Guild Wars 2

I love when someone complains they have options. It’s such a self defeating argument. Makes me wonder if they would complain even if they got stuff for free because someone could sell same stuff and make money.

The non exclusive dyes in the temporary dye offers are at the moment probably the main source of new dyes to the economy (if we disregard the refunded UIDs after patch).
So if you make exclusive dyes directly purchaseable, that influx of regular identified dyes would stop. By keeping the rng dye packs with exclusive dyes on offer once in a while,Anet has the opportunity to influence the price of regular identified (and subsequently UIDs), if they should get too high.

Wanze.8410:

So if there is a cheap dye that looks very similiar in your eyes and you dont think the exclusive dye is worth the difference, why not just buy the cheap one but complain about the high price of the other one?

I wouldn’t, to be sure. But then this is not about us. This is about people who don’t even know there is a wiki. (Dwayna knows I’ve seen one too many in dungeons)

If they are that worried about the gemstore breaking the economy make each 5 pack guarantee a Premium Dye and make it account bound, gold farmers can still get them by trading gold for gems and PAYING customers don’t get ripped off. I’ve always enjoyed some “surprise” items off the gemstore black lion chests are fun ( My beef with scraps is a whole other rant). And I don’t really care about the $$$ -> Gold conversion from Dyes or BLC’s What I want is an assurance that when I spend money I’m not fed a tray full of horse-crap many people overlook that a premium armor set costs $10 1 Upgrade extractor is about $3 or 4 Dye packs with the BEST drop being Warmth (the color of hot turds) is $25. With that high of a cost I really want some sort of assurance that I’m not getting poked in the pooper by Anet…

My number suggestion is to guarantee rare drops and make it account bound paying customer happy gold farmers happy economy not thrown in the toilet.

You bought something that offered you a “chance” to get a rare dye. Knowing full well that it’s not guaranteed, you clicked the button. Result = no rare dye.

So the question now is: “Should you be mad at yourself for not understanding the terms of the dice you rolled?”

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You bought something that offered you a “chance” to get a rare dye. Knowing full well that it’s not guaranteed, you clicked the button. Result = no rare dye.

So the question now is: “Should you be mad at yourself for not understanding the terms of the dice you rolled?”

I full well understood the program, I suppose it was the straw that broke the Donkey’s back. I finally got fed up with seeing really cool stuff that I WANT TO BUY WITH MONEY that I simply cannot cough up enough to get even after spending exorbitant amounts of money trying. I’m sick of paying $50 in black lion keys to get 1 tormented skin because I don’t have time to gold farm for it.

But yes I understand the RNG system and why they use it. I just finally had enough of the disgusting system and fled to the forums to vent in a vain hope that some wayward arenet employee trolling the posts would say “Hey maybe players really are unhappy with the system”

Lastly sooner or later ArenaNet’s Boy “Boy Who Cried Wolf” policy in the gemstore will fail. Yes many players are spending money and they too will get sick of the hoax and stop. I intend to convince as many player as I can to follow suit and cease gem purchases until change is made.

neonreaper.4805:

why so angry

Who’s angry? I don’t get angry at others’ foolishness, only my own. It’s bad for the blood pressure.

But if you listen closely, between each word I posted you can hear my face being palmed.

i stopped buying those things too, mostly cuz they re release them too often and it makes me mad. but if all you want is the color to use….why arnt u just buying it from the gem store?

Kamikae.9536:

I will NOT be buying an more dye from gemstore until Anet get’s their head out of their kitten and caters to the PAYING customers. Make the drop rate for “gold” purchased ones suck I don’t care but please don’t give me 15 silver worth of dyes I already have for $25

As said numerous times by players after every new dye pack lottery appears at the Gem Shop yet it’s obvious that enough players are buying that those with dups or first time “winners” are selling them on the TP. Also since their format hasn’t changed in roughly a year and a half that ANet is satisfied with the overall number of sales.

