gems.

I'm not saying that every person sells their 400 gems, I know I haven't, but everyone is given those gems to use however they feel like and Anet hasn't been paid an extra dime for them.

Personally I'm fine with whatever price Anet wants to charge for every single item in the gem store. If I like the item and I feel the price is right (to me) I'll buy it. If I don't like the item or I feel it's too expensive, I DON'T BUY IT. All this whining on the forums coupled with the hyperbole and over-dramatization is just ridiculous. In a digital game where Anet knows exactly how many accounts are active and how many purchases are made they know better than anyone here whether the price is "right" or not.

Sure you can voice your opinion as to whether or not you'll buy it but to accuse Anet of exploitation or predation of it's customer is just pure BS. No one is pointing a gun at your head to purchase these items, no one is given an in game advantage when they do purchase them and you don't. Voice your feedback like some have "2,000 is just too much for me" etc but leave all the rest out of the forums

Yes, 400 gems every

5000

achievement points. That's not even work factoring in.

It is still an amount of gems that were not paid for with real money and that has to be factored into any discussion. It's really easy to ge 5,000 AP and just myself I have been given over 5200 gems on my 4 accts and am close to another 1200 more. That is not a small number.

[GreyWolf.8670]

@Bunter.3795 said:

@GreyWolf.8670 said:

@Bunter.3795 said:I see it come up all the time "somebody paid for these gems" you all seem to not pay attention to achievement points in this game. At every 5,000 AP interval (5k, 10k, etc) you are given 30g and 400 GEMS. Now take those 400 gems for the first 5k achievement points, multiply it by a conservative 1 million users and you get 400,000,000 gems that no one had to purchase. Sure a lot of people spend them in the store but not all do and they can convert them to gold just like a person who has paid for the gems.

I'm not saying that every person sells their 400 gems, I know I haven't, but everyone is given those gems to use however they feel like and Anet hasn't been paid an extra dime for them.

Personally I'm fine with whatever price Anet wants to charge for every single item in the gem store. If I like the item and I feel the price is right (to me) I'll buy it. If I don't like the item or I feel it's too expensive, I DON'T BUY IT. All this whining on the forums coupled with the hyperbole and over-dramatization is just ridiculous. In a digital game where Anet knows exactly how many accounts are active and how many purchases are made they know better than anyone here whether the price is "right" or not.

Sure you can voice your opinion as to whether or not you'll buy it but to accuse Anet of exploitation or predation of it's customer is just pure BS. No one is pointing a gun at your head to purchase these items, no one is given an in game advantage when they do purchase them and you don't. Voice your feedback like some have "2,000 is just too much for me" etc but leave all the rest out of the forums

Yes, 400 gems every

5000

achievement points. That's not even work factoring in.

It is still an amount of gems that were not paid for with real money and that has to be factored into any discussion. It's really easy to ge 5,000 AP and just myself I have been given over 5200 gems on my 4 accts and am close to another 1200 more. That is not a small number.

You were given 5200 gems from achievements on one account? I call BS on that since APs are account-wide. If you want to make an argument, fine, but don't make things up. 4 accounts times whatever you paid for the game when you created them is nowhere equal to the $5 that 400 gems is worth.

[DarcShriek.5829]

Artists should have the right to charge whatever they want for their creations.

[Bunter.3795]

@GreyWolf.8670 said:

@Bunter.3795 said:

@GreyWolf.8670 said:

@Bunter.3795 said:I see it come up all the time "somebody paid for these gems" you all seem to not pay attention to achievement points in this game. At every 5,000 AP interval (5k, 10k, etc) you are given 30g and 400 GEMS. Now take those 400 gems for the first 5k achievement points, multiply it by a conservative 1 million users and you get 400,000,000 gems that no one had to purchase. Sure a lot of people spend them in the store but not all do and they can convert them to gold just like a person who has paid for the gems.

