Why are Build Templates so Expensive?

[Cyninja.2954]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

Well yes and no, obviously customers seldom appreciate to have to spend more money for the same return. In this case though, it's often customers spending less money over time for the same return.Sorry, but if you're trying to say that GW2 is

decreasing

their monetization level overtime, then we're playing some very different games, i'm afraid.

I'm saying the players are spending less. Easy evidence: monetization has increased over the years but revenue levels have continued to drop. Now this can also be attributed to falling player counts, which is a different way to approach this issue: increase total players playing, but overall there is less spending of veteran players on the game.

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:It's also not about a financial situation becoming bad. A good business will keep an eye on revenue streams constantly to prevent the situation becoming that bad.True, but we're talking about a complete change in the gemshop model. If you don;t know, there are generally 2 approaches to it (with some variations depending on how much p2w are you willing to sell). First model aims at high retention playerbase - with moderate prices and mostly replaceable offerings (usually visuals, and consumables in more p2w oriented cases), its goal is to keep milking that playerbase as long as possible. The second model aims at low retention high turnover playerbase and its goal is to straight out rip off the player for as much as possible in the short timeframe while they are still hooked to the game. That model is generally a domain of web-based clickers and phone games, and is used in games like GW2 (ones with mostly aging playerbase and limited number of new arivals)

only

if someone decides they need as much money as possible in the short term, no matter the long-term consequences (so, usually when a decision to wind down and close shop has already been made).

I would argue there are a lot more than just 2 models, but let's not get off topic to much. Yes, looking simplistically at this issue, it's one of the two.

@Astralporing.1957 said:Template monetization model comes straight from this version, so either they are desperate, closing down, or think the players are dumb and will buy anything.

To Anet's defence, players up until this point have shown that they are willing to accept (and even defend) any level of blatant monetization, and even if some cases might cause some uproar, a fast handwaving without actually conceding anything is enough to placate the community, so maybe it's that last option that is the case here.

There is option 3:They assumed templates were a popular but not necessary feature and as such implemented them with specific payments in mind. Similar to additional character slots, bank tabs, bag tabs, etc.

Given the approach to not resort to pay to win mechanics or implementing obstructing limitations (as some competitors do) or limiting access to content, this approach made sense.

What they did not count on was:

• the price point having been lowered to near 0 due to arcs availability before
• the huge issues in how useful templates are (or are not) to the target players

There is no acceptance to blatant monetization. There is the realization that the initial revenue stream generate from the release of the game has run out. The age of the game and the continued decline in per player spending make it necessary to tap new revenue streams. I'm sorry, but what you call blatant monetization, I call adapting in order to keep the game's revenue stable.

Might I remind you of the shock and panic last year around this time after the layoffs? People were basically about to abandon ship because some thought the game might be closing down. It's the developers responsibility to keep the game profitable enough to maintain development. That costs money and that money has to come from somewhere.

[Asum.4960]

@Cyninja.2954 said:As is right now, templates are not needed for infrequent players. They are targeted at the more dedicated player crowd. Making them free makes no sense. Fixing the issues they have while increasing their value proposition (especially versus extra character slots) will be the probable approach.

I disagree. Maybe they didn't need to be entirely free, most people I've seen criticising this Loadoutsystem, including myself, were okay with some monetization of it, but it needed to be reasonable (more like 20-30€ as account unlock, rather than 10€ per build, per character), especially considering we already had a better free solution before and the fact that Anet really needed to get some goodwill back from the dedicated player crowd, which had been mostly ignored in terms of content for months, if not years at that point and many were on the verge of quitting already.Releasing such a heavy handed milking scheme of people who relied on such a feature so heavily to enjoy the game was a pretty massive (financial and otherwise) mistake.

There are companies like CDPR where I'm going out of my way to buy their things when not on sale, or on platforms where they get the biggest cut of the profits even if it disadvantages me slightly, why? Because they treat their customers with respect, so I gladly pay that back when and if I can, to support future products by them.

Moves like removing a free and better Template solution to release their own heavily monetized barely functioning Loadouts at a massive premium to quickly cash out does the opposite, it reduces long-term player spending.Anet had opportunity after opportunity to increase their rapport with their customers, making people want to support them, yet over the last few years they seem to have repeatedly favoured the milking approach instead, with many players eventually feeling screwed over/disrespected so much they just don't want to give them any money anymore.

Looking at the financial reports, clearly making Loadouts this expensive didn't make sense. If they had been a massive cash infusion, I still wouldn't have liked the means, but fair enough. But all that happened was a massive never before seen drop in revenue and a sizeable portion of the community leaving disappointed and disgruntled.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Also just to be clear, if the game does not increase its revenue, we WILL see more aggressive monetization in other areas.

@Astralporing.1957 said:That's, ironically, usually a start of a death spiral. More aggressive monetization chases some players away, the revenue drops, so devs make monetization even more aggressive. That chases even more players away, revenue drops, and...Stuff like that can indeed offer a short-time boost to income, but it always happens at the cost of long-term sustainability.