Convert gems to gold and reward someone else for their RNG luck. I’m not a fan of that. I’d be okay with the current system EXCEPT getting worthless common dyes. Every time there are dyes and people make this complaint is because it’s a valid complaint. I’m glad some people enjoy them though It’s impossible to make everyone happy.

Kamikae.9536:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

You bought something that offered you a “chance” to get a rare dye. Knowing full well that it’s not guaranteed, you clicked the button. Result = no rare dye.

So the question now is: “Should you be mad at yourself for not understanding the terms of the dice you rolled?”

I full well understood the program, I suppose it was the straw that broke the Donkey’s back. I finally got fed up with seeing really cool stuff that I WANT TO BUY WITH MONEY that I simply cannot cough up enough to get even after spending exorbitant amounts of money trying. I’m sick of paying $50 in black lion keys to get 1 tormented skin because I don’t have time to gold farm for it.

But yes I understand the RNG system and why they use it. I just finally had enough of the disgusting system and fled to the forums to vent in a vain hope that some wayward arenet employee trolling the posts would say “Hey maybe players really are unhappy with the system”

Lastly sooner or later ArenaNet’s Boy “Boy Who Cried Wolf” policy in the gemstore will fail. Yes many players are spending money and they too will get sick of the hoax and stop. I intend to convince as many player as I can to follow suit and cease gem purchases until change is made.

$50 in gems → gold → purchase tormented skin. Not sure why you made the choice to buy the KEYS knowing full well that it can turn out badly very quickly.

LordEnki.9283:

Convert gems to gold and reward someone else for their RNG luck. I’m not a fan of that. I’d be okay with the current system EXCEPT getting worthless common dyes. Every time there are dyes and people make this complaint is because it’s a valid complaint. I’m glad some people enjoy them though It’s impossible to make everyone happy.

Do you expect every scratch-off lottery ticket that costs $5 to have at least $5 prize? You could buy 100 tickets and 90 of them are worthless.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

I’m not saying it’s a final solution, but it is the current solution.. And the consumer benefit being the direct purchase price is largely driven by the true player value of each color.

Alternatively you could just stop the RNG based cash shop purchases? But I guess that would cut into your whale fishing profits.

Alice.8694:

Curtis Johnson.8456:

I’m not saying it’s a final solution, but it is the current solution.. And the consumer benefit being the direct purchase price is largely driven by the true player value of each color.

Alternatively you could just stop the RNG based cash shop purchases? But I guess that would cut into your whale fishing profits.

What’s the motive for a business to stop trying to make money? Unemployment is fun?

tolunart.2095:

Alice.8694:

Curtis Johnson.8456:

I’m not saying it’s a final solution, but it is the current solution.. And the consumer benefit being the direct purchase price is largely driven by the true player value of each color.

Alternatively you could just stop the RNG based cash shop purchases? But I guess that would cut into your whale fishing profits.

What’s the motive for a business to stop trying to make money? Unemployment is fun?

Customer goodwill and faith.

I like the idea put forward by previous posters of a dye pack that offers a guaranteed special dye that is account bound. I am even happy for gemstore items that use a currency that is only real money purchased and not available for gold.

The idea of paying real money for an item is that you fund the game and in exchange get some sort of cosmetic bonus you actually want. The game is currently not managing to do this and it upsets people, paying people, who are the ones that have the power to keep the game going.

We really need to disconnect some of the store from the gold economy, because at the moment it is causing a lot of unnecessary problems.

Curtis Johnson.8456:

It surprises me sometimes that for all the talk of converting gold to gems nobody ever offers the other direction as a solution. Enameled dyes can be bought directly using gems if you go through the exchange.

As of this morning the range is:

• Enameled Legacy Dye ~190 gems.
• Enameled Crimson Dye ~1100 gems.

No randomness required.

edit: Lol – Raistlan did the thing i said nobody did, beat me to it

It’s all about perception, not reality.

When you buy something from the gem store 1000 gems, use your card or whatever, but the item and you’re done.

