Ugh... overpriced skins

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

@Ameepa.6793 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@Ameepa.6793 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:I don't see the problem. In other games, they really are just skins (that run faster), and 25 for a skin, well, that's a matter of personal choice.

Just to put this in perspective.. a Scythe Skin (staff) sells for 2898 gold.. that's 10,986 Gems.. or put another way.. $137 cash.

$137 for a weapon skin.. and you all are fussing about $25 for a Mount?

Scythe Skin you can get in the game without gems so that is a very idiotic comparison.

You can get every gemstore item in the game too by making gold. No need to spend real moneys. 400-500g is not even much.

Seeing how I've only ever had 500 gold on me ever in GW2 and struggling to get that 500 gold back, I'm going to call braham on that.

If getting it in game is not your thing, then you luckily have the option to use real moneys instead! Good to have options :)

Not really as the whole topic is about the price it is for real money. Your 1st comment say how easy it is to get 500 gold so you won't need to spend real money then saying how easy it is to get gold by spending real money is a contradiction.

[Ameepa.6793]

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@Ameepa.6793 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@Ameepa.6793 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:I don't see the problem. In other games, they really are just skins (that run faster), and 25 for a skin, well, that's a matter of personal choice.

Just to put this in perspective.. a Scythe Skin (staff) sells for 2898 gold.. that's 10,986 Gems.. or put another way.. $137 cash.

$137 for a weapon skin.. and you all are fussing about $25 for a Mount?

Scythe Skin you can get in the game without gems so that is a very idiotic comparison.

You can get every gemstore item in the game too by making gold. No need to spend real moneys. 400-500g is not even much.

Seeing how I've only ever had 500 gold on me ever in GW2 and struggling to get that 500 gold back, I'm going to call braham on that.

If getting it in game is not your thing, then you luckily have the option to use real moneys instead! Good to have options :)

Not really as the whole topic is about the price it is for real money. Your 1st comment say how easy it is to get 500 gold so you won't need to spend real money then saying how easy it is to get gold by spending real money is a contradiction.

I said that you have an option to buy gems with real moneys intead of gold if making gold seems impossible for you. And if you don't want to spend real money, you can earn the gems in game by making gold.

There is a third option too which is to combine these two methods, for example buy half of the gems with real money and make gold for the other half.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

@Ameepa.6793 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@Ameepa.6793 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@Ameepa.6793 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@STIHL.2489 said:I don't see the problem. In other games, they really are just skins (that run faster), and 25 for a skin, well, that's a matter of personal choice.

Just to put this in perspective.. a Scythe Skin (staff) sells for 2898 gold.. that's 10,986 Gems.. or put another way.. $137 cash.

$137 for a weapon skin.. and you all are fussing about $25 for a Mount?

Scythe Skin you can get in the game without gems so that is a very idiotic comparison.

You can get every gemstore item in the game too by making gold. No need to spend real moneys. 400-500g is not even much.

Seeing how I've only ever had 500 gold on me ever in GW2 and struggling to get that 500 gold back, I'm going to call braham on that.

If getting it in game is not your thing, then you luckily have the option to use real moneys instead! Good to have options :)

Not really as the whole topic is about the price it is for real money. Your 1st comment say how easy it is to get 500 gold so you won't need to spend real money then saying how easy it is to get gold by spending real money is a contradiction.

I said that you have an option to buy gems with real moneys intead of gold if making gold seems impossible for you. And if you don't want to spend real money, you can earn the gems in game by making gold.

There is a third option too which is to combine these two methods, for example buy half of the gems with real money and make gold for the other half.

The issue is that it takes about a year (for me at least) to get 500 gold is what I'm getting at.

[maddoctor.2738]

@"Sojourner.4621" said:a) There are "just skins" in this game that easily beat the $25 mark for gem to gold conversion, some of them came exclusively from the gem store. 2000 gems with in game gold is 528g... no one would even blink if they saw that cost for one of these skins on the TP... in fact it would be almost expected. I honestly don't see the big deal... want the skin badly enough, farm it up. It's not as hard as you think to make that kind of gold, I guarantee it.

