Guild Wars 2

Jemmi.6058:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

I can guarantee you that Anet makes more money with gambling boxes then direct purchase skins. How do I come by this knowledge you ask? Simple…

Anet tried doing direct purchase skins for wintersday. People no longer wanted them because they weren’t “rare” since anyone could buy them. Therefore very few people bought them. Anet did not make a lot of money. Anet puts a 0.1% chance of getting an item in a box. The item is “rare” now and most people won’t get it so everyone and their mother spent $30+ on these boxes for a chance at the “rare” item.

Whatever your personal opinion on the matter is, it doesn’t matter because Anet gave the players a choice and the vast majority chose RNG boxes.

You cannot really come to a firm conclusion based on a sample size of 1. As a post above says, the skins were not great. There are many factors that can affect it. It would be very difficult to say with 100% certainty one way or the other.

Your post is very bias and based on opinion. Do you actually have numbers to support the amount of money made off Wintersday skins vs RNG skins from another event? Have you randomly polled the community to determine what the vast majority prefer? It also seems to be contradictory. You said that no one purchased the skins because they were not rare, but then that would make them rare – wouldn’t it? My counter argument is that everyone wants Super skins, but those skins were definitely not rare.

I don’t see how you can argue otherwise. We have a couple data points. We have Wintersday items and F&F skins, vs Halloween skins, and Fused weapons. Anet has the data for all 4 events. Are you honestly trying to imply that Anet chose to make the Southsun weapons RNG solely to tick off the players and make less money?

Anet is a business. They chose RNG, therefore we can say with certainty that they knew they were going to get more money from RNG then they were from direct purchase based on their past choices.

That is it. There is no other argument because that is the only thing that the decision is based on. And we have the answer because it was given to us by Anet in the form of RNG boxes.

Tinni.4351:

Whether you buy keys or consortium chests is your personal business but I would like to point out that more people would NOT buy skins just because the skins were directly purchasable because the skins would become less desirables as collectors items.

True, some people would buy the skins directly because they liked the look and they might even buy multiple versions of the skins even if they were 1200 gems each, which is about 40g at current exchange rates. But it would also keep some people away because the skins would be relatively easy to obtains.

Also, Anet is not stupid and they do have data – which we don’t. Clearly they found that directly selling weapon skins (like they did during Winter’s Day) did not work and they realised that part of what motivated people to try for the special skins was their rarity. You may not like RNG but it is absolutely indisputable that RNG makes items rarer and thus more desirable as collectors items.

The “rarity collector” demand by definition would not be enough to bring in the funding needed to support the current “pay to RNG for a 99+% chance to not get what you wanted” model. Because the more you sell, the less rare it is!

Rarity of a skin driving sufficient sales thus becomes a bunk argument as had been repeatedly shown in thus thread alone. Elitist collectors are a minority.

The problem is we have a large number of people with disposable income that do not fully understand how much of a toilet the RNG boxes are. Until they get burned enough I guess.

That said, I don’t mind RNG boxes dropping from content you’d likely be doing anyways, just make sure to them trade-able on the TP, it’ll help both people to collect what they want and add another highly sought gold sink.

Treeline.3865:

Tinni.4351:

Also, Anet is not stupid and they do have data – which we don’t. Clearly they found that directly selling weapon skins (like they did during Winter’s Day) did not work and they realised that part of what motivated people to try for the special skins was their rarity. You may not like RNG but it is absolutely indisputable that RNG makes items rarer and thus more desirable as collectors items.

Try measuring player satisfaction. I’m sure they have data.

If you are going to gauge player satisfaction from this forums then you’ll get a biased sample and I am sure Anet is measuring player satisfaction.

Tekietee.5037:

Tinni.4351:

Also, Anet is not stupid and they do have data – which we don’t. Clearly they found that directly selling weapon skins (like they did during Winter’s Day) did not work]

It didnt work because those skins were absolutely ugly.
Do you see anyone using them? No. Case closed on that one.

Actually I did see people using those skins. The greatsword (it’s always the greatsword) was particularly nice. The weapons gave-off this cool white frosty light and was quite pleasing to the eye.

Overkillengine.6084:

The “rarity collector” demand by definition would not be enough to bring in the funding needed to support the current “pay to RNG for a 99+% chance to not get what you wanted” model. Because the more you sell, the less rare it is!