Basically, if their financial situation is so bad they have to monetize stuff like templates so aggressively, then this game is a goner already.

Exactly.If Anet wants to go Whale hunting with even systems considered by those who use them as baseline game functionality then that's their prerogative, but I hope they understand that longterm that has shown to be a surprisingly quick death spiral for games.Essentially as soon as a few of these incredibly high spenders (dubbed whales, who are eventually the only ones who can still afford all of the monetization to have a decent time ingame, carrying the financial burden) even say enough is enough, it's over.

[Mauzi.5892]

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

its not ridiculous, you don't pay a sub.

If it makes it easier, spend £10 a month on gems and pretend its a sub then get your templates for free.

If I want to play a game with a sub, I'd play WoW. And if I would invest my time into WoW anyway, I would be making enough gold to play for free anyway. So your comparison is flawed.I play GW2 because I like the game and BECAUSE I don't have to pay a sub or get forced to dedicate time to grind for my f2p sub.And THAT encourages me to actually spend real money on items, which I have done multiple times.

Templates are just overpriced. point.I would buy full slots on a few characters if they would cost less. Like it is now, I buy character slots instead, since I divide my characters into roles/builds anyway.And if Anet thinks they should increase character slot cost because of it I'm done. I don't like being forced into stuff.

This reminds me of spotify ads. Every three songs they try to get you to sub. Guess what. The more you try to force me into something, the more I won't do it.I would sub all on my own, would they just play it once in a while.

But so far it's okay. Those who want the templates buy them, the others don't. Nobody is forced to do anything and your gaming experience isn't diminished because of it.I can get by with what Anet gave us and instead of complaining about something I can't afford I'm thankful for what I've been given.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Asum.4960 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:As is right now, templates are not needed for infrequent players. They are targeted at the more dedicated player crowd. Making them free makes no sense. Fixing the issues they have while increasing their value proposition (especially versus extra character slots) will be the probable approach.

I disagree. Maybe they didn't need to be entirely free, most people I've seen criticising this Loadoutsystem, including myself, were okay with some monetization of it, but it needed to be reasonable (more like 20-30€ as account unlock, rather than 10€ per build, per character), especially considering we already had a better free solution before and the fact that Anet really needed to get some goodwill back from the dedicated player crowd, which had been mostly ignored in terms of content for months, if not years at that point and many were on the verge of quitting already.Releasing such a heavy handed milking scheme of people who relied on such a feature so heavily to enjoy the game was a pretty massive (financial and otherwise) mistake.

There are companies like CDPR where I'm going out of my way to buy their things when not on sale, or on platforms where they get the biggest cut of the profits even if it disadvantages me slightly, why? Because they treat their customers with respect, so I gladly pay that back when and if I can, to support future products by them.

Moves like removing a free and better Template solution to release their own heavily monetized barely functioning Loadouts at a massive premium to quickly cash out does the opposite, it reduces long-term player spending.Anet had opportunity after opportunity to increase their rapport with their customers, making people want to support them, yet over the last few years they seem to have repeatedly favoured the milking approach instead, with many players eventually feeling screwed over/disrespected so much they just don't want to give them any money anymore.

Looking at the financial reports, clearly making Loadouts this expensive didn't make sense. If they had been a massive cash infusion, I still wouldn't have liked the means, but fair enough. But all that happened was a massive never before seen drop in revenue and a sizeable portion of the community leaving disappointed and disgruntled.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Also just to be clear, if the game does not increase its revenue, we WILL see more aggressive monetization in other areas.

@Astralporing.1957 said:That's, ironically, usually a start of a death spiral. More aggressive monetization chases some players away, the revenue drops, so devs make monetization even more aggressive. That chases even more players away, revenue drops, and...Stuff like that can indeed offer a short-time boost to income, but it always happens at the cost of long-term sustainability.

Basically, if their financial situation is so bad they

have

to monetize stuff like templates so aggressively, then this game is a goner already.

Exactly.If Anet wants to go Whale hunting with even systems considered by those who use them as baseline game functionality then that's their prerogative, but I hope they understand that longterm that has shown to be a surprisingly quick death spiral for games.Essentially as soon as a few of these incredibly high spenders (dubbed whales, who are eventually the only ones who can still afford all of the monetization to have a decent time ingame, carrying the financial burden) even say enough is enough, it's over.

So what is your solution then? You don't want the revenue stream to rely on whales, but are unwilling to spend money on convenience items?

Where exactly do you expect the revenue to come from? Magic?

Again, the fact that the price point was lowered due to a similar feature offered via arc AND the fact that equipment templates did not offer the desired functionality can be argued. Even the price point can be argued over. The simple fact remains though: this game needs to generate revenue and depending on how this revenue stream is generated, different parts of the player base WILL feel it.