When you but 1000 gems for gold, you buy the gems. Convert the gems to gold (feel bad about the 15% gem to gold conversion tax). Buy the item from the TP for the gold (feel bad because some lucky jerk is getting the gold I paid cash for). Get the item (feel bad because I have now reinforced the RNG mechanic I hate in the gem store).

I end up with the dye but I feel dirty and I feel less good about it than I feel about direct purchases.

tolunart.2095:

Alice.8694:

Curtis Johnson.8456:

I’m not saying it’s a final solution, but it is the current solution.. And the consumer benefit being the direct purchase price is largely driven by the true player value of each color.

Alternatively you could just stop the RNG based cash shop purchases? But I guess that would cut into your whale fishing profits.

What’s the motive for a business to stop trying to make money? Unemployment is fun?

Maybe because its bad business practice to be so openly against trying to make paying customers happy? or fully supporting people losing real life money on something they hoped they could get but couldn’t? Sure, people like you don’t care, but other players look at things like that and realize whats the point in even offering it in the gem store if you and many other players say “you know its a gamble, why do it?”, other than for the purpose of exploiting people.

Really, RNG gemstore items are just going to exploit people who either don’t fully understand the possibilities (a friend of mine almost bought some himself before I explained it to him because he didn’t realize that even though he was going to pay real money for the gems, that didn’t ensure he would even get a dye that was worth anything). Yes, there is a chance they could get something thats worth quite a bit of money in game, but theres a bigger chance someone sees “dye pack” on sale at the gem store and thinks they are going to get better chances of getting rare dyes there than if they just use ones in the game.

Player knows that buying gem store dyes is gambling.
Player gambles and loses.
Player is upset, argues that the result is unfair, and demands market intervention.

These posters are either conniving (they’re not really upset, but just trying to find a way to mitigate gambling losses) or perfect examples of why economics based on the myth of a “rational person” is complete bunk.

Mckeone.9804:

Player knows that buying gem store dyes is gambling.
Player gambles and loses.
Player is upset, argues that the result is unfair, and demands market intervention.

These posters are either conniving (they’re not really upset, but just trying to find a way to mitigate gambling losses) or perfect examples of why economics based on the myth of a “rational person” is complete bunk.

No, they are players who wanted to get a dye related to the living story and who were forced to use an unreliable method of acquiring them. The gamble part should be in that you get a “random dye from the new set”, not “maybe a dye from the new set”.

When I used to open up unidentified dyes, I would have felt cheated if, instead of a dye, I got a copper ingot. If that was the only way to get dyes, then it would be unfair to attack people who complained by saying they knew the odds.

Knowing the odds doesn’t make it fair when the only game in town is crooked.

Sekhmet.6153:

Maybe because its bad business practice to be so openly against trying to make paying customers happy? or fully supporting people losing real life money on something they hoped they could get but couldn’t? Sure, people like you don’t care, but other players look at things like that and realize whats the point in even offering it in the gem store if you and many other players say “you know its a gamble, why do it?”, other than for the purpose of exploiting people.

Businesses tend to copy other ideas because they work, not because they are terrible.

Take scratch-off lottery tickets – they can cost $1, $5, $20 or more. Most of the time you get nothing, the majority of prizes are small amounts of money that are usually used to buy more tickets. Ultimately the buyer almost always walks away with nothing more than a pile of worthless cardboard. Yet people spend $100s on them at a time.

This is all these rng cash shop items are, lottery tickets. People like the idea of getting random stuff, if the grand prize is good enough. Weapon tickets, rare dyes, they make the choice to buy the scratch off ticket, Anet doesn’t charge their card every month and send them a pile of rng boxes.

Other games do the same thing, I’ve been playing SWTOR lately where one of the best ways to make a lot of money in game is to buy the new rng prize boxes (they seem to come out with at least one new one per month) and sell the rare items you get for the equivalent of 1000s of gold.