I think this is the real problem with this discussion. 2000 gems is ~500 gold, for veteran players that's easy to get, or they already have it. If the price was much lower then it would've been even easier to get the skins by using gold. Low gem price = players buy it with gold meaning Anet doesn't make money. I believe that's why MO said individual items do not result in much revenue, I find it unthinkable that players do not buy them at all, but rather they buy them with gold due to their lower gem price.

That's one part though, because although in terms of gold it's "cheap" or something you can farm, 2000 (or $25) is not a sum worth paying in real world money. So we have a real problem here, in terms of gold it's cheap/farmable, in terms of cash it's way too expensive.

My proposal? Add gem discounts. The more gems you buy at once, the higher the discount. Of course, this would only apply to real world cash and have zero effect if you buy the gems with gold, no discount with gold. That way players have an incentive to buy "expensive" items artificially lowering the cash price, while keeping the gold price the same. In effect, they can keep the same overpriced (when bought with cash) items.

[Holykitten.3064]

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

The issue is that it takes about a year (for me at least) to get 500 gold is what I'm getting at.

500g= 250 days of just doing your daily. Unless you only log in for those 5mins/day to do your daily on semi-regular basis, then I’d believe you when you said it takes a year for you to make 500g.

[Nilson.9865]

Why the only option of obtain item from gems shop you see, is purchase for real money?!
Legendary weapons, is a weapons with footprints and unique animation cost ~2k gold or 8k gems. 8k gems cost 100$. Mounts with unique animation, footprints, cmon guys, it's the same legendary league but the price is 400 gold or 1.6k gems. Or Foefire armor ~325 gold or 1300 gems. This armor is unique too.I don't understand why players is ok with legendary weapon cost and not ok with "legendary" mount skin. For these two we all here use the same currency, but i turn mine into gold, then this gold into gems and then i get my gemshop amazing skins.If you rly want that skin, just buy it and have fun with it. If you have time for games, then this is not last money you give away.

[Ayumi Spender.1082]

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

The issue is that it takes about a year (for me at least) to get 500 gold is what I'm getting at.

500g= 250 days of just doing your daily. Unless you only log in for those 5mins/day to do your daily on semi-regular basis, then I’d believe you when you said it takes a year for you to make 500g.

Which is most of my game income actually. The daily is where I get most of my money outside the few times I do/can do Fractals.A lot of that money then goes into trying to make materials I need to craft ascended (which I still don't have a single ascended armour yet).

I have 0 clue how to make gold in this game outside of the 2 from the daily and then the certain times when I remember to do Tequila, which I just remembered I didn't get to do today.

[Umut.5471]

It's totally ok as long as they don't make them RNG. You pay for it, you get what you want. It's simple.And you know, you can buy it via in game gold as well.It funds the development of the game. You can always wait for those new skins packs which you get skins for all your mounts for 1600 gems.

[costepj.5120]

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

@Haleydawn.3764 said:

@Ayumi Spender.1082 said:

The issue is that it takes about a year (for me at least) to get 500 gold is what I'm getting at.

500g= 250 days of just doing your daily. Unless you only log in for those 5mins/day to do your daily on semi-regular basis, then I’d believe you when you said it takes a year for you to make 500g.

Which is most of my game income actually. The daily is where I get most of my money outside the few times I do/can do Fractals.A lot of that money then goes into trying to make materials I need to craft ascended (which I still don't have a single ascended armour yet).

I have 0 clue how to make gold in this game outside of the 2 from the daily and then the certain times when I remember to do Tequila, which I just remembered I didn't get to do today.

I'm also confused, as this game throws Gold at you every time you play. I exchanged 500 Gold for gems to spend on anniversary sale items and I've already made all that back. I don't do any farming other than hitting nodes I run by (if I can be bothered dismounting). I don't RAID or do fractals - most of my gold comes from running round maps doing events. I've done a few AB and SW metas in that time, but only because I enjoy them.

[MarshallLaw.9260]

@"Einlanzer.1627" said:The problem with charging $25 for a mount skin is:

a.) it's just a skinb.) all the new skins so far are through the gem shopc.) we have five types of mounts that often need to be swapped between.