I'm not saying that every person sells their 400 gems, I know I haven't, but everyone is given those gems to use however they feel like and Anet hasn't been paid an extra dime for them.

Personally I'm fine with whatever price Anet wants to charge for every single item in the gem store. If I like the item and I feel the price is right (to me) I'll buy it. If I don't like the item or I feel it's too expensive, I DON'T BUY IT. All this whining on the forums coupled with the hyperbole and over-dramatization is just ridiculous. In a digital game where Anet knows exactly how many accounts are active and how many purchases are made they know better than anyone here whether the price is "right" or not.

Sure you can voice your opinion as to whether or not you'll buy it but to accuse Anet of exploitation or predation of it's customer is just pure BS. No one is pointing a gun at your head to purchase these items, no one is given an in game advantage when they do purchase them and you don't. Voice your feedback like some have "2,000 is just too much for me" etc but leave all the rest out of the forums

Yes, 400 gems every

5000

achievement points. That's not even work factoring in.

It is still an amount of gems that were not paid for with real money and that has to be factored into any discussion. It's really easy to ge 5,000 AP and just myself I have been given over 5200 gems on my 4 accts and am close to another 1200 more. That is not a small number.

You were given 5200 gems from achievements on one account? I call BS on that since APs are account-wide. If you want to make an argument, fine, but don't make things up. 4 accounts times whatever you paid for the game when you created them is nowhere equal to the $5 that 400 gems is worth.

It's an aggregate of the 4 accounts. I added wrong as it's only 4800 atm but it's still a lot of gems given to me freely just for playing the game. I have 29, 500 ap on one (2,000 gems), 24,500 on second (1,600 gems), 11,000 on third (800 gems) and 9,000 on 4th (400 gems). 4800 gems is $60.00 in gems purchases I haven't had to make over the years but I'm only one person. I'm close to another $15.00 in gems as well.

I'm not the only person who has AP, Everyone does and everyone gets the free gems. I don't know or wouldn't even care to estimate the number of people who sell those gems for gold but the point stands that not every gem that is being exchanged for gold was paid for with real life currency.

There was also the 4,000 gems that 2 of my accounts got when I purchased the ultimate for them which I only paid for half of their real cost. so that's another 4,000 gems I was "given". Like I've said I haven't turned mine into gold as I had things I wanted to purchase in the gem store and as I said I have no idea how many have cashed them in for gold but the point remains, not every gem that is purchased with in game gold was bought with real life currency.

[Shiyo.3578]

@Oglaf.1074 said:"-$25 is the industry standard for MMO mounts."

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Yep, I've never bought a mount/mount skin in a MMO due to their absurd prices. Good to know I will continue not to.

[nottsgman.8206]

@GreyWolf.8670 said:

@nottsgman.8206 said:

-$25 is the industry standard for MMO mounts. Even in games with larger player bases and a required subscription.do you have an example of other games where mounts are $25 (apart from WoW)? I'm honestly curious

IMO WoW doesn't count as there is more than one mount of each type available in the game.

I only mentioned WoW because it was the only one I knew of.

thanks to all the people who answered by the way :)

[TexZero.7910]

Anyone else find it ironic that a justification is "It's the industry standard" when Anet has long been about not following bad standards ?

[Sonderm.4639]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@castlemanic.3198 said:

@Ayrilana.1396 said:I’m failing to see how the transactions from the gemstore done with gold doesn’t cost Anet money. Cost in this sense being that they’re not gaining any real world currency from the transaction. The impact of converting from gold-gems does increase the appeal of doing the reverse. However, how much benefit they obtain from it is debatable. Similar to why expansions are not sold on the gem store.

Haven't Arenanet themselves said that players only actually buy the gems players have exchanged to gold?

I could be wrong but remember something about that, which, if true, means that Arenanet lose no money whatsoever from gold to gem exchange, since every gem being exchanged for gold has been bought by someone's real world money.