This kind of thing has gone on for entire generations, it’s not something that just appeared when GW2 was released, and there is a lot of data that shows more people will buy these than will buy the prizes directly. You might as well write the state lottery offices and tell them they have to stop making scratch off tickets.

Alice.8694:

tolunart.2095:

Alice.8694:

Curtis Johnson.8456:

I’m not saying it’s a final solution, but it is the current solution.. And the consumer benefit being the direct purchase price is largely driven by the true player value of each color.

Alternatively you could just stop the RNG based cash shop purchases? But I guess that would cut into your whale fishing profits.

What’s the motive for a business to stop trying to make money? Unemployment is fun?

Customer goodwill and faith.

Maybe for a month … then there are no customers because there is no business. Do you think GW2 is funded by good will and faith?

I have to say I can see why they make this an RNG based system…because if they charged a bulk price for the whole set (maybe 2000 gems or more) and they were account bound people wouldn’t buy and would argue they only want one color out of that set. So unless your after all the colors in the set it doesn’t work out for those players that are trying to buy one and get lucky or just buy one straight up for gems to gold conversion. However, a lot of people only see a few dye colors as any good and those tend to be the ones selling for for nearly 100 gold.

Opened 20 dyes, got 5 enameled dyes (one repeated which I’ll save for later)

It’s just pure random, you can’t expect to have 50% of the dyes being enameled given their chance. I gotta say that I got really lucky having 25% of the dyes being exclusive, BUT sometimes I don’t get a single one from the packs.

It’s frustrating I know, sometimes the frustration pays off and you get what you wanted, but the next time you’ll get frustrated again when the RNG is not in your favor. It’s best to save up the gold and wait until they keep on dropping, they’re expensive but it’s a safer way to get them, I’ll try to do it for the other ones but don’t really have 700g atm xD

ghost.3208:

Opened 20 dyes, got 5 enameled dyes (one repeated which I’ll save for later)

It’s just pure random, you can’t expect to have 50% of the dyes being enameled given their chance. I gotta say that I got really lucky having 25% of the dyes being exclusive, BUT sometimes I don’t get a single one from the packs.

It’s frustrating I know, sometimes the frustration pays off and you get what you wanted, but the next time you’ll get frustrated again when the RNG is not in your favor. It’s best to save up the gold and wait until they keep on dropping, they’re expensive but it’s a safer way to get them, I’ll try to do it for the other ones but don’t really have 700g atm xD

Not really surprising because as I explained earlier in the thread that the average number of new dyes from opening five should be 1.2. 20 scales to 4.8 so 5 is slightly better than average.

Percent chance to get X new dyes from 20.

0 – 0.41%
1 – 2.61%
2 – 7.83%
3 – 14.84%
4 – 19.91%
5 – 20.12%
6 – 15.89%
7 – 10.03%
8 – 5.15%
9 – 2.17%
10 – 0.75%
11 – 0.22%
12 – 0.05%
13 – 0.01%

And this distribution shows why so many people hate RNG rewards. If 100 players open 20 dye packs each then 45-46 of them, nearly half will get less than 4.8 and feel “cheated”. Even if you exclude those that got 4 because “it’s close enough” that’s still 25-26, roughly a quarter of the players, will feel “cheated” that they got 3 or less.

So how many times can you make a customer “feel cheated” after spending $25 in gems until they don’t bother to come back and try another RNG item. So $2500 yielded 48 new dyes and 1952 other dyes of various rarity.

Really by embracing the RNG method they are saying they only value the whale gamer over the average gamer.

Example.
If the new dyes came out as a 1000 gem one shot for 6 unique dyes, everyone would equally be able to purchase and enjoy them. They would also see a huge sales increase due to the reliability of such a purchase.

By comparison the RNG system depends on people not getting what they wanted so that they continue to spend more. It doesn’t function for the benefit of the player or to improve the overall playing experience. It merely exists as a bottomless cash sink to snare in players who are willing to plunge vast amounts of cash into the game. And causes badwill in players when they are burned by it. Which gradually over time causes players to stop using these shop items.

