Guild Wars 2

Plain and simple feedback: If you’d simply offered the nice halloween skins as cash shop items “available for a limited time only during the Halloween event”, you’d have made a lot more revenue than with your current gambling ripoff scheme with the Black Lion chests.

I won’t pay a red cent for Black Lion Chest keys. Not before; not now; not ever. I’m not adverse to throwing money at Anet for a great game, but NEVER for a crappy gambling chance at some random stuff, most of which is worthless to me. The chests in general are a terrible idea and a terrible mechanic.

However, I have thrown lots of cash shop money at you for other things. Useful things. Nice things. Things I can use and that I want. Skins, bank/inventory upgrades, Fine transmute stones, etc. If you’d put up a permanent field banker or field BL rep or field merchant, I’d buy it in a hot minute. But only being a possible rare drop from a BL chest? Never. Never ever ever. Would I buy minis from the cash shop if they weren’t totally random chance packs? You betcha. Probably quite a few. But right now, I’ll never buy a mini pack, not ever.

Will I buy the Mad King or Witch skins before the event is over? You betcha. No problem. Here: take my money! Thank you for a great game!

But those kitten chests? Kitten that kitten kitten kitten ripoff kitten. ^.^

To put it another way: if you’d have put up those permanent Halloween-themed weapon/armor skins for $10 each on the Cash Shop, you’d probably have made $50 off me, no questions asked. Here: take my money please!

But with the current scheme for these skins? You get zero. You get my ill will. You get my bad mouthing your kitten greedy schemes when I talk about Anet and GW2 to other people.

I’m sure I’m not alone. Please learn from this mistake for next time around.

Oh, and your product managers might want to closely follow the debacle about Facebook’s recent greed move with their “sponsored posts to guarantee full reach to your audience” scheme. And the community’s reaction to that. Don’t be Facebook-smart and profit-stupid, please.

I like the skins. I got a scythe one and sold it for about 20 gold. That’s more money than I made playing the game up to level 80 and exploring 77% of the map.

Agreed with the OP. I bought myself both the Witch and Mad King costumes, it’s a shame I can’t buy any weapon skins and I won’t pay for keys for a 0.0001% chance at something.

Shooopa.5632:

I like the skins. I got a scythe one and sold it for about 20 gold. That’s more money than I made playing the game up to level 80 and exploring 77% of the map.

No offense, mate, but your reply has zero to do with the point of the thread. If it was an attempt to be cute, well, power to ya, but meh.

shaktiboi.5194:

Plain and simple feedback: If you’d simply offered the nice halloween skins as cash shop items “available for a limited time only during the Halloween event”, you’d have made a lot more revenue than with your current gambling ripoff scheme with the Black Lion chests.

I won’t pay a red cent for Black Lion Chest keys. Not before; not now; not ever. I’m not adverse to throwing money at Anet for a great game, but NEVER for a crappy gambling chance at some random stuff, most of which is worthless to me. The chests in general are a terrible idea and a terrible mechanic.

However, I have thrown lots of cash shop money at you for other things. Useful things. Nice things. Things I can use and that I want. Skins, bank/inventory upgrades, Fine transmute stones, etc. If you’d put up a permanent field banker or field BL rep or field merchant, I’d buy it in a hot minute. But only being a possible rare drop from a BL chest? Never. Never ever ever. Would I buy minis from the cash shop if they weren’t totally random chance packs? You betcha. Probably quite a few. But right now, I’ll never buy a mini pack, not ever.

Will I buy the Mad King or Witch skins before the event is over? You betcha. No problem. Here: take my money! Thank you for a great game!

But those kitten chests? Kitten that kitten kitten kitten ripoff kitten. ^.^

I would gladly pay to buy one at this point from the gem store.

Gem → Gold conversion.

Now you can buy any skin you want for gems.

You’re welcome.

Now I personally would also rather have it just in the gem store instead of the keys, but maybe Anet is actually making tons more money selling keys, you never know…

i disagree. you’d have a less people complaining, but if you look at the prices of the gems to Gold ratio, not only did people buy a lot of keys but there was a lot of gold → gem / gem → gold activity. people weren’t just buying gems for costumes and keys they spent $ on transmuting their gems to gold so they could buy the skins off TP. I’m willing to bet that they made a great deal of $ for this event!

TheRabbit.9478:

Gem -> Gold conversion.