Hey, personally I am absolutely fine if they went on to implement a subscription model. I wouldn't mind and if it reduced the reliance on the gem store, even better for me. Somehow I doubt that would go over well with a lot of players.

Here is what is going to happen likely:

• the value proposition for templates will increase (both via ingame systems like a legendary armory as well as additional features added to them)
• this will make templates not mandatory but similar in say the Copper-Fed-Salvage-O-Matic. Not needed but very useful to have
• further game content MIGHT get balanced or designed around players having more templates

Net result:Players will now be highly encouraged (let's not call it forced) to spend money on templates. For those who are willing to do so, great. For all the others, well suck it up. Just how the legendary armory will make legendarys a step better than ascended. Great for all those players going out of their way to get them. Not so great for the players who never aimed at getting legendarys.

[Asum.4960]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:As is right now, templates are not needed for infrequent players. They are targeted at the more dedicated player crowd. Making them free makes no sense. Fixing the issues they have while increasing their value proposition (especially versus extra character slots) will be the probable approach.

I disagree. Maybe they didn't need to be entirely free, most people I've seen criticising this Loadoutsystem, including myself, were okay with some monetization of it, but it needed to be reasonable (more like 20-30€ as account unlock, rather than 10€ per build, per character), especially considering we already had a better free solution before and the fact that Anet really needed to get some goodwill back from the dedicated player crowd, which had been mostly ignored in terms of content for months, if not years at that point and many were on the verge of quitting already.Releasing such a heavy handed milking scheme of people who relied on such a feature so heavily to enjoy the game was a pretty massive (financial and otherwise) mistake.

There are companies like CDPR where I'm going out of my way to buy their things when not on sale, or on platforms where they get the biggest cut of the profits even if it disadvantages me slightly, why? Because they treat their customers with respect, so I gladly pay that back when and if I can, to support future products by them.

Moves like removing a free and better Template solution to release their own heavily monetized barely functioning Loadouts at a massive premium to quickly cash out does the opposite, it reduces long-term player spending.Anet had opportunity after opportunity to increase their rapport with their customers, making people want to support them, yet over the last few years they seem to have repeatedly favoured the milking approach instead, with many players eventually feeling screwed over/disrespected so much they just don't want to give them any money anymore.

Looking at the financial reports, clearly making Loadouts this expensive didn't make sense. If they had been a massive cash infusion, I still wouldn't have liked the means, but fair enough. But all that happened was a massive never before seen drop in revenue and a sizeable portion of the community leaving disappointed and disgruntled.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Also just to be clear, if the game does not increase its revenue, we WILL see more aggressive monetization in other areas.

@"Astralporing.1957" said:That's, ironically, usually a start of a death spiral. More aggressive monetization chases some players away, the revenue drops, so devs make monetization even more aggressive. That chases even more players away, revenue drops, and...Stuff like that can indeed offer a short-time boost to income, but it always happens at the cost of long-term sustainability.

Basically, if their financial situation is so bad they

have

to monetize stuff like templates so aggressively, then this game is a goner already.

Exactly.If Anet wants to go Whale hunting with even systems considered by those who use them as baseline game functionality then that's their prerogative, but I hope they understand that longterm that has shown to be a surprisingly quick death spiral for games.Essentially as soon as a few of these incredibly high spenders (dubbed whales, who are eventually the only ones who can still afford all of the monetization to have a decent time ingame, carrying the financial burden) even say enough is enough, it's over.

So what is your solution then? You don't want the revenue stream to rely on whales, but are unwilling to spend money on convenience items?

Where exactly do you expect the revenue to come from? Magic?

Can you stop just inferring arguments into my points which I didn't make? This whole anyone who criticises monetization just doesn't want to spend anything and get everything for free is so tiresome, especially when repeatedly rebuffed.

The point I just made is that I and many other's would spend in fact more money over all if monetization was more reasonable.

I would have bought more bag slots total if they had been account wide, than I did over 7-8 years of them being character based.Same with the gambling mount skins (or the premium ones costing as much as an entire expansion), which I just completely ignored, feeling like Anet is taking me for a fool, expecting me to participate in these gambling schemes, rather than buying a whole bunch of the many skins I liked at a reasonable price, resulting in more over all spending.

Same with the "templates" now, where I gladly would have supported a well made and reasonably monetized system, which could have served as encouragement for future spending on other things as well by keeping my interest and confidence in the game and it's monitizitaion going forward high.

Player/customer goodwill and good value propositions ain't magic, but pretty straight forward psychology.

Provide a good and fair service and people will pay for it, nickel and dime people, and they will look for something else.If you can't provide a good service at a fair price, you are probably doing something else wrong or shouldn't be in the business of doing so.

[Swagger.1459]

@Cekay.2614 said:^Title.

I just discovered that i need to buy ~300 gems to Unlock a new Template. For EVERY Character i have seperatly!Thats ~110 Gold each...whats up with that?

The funny thing is, this does NOT include new Equipment slots or account wide templates.Those cost 500 gems each...Thats ~184 Gold for one of those...