O'Brien defended this as industry standard, but it actually isn't - that was a disingenuous comment. In other games, $25 skins are only released occasionally as premium skins to supplement what can be found in the game, and they are usually entirely new creatures with special effects that can be used exclusively if desired by the player.

I can't help but think things like this drive players away in the long run even if some people are paying for it now.

Ugh... this thread again.Please, #Mountgate was so 2017, but lets go beat this dead horse of a topic again.I think there are explanations for all the points made but at the end of the day it's a matter of personal opinion if you agree or not with the pricing structure.

a) yes it is just a skin - it's sold at higher price than costume skins because it requires more work to fit on a mount model than a character model.b) the Gem store has always been the major source of cosmetic items - apart from the odd costume here and there, most are gem purchases (why is this surprising?)c) I'm sure they will release more premium skins for other mounts - so far we have had the Forged Jackal, Avialan Raptor and Umbral Skimmer, don't worry, there is a good chance Anet will introduce a Springer and Griffon premium skin also.

It seems there have been a vocal minority claiming they will be "driven away" and leave the game because of this. Let's be brutal here however - if you leave a game over the introduction of a mount skin which you believe is overpriced - maybe you weren't into the game that much in the first place.

Consider if you applied the same logic in the real world - some cosmetic items e.g. jewelry have no additional benefits however some are priced higher than others. Are there many people up in arms due to a Tiffanys necklace being more expensive than one from your local accessories store?

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@usnedward.9023 said:Game is F2P or less than 50 bucks to get core and two xpacs....um... They gotta make money somewhere. I personally won't buy them and ANET knows that not a lot will buy them but those that do help feed us new content and keep the monthly fees away...oh and new skins rofl. Oh and they gotta pay the people who design them.

I don't think this drives players away and this is exactly the type of market for this type of additions. People are so used to $5 outfits, gliders and such that they want everything cheap but do not take into account on how this game succeeds on gem store items for cash. Gold to Gems can hurt them and pricing higher people will pay cash because they do not have the gold to get the gems needed to buy. ANET I think knows this so there ya go... just my two cents

Game is B2P.

---

Is the skin overpriced? Yes.

Will people leave because of this? No.

Will it ever change? No.

Gaming industry is one of the most disrespectful braches towards customers. Why? Because they can. Game dev companies scam theri customers every day with shady practices like lootboxes but people pay for this. Who is to blame? Customers. Stop paying, that's your only option.

If mount gate teaches us anything, bad press is irrelevant for the game. People are still playing and what's more important, people are still buying these skins. Nothing will ever change.

[Lonecap.4105]

I see the sale price is 1600 gems. See that is a perfectly fair price for the mounts. It's just 2000 which becomes too much, but I'm sure they'll see that when the mount sells better with the lower price.

[costepj.5120]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

Game is B2P.

---

Is the skin overpriced? Yes.

Will people leave because of this? No.

Will it ever change? No.

Gaming industry is one of the most disrespectful braches towards customers. Why? Because they can. Game dev companies scam theri customers every day with shady practices like lootboxes but people pay for this. Who is to blame? Customers. Stop paying, that's your only option.

If mount gate teaches us anything, bad press is irrelevant for the game. People are still playing and what's more important, people are still buying these skins. Nothing will ever change.

I completely disagree. I've been playing GW1/GW2 for nearly a decade. During that time I've spent about £150 for both games and all expansions, which have provided me with many thousands of hours of entertainment and enjoyment. That's not much more than £1 per month. There is no other branch of the entertainment industry that provides so much for so little. By contrast, I spend nearly £100 each month with my cable company.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@costepj.5120 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

Game is B2P.

---

Is the skin overpriced? Yes.

Will people leave because of this? No.

Will it ever change? No.

Gaming industry is one of the most disrespectful braches towards customers. Why? Because they can. Game dev companies scam theri customers every day with shady practices like lootboxes but people pay for this. Who is to blame? Customers. Stop paying, that's your only option.