Now you can buy any skin you want for gems.

You’re welcome.

Hmmm. At an exchange rate of $20 cash = 1600 gems = roughly 12 gold? No thanks.

Besides, again, the point of the OP was feedback to Anet about how they could make more revenue and create good will instead of bad will.

they can’t put the skins on the TP, and have them in a lotto box that can be opened by anybody. By attaching Real World pricing to an item, it becomes a “contest” you can “win”, which would require them to post odds. Much like McDonalds or Tim Horton’s have to. You buy something from them, with a chance at an additional prize. Not all prizes are money, just something the company already has plenty of (i.e. big macs, large coffees, etc.). That’s the line they can’t cross.

Judging but the number of complains , I’ll venture that Anet made a killing with the RNG sales this event. I would expected it to be back at least for Winterdays.

Now if in Wintersday not that many people buy keys, then maybe they will change for the the next seasonal event.

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

Gem -> Gold conversion.

Now you can buy any skin you want for gems.

You’re welcome.

Hmmm. At an exchange rate of $20 cash = 1600 gems = roughly 12 gold? No thanks.

Besides, again, the point of the OP was feedback to Anet about how they could make more revenue and create good will instead of bad will.

Ohhh ok. So you people are whining that you want things for cheaper. I could have sworn this was a thread about not being able to use RMT to buy in game things. Oh wait, it is.

I can’t say 100% they’d make more money if they just sold the skins, because I don’t know how much money they’re making right now. But I can add my input that I would have bought a skin or two.

I agree with the OP, and i would even add that they would have made more money if they had been more generous with the skins for an event.

Or simply if they would have added consolation prizes in the first chests.

Not one of these proposed solutions would have cost them anything, and ALL of these solutions would have netted them more income…

TheRabbit.9478:

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

Gem -> Gold conversion.

Now you can buy any skin you want for gems.

You’re welcome.

Hmmm. At an exchange rate of $20 cash = 1600 gems = roughly 12 gold? No thanks.

Besides, again, the point of the OP was feedback to Anet about how they could make more revenue and create good will instead of bad will.

Ohhh ok. So you people are whining that you want things for cheaper. I could have sworn this was a thread about not being able to use RMT to buy in game things. Oh wait, it is.

Sorry, no. Here: I’ll put it in the simplest terms possible for you:

Anet would have gotten $50 out of me if they’d charged a straight, reasonable price of $10 per skin.

Anet will not see a single cent from me. Especially not to buy gems to convert to gold to pay jacked up AH prices. Because ultimately, the price this way is too high.

So: they could have gotten $50 from me easily. Instead they get $0 from me. I am not alone. Do the math. Are there more people like me who will pay nothing at all if they can’t pay a reasonable price? Or are there enough people who will pay a more exorbitant price SUCH THAT they make up for all the people like me?

My bet is is that the people who will buy enough gems to pay 50+ gold on the AH for items, plus the people who will spend lots of cash for keys for the slot machine, do not in sum total outweigh the people like me.

It’s that simple.

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

Gem -> Gold conversion.

Now you can buy any skin you want for gems.

You’re welcome.

Hmmm. At an exchange rate of $20 cash = 1600 gems = roughly 12 gold? No thanks.

Besides, again, the point of the OP was feedback to Anet about how they could make more revenue and create good will instead of bad will.

Ohhh ok. So you people are whining that you want things for cheaper. I could have sworn this was a thread about not being able to use RMT to buy in game things. Oh wait, it is.

Sorry, no. Here: I’ll put it in the simplest terms possible for you:

Anet would have gotten $50 out of me if they’d charged a straight, reasonable price of $10 per skin.

Anet will not see a single cent from me. Especially not to buy gems to convert to gold to pay jacked up AH prices. Because ultimately, the price this way is too high.

So: they could have gotten $50 from me easily. Instead they get $0 from me. I am not alone. Do the math. Are there more people like me who will pay nothing at all if they can’t pay a reasonable price? Or are there enough people who will pay a more exorbitant price SUCH THAT they make up for all the people like me?

My bet is is that the people who will buy enough gems to pay 50+ gold on the AH for items, plus the people who will spend lots of cash for keys for the slot machine, do not in sum total outweigh the people like me.

It’s that simple.

