Guild Wars 2

Just some player feedback: if more items were left longer (or permanently) in the gem store, at least speaking for myself, I’d be much more likely to increase my number of purchases. I tend to take a while to mull over a luxury purchase (like a skin from the gem store, for instance), and try to save up for it instead of just blowing money I have on hand. Usually by the time I’m able to be in a position to purchase anything decent from the gem store, it’s gone off rotation, and quite frequently (like… now) there’s absolutely nothing appealing available (subjective, I know, but regardless of your consumption preferences there will be dry times when there’s literally nothing worth buying — in your own opinion — that you don’t already have).

I know this is just me, but I can’t be the only one who tends to take time thinking about and planning for purchases that plays GW2, and I can’t help but wonder if ArenaNet is missing out on potentially significant revenues by trying to artificially inflate demand through ‘limited time offer’ rotations like this. For me, at least, it just means I’m less likely to make a purchase when something of promise shows up in the store, and far more likely to have moved on by time it comes back in rotation (if ever).

The most recent example would be Rox’s Quiver. When it was in rotation I was a) not in a position to throw $10 at a single skin item, and b) was unsure if it would even go with my character. Now, I’m pretty inclined to get it, but since it’s not in the gem shop I literally can’t give you (ArenaNet) my money, and there’s a significant probability that when and if it ever shows up again I’ll have gotten used to some other back skin and no longer be willing to meet the $10 price point.

They no doubt have metrics that suggest that more people will impulse buy if an item is listed as limited.

And “Hot!” of course.

The other tried and true retail trick is to keep the item in rotation at a high mark up, then drop the price for a spectacular, time limited sale.

Standard retailing tactics I’m afraid. They want to create a sense of urgency in buy their product.

Yeah, I’ve worked in the industry before. Funny enough, those tactics are popular overall for spiking sales for important points in the internal metric cycle (hence a lot of sales managers use them to promote their numbers), but (depending on the nature of the business, of course) those kind of gimmicks often do more harm to overall revenues than good, and have a tendency to turn consumers deaf to otherwise useful buzzwords like ‘hot’ and ‘limited’ as neural adaptation kicks in.

Just because something is an incumbent industry standard doesn’t mean it’s effective or even benign, it often just boils down to the conflicted interest of middle management chasing a bonus or promotion. Not to say that anyone at ArenaNet is necessarily (or necessarily not) aiming for that, as a humble gamer I have little way of knowing that, but I do know the company is better than this, and is hurting their margin by imposing needless costs in the form of lost opportunity.

Plus it offends my self interest, which is what really gives me the motivation to go to the trouble of even writing this.