Guild Wars 2

You know, I found your post very interesting Fiontar.4695; Enough so that I checked with my law professor.
Ohio does indeed have gambling laws dealing with virtual products and the exchange of real world money. From what was explained to me, living here, if I buy these chests, I could be charged with illegal gambling. On the other hand, They would not be unless it violates some federal inter-state commerce clause. Very enlightening.

[edit] Ok, he was only partially correct. I actually cannot be charged, because whatever the outcome, I do not OWN said ‘winnings’. Therefore, I have not ‘gained’ anything, which is a requirement of gambling ‘winnings’. [/edit]

I opened about 15 chests now and all I got is breathing mask and shoulder skins… Guildie opened 1 chest and got karka mini pet >.>

It’s always the same unlucky ones.

Didn’t buy those chest. I learned that from the Halloween event… actually I didn’t buy keys to open those chests.

The thing I bought from the Halloween event were the mini-pets. I was disappointed that this event didn’t have an option to buy mini-pets. They could have sold the weekend event mini-pets that were uncommon, and then have rare/exotic mini-pets in the consortium chests.

At least give the consumers the option to buy directly without gambling our money.

Horheristo.3607:

1.5h hours of farming, what are you complaining about?

That’s Bull. I farm 3 days to get 17g. Why I don’t agree with OP. sorry dude. U knew u only had a CHANCE to get a rare item. y did u take that chnce and then rage about it? case closed bro. You knew what u were buying.

These chests are despicable to me. It’s one of the main reasons that I refuse to play any Nexon games. The entire purpose of chests is to hit that point where you’re addicted enough to keep spending, but not yet hopeless enough to completely despair and walk off.

In other words, if you weren’t hooked on gambling before, the model is to get you hooked now.

Here’s a somewhat relevant article that someone linked:

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/05/gacha-watch-japan-social-games/

Don’t treat me like a rat in a cage, squeezing every last cent out of me through psychology, and perhaps I’ll actually willingly spend more money. This whole chest system is rotten. Absolutely rotten.

(Standard disclaimer: I have never bought any of these chests, and have never bought any keys. I never will. On the other hand, I loved the town clothes so much that I bought three. THREE. Have your monetization producer think on that.)

Shadowlancer.7102:

Guys you cant have it one way or another. You complained about the weapon skins not dropping enough and this time, the skins are alot more common.

The extra rare items, such as the hats and minis are not meant to be easy to get also…

• Consortium Chest (Mystic Forge): [3x skin from consortium chest] + [passion fruit] + [karka shell] + [passion flower]

Sorry, but I am on Arenanet’s side this time, this is alot more better than last time.

Uhm the skins only drop in the dungeon or from bought chests from what I’ve seen. My entire guild has confirmed 0 drops anywhere else.

This combined with the chests only being made by having mats that are only available from chests is better how exactly?

Sorry but they need to remove whatever they stealth placed in a patch a month ago that reduced both the drops needed for exotics the chance to get ectos and they need to improve the quality of the items from chests before I ever buy one.

I have to speak my 2 cents worth on this. For those that think that the chests are not worth it and think that it is just a sham to get more money; think about where ANet have themselves. They are giving us an extremely entertaining, fun and enjoyable gift that none of us has to pay for every month. We bought this game 1 time and then we can have all the game has to offer. Would you rather it be like a Subscription based game? Or would you like them to give items in the market to give an unfair advantage over another player. Everybody has to make money to survive, and that is just what they are doing. Those chests may not be 100% what you want them to be, but it’s not like they are forcing anybody to buy them. Whomever buy’s the chests are doing so from their own free will.

TLDR: Everybody needs to make money, and this is just one way ArenaNet has of doing so.

zachbolt.6304:

I have to speak my 2 cents worth on this. For those that think that the chests are not worth it and think that it is just a sham to get more money; think about where ANet have themselves. They are giving us an extremely entertaining, fun and enjoyable gift that none of us has to pay for every month. We bought this game 1 time and then we can have all the game has to offer. Would you rather it be like a Subscription based game? Or would you like them to give items in the market to give an unfair advantage over another player. Everybody has to make money to survive, and that is just what they are doing. Those chests may not be 100% what you want them to be, but it’s not like they are forcing anybody to buy them. Whomever buy’s the chests are doing so from their own free will.