Ok, so you think the skins should only be worth 5 gold each (~$10 converted to gems). Sounds like you have a problem with there being a free market in the game. The suggestion forum is over here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions

Try telling them that you want everything available at a fixed price.

shaktiboi.5194:

Plain and simple feedback: If you’d simply offered the nice halloween skins as cash shop items “available for a limited time only during the Halloween event”, you’d have made a lot more revenue than with your current gambling ripoff scheme with the Black Lion chests.

I won’t pay a red cent for Black Lion Chest keys. Not before; not now; not ever. I’m not adverse to throwing money at Anet for a great game, but NEVER for a crappy gambling chance at some random stuff, most of which is worthless to me. The chests in general are a terrible idea and a terrible mechanic.

However, I have thrown lots of cash shop money at you for other things. Useful things. Nice things. Things I can use and that I want. Skins, bank/inventory upgrades, Fine transmute stones, etc. If you’d put up a permanent field banker or field BL rep or field merchant, I’d buy it in a hot minute. But only being a possible rare drop from a BL chest? Never. Never ever ever. Would I buy minis from the cash shop if they weren’t totally random chance packs? You betcha. Probably quite a few. But right now, I’ll never buy a mini pack, not ever.

Will I buy the Mad King or Witch skins before the event is over? You betcha. No problem. Here: take my money! Thank you for a great game!

But those kitten chests? Kitten that kitten kitten kitten ripoff kitten. ^.^

To put it another way: if you’d have put up those permanent Halloween-themed weapon/armor skins for $10 each on the Cash Shop, you’d probably have made $50 off me, no questions asked. Here: take my money please!

But with the current scheme for these skins? You get zero. You get my ill will. You get my bad mouthing your kitten greedy schemes when I talk about Anet and GW2 to other people.

I’m sure I’m not alone. Please learn from this mistake for next time around.

Oh, and your product managers might want to closely follow the debacle about Facebook’s recent greed move with their “sponsored posts to guarantee full reach to your audience” scheme. And the community’s reaction to that. Don’t be Facebook-smart and profit-stupid, please.

I would also quite happily buy skins from the store. My GW1 account has every cosmetic item that was ever offered. I would do the same with GW2 honestly.

I believe Anet probably did make a killing from all this, sad to say. However, they have caused distrust among the people and unless people are stupid again, they will not be willing to risk this again, if they didn’t quit the game over this. Although I didn’t think people would spend $100+ on a chance to begin with, so who knows.

I still think the chests are a bad idea. Anet never did this kind of stuff in GW1. I never expected Anet to do something like this. I personally did not spend money on the keys. I will not support this activity. If they had the skins in the shop, then I would buy.

Converting gems to gold is one of the worst things to do with gems and doesn’t solve any of the problems with rare drop items.

Again, based on the sheer number of skins and minis that I’ve seen running around, it seems like people in here are projecting. A lot.

If you’re not happy, fine, don’t give them any more money. But there’s a lot of people that are happy, and will continue to give them money.

TheRabbit.9478:

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

Gem -> Gold conversion.

Now you can buy any skin you want for gems.

You’re welcome.

Hmmm. At an exchange rate of $20 cash = 1600 gems = roughly 12 gold? No thanks.

Besides, again, the point of the OP was feedback to Anet about how they could make more revenue and create good will instead of bad will.

Ohhh ok. So you people are whining that you want things for cheaper. I could have sworn this was a thread about not being able to use RMT to buy in game things. Oh wait, it is.

Sorry, no. Here: I’ll put it in the simplest terms possible for you:

Anet would have gotten $50 out of me if they’d charged a straight, reasonable price of $10 per skin.

Anet will not see a single cent from me. Especially not to buy gems to convert to gold to pay jacked up AH prices. Because ultimately, the price this way is too high.

So: they could have gotten $50 from me easily. Instead they get $0 from me. I am not alone. Do the math. Are there more people like me who will pay nothing at all if they can’t pay a reasonable price? Or are there enough people who will pay a more exorbitant price SUCH THAT they make up for all the people like me?

My bet is is that the people who will buy enough gems to pay 50+ gold on the AH for items, plus the people who will spend lots of cash for keys for the slot machine, do not in sum total outweigh the people like me.

It’s that simple.

Ok, so you think the skins should only be worth 5 gold each (~$10 converted to gems). Sounds like you have a problem with there being a free market in the game. The suggestion forum is over here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions

Try telling them that you want everything available at a fixed price.