If mount gate teaches us anything, bad press is irrelevant for the game. People are still playing and what's more important, people are still buying these skins. Nothing will ever change.

I completely disagree. I've been playing GW1/GW2 for nearly a decade. During that time I've spent about £150 for both games and all expansions, which have provided me with many thousands of hours of entertainment and enjoyment. That's not much more than £1 per month. There is no other branch of the entertainment industry that provides so much for so little. By contrast, I spend nearly £100 each month with my cable company.

So why gaming companies use "micro"transactions more and more even for single player games? This is because people pay more for these skins than they would pay for sub fee. Your single case is not projected on whole industry. I don't buy gems since HoT and yet I understand why industry exploits customers this way. There are those who pay and at the end of the day they are relevant for the company, not us, box-only buyers.

[MarshallLaw.9260]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

@costepj.5120 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

Game is B2P.

---

Is the skin overpriced? Yes.

Will people leave because of this? No.

Will it ever change? No.

Gaming industry is one of the most disrespectful braches towards customers. Why? Because they can. Game dev companies scam theri customers every day with shady practices like lootboxes but people pay for this. Who is to blame? Customers. Stop paying, that's your only option.

If mount gate teaches us anything, bad press is irrelevant for the game. People are still playing and what's more important, people are still buying these skins. Nothing will ever change.

I completely disagree. I've been playing GW1/GW2 for nearly a decade. During that time I've spent about £150 for both games and all expansions, which have provided me with many thousands of hours of entertainment and enjoyment. That's not much more than £1 per month. There is no other branch of the entertainment industry that provides so much for so little. By contrast, I spend nearly £100 each month with my cable company.

So why gaming companies use "micro"transactions more and more even for single player games? This is because people pay more for these skins than they would pay for sub fee. Your single case is not projected on whole industry. I don't buy gems since HoT and yet I understand why industry exploits customers this way. There are those who pay and at the end of the day they are relevant for the company, not us, box-only buyers.

I think it's fair to say that the industry has shifted over time to this type of pricing structure and in my opinion it's not the wrong direction - especially in the case of GW2. Micro-transactions give players the option to spend more and whereas in some games these purchases result in enhanced gameplay and an advantage over other players, GW2 gem store is 99% cosmetic AND there is a gold to gem exchange meaning that anything that can be obtained is openly available to everyone providing they have the funds.

The key aspect to bear in mind is that micro-transactions have given players more choice while reducing the cost of the base game content for all. Would you rather the game cost more to purchase or had a monthly sub but everyone had access all the skins for free?

The freedom to chose if you have cosmetic items or not is surely better than being lumped with a larger game access fee and regardless of whether that content interests you or not?

As a side-note, I am aware that micro-transactions have the potential to rake in more than flat standard game purchases, but they are also part of a higher risk strategy since there is no guarantee if cosmetics sell or in what quantity.

[costepj.5120]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

So why gaming companies use "micro"transactions more and more even for single player games? This is because people pay more for these skins than they would pay for sub fee. Your single case is not projected on whole industry. I don't buy gems since HoT and yet I understand why industry exploits customers this way. There are those who pay and at the end of the day they are relevant for the company, not us, box-only buyers.

Are you exploited by a bar if you choose to buy a beer, by a restaurant if you choose to buy a meal, by a supermarket if you choose to buy a box of doughnuts?Where is the exploitation in offering additional "luxury" items for sale?

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@costepj.5120 said:

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:

So why gaming companies use "micro"transactions more and more even for single player games? This is because people pay more for these skins than they would pay for sub fee. Your single case is not projected on whole industry. I don't buy gems since HoT and yet I understand why industry exploits customers this way. There are those who pay and at the end of the day they are relevant for the company, not us, box-only buyers.

Are you exploited by a bar if you choose to buy a beer, by a restaurant if you choose to buy a meal, by a supermarket if you choose to buy a box of doughnuts?Where is the exploitation in offering additional "luxury" items for sale?

Exploit part of my comment was about lootboxes, which are also a thing in context of mounts because of adoption licenses.