TLDR: Everybody needs to make money, and this is just one way ArenaNet has of doing so.

I’d be giving them money if I have 100% chance to buy directly from the gem store.

I would most definately prefer a monthly subscription of 10 to 20 $ for the piece of mind of knowing that all the countless hours i spend farming is not in vain and results being controlled, and that anet revenue is not proportional to my own luck or bad luck with rng.

zachbolt.6304:

I have to speak my 2 cents worth on this. For those that think that the chests are not worth it and think that it is just a sham to get more money; think about where ANet have themselves. They are giving us an extremely entertaining, fun and enjoyable gift that none of us has to pay for every month. We bought this game 1 time and then we can have all the game has to offer. Would you rather it be like a Subscription based game? Or would you like them to give items in the market to give an unfair advantage over another player. Everybody has to make money to survive, and that is just what they are doing. Those chests may not be 100% what you want them to be, but it’s not like they are forcing anybody to buy them. Whomever buy’s the chests are doing so from their own free will.

TLDR: Everybody needs to make money, and this is just one way ArenaNet has of doing so.

Since my oncall pager woke me up and I’ve been following this quietly for a while, here’s my middle-of-the-night possibly-grumpy-but-not-on-purpose response.

I will never pay for any item that relies on RNG from a gem store in this game or any other in an attempt to receive in game items I desire. I know I’m not the only one that feels this way. At Halloween, I bought the witch’s outfit and two packages of minis (disposed of one to make the one from mystic forge.) I want to support Arenanet by buying from the gem store, but if they continue to put the good items from these events into RNG ONLY, they will be losing out on hype money from me.

Hype money being “money earned by sudden short time availability items focused on holiday or one time events.”

I refuse to pay a subscription fee for any game. It’s the principle of the thing. On the other hand, I’ve thrown more money into this game this year than anyone paying for a traditional MMO sub pay model already. I would have paid even more this month had the minis and/or armor/weapon skins been available as direct purchase from the gem store instead of “you MIGHT get what you desire by opening this chest that costs way too much to purchase.”

My wife sent me out to buy the CE prepurchase for my birthday gift. I’ve played in every beta weekend event and loved it. I bought 3 extra character slots worth of gems before launch so that I could have one of every profession AT launch. I suffer from what I like to call alt-itis. I like to play a little on every character every now and then rather than focusing on ONE character. My highest level is a level 60 engineer (yet another character slot I bought) that I created shortly before Halloween, and I’m proud that I’ve managed to stay mostly focused on it in the short time I’ve been playing it. I don’t a lot of in game gold. I sell almost every item I come across that I don’t need, salvage a few of the rest for upgrade components and crafting mats, and still have less than 10 gold in the bank total across all characters.

At halloween, the ONLY skin I desired was the Ghastly Grinning Shield. I bought the mini pack twice (once to sacrifice them for the mystic forge skeleton, and again for the other three to keep.) I also bought the witch’s outfit. If there had been a weapon skin pack, or if the skins had been available as individual items, I would have bought those, too. Instead, I used what keys I had to try for them and failed to get anything halloween related. I made Mad King Chests out of the stuff that I didn’t want from BLC and still got nothing but standard candy corn type fare. The Shield goes for 20+ gold in the BLTC. The chances for obtaining one by the time I have that kind of gold built up are pretty much nil and void, and I’ve given up on getting it. This is money Arenanet lost.

In total, I’ve paid the $160 for the CE pre-purchase, plus 2 packs of $35 worth of gems for 4 character slots, an extra bank tab, some minis, and a witch’s outfit. This makes $70 in post-launch sales (if you count the gems bought pre-launch as post launch since they couldn’t be used until then.) that’s more than 4 months worth of most subscription games, and it’s less than I WOULD have spent if the gem store had been handled differently. I refuse to pay subscription fees on principle. It’s the psychology of it that has me spending more than I would have. I’m okay with that.