In-game player economy <> cash shop real world economy.

Economy and pricing science fail for you, my friend.

Besides, there are numerous recent examples of severe manipulation of in-game player economies. Famous ones. In several games. Even on Maguuma server, quite recently, with a scam delivered by some wily Goonsquad members with a fairly elaborate scheme, the likes of which they’re somewhat famous for. (-gasp- is anyone surprised?)

I would disagree, they most likely wouldn’t make more then they have from selling the skins out right. I would say they would make more this way by a decent amount.

Sorry but I prefer to farm Black Lion Keys (I’ve never bought any gem) and I don’t want to spend my gold on it.

So it is fine this way

If they thought they would make more selling the items on the gemstore they would have put them on the gemstore to start.

If you haven’t bought gems, and aren’t planning on buying gems, why do you get to weigh in on the cash shop items? The whole point of the cash shop is to… gasp make cash! They have keys in the shop, and they need to find a way to keep selling those keys. Single Use items are the their money makes, cause you have to keep coming back to buy them! It’s a question of making those items worthy of coming back to get. The chests were not worth getting beforehand, so they added skins to make them more desirable. Did it work? Yes, this time. Will it work again in the future? Probably not. Did they make a killing this time? Yes. Could they have changed things so that they will continue to make a killing without alienating a generous portion of their customers? yes.

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

Gem -> Gold conversion.

Now you can buy any skin you want for gems.

You’re welcome.

Hmmm. At an exchange rate of $20 cash = 1600 gems = roughly 12 gold? No thanks.

Besides, again, the point of the OP was feedback to Anet about how they could make more revenue and create good will instead of bad will.

Ohhh ok. So you people are whining that you want things for cheaper. I could have sworn this was a thread about not being able to use RMT to buy in game things. Oh wait, it is.

Sorry, no. Here: I’ll put it in the simplest terms possible for you:

Anet would have gotten $50 out of me if they’d charged a straight, reasonable price of $10 per skin.

Anet will not see a single cent from me. Especially not to buy gems to convert to gold to pay jacked up AH prices. Because ultimately, the price this way is too high.

So: they could have gotten $50 from me easily. Instead they get $0 from me. I am not alone. Do the math. Are there more people like me who will pay nothing at all if they can’t pay a reasonable price? Or are there enough people who will pay a more exorbitant price SUCH THAT they make up for all the people like me?

My bet is is that the people who will buy enough gems to pay 50+ gold on the AH for items, plus the people who will spend lots of cash for keys for the slot machine, do not in sum total outweigh the people like me.

It’s that simple.

Ok, so you think the skins should only be worth 5 gold each (~$10 converted to gems). Sounds like you have a problem with there being a free market in the game. The suggestion forum is over here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions

Try telling them that you want everything available at a fixed price.

In-game player economy <> cash shop real world economy.

Economy and pricing science fail for you, my friend.

Besides, there are numerous recent examples of severe manipulation of in-game player economies. Famous ones. In several games. Even on Maguuma server, quite recently, with a scam delivered by some wily Goonsquad members with a fairly elaborate scheme, the likes of which they’re somewhat famous for. (-gasp- is anyone surprised?)

Are you implying that in the real world market manipulation and price fixing and scams on a large scale don’t exist?

Dude, stop playing GW2 and read some news.

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

Gem -> Gold conversion.

Now you can buy any skin you want for gems.

You’re welcome.

Hmmm. At an exchange rate of $20 cash = 1600 gems = roughly 12 gold? No thanks.

Besides, again, the point of the OP was feedback to Anet about how they could make more revenue and create good will instead of bad will.

Ohhh ok. So you people are whining that you want things for cheaper. I could have sworn this was a thread about not being able to use RMT to buy in game things. Oh wait, it is.

Sorry, no. Here: I’ll put it in the simplest terms possible for you:

Anet would have gotten $50 out of me if they’d charged a straight, reasonable price of $10 per skin.

Anet will not see a single cent from me. Especially not to buy gems to convert to gold to pay jacked up AH prices. Because ultimately, the price this way is too high.

So: they could have gotten $50 from me easily. Instead they get $0 from me. I am not alone. Do the math. Are there more people like me who will pay nothing at all if they can’t pay a reasonable price? Or are there enough people who will pay a more exorbitant price SUCH THAT they make up for all the people like me?