[costepj.5120]

Still not seeing any exploitation. Many of those same retail outlets offer lottery tickets for sale; are they exploiting their customers or offering them what they want?

[Holykitten.3064]

@"Kheldorn.5123" said:Exploit part of my comment was about lootboxes, which are also a thing in context of mounts because of adoption licenses.

It would be exploitation if it was mandatory to buy them. They aren’t. So I can’t agree with that statement.

[Adenin.5973]

To say that they're too expensive is just wrong. They're not more expensive than in any other game and even if you don't want to spend real life money on them you can get them for 520g (2000gems). Which is surprisingly cheap compared to a little legendary weapon or whatever.

But here's the problem with the mounts and the gemshop items in general:Because there is no story around them, no quests or lore you would get, no other requirement than gems to buy them and access them instantly via the UI, you are very tempted to buy them with real money.

Because if you plan on converting gold to gems you start realizing that the endgame "fashion content" in this game is a mindlessly boring grindfest without any lore, quests, dungeons, whatever.It becomes a simple time sink of the same repeating tasks, where you can easily do the maths at the end of the day, on how many gems you've already got and how many more days you need to do the same content over and over.

So many ppl ask themselves: "If getting this mount takes me X hours of ingame work, why shouldn't I buy it for Y hours of real life work. It's much faster and easier."

And when you have the necessary gold/gems, you have your mount instantly, see nothing more interesting in the gemshop and lose interest in the game. There's no epic journey or lore behind getting shop items. Every low level dungeon armor that drops from a random orc in a WoW dungeon has more lore behind it than the most fanciest sh*t sold in the gemstore. That's quite frankly super disappointing, to a point where I am thinking of no longer playing a game that already has no item progression and the fashion items that are the one thing left for ppl that want to constantly upgrade their characters are almost always just dumped on the community via micro-transactions through a simple UI popup.

What a terrible waste. In other games (like Warframe) you get cashshop items but there's still a grind option that also has some story and lore for the new item. Anet needs to completely separate both ways of acquiring an item ingame and through the shop. Right now, we have only the shop, regardless where the money comes from.

The gemshop in this game is for fashion oriented ppl not optional. Not for those that convert gold to gems and not for those who buy it with real life money. It completely destroyed the reward structure of the game, since the only valuable resource is gold/gems, because the gemshop is where you get the cool stuff.

[ProtoGunner.4953]

It isn't even 25€, we don't have euros and the exchange rate is 1.2 so I literally pay nearly 30 Swiss Franc for a skin, that's about half the price of a full priced AAA game. It's beyond ridiculous.

[costepj.5120]

@ProtoGunner.4953 said:It isn't even 25€, we don't have euros and the exchange rate is 1.2 so I literally pay nearly 30 Swiss Franc for a skin, that's about half the price of a full priced AAA game. It's beyond ridiculous.

And yet plenty of people are buying them, so it can't be that ridiculous. As people keep pointing out, these skins are 100% optional. If they are too rich for your taste (as they are for me) the answer is not to buy them.

[DarcShriek.5829]

@Oglaf.1074 said:Whales keep on buyin', Anet keep on overpricin'.

Simple as that.

You and me were never the target demographic for these mount skins.

If you consider someone that buys a $25.00 skin to be a whale, then you have NOOOOO idea what a whale is. Spending more money than you does not make a person a whale.

[GrubySzymek.1362]

@costepj.5120 said:Still not seeing any exploitation. Many of those same retail outlets offer lottery tickets for sale; are they exploiting their customers or offering them what they want?

Lottery tickets are for adults, not for 12 year olds. Anyway, I don't care about your opinion or rationalization you are using when justifying game dev industry scams. In this topic, in this game, nothing is going to change. There is enough people who support these practices with their wallets and whatever you or me think about this is irrelevant.

[DarcShriek.5829]

@costepj.5120 said:Still not seeing any exploitation. Many of those same retail outlets offer lottery tickets for sale; are they exploiting their customers or offering them what they want?

As a member of the gaming industry and knowing the payback percentage of lotteries, I consider state run lotteries to be exploitive.