The gold/gem price will not go down to what it was. The main reason is pretty simple: the higher the gold/gem price, the more people will buy gems with dollars. And that is Anet’s source of income.
The mechanism that they decided on -basing the price on the demand- is very inflatory. In almost any MMO, people get richer and richer, thus driving prices up.
This is what Anet wants. I can’t say I blame them. Someone has to pay the bill.
Maybe there will be a point where it becomes too much. A point where the high gold/gems prices drive people away from the game.
But I do not think that that point has been reached yet. If you look at things from a purely functional point of view, there is only one single item in the store that you ‘need’ in the game: the bank slots. They are 600 gems. They cost about 8g40s at the current rate, about 5 hours of grinding, which is certainly doable for a player.
Tallis – Perpetual newbie – Tarnished Coast.
Always carries a towel – Never panics – Eats cookies.
I cant speculate how much they make from the store but i feel if they dropped the price of gems by 30-50% they would get more money as people would impulse buy.
Maybe. But I’m pretty sure that these prices are set after some serious marketing studies, with peer groups and focus groups and defining different types of players to market too and what not.
If I were them, I would not lower prices on bank slots, because that is pretty much the only item that is worth something.
Setting prices is tricky… they probably follow the sales of each item with nice weekly stats and pie-charts and all.
If they want to make more money, I think they should consider adding town clothes. I don’t know how much the art of those cost, but a pretty outfit always sells.
Tallis – Perpetual newbie – Tarnished Coast.
Always carries a towel – Never panics – Eats cookies.
The present ratio reveals that a lot of people grind for gold, while very few buy gems for real money. It’s another sign for Anet’s financial troubles.
It only reveals that more people have more gold that they can spend on gems, which are required to obtain certain types of items in bulk (e.g. philosopher stones, mystic stones) or game upgrades (increased storage, more character slots).
Because every MMO suffers from inflation (because there are tons of ways earning money, and too few sinks), the value of gold constantly drops. As with every other game that offers an in-game currency exchange with their gem equivalents, the ratio will go up over time.
For this reason, plenty of MMO-veterans spent their first gold coins on gems, because they expect this type of increase. (Many of my friends who did this were surprised it took this long to get so high.)
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