Yes but you’re missing what I’m saying. They’re losing on the transaction, which I stated in my post, as they’re not obtaining real world dollars. Purchase 2500 gems with gold. Does the exchange rate change? No or at the very most a few silver.

Someone purchasing $50 worth of gems with gold doesn’t impact the gem->gold rate enough to appeal to a player to convert $50 worth of gems to gold. It’s not a 1:1 relationship as the exchange rate doesn’t change enough to make up for it.

With the current system, people buy gems (with real money) in order to obtain in-game gold. Without players willing to trade their gold into gems these people wouldn't spend money on the gems (because it's the gold they are after in order to buy stuff on the TP). And the cash people were willing to spend in order to buy the gems to exchange into gold goes straight into ANet's pockets. So where do they lose? (Of course, they could simply cut out the player gold-input and sell the gold for cash at a fixed exchange rate, though that would probably give rise to more inflation and create a huge outcry at the player base).

[titje.2745]

i don’t care this prices. as long the game stay alive with nice content and beautiful maps i am happy. i don’t want the game dying. better expensive mount and no subs. ppl will buy it :)

they can save money if they put less effort in the story.

and you don’t have to buy everything that’s nice. i always said i never have gold but when there was a 500 gem item in store and i liked it my gold was gone. and i always wanted a legendary so i stopped buying skins with gems.

good night

[Blude.6812]

Too bad Mo can't be bothered to post in the NEW OFFICIAL forums.

[sephiroth.4217]

I support Anet, even though I can be salty on them sometimes. I put more than 5 grand into this game but I would never pay 2000 gems for a mount skin, and believe me, I've done questionable things before with my money like spending $100 just to build a tonne of trees for my guild hall.

I'm going to keep spending money on Anet, but I wish they could see the faults in their systems from a paying customer view. There's options they have that WOULD MAKE LOTS OF MONEY but for what ever reason they won't open up the market.

I'd pay for Legendary Armor/Weapons with level 2 default skins just for interchangeable stats.I'd pay 8000 gems for Gen1 Legendaries if they put them on the gem storeI'd pay for map completion of core tyria (29 toons after 5 years, only so many times you can freakin do it)I'd buy 1 Gift Of Completion for X amount of gems.I'd pay for 1 elite spec to be unlocked on a character of my choice (again, 29 characters)I'd buy more characters if I could buy 1 elite spec with it so I can jump strait into the action.I'd pay for Black Lion chest keys if Boosters were put back in.I'd pay for Level 80 boosters just to skip the level up rewards from using tomes... (seriously, takes like half hour to open all level loots and sell/delete the crap you get)

It's the little things.

I get people don't want those options because they had to grind for it, why should we be able to buy it mentality.... But seriously, if people want to grind for it or just buy it (more money for Anet), that's their own personal choice. It doesn't effect those players no matter how much they say "oh but but but".

Player 1: Hey it's not fair you bought your legendaryPlayer 2: Why didn't you buy yours too?Player 1: Because I have no money, I had to spend months grinding and farming.Player 2: Oh, I have a job and other commitments and don't have time to grind for months.... <--------------- PAYING CUSTOMER MENTALITY, why not take advantage of that? The ones with jobs, have money and not enough time. The ones without jobs, have no money but lots of time. Who's more inclines to spend money?

Take advantage of people like myself that have jobs and no time to commit to raids or months of grinding for gold or what ever, theres no need for over priced skins, just open up the market a little bit for us. QoL improvements and such. More bank tabs (mine are maxed and filled) is another thing I'd buy too.

[Ayrilana.1396]

@BolkovonHarnfeldt.1372 said:With the current system, people buy gems (with real money) in order to obtain in-game gold. Without players willing to trade their gold into gems these people wouldn't spend money on the gems (because it's the gold they are after in order to buy stuff on the TP). And the cash people were willing to spend in order to buy the gems to exchange into gold goes straight into ANet's pockets. So where do they lose? (Of course, they could simply cut out the player gold-input and sell the gold for cash at a fixed exchange rate, though that would probably give rise to more inflation and create a huge outcry at the player base).