Rarity of a skin driving sufficient sales thus becomes a bunk argument as had been repeatedly shown in thus thread alone. Elitist collectors are a minority.

The problem is we have a large number of people with disposable income that do not fully understand how much of a toilet the RNG boxes are. Until they get burned enough I guess.

That said, I don’t mind RNG boxes dropping from content you’d likely be doing anyways, just make sure to them trade-able on the TP, it’ll help both people to collect what they want and add another highly sought gold sink.

I think there are several assumptions being made here and the biggest of which is the assumption the majority of the keys/consortium boxes whatnot are being bought using RL cash! I do not believe this to be the case. If you play guild wars enough, in-game gold will start to pile-up and there are a lot of players who have a small fortune in in-game gold. The high gold to gem exchange rate is proof that the majority of the RNG is being played with in-game gold NOT RL cash.

Also, I was not talking about hard core skin collectors and really, there aren’t any skins rare enough in Guild Wars to support elite skin collectors. I was more referring to the average player who wants to differentiate themselves from the next toon and is motivated by looks, not just stats. The important thing is that these players will not go for every skin release. They will only go for 1 out of every 10 skin releases and that is why they will not burn out.

Take myself and my guild for example. Most of us have been playing guild wars since it launched and most skin releases we did not play RNG. This was until the fused skins hit… those skins had us spending both RL cash and in-game gold on keys. Thankfully, everybody who wanted a fused skin ended-up with at least one. But it is true that a lot of us blew our cash budget for gems. However, come this release none of us really care enough about the skins to bother with the consortium chests.

There seems to be an assumption in this thread that players who buy gems (either using gold or RL cash) during one event will continue to do so every event. But the reality is very different and that is why the “burn-out” is just not there. But as I said before, Anet has the data, we only have our own experience and anecdotal evidence from our friend, family, guildies. My anecdotal evidence says that the majority are quite happy with how the skins are distributed. If yours say otherwise, that’s fine but only Anet has the real sales data and analysts pouring over not just these forums but other forums, fan sites, player blogs etc, etc to get as complete a picture as possible of the level of player satisfaction.

Tinni.4351:

I think there are several assumptions being made here and the biggest of which is the assumption the majority of the keys/consortium boxes whatnot are being bought using RL cash! I do not believe this to be the case. If you play guild wars enough, in-game gold will start to pile-up and there are a lot of players who have a small fortune in in-game gold. The high gold to gem exchange rate is proof that the majority of the RNG is being played with in-game gold NOT RL cash.

It is RL cash. It may not be gampler’s cash, but it still is very much real. Every gem that you can buy has been sold for gold by someone who got it with RL money.

Antara.3189:

Please devs lock this post as arguments are sure to be escalated.

I do not wish for the thread to be locked. As always, what we are really looking for is an official mention that “We will take the feedback into account” or even “This is the business model we intend”.

The thread is remaining civil.
Posts have not derailed from Consortium Chests.
It is not a circlejerk (yet)

Devs already cleaned up by merging threads complaining about chests. If you want the thread to die, leave it be. If not.. Well contribute to topic.

I bought Rox’s quiver. Would have bought a few fused items and a few of these new skins too if they were direct sale. I’ll NEVER spend money on RNG though.

I bought the pick, and I’ll buy the sickle and the axe. I won’t buy anything random EVER!

What is there more to contribute to the topic ? There we’re alot of relevant posts about the RNG problem we are facing with these boxes. From what i’ve seen so far these skins are even more rare/harder to get then fused or people smarten up and stopped buying them alltogether?

Although im pretty sure the chances of getting these tickets is the slimmest yet.

offence.4726:

Although im pretty sure the chances of getting these tickets is the slimmest yet.

From what I heard the Fused weapons was worse?

Its not going to stop as long as Anet sees a profit from it.

While there is thread after thread of it on the forums, there are plenty of people, probably the majority, that don’t log into the forums.

Anet listens through money like any other company does, and they need to make it, but there is probably 50-100 people buying the boxes for every one that post that don’t do it.

Treeline.3865:

offence.4726:

Although im pretty sure the chances of getting these tickets is the slimmest yet.

From what I heard the Fused weapons was worse?

Actually when the fused tickets dropped on us people were all the time on the forum posting the rates and most of them got them in a few tries the rest after 80-100. Cant say the same about the new skins/tickets.. People are kinda mute about it so far.