I mean come on...why the heck is this so Expensive?

Why do you “need” them for “every character”? Are they a mandatory purchase imposed by Anet? Do you also feel the monthly user fee is expensive too?

[Cyninja.2954]

@Asum.4960 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:As is right now, templates are not needed for infrequent players. They are targeted at the more dedicated player crowd. Making them free makes no sense. Fixing the issues they have while increasing their value proposition (especially versus extra character slots) will be the probable approach.

I disagree. Maybe they didn't need to be entirely free, most people I've seen criticising this Loadoutsystem, including myself, were okay with some monetization of it, but it needed to be reasonable (more like 20-30€ as account unlock, rather than 10€ per build, per character), especially considering we already had a better free solution before and the fact that Anet really needed to get some goodwill back from the dedicated player crowd, which had been mostly ignored in terms of content for months, if not years at that point and many were on the verge of quitting already.Releasing such a heavy handed milking scheme of people who relied on such a feature so heavily to enjoy the game was a pretty massive (financial and otherwise) mistake.

There are companies like CDPR where I'm going out of my way to buy their things when not on sale, or on platforms where they get the biggest cut of the profits even if it disadvantages me slightly, why? Because they treat their customers with respect, so I gladly pay that back when and if I can, to support future products by them.

Moves like removing a free and better Template solution to release their own heavily monetized barely functioning Loadouts at a massive premium to quickly cash out does the opposite, it reduces long-term player spending.Anet had opportunity after opportunity to increase their rapport with their customers, making people want to support them, yet over the last few years they seem to have repeatedly favoured the milking approach instead, with many players eventually feeling screwed over/disrespected so much they just don't want to give them any money anymore.

Looking at the financial reports, clearly making Loadouts this expensive didn't make sense. If they had been a massive cash infusion, I still wouldn't have liked the means, but fair enough. But all that happened was a massive never before seen drop in revenue and a sizeable portion of the community leaving disappointed and disgruntled.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Also just to be clear, if the game does not increase its revenue, we WILL see more aggressive monetization in other areas.

@Astralporing.1957 said:That's, ironically, usually a start of a death spiral. More aggressive monetization chases some players away, the revenue drops, so devs make monetization even more aggressive. That chases even more players away, revenue drops, and...Stuff like that can indeed offer a short-time boost to income, but it always happens at the cost of long-term sustainability.

Basically, if their financial situation is so bad they

have

to monetize stuff like templates so aggressively, then this game is a goner already.

Exactly.If Anet wants to go Whale hunting with even systems considered by those who use them as baseline game functionality then that's their prerogative, but I hope they understand that longterm that has shown to be a surprisingly quick death spiral for games.Essentially as soon as a few of these incredibly high spenders (dubbed whales, who are eventually the only ones who can still afford all of the monetization to have a decent time ingame, carrying the financial burden) even say enough is enough, it's over.

So what is your solution then? You don't want the revenue stream to rely on whales, but are unwilling to spend money on convenience items?

Where exactly do you expect the revenue to come from? Magic?

Can you stop just inferring arguments into my points which I didn't make? This whole anyone who criticises monetization just doesn't want to spend anything and get everything for free is so tiresome, especially when repeatedly rebuffed.

The point I just made is that I and many other's would spend in fact more money over all if monetization was more reasonable.

That is you assuming though since you do not have metrics on this, do you?

@Asum.4960 said:I would have bought more bag slots total if they had been account wide, than I did over 7-8 years of them being character based.

That's you personally. I have 10-12 characters with full bags for example (with a total of 31 characters). You don't know what would have generated more revenue unless you had data on how many bag slots were purchased on average. Suffice to say, account wide upgrade do not scale with more characters. More characters are more likely on less price sensitive customers.

This becomes a question of: do you target more players, many of whom might be more price sensitive? Or do you target players who are already more invested, in the hopes they will spend even more money?

The assumption here would be that the way templates were added, the hopes were that they would function in a similar way as character bag slots. Which likely generated a lot more revenue being per character, than per account.

@Asum.4960 said:Same with the gambling mount skins (or the premium ones costing as much as an entire expansion), which I just completely ignored, feeling like Anet is taking me for a fool, expecting me to participate in these gambling schemes, rather than buying a whole bunch of the many skins I liked at a reasonable price, resulting in more over all spending.

So, did you purchase non gambling mount skins the moment they became available?

Because this is not about you, it;s about what has proven to generate sufficient revenue across the entire player base. It is obvious that the more price sensitive and thus locked out players will be more vocal on this. In the end though, what matters are the metrics and the spending across the entire player base.

Simply put:You might not even be the target customer here.

@Asum.4960 said:Provide a good and fair service and people will pay for it, nickel and dime people, and they will look for something else.

That's the issue though isn't it? Fair is a very subjective word. Is it fair to the developers that likely a huge part of the player base spends nothing but some bucks on the game, and nothing ever again (which is supported by this games monetization method)? Why is something having to be fair always a one sided deal?