My original post was about the transaction itself; however, since it's getting pushed to cover more than that, I'll address it.

Look at the current exchange rate trend. It's been trending up since launch. This means that more gems are leaving the exchange system than what is being put in. In other words, players are taking out more gems using gold than they are putting into it using real world currencies. That difference in gems, when converted to real world currency, is what Anet is losing.

[Grimslade.6728]

There are so many opinions on the subject that I want to add mine. If the mount skins were cheaper and more easily available, I WOULDN'T buy them. Why would I buy something that everyone else can easily get as well? I might as well just use the default skins at that point. It is fun to ride a mount with a skin that not many other people are using/have!

[ReaverKane.7598]

@Lilyanna.9361 said:

@nottsgman.8206 said:

-$25 is the industry standard for MMO mounts. Even in games with larger player bases and a required subscription.do you have an example of other games where mounts are $25 (apart from WoW)? I'm honestly curious

TERA, Wildstar.

TERA- 40 bucksWildstar- 20 bucks

Honestly I am also with the subs guy. Kick these cheap people out. Lock them away. Pull down the door. If you don't wanna spend bucks, then you obviously don't wanna play that badly. I swear Free to Players are the literal cancer and the reason why WoW is not ever going to free to play.

In both those games you can buy more mounts in-game than with premium currency...

@Bunter.3795 said:I see it come up all the time "somebody paid for these gems" you all seem to not pay attention to achievement points in this game. At every 5,000 AP interval (5k, 10k, etc) you are given 30g and 400 GEMS. Now take those 400 gems for the first 5k achievement points, multiply it by a conservative 1 million users and you get 400,000,000 gems that no one had to purchase. Sure a lot of people spend them in the store but not all do and they can convert them to gold just like a person who has paid for the gems.

I'm not saying that every person sells their 400 gems, I know I haven't, but everyone is given those gems to use however they feel like and Anet hasn't been paid an extra dime for them.

Personally I'm fine with whatever price Anet wants to charge for every single item in the gem store. If I like the item and I feel the price is right (to me) I'll buy it. If I don't like the item or I feel it's too expensive, I DON'T BUY IT. All this whining on the forums coupled with the hyperbole and over-dramatization is just ridiculous. In a digital game where Anet knows exactly how many accounts are active and how many purchases are made they know better than anyone here whether the price is "right" or not.

Sure you can voice your opinion as to whether or not you'll buy it but to accuse Anet of exploitation or predation of it's customer is just pure BS. No one is pointing a gun at your head to purchase these items, no one is given an in game advantage when they do purchase them and you don't. Voice your feedback like some have "2,000 is just too much for me" etc but leave all the rest out of the forums

That obviously doesn't hurt their income, or they WOULDN'T OFFER IT. Especially since the guy with the most achievement points got that bonus 5 times or so, in other words in 5 years playing he earned 2000 gems. I can assure you he bought way more than that.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@BolkovonHarnfeldt.1372 said:With the current system, people buy gems (with real money) in order to obtain in-game gold. Without players willing to trade their gold into gems these people wouldn't spend money on the gems (because it's the gold they are after in order to buy stuff on the TP). And the cash people were willing to spend in order to buy the gems to exchange into gold goes straight into ANet's pockets. So where do they lose? (Of course, they could simply cut out the player gold-input and sell the gold for cash at a fixed exchange rate, though that would probably give rise to more inflation and create a huge outcry at the player base).

My original post was about the transaction itself; however, since it's getting pushed to cover more than that, I'll address it.

Look at the current exchange rate trend. It's been trending up since launch. This means that more gems are leaving the exchange system than what is being put in. In other words, players are taking out more gems using gold than they are putting into it using real world currencies. That difference in gems, when converted to real world currency, is what Anet is losing.