When I say it encourages goodwill and faith in players to drop the RNG. What I mean is, it encourages more people to buy things. Rather than solely focusing on the players who can only drop fat cash on the game: Whales.

Alice.8694:

When I say it encourages goodwill and faith in players to drop the RNG. What I mean is, it encourages more people to buy things. Rather than solely focusing on the players who can only drop fat cash on the game: Whales.

I try to look at things realistically. The vast majority of players in FTP or BTP-nosub games are nice to have around, since they keep the world populated and busy, but they don’t contribute to the devs’ paychecks or help pay the bills. Quite the opposite, they take things from the game and complain it’s not enough, and costs company money (server space, bandwith, CS issues, etc.) without adding any cash. They are not as important to the business because they take money without giving any back.

If you were waiting tables in a busy restaurant, and out of ten tables nine of your customers were sitting there for hours drinking water, while one person comes in and orders a prime rib dinner, who do you take care of first? Do you check the water drinkers every five minutes to make sure their glasses are full while ignoring the steak eater unless he catches your attention? Or do you make sure he’s happy first and check on the others when you can?

It’s just the way things are, you don’t have to like it, I don’t like it either, but there’s a reason why it is the way it is.

How many of the people complaining that they bought a chance at one of the dyes made the purchase because they were hoping to hit the jackpot and get the really expensive dye and sell it on the TP? I’m guessing its most of the people complaining. They thought that if they dropped some cash on gems and gambled on some RNG dyes that they might get one or two of the really expensive dyes that they could sell for more gold than they would have got had they just converted the gems.

I mean, that’s most of the people complaining right? Otherwise if people were just SO enamored by one of these new colors they would find a way to get the gold for a direct purchase, or they would convert the gems to be sure they got the exact dye they wanted.

I think people just feel silly when they gamble thinking they are smart, only to find out they dropped real cash and got about as much in return as they could have got had they killed a few random creatures.

If you want to gamble, prepare to pay the price.

chronometria.3708:

Mckeone.9804:

Player knows that buying gem store dyes is gambling.
Player gambles and loses.
Player is upset, argues that the result is unfair, and demands market intervention.

These posters are either conniving (they’re not really upset, but just trying to find a way to mitigate gambling losses) or perfect examples of why economics based on the myth of a “rational person” is complete bunk.

No, they are players who wanted to get a dye related to the living story and who were forced to use an unreliable method of acquiring them. The gamble part should be in that you get a “random dye from the new set”, not “maybe a dye from the new set”.

When I used to open up unidentified dyes, I would have felt cheated if, instead of a dye, I got a copper ingot. If that was the only way to get dyes, then it would be unfair to attack people who complained by saying they knew the odds.

Knowing the odds doesn’t make it fair when the only game in town is crooked.

You can always buy it off the trading post = Your point is entirely invalid. It’s not crooked when you know the odds, decide to gamble, lose, and get mad about it.

edit: It would only be crooked if anet was lying about the odds of getting a fancy dye. No one is accusing them of that.

Alice.8694:

Example.
If the new dyes came out as a 1000 gem one shot for 6 unique dyes, everyone would equally be able to purchase and enjoy them. They would also see a huge sales increase due to the reliability of such a purchase.

Except right now those 1000 gems will buy you 10 chances with a 20.30% chance for one and a 73.26% chance for more than one. But it does come with a 6.43% chance of getting just old existing dyes. A “fairer” price would be in the 425-525 gem range for a guarantee “exclusive” dye but that doesn’t flood the TP as another source of “old” dyes.

It also ignores the feeling you get beating the house you may get with the RNG reward mechanic. If you get lucky with a single 125 gem purchase you feel great. Ha! Take that, I beat you and your RNG boss monster.

I have bought special dye packs before (and got lucky more often than not), but now that dyes are account wide and I have the complete set of regular ones, I won’t be buying them again.

