Guild Wars 2

Hey guys arrownin here. I have been increasingly frustrated at the business practices of ArenaNet lately, and it is getting to the point in which I need to speak out against a certain aspect of their gem store. The Consortium Chests, or, any gambling/RNG type item that you buy with real money. My disapproval of these items is from a simple psychological mechanic that was discovered by a smart man by the name of B.F. Skinner. It was a box that conditioned test subjects to actively preform decisions in a controlled way; it was made to make you want to do something by your own accord. This box was called

For Those Who Do Not Have Time to Read…

TDLR;

• Consortium Chests show ArenaNet’s movement to predatory and conditioning business practices that provide almost no value for massive amounts of gems/gold. The minipets and the costume items moved to the chests (halloween you could direct buy them) and this makes a gambling mechanic that uses psychological conditioning to make players buy more. This is not acceptable and is disgusting. You can buy them if you still want; I have nothing against you if you do.

The Skinner Box
Basically, Skinner made a box that had a button, and an electric grid and a food dispenser. A mouse/pigeon, or what have you would push the button, and there would be a chance of getting food, or getting a slight jolt from the grid. Eventually, Skinner found that most tests ended with the animal becoming conditioned to push the button, and want food, and if they did not get food, they would continue to push the button even when shocked, for the purpose of the reward. The idea is that if the button always gave food, it would not be a decision to push the button, therefore; there needed to be another consequence in order to make the food desirable. Incidentally, Skinner found that this worked on humans as well.
Let’s take lottery machines for example, they are built to be stacked against you, and to take your money. There is very little chance of you actually getting anything back, and yet if you asked someone if they would want to work 10 hours for 100 dollars, or gamble for 10 hours for 100 dollars, they would probably choose gamble. This is because slot machines condition it’s players to keep actively making the decision to input money, because of the desire for the million dollar win. Now to get to my point…

Consortium Chests Are Skinner Boxes
They use conditioning to profit off of the active decisions from players to keep opening the chests in an attempt to promise much, yet in reality give away very little. People who want a certain skin from the box may open a box anyway, to help out AreaNet financially, and then get nothing or very little in return; even when most skins can be bought relatively cheaply, with a 100% drop rate straight from your local Trading Post. The chests were made to draw you in, to preform a repetitive action and condition rewards into you, to make you buy even more. This is not different from any casino, and it is not different from lottery tickets.

Notice How Every Special Item is in the Chest Now?
AreaNet saw that the minipets and the costumes were pretty popular among players. They were easily bought with no gambling involved. They even gave the minis away in a three pack, and if you combined them all you would get a special minipet! That is the way you sell items at the gem store, good job on that AreaNet. However, the game has changed this time around, if you are not the type to buy from the Trading Post, all new items are only available through the chests. They saw how many keys we bought last time for the halloween black lion chests, and they made a massive profit. They saw this and most likely decided that it was more profitable to go for a gambling aspect for event items, rather than give them away in a forward manner. They removed the keys this time around, but the price is almost the same for the chests anyway; and if they thought we bought black lion chests from the gem store then they are insane.

So in fact; AreaNet has taken up a predatory business practice by using psychological conditioning I.E skinner box mechanics to entice players to create revenue for them through massive profit loss for the player and minimum loss for AreaNet. By moving items from direct market buy to the chests, they have maximized the box’s potential for profit.

In short, I love ArenaNet’s games, but right now they are going down a path that I cannot forgive and will not accept.

Remember

• This is just a forum warning about chests and their mechanics, this is my two cents on the topic; you could think differently and that is totally fine.
• If you want to buy the chests go for it, I am not stopping you and you have the choice to make yourself.

Thank you for reading this post. Please reply so that the post does not get lost.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber

make a shorter description

TLDR

Eli Krey.5368:

make a shorter description

TLDR

I’ll make a bite sized description for you; but I won’t change the post.

Eli Krey.5368:

make a shorter description

TLDR

There you go.

Also changed the topic name to match the post better.

tl;dr = wants to complain, doesn’t want to read

The problem with just selling the items in the gem store is it ruins the challenge of collecting them, which might be fine for some things but it would make the minis fairly pointless.

The minis are basically collectables and the point of collecting anything isn’t really to have it – it’s the challenge of trying to get it and the sense of achivement it gives you when you get it.

I got the Halloween minis, and I had the ghost with me once or twice the first few days but they’ve been sat in the bank unused since. Yes they were ‘rare’ and only available for a limited time but there was absolutely no challenge in getting them. Honestly I got more enjoyment from the mini polar bear in GW1 and I never managed to get one of those at all.

It might be psychological conditioning, but that doesn’t make it totally irrational, or wrong. The sense of achivement, and the fun of trying for it, outweighs the let down if you don’t get it. The same way getting fed (and getting a sense of reward) outweighs a relatively mild and painless electric shock.

(Which honestly anyone could have told you anyway. Aside from the benefits of controlled laboratory conditions that experiment didn’t prove anything in a world where animals will risk their lives for a meal every single day, and not always with good odds either. But that’s a whole other argument which doesn’t belong on this forum.)

I too don’t dig the random gimmick. Give me a guaranteed buy and I’ll likely go for it. Storage expansion, extra character slot, new profession/race, new content, etc and I’ll buy it. Except storage I haven’t seen anything I really wanted or could use. So here I am, waiting for something cool to buy, but no $50 for a single weapon skin is not within my budget.