They aren't loosing anything. You get way less gold for 100 gems than people pay for 100 gems. And the dollars were paid none the less. As far as Arena Net is concerned, gold has no value for them, they can spawn a character with a billion gold and won't lose a cent. What is good for them is that people buy gold for gems, and gems for gold, which means there's a bunch of people that give money to Arena Net even when they don't want anything from the gem store.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

@ProverbsofHell.2307 said:"So we as a community are doing the outrage over mount pricing in the gem store thing again. And while that is understandable to a certain extent it is also something ANet must do whether we like it or not.Personally? Arenanet can do whatever they please. I don't work for them or own the company so they really do whichever.The difference here is I can decide not to buy something and speak my mind whether they like it or not as well.

Let us put the situation into context:Going to read on and see.

-These mounts are not simple re-colors like the Halloween and most of the License mounts.Those skins were low effort to create and the 2000 gem mounts are high effort with completely new looks, new effects, sounds, and sometimes animations.The difference is it's really not hard to make a simple skin like that actually.The Forged one, they already have the forged assets and design/style/look which they just needed to adapt to a Jackal. The new effect/sounds/ and sometimes animations is no different though to the Halloween mount.They have a horror sound when they go out or in, they have new effect and trails and mist and smoke, and new animation around the body.If the Halloween was 400 gems on sale and 500 naturally going by the actual bundle price, for the most part, it should only be doubled for the completely new skin which would be 800-1000 gems.

-$25 is the industry standard for MMO mounts. Even in games with larger player bases and a required subscription.Not sure what the industry standard is in this case as anyone can set anything at any price.One can argue the "industry standard" for a game is $60 but you can sell a game for $50 or $40 and sometimes $70+. This is a bad example.

-The default mount skins are beautiful. ANet didn't skimp on them like they did with the default glider. No one should feel bad riding around on the default mount skins.Isn't this pretty much saying that no one should buy mount skins?I'm just asking because if they're beautiful with their 1 dye selection, then why should I buy new skins?

Also, I never had a problem with the original glider and used it from however long I've had it until I got some ghost glider for free from a black lion chest. Never bought a glider skin.

-You don't pay a subscription for this game and the store is not P2W.What does this have to do with mounts though?

-Calling the game Fashion Wars 2 in jest does NOT make high priced cosmetics P2W no matter how many times you try to equate the two.I'm not in the whole Word of Fashion, Fashiony Star Online 2, or in this case Fashion Wars 2, but I do have to say that if the driving point in the game IS fashion, you have to say that's pretty much the endgame.I don't go after legendaries because they're exactly the same as ascended and while I can change my stats on the whim, I still lose my sigil/runes everytime I change the stats meaning it would still cost me money... and legendaries already cost an arm, leg, face, a pound of flesh, and the soul or your grandparents to get one.Also, another reason I don't go for legendaries is I think most of them are ugly. Subjective, but whatever.But if the driving goal in this game IS skins, then you have to say in GW2 world that skins are the "P2W".

Btw though? I don't care what someone got or use though so I won't myself call it Pay2win because in my eyes they have no advantage over me unless they get in my camera with a stargazing griffon that I can't see anything in my screen no more and my face is melting away from the permafrost dye they put on the feline thing.

-If Anet made the mounts 800 gems you know very well you would go to the Silverwastes and farm gold and would never spend a penny on these mounts. That is why if they lowered the price they would get less money even if more people "bought" them. Yes many more times the amount of people would have the mount but many less people would spend money on them.I guess I'm one of those that have 0 clue on how to make money as I've never made much of anything in Silverwastes personally. I've also never done Gold to Gems except once when I didn't have the gems but wanted to get that silver salvage-o-matic thing before it disappeared.As for typing this, 800 gems is 208 1/2 gold which I'm still hurting from the 250 gold I lost from unlocking the Griffon.But even then, if people can easily farm gold and convert to gems, I'm pretty sure just a little over double their usual time of getting that 210 or so gold to get 800 gems would be in no time that they could get that mount skin as well.Not sure the argument here. Those that gold to gem would always gold to gem if they have/want to.