My bet is is that the people who will buy enough gems to pay 50+ gold on the AH for items, plus the people who will spend lots of cash for keys for the slot machine, do not in sum total outweigh the people like me.

It’s that simple.

ok that’s you, if you have been looking through the threads over the past few days, there are several people who say they have spent well over 50 on keys, maybe they won’t see a cent from you, but there are a lot of other people who will spend what you would have spent, and more on the keys. if they put it out as a item you can buy, all of the people who spent 100+ would have spent maybe 10, because a lot of them only wanted 1 skin. and chances are, any one who got a costume spent the remainder of the extra gems on keys and possibly bought more just to see if that could get that greatchainsaw skin, for vanity or to try and sell on ah for stupid high prices.

tl;dr: people gambling more than make up for what you and some others won’t spend on keys.

Cevilo.7862:

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

shaktiboi.5194:

TheRabbit.9478:

Gem -> Gold conversion.

Now you can buy any skin you want for gems.

You’re welcome.

Hmmm. At an exchange rate of $20 cash = 1600 gems = roughly 12 gold? No thanks.

Besides, again, the point of the OP was feedback to Anet about how they could make more revenue and create good will instead of bad will.

Ohhh ok. So you people are whining that you want things for cheaper. I could have sworn this was a thread about not being able to use RMT to buy in game things. Oh wait, it is.

Sorry, no. Here: I’ll put it in the simplest terms possible for you:

Anet would have gotten $50 out of me if they’d charged a straight, reasonable price of $10 per skin.

Anet will not see a single cent from me. Especially not to buy gems to convert to gold to pay jacked up AH prices. Because ultimately, the price this way is too high.

So: they could have gotten $50 from me easily. Instead they get $0 from me. I am not alone. Do the math. Are there more people like me who will pay nothing at all if they can’t pay a reasonable price? Or are there enough people who will pay a more exorbitant price SUCH THAT they make up for all the people like me?

My bet is is that the people who will buy enough gems to pay 50+ gold on the AH for items, plus the people who will spend lots of cash for keys for the slot machine, do not in sum total outweigh the people like me.

It’s that simple.

ok that’s you, if you have been looking through the threads over the past few days, there are several people who say they have spent well over 50 on keys, maybe they won’t see a cent from you, but there are a lot of other people who will spend what you would have spent, and more on the keys. if they put it out as a item you can buy, all of the people who spent 100+ would have spent maybe 10, because a lot of them only wanted 1 skin. and chances are, any one who got a costume spent the remainder of the extra gems on keys and possibly bought more just to see if that could get that greatchainsaw skin, for vanity or to try and sell on ah for stupid high prices.

tl;dr: people gambling more than make up for what you and some others won’t spend on keys.

So, you’re saying:

Potential Future Revenue lost vs Potential Future Revenue gained is worth it?

So, you’re suggesting that Anet rely upon the hope that the ones who don’t feel cheated this time will ignore the ones who did, and spend another $50 next time? Maybe this time they feel like they did get their money’s worth, but they also know it was through sheer luck. So, not wanting to push their luck (knowing their odds for disappointment now) may or may not buy keys again? Hmm, apparently Anet likes to gamble to.

That’s the reason companies have PR people. That’s why companies often cater to the whims of the vocal. Sure, some people understand that they got lucky with their $50, but they also know people who were unlucky with $100. So while it was worth it this time, next time might not be. And that keeps people away. Bad reputations can bury you in a market with lots of competition. And MMO’s are a dime a dozen.

Yes yes yes yes. I’ll buy a skin for 20$ each, rather than this lottery.

They get more happy customer that way aswell.

Ohhh ok. So you people are whining that you want things for cheaper. I could have sworn this was a thread about not being able to use RMT to buy in game things. Oh wait, it is.

Yeah, I think there’s an assumption here that if they did sell them outright, they wouldn’t be trying to charge $40-50 apiece for them. More like $10 or so?

edit: bit silly calling it a free market, when anet has total control over it. It’s just simulated to seem free, but anet already does set the price. They’re just doing it with random percentages, instead of setting it outright, and that is the problem. If you take those percentages into account, you realize they are severely overcharging, hiding that behind terrible drop rates and such. That’s what makes it feel like a scam.

Its not always about making money.