Arenanet should really re-think the gem store RNG situation, though. A lot of folks seem to be irritated by this.

TL;DR
I won’t pay sub, I hate real money RNG rewards, and gem store needs a rethink.
And I’m grumpy from being on call.

Tken.1986:

zachbolt.6304:

I have to speak my 2 cents worth on this. For those that think that the chests are not worth it and think that it is just a sham to get more money; think about where ANet have themselves. They are giving us an extremely entertaining, fun and enjoyable gift that none of us has to pay for every month. We bought this game 1 time and then we can have all the game has to offer. Would you rather it be like a Subscription based game? Or would you like them to give items in the market to give an unfair advantage over another player. Everybody has to make money to survive, and that is just what they are doing. Those chests may not be 100% what you want them to be, but it’s not like they are forcing anybody to buy them. Whomever buy’s the chests are doing so from their own free will.

TLDR: Everybody needs to make money, and this is just one way ArenaNet has of doing so.

I’d be giving them money if I have 100% chance to buy directly from the gem store.

That goes for me and a great deal of my playing friends as well too. It is the point I think a lot of people are trying to drive home. People would spend money on the items directly as oppose to this random cash grab such as these chests. Its not fun, we are not enjoying it. If there was a way these items to be offered other then random chests, they would be bought. Instead, we are passing on them and telling others to do the same for a lot of reasons given above in other posts – in and out of game.

The odds of getting something good from those gambling chest are terrible. That’s why the Japanese government has banned all japanese MMOs from selling gambling chest/bags/whatever-else-they-call-it to players.

At least now you know better. Treat it as a tution fees. There will undoubtedly still be people who will buy the gambling chest be it new players, those who got lucky or those who just want to try their luck though.

Btw, i only make 1-2g per day so i understand losing 17g for nothing is frustrating but just take it easy.

I’ll spend hundreds of dollars on gems for guarantees, but ArenaNet is going to get $0 from me for random chance chests.

I was really dissapointed with the “new chests” and was quite surprised at how lackluster the lost shores items were compared to the halloween ones.

The skins are just plain bad.

Rebreather skins – Very few people like the underwater experience and spend as little time there as they can. Even if they do, they wont really be able to see their rebreather unless they spin their camera to admire their floaty selves.

Shoulder skins – Everyone loves shoulder skins…but the lost shore shoulders are horrid.

Shark tooth weapons – The halloween chainsaw was animated and still fetches a price of 30 gold on the auction house. Shark tooth weapons look bad and arent even a decent weapon type (greatsword remains the vanity weapon of choice).

The Tiki Mask Shield – Shields are good vanity weapon items…an animated shield could be popular, or one that glows. This one…is just a nasty looking wooden “thing”.

Tribal Armour – Lots of people want the tribal set (which is in the game but not available to players). Why wasnt this brought into the game, its perfect for lost shores and would actually go well with the otherwise aweful weapons and shield.

The little boat in a bottle – Its clear that some work went into this and its quite nice. It remains one of the few good cosmetic skins of the lost shores patch.

Pets – These are quite good, especially the little family of mini-karka that hop about. These are the only lost shores item commanding prices comparable to the halloween items. Still, i dont think people want to chance RNG to get these.

Overall, bad items, bad method of distribution, when halloween’s items were probably more popular and in more people’s hands. It could easily have been done better.

chronometria.3708:

Shark tooth weapons – The halloween chainsaw was animated and still fetches a price of 30 gold on the auction house. Shark tooth weapons look bad and arent even a decent weapon type (greatsword remains the vanity weapon of choice).

Be happy that they are trying to change that. People without a greatsword (or multiple characters) want some nice skins as well.

Other then that I agree with you.

I just want to say I did not buy any of the new chests in the Karka event. It is gambling and I do not do that. If they had added the skins on the Gem store, to buy directly, then I would have gotten some. Just like I did for Halloween, I got the mini pets and the costumes.
So please Anet, do not do random chance with chests.