-ANet must find a way to justify having 300-400 people working on GW2. That is a large amount of people for a game in this genre. That is why we have such a strong content cadence. For comparison Bungie has 500 people working on Destiny and they have a lot less releases every year and charge for every single patch AND have a cash shop. GW2 took a hit after HoT's and the game likely cannot continue the pace of current development without increasing profits in a time when NCSoft's investors wonder why the entire company hasn't moved to mobile development after Lineage M's massive profits.Here's the thing. You make the item once and now you have unlimited quantity.While yes, many games come out physical (yes... even on PC to those that might gasp at that thought), those that you download digitally are never going to be sold out.This is why places like Steam and GoG and many others like that can always do crazy sales to the point that you can save up to 50%+ on a game.While yes that's not the normal price, the thing is that these sales come and go very frequently over time and most sales happen when the price is dropped for a limited time compared to other times if someone is crazy for the game.

Mounts that are 2000 they might sell let's say 10/100 people as an example (I don't have the stats obviously but just an example on from what I've seen from in the game and on the board as I've only seen 5 people so far in total with the Forged Ram skin and I have not seen a single person with the Chicken Peacock skin yet... I did see a ton of people with the RNG Mounts though), but if they sold it for 800 to 1000, more people would be willing to buy and that 10 might go up to at least 20 and more meaning more money being shovelled in.

The skins don't cost inking or pressing any CD/DVDs or cost of shipping and transporting. IT's 100% profit on their part.

-The mount is NOT nearly the price of the expansion. The expansion was sold very cheaply with the knowledge that some people would pay more for mount skins and carry those of us who didn't want to pay for a $50 expansion. Mount skins aren't a supplement to PoF. PoF exists to sell these mount skins. These mount skins are why NCSoft has allowed ANet to continue with its current massive content output for a game that was not generating nearly enough profits to warrant it post-HoT's.Honestly? If that's the case, they should've just made it $50 because when I'm thinking of it, I pretty much gave them $50 for the expansion then by getting PoF and then, of course, the Halloween mounts.Then there are others like me that did get the Halloween that might've gotten a few or all of the 9600 gem mounts and then the 2 2000 ones which are way over the price of the "supposed" price of the expansion. And if it was sold very cheaply alone, I'm wondering why they drop the price, even more, bundling it with HoT then.Then having to factor too on those that might not play or be able to play when Living Worlds come out which mean they have to still pay more to unlock those and so on and so forth.

You shouldn't sell something for less than it's worth (and if that's the case, that mean they removed those mounts to sell them separately? Because if so, that's really bad as that means they held content back to get more money in the end too... or was it we were supposed to spend $50 for what we got and still got just the main mounts with 1 dye and then get the ones they released in the gem store for the 400 gems?)

Now let's look at some alternatives:Waiting to see this.

-ANet could get rid of the gold to gem conversions entirely. Then everyone has to pay real money for all gem store items. This would allow them to sell cheaper mount skins.Still somewhat of a lose-lose though as those that planned on never spending money, would just never spend money though. Might even stop playing the game.Just remember that to even buy and use mounts, they had to buy one of the expansions. And the only way you can even go gold to gem, you had to not be on a free account meaning they had to have given Arenanet actual money before they can do the conversion.

-ANet could put in an optional subscription that would slowly get more and more benefits over time as ANet became more and more dependent on it which would relegate non-subscribers to being second-class citizens. This would allow them to sell cheaper mount skins.Which is also a lose-lose by going into the same situation I just listed.