Regular dyes were an acceptable ‘consolation prize’ for me, because I had plenty of characters to give them to. They aren’t worth anything to me anymore, and without a consolation price at all, I don’t find those dye pack interesting anymore.

I wonder, will more people find themselves in my position as time goes by, and will there be decreasing numbers of special dyes entering the market in the future as a result of that, or am I just a tiny blip on the radar?

Manasa Devi.7958:

I wonder, will more people find themselves in my position as time goes by, and will there be decreasing numbers of special dyes entering the market in the future as a result of that, or am I just a tiny blip on the radar?

They have done the exact same thing several times, even bringing back previous dyes for a limited time. When they did, new supplies of those dyes flooded the market. It appears that time and repetition did not discourage purchase of the dye packs.

tolunart.2095:

Manasa Devi.7958:

I wonder, will more people find themselves in my position as time goes by, and will there be decreasing numbers of special dyes entering the market in the future as a result of that, or am I just a tiny blip on the radar?

They have done the exact same thing several times, even bringing back previous dyes for a limited time. When they did, new supplies of those dyes flooded the market. It appears that time and repetition did not discourage purchase of the dye packs.

Yes, but that’s not the point. At those times I did buy some packs. The thing that changed is that I no longer have any use whatsoever for any dye that’s not in a rainbow-colored bottle, and that makes it a gamble without a consolation price. I won’t be doing that, ever. The account wide dye change removed my incentive to buy the special packs. And what I was asking in my earlier post was, will more people stop buying them for similar reasons.

I doubt it. They moved away from account bound dyes during beta testing, if they went back to it then it probably makes more sense, financially speaking, than the old system.

Euler.3259:

maybe if more people posted this complaint, there would be a chance of change.

No, I think people should simply be smarter and buy the exclusive dyes from the TP instead. Use your gold wisely…

Since everyone keeps saying that the OP knew the risks. Can someone please let me know where ANet has posted the odds?

Inherent in any scratch ticket is the fact that your odds of winning are clearly published.

Why can’t they add a dye ‘browser’ in the wardrobe tab that let’s you see what every available dye looks like and then have a purchase option that lets you add that dye to your account without being able to sell it? Maybe it’s only exclusive new dyes, but they really need to get rid of this RNG crap when I am giving them money. The preview is really important to me because how an armor displays a dye is really very variable.

TooBz.3065:

Since everyone keeps saying that the OP knew the risks. Can someone please let me know where ANet has posted the odds?

Inherent in any scratch ticket is the fact that your odds of winning are clearly published.

This .

When you are new, for 20+ USD or Euro you expect guaranteed chance to get new dye or at least something valuable. To not get anything feels like cheating. Whole structure of dye packs is wrong for the money you pay for them.

Either make some new colors uncommon and guaranteed drop or make all dye drops rare quality.

TooBz.3065:

Since everyone keeps saying that the OP knew the risks. Can someone please let me know where ANet has posted the odds?

Inherent in any scratch ticket is the fact that your odds of winning are clearly published.

It’s 1/25. I believe it says so square on the tooltip that pops up with the item description text.

Mckeone.9804:

TooBz.3065:

Since everyone keeps saying that the OP knew the risks. Can someone please let me know where ANet has posted the odds?

Inherent in any scratch ticket is the fact that your odds of winning are clearly published.

It’s 1/25. I believe it says so square on the tooltip that pops up with the item description text.

That’s assuming each dye has the exact same probability of dropping. I’m not saying that’s not how it works, but it’s possible that it isn’t.

See, maybe it just comes from being older but, I know how to not support the Lottery dyes. I don’t purchase gems, with cash or gold, to buy RNG dyes from the gems store . I do not buy gems, to convert to gold, to buy RNG dyes off the Trading Post. I do not buy RNG dyes at all.

If someone really wanted change, then they’d stop supporting it entirely. No matter how snazzy a dye maybe, it’s easy to do without.