Why is it that ArenaNet is suddenly made the bad guy simply because they underestimated how popular a skin would be? Are there really no alternative reasons behind this whole debacle other then ArenaNet has become greedy? At one point does a company become responsible for customers who have rediculous expectations or poor lack of self control?

Am I the only one that ever planned out something I thought would be a “fun” only to have it turn out totally different?

/sigh

buzzkapow.8465:

Potential Future Revenue lost vs Potential Future Revenue gained is worth it?

This. This is what I feel quite a few fanboys on this thread are missing.

Let’s be realistic: Anet made bank—serious bank—on the box sales of this game alone. They can literally afford to experiment with the cash shop for a while, because they’ve already made bank and there are already some solidly-designed high-income SKUs on their cash shop.

The entire point of the OP in this thread was to provide clear feedback directly to Anet that this experimental aspect of their cash shop—the gambling aspect—is a huge anathema to me, and judging from the outcry over the chests WRT this halloween event experiment, I am not alone in my negative perception of Anet at this point.

Anet alone will look at the numbers and look at the feedback and community reactions, and they alone will have the data to decide. I’m simply doing my part to provide feedback.

And why the kitten do I care? Because this is an awesome game overall, and I want to see it thrive and survive and continue to entertain us—me—for years. And that doesn’t happen without a positive cash flow and enough profit to pay for the maintenance and development costs.

There are many cautionary tales out there, the most recent being The Secret World. Another awesome game (in its way) that is suffering because they can’t make their numbers. As a result, us fans of that game suffer too.

ArenaNet would have to be pretty short sighted to not see the popularity being high for cool looking skins in a game that’s all about cool looking skins? I understand that there’s more to the game, but ultimately the only progression on your character is to customize their look. That’s the only change that really happens to your character at endgame. So they knew the skins would be popular.

I would have purchased the skins from the store without a second thought, as evidenced by my purchase of the MKT set and the Phantom Hood.

Instead, I bought 5 keys, foolishly thinking that I might get something out of it, but as always, I got nothing – not even so much as an extra key to try again.

Good to know “RNG screwing players” is still around, spitting right in the face of your manifesto video.

Not me,im not gonna buy event items with real money,i like to Earn them ingame with events like this. Simply buying everything…whats the kitten fun in that ? Yeah lets put everything up in the shop for sale and just drop the whole event thing.

Yes. Make more stuff for gems. Seriously, I am awesome in the real world. I have a bunch of time to work and make money that I would gladly give to A-net to not have to spend all my time in their game.

I mean, really, I work 12 hours a day, play maybe one or two. Get a day off every two or three weeks. I’d be completely happy giving A-net $10 a day, if there was anything to actually spend those gems on.

Why should the people who don’t have as much work, and don’t have as much money, be the only ones to get stuff?

I agree, but I think everything rare and hard to achieve should be in the gem store. That way, rich people can have everything straightaway, and the poorer people can struggle, grind and work hard for the achievements whilst looking up at the richer people and wishing they were as rich as them.

Cant beat a two tier class system in a computer game.

For Anet to “make more money” on strictly selling skins in the cash shop, they would likely have to discontinue the gold to gem exchange. The exchange rate makes for easy access to most of the items in the shop currently.

In the absence of an exchange, How much should a “rare” RMT skin cost? $20? $30? $50? More? I do not see a satisfactory number being agreed upon concurrently with both the developers and the community.

I believe Anet made more money making the skins be gained from chests than they would ever make by selling them directly.
How many people bought just 1 key? A good amount probably started with one and ended buying over 50-100 until a skin showed up, gambling chests is somewhat addictive.

You have to take into consideration that if skins were bought directly for…let’s say 5-10$ that would be cheap to obtain through the game and a good amount of people would simply buy it with gold.

Heh, I got a forum ban for pointing this out last time, but…

Making the desired exclusive items such a rare drop is causing their incredible prices, which in turn makes people run for the gold seller sites even more. If you’re aiming for the more expensive items, you can expect to pay ~20x (maybe even more) the price in $ if you buy keys through the gemstore then if you buy gold from outside sources, and you are guaranteed to get a return on your investment while you could end up with absolutely nothing if you go for the keys.

There is something very wrong with this, and anet really should have seen it coming if you ask me.

I’m confident they made a lot of money off of this, but did they make their customers happy?