There are a lot of people who don’t understand the basic structure and functions of how a business works. I’ll try to provide a layman’s explanation for why things work as they do in GW2. Warning – Wall of text:
1) Gem Store prices. In most businesses, the price is determined by multiple factors. Cost of production, marketing, shipping, taxes, etc. But in a virtual world, things are a bit different. Prices are most likely first determined by how desirable or how useful the item is. As an example: If the item is too expensive, it doesn’t sell as much. If the item is too cheap, you lose out on potential profits. From my opinion, 800 Gems is a good starting baseline for pricing items, because it’s at point that’s still affordable to everyone.
Other factors need to be considered, such as the psychological makeup of the player base. If an item, say an armor skin, is too cheap, it would be more readily available. That might be good for the individual player, but bad for the overall market. Why? The answer is rarity. If you take a nice looking armor skin, and make it so that everyone can not only afford it, but will also buy it and use it, it becomes “too common”. This will erode the item’s desirable status, and in turn, hurts potential future sales of said item. On the opposite end, if the armor skin is too expensive, less will be sold. The armor skins aren’t meant to be “too rare”. Layman’s explanation – A majority of buyers will not want an item that everyone else has, and will not buy an item that’s overpriced.
Convenience items are different. These items aren’t for looks, but rather functionality. They make your game play easier, such as boosts to XP, quick trait resetting, and even undoing transmutations. As a business, Anet doesn’t want to price these so low, that everyone can buy boat loads of them to use. As such, they wouldn’t want to price these so high as to prevent people from buying them at all. The prices need to be balanced to a point where they look at the cost per Gem, versus the benefit to the player. Layman’s explanation – Prices depend on how the item helps the player.
2) Sales. Most people don’t understand the reasons behind why a business puts items on sale. When there are promotions, the business will sacrifice their profit margins in order to draw new customers in, or get existing customers to come back. In the real world, a market that puts milk on sale for 50% off isn’t doing it out of the kindness of their own hearts. They want you to come in for the milk, and hope you pick up other items (i.e. eggs, bread, etc). In the case of the Gem Store, discounts on items are meant to entice someone to buy something they only considered purchasing, or to make additional purchases affordable (i.e. more infinite picks). The psychological aspect to this is that when you see a discount with a limited period, it makes you want to make an impulse buy. You weren’t thinking about buying it, but since it’s cheap for 3 days, you want it now. In the case of Evon, we would have gotten cheaper Black Lion Keys as a reward for helping him, but that’s a whole other story. Layman’s explanation – Limited sale encourage additional spending.
3) Gem exchange. Anet offers an alternative to getting Cash Shop currency. You’re allowed to exchange in game Gold for Gems (and vice versa). This is a great option for those who don’t want to spend real money on Gems. The exchange itself is like a big pot for all the servers combined. In it exists both Gold and Gems. The less of one is in the pot, the exchange ratio becomes more expensive for the other. To prevent abuse, there’s a buffer (I think it was 30% difference) in the exchange rates for Gold → Gems and Gems → Gold. Layman’s explanation – Anet is nice enough to allow players to get Gems for no real money.
Summary – Players need to realize that all items offered in the Gem Store are completely optional, luxury items. It’s not mandatory to have these in game. But for those who do want them, Anet does have to balance the price points accordingly. It can’t be priced too high, or too low. Items have various reasons behind each price point, so it’s not simply a matter of “make it cheaper to make more sales”.