Guild Wars 2

1/ Make costumes work in combat .. currently these things are worthless to the majority of players.

2/ remove RNG boxes and put skins at a reasonable price (like the millennium upgrade)

3/ remove time limits on awesome stuff like unlimited tools. Have them on sale from time to time

4/ sell old living story content like the Bonus Mission Pack

5/ remove junk items such as revive orb, bank express, crafting stations etc unless they’re permanent account unlocks

6/ reduce black lion keys to 75 gems. Vastly reduce drop rate of black lion chests in the world

7/ add a dozen more convenience recipes for mystic forge stones

As for the positives … bank slots, characters slots and bag slots are correctly priced. I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with the dye or mini prices. Makeovers are OK. Costumes are OK if and only if they’re combat worthy.

I don’t think ArenaNet’s monetization lead is going to let that happen, unfortunately. It might take the proverbial stick to get them to change that.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

I don’t think ArenaNet’s monetization lead is going to let that happen, unfortunately. It might take the proverbial stick to get them to change that.

Autohappens. Sane people don’t buy crazy stuff. I have a firm belief that humanity on average is sane, and that the ratio is even better in this game due to the required intelligence for certain game mechanics. The current cash shop implementation is self defeating.

marnick.4305:

Autohappens. Sane people don’t buy crazy stuff. I have a firm belief that humanity on average is sane, and that the ratio is even better in this game due to the required intelligence for certain game mechanics. The current cash shop implementation is self defeating.

Actually I have read multiple articles about cash shops in general and f2p games that stated the exact opposite.
A high priced cash shop has a smaller number of players willing to buy stuff but those players often spend a lot (and I mean A LOT) of money.
If they lower the prices, the “hardcore p(l)ayers” will spend less money in total.
The number of players who are not buying stuff in the shop because they think it’s too expensive is much smaller then you think. The revenue generated by those new customers can’t compensate what the “hardcore payers” spend less when the prices are lowered.

(I can’t recall where I read this I’ll see if I can dig up the source..)

Considering people spend hundreds of dollars or euros or whatever on items in
Diablo 3, I would not be surprised if most legendarys worn today were bought through the TP or other means.

So, no. I don’t think the cash shop is defeating itself. It’s designed to be as profitable as possible. You can be sure there is someone doing the math on all of this.
Even if there are things that cost crazy sums of money there are probably enough people willing to pay. Even if you are not one of them, you might even not know any of them, but they exist. If they wouldn’t, the prices would be lowered already.

This would possible work: IF they removed the ability to trade in game gold for gems.

People always seems to remember the “good old days” of GW1s ingame store, but at the same time they keep forgetting the fact that 1: Most things were more expensive. 2: They offered actual advantages and 3: You had to pay real money to actually get anything.

nolop.8095:

Considering people spend hundreds of dollars or euros or whatever on items in
Diablo 3, I would not be surprised if most legendarys worn today were bought through the TP or other means.

Everyone I know who has a legendary made it through gameplay. There might be people who bought it with gems but is that really a problem? It costs 400$ to buy Dusk, which translates into one person paying the equivalent of 2 players’ monthly fee for a whole year. Such a person should be thanked, not berated.

So, no. I don’t think the cash shop is defeating itself. It’s designed to be as profitable as possible. You can be sure there is someone doing the math on all of this.
Even if there are things that cost crazy sums of money there are probably enough people willing to pay. Even if you are not one of them, you might even not know any of them, but they exist. If they wouldn’t, the prices would be lowered already.

The gamble cash shop is self defeating. No one is going to sink so much money into skins over and over again, and those players don’t keep playing. The only reason this works is because of gold farmers who can use the gems sold by many players. The costs is therefor divided and not visible to one player. As such, these boxes are more of a gold sink than anything.

Most whining threads about RNG are about people who claim they paid 300gold in boxes and didn’t get anything. Those people are, imho, the ones for whom these boxes are made. They fuel gem conversion and make casual play all the more attractive. In the end, they didn’t spend a dollar themselves and their collective whining has no value in my books.