If this were a fair scenario, players would spend a proportionate amount of money to the amount of entertainment they get from the game (let's not even get into hours spent. That's never a fair comparison entertainment wise and game devs always get shafted compared to other media). How much do you want to bet that is not the case for a very large part of the player base?

[Asum.4960]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:As is right now, templates are not needed for infrequent players. They are targeted at the more dedicated player crowd. Making them free makes no sense. Fixing the issues they have while increasing their value proposition (especially versus extra character slots) will be the probable approach.

I disagree. Maybe they didn't need to be entirely free, most people I've seen criticising this Loadoutsystem, including myself, were okay with some monetization of it, but it needed to be reasonable (more like 20-30€ as account unlock, rather than 10€ per build, per character), especially considering we already had a better free solution before and the fact that Anet really needed to get some goodwill back from the dedicated player crowd, which had been mostly ignored in terms of content for months, if not years at that point and many were on the verge of quitting already.Releasing such a heavy handed milking scheme of people who relied on such a feature so heavily to enjoy the game was a pretty massive (financial and otherwise) mistake.

There are companies like CDPR where I'm going out of my way to buy their things when not on sale, or on platforms where they get the biggest cut of the profits even if it disadvantages me slightly, why? Because they treat their customers with respect, so I gladly pay that back when and if I can, to support future products by them.

Moves like removing a free and better Template solution to release their own heavily monetized barely functioning Loadouts at a massive premium to quickly cash out does the opposite, it reduces long-term player spending.Anet had opportunity after opportunity to increase their rapport with their customers, making people want to support them, yet over the last few years they seem to have repeatedly favoured the milking approach instead, with many players eventually feeling screwed over/disrespected so much they just don't want to give them any money anymore.

Looking at the financial reports, clearly making Loadouts this expensive didn't make sense. If they had been a massive cash infusion, I still wouldn't have liked the means, but fair enough. But all that happened was a massive never before seen drop in revenue and a sizeable portion of the community leaving disappointed and disgruntled.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Also just to be clear, if the game does not increase its revenue, we WILL see more aggressive monetization in other areas.

@Astralporing.1957 said:That's, ironically, usually a start of a death spiral. More aggressive monetization chases some players away, the revenue drops, so devs make monetization even more aggressive. That chases even more players away, revenue drops, and...Stuff like that can indeed offer a short-time boost to income, but it always happens at the cost of long-term sustainability.

Basically, if their financial situation is so bad they

have

to monetize stuff like templates so aggressively, then this game is a goner already.

Exactly.If Anet wants to go Whale hunting with even systems considered by those who use them as baseline game functionality then that's their prerogative, but I hope they understand that longterm that has shown to be a surprisingly quick death spiral for games.Essentially as soon as a few of these incredibly high spenders (dubbed whales, who are eventually the only ones who can still afford all of the monetization to have a decent time ingame, carrying the financial burden) even say enough is enough, it's over.

So what is your solution then? You don't want the revenue stream to rely on whales, but are unwilling to spend money on convenience items?

Where exactly do you expect the revenue to come from? Magic?

Can you stop just inferring arguments into my points which I didn't make? This whole anyone who criticises monetization just doesn't want to spend anything and get everything for free is so tiresome, especially when repeatedly rebuffed.

The point I just made is that I and many other's would spend in fact more money over all if monetization was more reasonable.

That is you assuming though since you do not have metrics on this, do you?

@Asum.4960 said:I would have bought more bag slots total if they had been account wide, than I did over 7-8 years of them being character based.

That's you personally. I have 10-12 characters with full bags for example (with a total of 31 characters). You don't know what would have generated more revenue unless you had data on how many bag slots were purchased on average. Suffice to say, account wide upgrade do not scale with more characters. More characters are more likely on less price sensitive customers.

This becomes a question of: do you target more players, many of whom might be more price sensitive? Or do you target players who are already more invested, in the hopes they will spend even more money?

The assumption here would be that the way templates were added, the hopes were that they would function in a similar way as character bag slots. Which likely generated a lot more revenue being per character, than per account.

@Asum.4960 said:Same with the gambling mount skins (or the premium ones costing as much as an entire expansion), which I just completely ignored, feeling like Anet is taking me for a fool, expecting me to participate in these gambling schemes, rather than buying a whole bunch of the many skins I liked at a reasonable price, resulting in more over all spending.

So, did you purchase non gambling mount skins the moment they became available?

Because this is not about you, it;s about what has proven to generate sufficient revenue across the entire player base. It is obvious that the more price sensitive and thus locked out players will be more vocal on this. In the end though, what matters are the metrics and the spending across the entire player base.

Simply put:You might not even be the target customer here.

@Asum.4960 said:Provide a good and fair service and people will pay for it, nickel and dime people, and they will look for something else.