DeWolfe.2174:

See, maybe it just comes from being older but, I know how to not support the Lottery dyes. I don’t purchase gems, with cash or gold, to buy RNG dyes from the gems store . I do not buy gems, to convert to gold, to buy RNG dyes off the Trading Post. I do not buy RNG dyes at all.

If someone really wanted change, then they’d stop supporting it entirely. No matter how snazzy a dye maybe, it’s easy to do without.

Players need to speak with their wallets. I have never purchased gems, and will not do it on the future unless in comes with new content. Even ANet said that the game would not require a cash shop back before beta when cash shop first came up.

Remember the box price is supposed to fund this game (like GW1). That seems to have been abandoned tho. It’s like ANet saw how much cash was coming in via gems and revised the business model.

The box price was never suppose to fund the game like GW1. The Gem Store was always the plan on how to pay the bills quarter to quarter. The box price paid for the 5 years of development because the $10 million a year for the last couple of years of development from GW1 wouldn’t pay for a 250-300 player dev team.

Behellagh.1468:

The box price was never suppose to fund the game like GW1. The Gem Store was always the plan on how to pay the bills quarter to quarter. The box price paid for the 5 years of development because the $10 million a year for the last couple of years of development from GW1 wouldn’t pay for a 250-300 player dev team.

In your mind maybe, but it was marketed as I have described it.

juno.1840:

Behellagh.1468:

The box price was never suppose to fund the game like GW1. The Gem Store was always the plan on how to pay the bills quarter to quarter. The box price paid for the 5 years of development because the $10 million a year for the last couple of years of development from GW1 wouldn’t pay for a 250-300 player dev team.

In your mind maybe, but it was marketed as I have described it.

I would love to see the source of your information.

Note – personal preferences don’t count as facts.

I would never pay 1100 gems for one dye.

Unless I’d been forced to consume enough meth to make such bad decisions…

That’s the gem to gold and then buy off the TP price in gems. Basing off of prob and stats and the current gem to gold price you are looking at TP prices in the 26.8-33.5g range equivalent. There are only 24-31 dyes above that price range and all of them but abyss are Gem Shop dyes.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

juno.1840:

Behellagh.1468:

The box price was never suppose to fund the game like GW1. The Gem Store was always the plan on how to pay the bills quarter to quarter. The box price paid for the 5 years of development because the $10 million a year for the last couple of years of development from GW1 wouldn’t pay for a 250-300 player dev team.

In your mind maybe, but it was marketed as I have described it.

I would love to see the source of your information.

Note – personal preferences don’t count as facts.

He’s got an uncle that works at anet, you see…

juno.1840:

Behellagh.1468:

The box price was never suppose to fund the game like GW1. The Gem Store was always the plan on how to pay the bills quarter to quarter. The box price paid for the 5 years of development because the $10 million a year for the last couple of years of development from GW1 wouldn’t pay for a 250-300 player dev team.

In your mind maybe, but it was marketed as I have described it.

If what you say is true, the game wouldn’t exist. Zero ROI projects aren’t really popular with investors and employees can’t buy groceries with promises and good will.

Obtena.7952:

If what you say is true, the game wouldn’t exist. Zero ROI projects aren’t really popular with investors and employees can’t buy groceries with promises and good will.

I missed the part where he claimed that Anet was a non-profit.

Also you’re conflating employees with investors – people can be both, but most aren’t, and status as one is independent of the other. To wit, from an investor’s perspective, an employee is a cost, which makes them part of the I. And the employees receive the same salary regardless of the R. (Any operating profit that gets distributed as a salary bonus is pocketed mostly by executives.)

And where buying groceries is concerned, you may want to inquire as to what happens to the contractors after Anet lays them off after 12 months instead of hiring them on as regular employees. If you support the gem store business model, which enables short-term production cycles and the consequent treatment of developers as a disposable labor force, then you tacitly approve of and encourage these practices.