As long as there are players buying them they will stay. If there are a million players playing this game and only10% buy those chests then thats still a lot of money going into Anets pocket.

Due respect to those who feel “cheated” by these chests (or the cash shop model in general), but many of you seem to have NO idea about how the real world works.

YES there is so a “production cost” for new items. Anything added to a game requires programmers, artists, QA testers, IT folks, writers, etc. all of who get paid for their work. Just because an item is “virtual” doesn’t mean that it doesn’t represent many, many man-hours of work to create.

If you don’t feel the items are worth the cost, don’t buy them, or feel free to post a non-ranting thread on how you’d have preferred them to be. I guarantee people are watching the market to see what people respond to. I’m MUCH happier buying items on the shop to support the game than having to pay a sub fee, but do agree that they’re still not quite there yet re: the “sweet spot” between coolness and value, but I’m sure they’ll get there. For now the bulk of my extra $ purchases have been for things like character slots and bank tabs, but as soon as they get more items like the old GW1 costume skins or something equally cool, I’m sure I will do those, too…

zachbolt.6304:

I have to speak my 2 cents worth on this. For those that think that the chests are not worth it and think that it is just a sham to get more money; think about where ANet have themselves. They are giving us an extremely entertaining, fun and enjoyable gift that none of us has to pay for every month. We bought this game 1 time and then we can have all the game has to offer. Would you rather it be like a Subscription based game? Or would you like them to give items in the market to give an unfair advantage over another player. Everybody has to make money to survive, and that is just what they are doing. Those chests may not be 100% what you want them to be, but it’s not like they are forcing anybody to buy them. Whomever buy’s the chests are doing so from their own free will.

TLDR: Everybody needs to make money, and this is just one way ArenaNet has of doing so.

I agree they need to make money. I buy gems two or three times a month to support the game! However, they would produce a lot more revenue if they used fair pricing. The per unit price would be lower, but the volume of sales would be higher.

Once a person buys something and feels completely ripped off, the odds of them buying more gems in the future drops significantly.

The cash shop addicts who drop a significant amount of money every month will spend the same amount per month even if they where to get a better per purchase value with more moderate unit pricing. You don’t lose that revenue by pricing more aggressively to drive purchases.

As I said in the previous post, these are virtual items with essentially no per unit cost. There is development cost, but overall cash shop revenue funds that cost and if you drive more revenue with fair pricing and items worth buying, you more than cover the development cost.

I was glad to see the Black Friday Sales and that is something that should continue on an ongoing basis. I think the LotRO cash shop has an average of two three day sales a week, with each sale covering multiple items. Their prices and value are also much better than the base prices in GW2. A lot of lessons to be learned from that model.

BTW, the Friday sale of Black Lion Chest keys was more than a bit dishonest. They created a new bundle of 25 which was the only key offering “on sale”, but the advertised discount was off of the single key purchase price. Compared to five bundles of five, the discount was a lot less than advertised. This was bad for two reasons.

First, for those realizing the games being played with the discount, the perceived dishonesty is a turn off that will convert some gem purchasers into non-purchasers. Second, there was huge potential for key sales at a true 50% discount if the discount had been applied to the single and five pack prices, which it was not. If you weren’t willing to buy $20 of gems to buy the limited time, less than advertised value 25 pack, there was nothing there for you.

You would think the appeal of five packs at half off would have been obvious. Many people might have bout one five pack, opened some chests, then bought another five pack and another, etc…

My point is that IMO, gem Shop revenue has been crippled by a poor pricing strategy and a lack of a proper, coherent % Off sales strategy.

I can’t help but believe that a poorly formulated cash shop strategy is costing the company huge amounts of monthly revenue. People who enjoy the game are likely to be willing to buy gems to support the game, but they need to be able to look at the cash shop and feel it offers a good and fair value. Most people who look at the cash shop pricing just scoff and go back to looking at the game as being free to play after the one time box purchase. That, to me, is a failed cash shop pricing strategy.