-ANet could charge money for every patch.Which game does this? I'm just wondering, and if you don't pay for the patch... what? You just can't play the game and they hold you ransom until you pay it?This is the 1st time I've heard of something like this.

-ANet could begin to sell P2W items in the gem store.In a way, they kind of are in a way with the level 80 boost items and the waypoint items and the infinite gathering items and so on.Yeah, they're "QoL", but unless let's say I'm on a new character and someone say Karka Queen is popping up... unless I have a decent level, have a way to either waypoint there or Lion's Arch (not all guilds would have access to this so you can't use that argument) or whichever, I have to take the long way to even get there and by the time I get there, it could be dead and I lose the chance of getting gear. Same for Tequila or Shatterer or whichever.

-ANet could drastically cut content updates and either fire a bunch of people or put them in a mobile game's division.That wouldn't even surprise me if they do that in the future actually seeing how many gaming companies seem to be moving toward those phone game stuff.

So my question to those of you who really want to buy a peacock raptor skin for $10... which of those solutions appeals to you? Because you have to pick one.Oh, I can't answer as I didn't even want the ugly thing. Same for the ugly forged one.The only reason I'm not liking this IS for the future. The future of if I see a skin I do like, I would not get it as I refuse to spend the 2000 gems on it.Oh and to the part on PoF should've been $50... are you really telling me that one unique skin is worth half of the actual price of the expansion? Are you really?Because just making the base ones had to be unique too to even be made to begin with.

GW2 must adapt or wither. It has had a historically gentle cash shop which worked back when GW2 was the new kid on the block. Now that we're five years in it MUST adapt to a smaller player base. Mount skins is that solution. It's cosmetic and optional and in no way P2W. That is why ANet just spent the last 2 years making an entire expansion centered around them. It's their solution. It's their way of generating more profits and allow them to continue to fully focus on GW2 without ruining the game by making it P2W. If you REALLY want to take that solution away from them then you have to pick one of the other solutions.There are companies that "adapted" and withered away.The problem is if they made some that actually like those skins to push away, that would make the player base even smaller. It's not good to anger your smaller base into making it even smaller.

One game I played religiously before GW2 was PSO2. I stopped playing so much because I didn't like what they were doing and quite a few others that I know personally done the same thing and won't return unless they either fix things or make things that I would be interested in.PSO2 also started in 2012, but haven't (so far at least) adapted into overpriced cosmetic things or pay2win things just yet.

Finally, those of you who think that the BattleFront 2 players are your brothers-in-arms over matters like this should know that actually couldn't be further from the truth. They are fighting EA to get what we already have. Cosmetics in their cash shop. It's not the same thing at all.I have no "brothers-in-arms" because I stopped giving EA money after Mass Effect 3. Anyone to me that still give EA a penny is part of the problem and not the cause.

Arenanet for the most part? I say are doing a good job so I'm not angry or hate Arenanet. I'm simply saying I don't like what they're doing with Mount skins in general.EA been doing bad business for almost a decade now as a whole and people still giving them money. That's terrible.

Same as how I stop buying Konami products since 2008 as I didn't like their practices no more... but then there's people that got really pissed at them during some fiasco I didn't care about as I burnt my bridge with the company many years before.. but they would still say "AFTER MGS5 I WILL NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH THEM!!"Um... hello? AFTER MGS5? You're mad now and you're STILL going to give them money? Why? Why would you do this?Same with the mount skin thing. "I HATE THE RNG IN THE MOUNT SKIN ADOPTION BRAHAMSKRITT.... but I will try 1 or 2 tries at it"... why? Just why?Then supposedly Konami messed up MGS5 and people got mad at that and I just had to laugh at the whole thing.

Quick Clarification:I'm not saying GW2 is in danger or that it's going anywhere. No matter what GW2 is successful enough to be around for years to come. This is in reference to just how much development resources it will get. Will ANet continue to make it their main focus or will the bulk of their team move on to something new? Mount skin sales is going to be in large part what determines that."