That's the issue though isn't it? Fair is a very subjective word. Is it fair to the developers that likely a huge part of the player base spends nothing but some bucks on the game, and nothing ever again (which is supported by this games monetization method)? Why is something having to be fair always a one sided deal?

If this were a fair scenario, players would spend a proportionate amount of money to the amount of entertainment they get from the game (let's not even get into hours spent. That's never a fair comparison entertainment wise and game devs always get shafted compared to other media). How much do you want to bet that is not the case for a very large part of the player base?

Now those are all good questions and points to which neither of us obviously have a satisfying answer.Whale hunting obviously has proven to be incredibly profitable for the mobile market, but from looking at past dying MMO's, or PC games in general, it seems to me to be a very different market where every time something similar exploitative was attempted it was followed by a swift decline in revenue and reputation, often then followed up by even more aggressive monetization in an attempt to compensate, sealing the death of the games. Even NCSoft themselves seem to have some experience with that.

I'm sure in some cases targeting high spending individuals over spreading the financial burden over the masses (like it might be the case with per character inventory slots over account wide unlocks, which more players would have rather bought instead, but possibly at a lower total), is more profitable, especially short term, but sometimes even longterm, and can be harmless.But imo there is a limit on how much of that you can implement until even those high spenders say it's too much, which certainly was the case for even some self-identifying "whales" of GW2 with the Loadout release.

All we know currently is that Anet is clearing increasingly leaning towards monetizing high spenders over catering to the masses, and that revenue is plummeting rapidly.What we draw from that though includes a lot of assumptions of course.

As a player who went from asking Anet to put more things into the Gemstore on release because I wanted to support them in the early days of GW2, to being so crushed by monetization that I don't want to spend anything anymore, it's very clear to me that I'm not the target demographic anymore now, unlike GW1 and GW2's early years. Looking at financial reports I'm by far not the only one though, although that does clearly have a variety of different other reasons as well.

At the end of the day we probably both just want what's best for the game and it's community, increasing it's longevity because we enjoy it. Just what that is is different for each of us.I Just don't appreciate cheap shots like the "everybody who disagrees with a certain type of monetization just want's everything for free", when there is a lot more to it than that.I've been playing GW1 & 2 since 15 years now. I don't just want free stuff at the expense of the game. I want this game or franchise to stay strong for years to come, I just don't think excessive monetization is what will facilitate that, based on past experience and research on other games going down that route.

[kharmin.7683]

@Asum.4960 said:

This whole anyone who criticises monetization just doesn't want to spend anything and get everything for free is so tiresome, especially when repeatedly rebuffed.

But yet, there are many who cry about the loss of ARC because it was free more than its functionality. This is probably why this point keeps coming up. Not saying that you, specifically, are one of those players.

[Cyninja.2954]

@"Asum.4960" said:At the end of the day we probably both just want what's best for the game and it's community, increasing it's longevity because we enjoy it. Just what that is is different for each of us.I Just don't appreciate cheap shots like the "everybody who disagrees with a certain type of monetization just want's everything for free", when there is a lot more to it than that.I've been playing GW1 & 2 since 15 years now. I don't just want free stuff at the expense of the game. I want this game or franchise to stay strong for years to come, I just don't think excessive monetization is what will facilitate that, based on past experience and research on other games going down that route.

Exactly, I don't enjoy the approach to have more and more things behind the gem store or required to get purchased out of game. If it was up to me, as much free content (and I mean actual content, not just skins and stuff) as possible. I am fully aware that many players do not have the financial means, or are newer to the game thus facing an immense cost which was spread over 7 years for veterans (see the issues with Living World content).

It's just I don't immediately agree with how players come and complain about every little financial detail, and to be fair, many of the more reasonable players don't do that but rather make good points as to why something should or should not be free or monetized differently. I fully agree that templates need work and the value they offered at the current price is lack luster.

Ideally, the new focus on the game will increase revenue and the devs will find a enjoyable balance between content updates (I personally enjoy expansions on a regular basis) and monetization. If and how that is possible we will see the coming months/years.

[Asum.4960]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

This whole anyone who criticises monetization just doesn't want to spend anything and get everything for free is so tiresome, especially when repeatedly rebuffed.

But yet, there are many who cry about the loss of ARC because it was free more than its functionality. This is probably why this point keeps coming up. Not saying that you, specifically, are one of those players.

I think the reason monetization gets brought up a lot is just because it's the insult to injury.The functionality loss of Anet's Loadout's compared to Arc Templates is definitely the by far bigger hit and would have been something heavily criticised even if they had been entirely free. It's just not a good system and Arc natively implemented into the game is all we ever needed.

Plus to many the functionality loss seems to be intentionally designed to facilitate the contrived triple monetization of the system, so in a sense even the functionality issue is a monetization issue. It's just seems so blatantly heavy handed and unnecessary when a blueprint for a system that has been working for years was right there for the taking.

