Guild Wars 2

I think it’s great that the game is on sale through the Arenanet website again. However, I do think it excludes current players. A new player getting the deluxe edition during the sale is only paying $15 more than the regular edition. If I want to upgrade now, I have to pay 2000 gems or $25. Well, more, because I can only buy gems in $10 increments. Would love to see the upgrade go on sale in BLTC again, please.

Why would a sale of the game cater to those already playing though?
Another thing to keep in mind is that you can technically get the upgrade for free by trading gold to gems (even if that would be quite expensive.)

That’s not the way the world works. If I bought something 7 months ago I shouldn’t expect to get something for free because of a promotion. A promotions sole purpose is to get new people to buy it. It’s just a bunch of useless items anyways.

By that logic, why are they adding new items to the gem store? That caters to current players. From Arenanet’s perspective, it doesn’t matter if I buy with gems or gold, someone still has to pay $ for the gems. I’m not asking for anything for free, merely for the current price rather than the 7 months ago price.

I maintain this would be a logical thing to offer.

calankh.3248:

By that logic, why are they adding new items to the gem store? That caters to current players. From Arenanet’s perspective, it doesn’t matter if I buy with gems or gold, someone still has to pay $ for the gems. I’m not asking for anything for free, merely for the current price rather than the 7 months ago price.

I maintain this would be a logical thing to offer.

This is how sales work. We already had 7 months of game time, and I would say that is worth quite a bit more than the current sale.
There will always be sales, that is how the real world works, and it is very unusual for sales to “reward” current customers, since they are not the target for the sale in most cases.

Things are pretty much always cheaper if you buy it later than at release(except my mouse which has doubled in price but it’s also discontinued). They’ve also had things like character slots and bank slots on sale which IS targeted at current players. Might have had the DD on sale too, memory is a bit fuzzy.

Chorel.1720:

That’s not the way the world works. If I bought something 7 months ago I shouldn’t expect to get something for free because of a promotion. A promotions sole purpose is to get new people to buy it. It’s just a bunch of useless items anyways.

Buy an expensive new car, drive it off the lot. Instantly it loses like 50% of it’s value – it’s now a “used” car.

I plan to drive the car off the lot when I get it, therefore I should get 50% off.

Yeah, doesn’t work that way. Every game goes on sale, if you don’t want to pay full price, wait for the sale. I wanted to try Skyrim, but the game plus the expansions is expensive. So I waited and kept checking Steam until I found it on sale and bought everything for the price of the original game. The downside to this is that you don’t get to play it until you find it on sale, which could take weeks or months.

So, pay full price and enjoy it from the beginning, or wait for it to go on sale, you get to choose which you prefer.

Also, I got a $25 – 2000 gem card at Wal-Mart, you don’t have to spend $30 to get a $25 upgrade.

tolunart.2095:

Chorel.1720:

That’s not the way the world works. If I bought something 7 months ago I shouldn’t expect to get something for free because of a promotion. A promotions sole purpose is to get new people to buy it. It’s just a bunch of useless items anyways.

Buy an expensive new car, drive it off the lot. Instantly it loses like 50% of it’s value – it’s now a “used” car.

I plan to drive the car off the lot when I get it, therefore I should get 50% off.

Yeah, doesn’t work that way. Every game goes on sale, if you don’t want to pay full price, wait for the sale. I wanted to try Skyrim, but the game plus the expansions is expensive. So I waited and kept checking Steam until I found it on sale and bought everything for the price of the original game. The downside to this is that you don’t get to play it until you find it on sale, which could take weeks or months.

So, pay full price and enjoy it from the beginning, or wait for it to go on sale, you get to choose which you prefer.

Also, I got a $25 – 2000 gem card at Wal-Mart, you don’t have to spend $30 to get a $25 upgrade.

There were places you could have gotten GW2 with a very good discount even before launch.

Examples! http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/75345 http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/95208 They were too late for me but a friend did get it through the one in the first link. So sometimes it is possible to have your cake and eat it too when it comes to buying. You just have to know where to look and who to ask as the LA NPC likes to point out over and over again.

calankh.3248:

By that logic, why are they adding new items to the gem store? That caters to current players. From Arenanet’s perspective, it doesn’t matter if I buy with gems or gold, someone still has to pay $ for the gems. I’m not asking for anything for free, merely for the current price rather than the 7 months ago price.

I maintain this would be a logical thing to offer.

Don’t assume that ANet is completely hands-off about adjusting the gem exchange rates. Even if 1 trillion gems are purchased, ANet can still artificially set a exchange rate floor. While I don’t think they are completely manipulating the exchange rates, I highly doubt they don’t touch it at all.

Artificial manipulation aside, the exchange rates are merely a reflection of people’s willingness to use actual money for in-game content. As gems cost more gold, more people will buy gems and convert that into gold. As gems cost less gold, people will use gold to get gems and sink them out of the economy with purchases. It will always eventually equalize.

For the original question, my short answer is that it is just how the world works. Sometimes to draw new customers in, businesses just have to run promotions. To stay profitable after that, those promotions have to end for customers that are going to stay.

Eventually as the number of new customers plateaus, ANet will focus more on their lasting customers. That is probably when you will see promotions on the deluxe content. Why do a promotion right now that will make 100 widgets of profit when doing it later might make 250 widgets of profit?

Free trial weekend, discount on game for players who don’t own it yet. Coincidence?