Yeah, I don't think they're in danger either. Those that simply refuse to buy mount skins for the, what I considered overpriced, cost will just buy other things in the shop they find interesting.In the end of the day, Arenanet will STILL make money. I have no problem with them.

Just saying that I still have a right to call out things that makes me go "I... er... wait... um... no some-something's wrong here... uh... hang on...."

[Sonderm.4639]

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@BolkovonHarnfeldt.1372 said:With the current system, people buy gems (with real money) in order to obtain in-game gold. Without players willing to trade their gold into gems these people wouldn't spend money on the gems (because it's the gold they are after in order to buy stuff on the TP). And the cash people were willing to spend in order to buy the gems to exchange into gold goes straight into ANet's pockets. So where do they lose? (Of course, they could simply cut out the player gold-input and sell the gold for cash at a fixed exchange rate, though that would probably give rise to more inflation and create a huge outcry at the player base).

My original post was about the transaction itself; however, since it's getting pushed to cover more than that, I'll address it.

Look at the current exchange rate trend. It's been trending up since launch. This means that more gems are leaving the exchange system than what is being put in. In other words, players are taking out more gems using gold than they are putting into it using real world currencies. That difference in gems, when converted to real world currency, is what Anet is losing.

Isn't the gem-price appreciation simply a consequence of more people wanting to buy gems with gold than the other way around? Hence the price rises? How can more gems leave the system than are being put in? Where do they come from (unless I'm misunderstanding how the exchange works: you can only buy gems that other players offer)?As an aside: if gems were really leaving the system via the exchange mechanism that would not necessarily mean that ANet is losing money, since you'd have to assume that people would pay cash if they couldn't pay with gold (and there is zero cost in providing an additional copy of a skin, it doesn't use up any real world materials etc.).

[Nereikia.3507]

@ReaverKane.7598 said:Well, MO said NCSoft had no weight on the decisions or the pricing. So yeah, defeated your argument.

Not really. I think that atleast one important fact is out of your sight dear sir. MO himself IS one of the high-ranking executives of NCsoft West (according to this page: us.ncsoft.com/en/about-us/), so your whole statement in other words would look like "Well, an executive member of NCSoft West said NCSoft had no weight on the decisions [of the part-of-the-NCWest-holdings] or the pricing [of NC Soft West products]", which wouldn't make any sense. What MO meant is that the Korean office of NCSoft Corp. didn't affect the decisions of its NA subsidiary, i.e. NCWest, and that's just how all those subsidiaries of the kind work in general, i believe.

And if that page is still actual, you can learn that MO's patron in NA is Yoon Song-Yee, the wife of the current NCSoft CEO, if i'm not mistaken. And that person obviously can have an influence on [various] things related to gw2, because Anet is NCSoft after all, whether you like it or not.

P.S. Made this post just to clear up some weird concepts about Anet/NCsoft relationships.

[Vayne.8563]

@GreyWolf.8670 said:

@nottsgman.8206 said:

-$25 is the industry standard for MMO mounts. Even in games with larger player bases and a required subscription.do you have an example of other games where mounts are $25 (apart from WoW)? I'm honestly curious

IMO WoW doesn't count as there is more than one mount of each type available in the game.

I agree. It doesn't count because mounts in game cause $15 a month to rent, since you only have them as long as you keep paying.

[Umut.5471]

Unless they go the RNG way, I'm ok with 2000 gems for a guaranteed skin.I understand that they need to make money somehow, it's just cosmetics and doesn't affect your gameplay. You guys should understand that they have to pay salaries of employees and server costs.They do it via cosmetics unlike some Korean MMORPGs with P2W items. I personally can't buy gems via real money, because my country's currency has a bad exchange rate vs. U.S. dollars and it would cost me a lot.(4x the price you guys pay) But I support Arenanet as long as they don't bring P2W or RNG anymore.