@Cyninja.2954 said:Ideally, the new focus on the game will increase revenue and the devs will find a enjoyable balance between content updates (I personally enjoy expansions on a regular basis) and monetization. If and how that is possible we will see the coming months/years.

I hope so too.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

@"Asum.4960" said:

Can you stop just inferring arguments into my points which I didn't make? This whole anyone who criticises monetization just doesn't want to spend anything and get everything for free is so tiresome, especially when repeatedly rebuffed.

The point I just made is that I and many other's would spend in fact more money over all if monetization was more reasonable.

I remember when the first mount skins appeared (2000 gems for one "premium" skin or 400 per random unlock with a huge cost to "get them all"). During the forum uproar that followed, MO stated that ANet generated more revenue via high-priced cosmetics bought by a smaller number than lower-ticket cosmetics bought by more. I wonder if ANet extended that thinking to "templates."

A (likely) large number of players will buy zero load-out upgrades. Another (likely) large number may buy one or two. So, the target market for large load-out purchases would be dedicated players who already used a large number of builds. The big problems with the ANet approach to that target market were that the ANet system was decidedly inferior, the price point to max one character is greater than the price of the last expansion, and -- unlike cosmetics -- quick build and gear change was not really optional after playing with the ARC system for that long.

If ANet was trying to please the non-target market, they did a decent job (other than the bugs and the legendary issues). If they were trying to heavily monetize a captive audience, their system needed to be worth whatever price they set. That meant it had to be orders of magnitude better than ARC at this price point to even stand a chance of acceptance.

[Asum.4960]

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:

@"Asum.4960" said:

Can you stop just inferring arguments into my points which I didn't make? This whole anyone who criticises monetization just doesn't want to spend anything and get everything for free is so tiresome, especially when repeatedly rebuffed.

The point I just made is that I and many other's would spend in fact more money over all if monetization was more reasonable.

I remember when the first mount skins appeared (2000 gems for one "premium" skin or 400 per random unlock with a huge cost to "get them all"). During the forum uproar that followed, MO stated that ANet generated more revenue via high-priced cosmetics bought by a smaller number than lower-ticket cosmetics bought by more. I wonder if ANet extended that thinking to "templates."

Yea, the second major issue at play there was the gambling aspect of the deceptively low cost variant, which is imo much worse than the extremely high cost direct purchases where you at least know what you will get for your money, so it's not surprising that in that case the direct purchase generated more revenue.Essentially both the gambling option as well as the high price direct purchase in this case was aimed at high spenders, both leaving less flush players feeling like they couldn't justify the asked price to get something they actually want.The huge cost wasn't just to get them all, but if you were unlucky, just to get one you actually liked.

@IndigoSundown.5419 said:A (likely) large number of players will buy zero load-out upgrades. Another (likely) large number may buy one or two. So, the target market for large load-out purchases would be dedicated players who already used a large number of builds. The big problems with the ANet approach to that target market were that the ANet system was decidedly inferior, the price point to max one character is greater than the price of the last expansion, and -- unlike cosmetics -- quick build and gear change was not really optional after playing with the ARC system for that long.

If ANet was trying to please the non-target market, they did a decent job (other than the bugs and the legendary issues). If they were trying to heavily monetize a captive audience, their system needed to be worth whatever price they set. That meant it had to be orders of magnitude better than ARC at this price point to even stand a chance of acceptance.

Exactly. I'm one of those players who had ~20 builds per character, due having played the game since years and (at least until Arc Templates removal) was pretty invested in all game modes and professions, making me the prime demographic for a template system. Yet to keep playing the way I was playing, in Anet's new system, I would have had to pay roughly 2.000 - 3.000 €/$ on Anet's "templates", to then still have a worse experience than before with Arc.That's just unacceptable and lead me to not wanting to spend at all anymore, as well as playing far less.

I was willing to pay 20-30€ (the price of the last entire expansion) on a template unlock for my account, but at thousands I draw the line, regardless of functionality.

[Etria.3642]

I was THRILLED when build and equipment templates were announced. One click and I could swap between dps scrapper, wvw heal scrapper, fractal high agony Holo, power dps rifle Holo, power sword/shield Holo, wvw dps scrapper, delete and make adjustments as I wanted and then came the actual.

It doesn't store or save your selection to a cloud bubble, it changes it whenever you change something on your current build. It removed my stuff from legendaries. It is clunky, difficult to figure out and I hate it. There is zero way I am paying for something that doesn't work the way I wanted.

It isn't the monetization I object to but the actual system itself. Yes, it is spendier than I wanted but just like bank tabs or shared inventory slots I would have slowly bought them. But I'm not spending a dime on this.

[Cuks.8241]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

This whole anyone who criticises monetization just doesn't want to spend anything and get everything for free is so tiresome, especially when repeatedly rebuffed.

But yet, there are many who cry about the loss of ARC because it was free more than its functionality. This is probably why this point keeps coming up. Not saying that you, specifically, are one of those players.