ImagoX.4718:

Due respect to those who feel “cheated” by these chests (or the cash shop model in general), but many of you seem to have NO idea about how the real world works.

YES there is so a “production cost” for new items. Anything added to a game requires programmers, artists, QA testers, IT folks, writers, etc. all of who get paid for their work. Just because an item is “virtual” doesn’t mean that it doesn’t represent many, many man-hours of work to create.

If you don’t feel the items are worth the cost, don’t buy them, or feel free to post a non-ranting thread on how you’d have preferred them to be. I guarantee people are watching the market to see what people respond to. I’m MUCH happier buying items on the shop to support the game than having to pay a sub fee, but do agree that they’re still not quite there yet re: the “sweet spot” between coolness and value, but I’m sure they’ll get there. For now the bulk of my extra $ purchases have been for things like character slots and bank tabs, but as soon as they get more items like the old GW1 costume skins or something equally cool, I’m sure I will do those, too…

The cost is not per unit. Profit occurs when total revenue from sales of an item exceed the total development cost of said item. Revenue, not per unit pricing, is key. When per unit pricing is high enough to significantly cut unit sales, total revenue potential dwindles significantly.

Not only would lower per unit chest prices lead to people willing to buy one chest to buy more then one, but it would broaden the base of players buying at least one chest.

For cash shop sales in any game, you want people to always feel that their purchase was worth the price. This maintains a broad base of players willing to buy anything from your cash shop, while also encouraging those people to buy more things in the future.

IMO, the current pricing strategy has shrunk the potential base of regular gem purchasers, while also curtailing the ongoing purchases of those people who are willing to participate in the cash shop model. That’s a huge problem.

As I implied before, unwillingness to sell to the proper price point is the death of many product sales based businesses. It’s also the sign of a business “noob” lacking the business sense to actually make a profit running their own business. Finding the proper price point, where volume trumps discounted per unit sales, is key. When your business is selling virtual items with almost zero per unit cost, a failure to aggressively adjust pricing to find the sweet spot on every offering is just lazy and inexcusable.

Gem bundling avoids the problem of credit card transaction fees negating the profit of low per purchase gem store purchases, so truly, per unit cost is pretty much irrelevant. Total revenue is key and profit equals revenue minus aggregate cash shop costs.

Most goods cost the most in the R&D phase – don’t believe me try getting a product that will only retail for $1 off the ground. It might only cost .$15/unit to manufacture, but only after spending hundreds of thousands to design, tool, research, market, etc. Callong out digital items as having no “unit cost” ignores all the REAL cost.

Tken.1986:

zachbolt.6304:

TLDR: Everybody needs to make money, and this is just one way ArenaNet has of doing so.

I’d be giving them money if I have 100% chance to buy directly from the gem store.

Exactly. When ArenaNet begins allowing us to buy these items from the Gem Store directly, they will get more of my money. Randomized chests? No way. GW2 has proved that its RNGs do not like me, no matter how long and hard I play.

You know…
In my case, I’ve bought 5 keys to see if it’s worth.

And I bought on the Black Friday promotion.

The problem is: it was my first time and, by my mistake, after I buy the 5 keys, I’ve clicked in the panel, where they appear as “recently bought”. Then, by mistake, I’ve bought 10 keys.

I used them and… nothing worthy. From 20 dollars, I’ve bought a new bank slot (which was ok) and 10 keys which were not worth. I think they really should give a reward to people who choose to spend extra money on the game. And they should give more options of itens to buy, like cosmetic and other possibilities.

But it seems they punish who spend the money by giving a really small chance to get something useful or interesting.

Chests and keys are not worthy.

Derk.3189:

You also have a definite chance of wasting a lot of hard earned money to get Nothing At All. Some of the crafting mats can also be gotten in the game world.

I agree with OP.

Nothing at all? I’ll disagree. Unless you truely have gotten nothing at all from one, then /bug it.

Very minimal I could see, but to say nothing at all is hyperbole.