But imo those are valid complaints. You take away something that is free and start charging for a lesser version of it, you basically take away functionality from players. Especially because GW2 is perfect for such a feature with so much build, weapon and stat combinations. A template function emphasizes the core strengths of the game and once you start using it you just want more and more and can easily fill it to the limit.

[Astralporing.1957]

@kharmin.7683 said:

@Asum.4960 said:

This whole anyone who criticises monetization just doesn't want to spend anything and get everything for free is so tiresome, especially when repeatedly rebuffed.

But yet, there are many who cry about the loss of ARC because it was free more than its functionality. This is probably why this point keeps coming up. Not saying that you, specifically, are one of those players.That's because, while i was willing to splurge a lot on gemshop items, i don't think features like template system are something that should ever be monetized. If Anet introduced a free (and working) template system, but decided to monetize

wardrobe

templates instead, i'd probably spend a ton of cash on those, and i would not feel that anything is out of order here. But now, the template system is preventing me from spending

anything

in gemshop - because by buying something - anything at all - i would be indirectly supporting their monetization practices. Which i do not want to do.

Besides, one of the issues i have with all this is that i don't consider the template system to be optional. I think it's an essential system that is absolutely necessary for the game in order to help close the gap between top, average and bottom players that lies at the core of a number of other, major issues this game suffers from. The top players will manage. It's the other players - those that won't ever feel the need to buy into that system - that would benefit the most from having quick and easy access to a selection of working builds.

Anet wasted that chance, all in order to make some quick bucks.

[ArchonWing.9480]

I don't have trouble with monetization, but the triple monetization of templates is a bit much. In addition, I guess the other issue is most of these so called "whales" would never find a use for templates anyways or even know what a build is, so it is a bit odd on who it is even catering to.

Btw, I have full shared inventory slots and got the https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elite_Reinforcements_Package just because I was too lazy to unlock WPs on a character. So it's not like I'm not willing to spend gems on minor conveniences but there isn't a way you could convince me to spend a single copper on that nonsense that is the template system. With the legendary armory coming out, it's starting to make a little more sense, but it is still far.

[Luthan.5236]

Remember 2 things:

1. Not too long ago we didn't even have templates. So it is nice to have them and players had to play without them for a long time. (No big disadvantage in not buying them.)
2. ArenaNet wants to earn your money.

[TinkTinkPOOF.9201]

The title of the post is "Why are Build Templates so Expensive?" not "Why are Build Templates not Free?". I understand some of you are trying to push a narrative, that we want this to be free, yet myself and a few others in here found out they were not account unlocks AFTER WE BOUGHT ONE. So yes, we are willing to spend money on them even at the current price IF they were account unlocks.

And those suggesting that we don't spend money on the game, well, anet is free to compare my order history to those suggesting we don't, because I will bet money that I have spent more. Since it seems peoples opinions only matter based on how much they spend on the game to these people. While I am sure there are many who spend far more than I do, I have played since beta and have over that time bought gems every month, since templates release, I have made two gem orders, and since I no longer have the template system I was using and the new over priced system I am not going to buy into, that also means my play time has been cut to maybe 1/4 of before and am now looking at spending that gem money on other games and real new content that is actually worth the price. As some of you here are suggesting that to fully unlock a single toon is worth more than a new triple A game, yall also seem to think coding the template system involved more work than that triple A game as well, and it's amazing people can defend that.

[T G.7496]

@"TinkTinkPOOF.9201" said:The title of the post is "Why are Build Templates so Expensive?" not "Why are Build Templates not Free?". I understand some of you are trying to push a narrative, that we want this to be free, yet myself and a few others in here found out they were not account unlocks AFTER WE BOUGHT ONE. So yes, we are willing to spend money on them even at the current price IF they were account unlocks.

And those suggesting that we don't spend money on the game, well, anet is free to compare my order history to those suggesting we don't, because I will bet money that I have spent more. Since it seems peoples opinions only matter based on how much they spend on the game to these people. While I am sure there are many who spend far more than I do, I have played since beta and have over that time bought gems every month, since templates release, I have made two gem orders, and since I no longer have the template system I was using and the new over priced system I am not going to buy into, that also means my play time has been cut to maybe 1/4 of before and am now looking at spending that gem money on other games and real new content that is actually worth the price. As some of you here are suggesting that to fully unlock a single toon is worth more than a new triple A game, yall also seem to think coding the template system involved more work than that triple A game as well, and it's amazing people can defend that.

Mic drop./thread

[Maulclaw.4365]

Because they're greedy.

[Shadowmoon.7986]

@"kharmin.7683" said:Flawed as it may be, I will trust Anet's marketing team to know economics than any posters on the forums who purport to know. Do I agree with their tactics? Not necessarily.

Because i trust the marketing team take gave us the "aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh" gem. Or sockpuppeting accounts to make there poster campaign look real and then using those same accounts to rage at players they do not like. Or came up with the quiznos campaign. Or came out of a lackluster living world announcement wearing a questionable outfit.