"Buy More Save More" pricing for gems?

"Buy More Save More" pricing for gems?

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Posted by: Vol.5241

Vol.5241

Would love a dev response on this!

I enjoy this game very much and wouldn’t mind dropping a lot of money (I’ve already dropped $300 on the gem store).

What I don’t understand, however, is the fixed price per gem no matter how many you buy.

The lowest you can go is $10.00 for 800 gems
The highest is $50.00 for 4000 gems.

That’s 80 gems per $1, no matter how many you buy.

Wouldn’t it encourage people to buy more, if you had a declining cost the more you buy?

Say, for buying 4000 gems, you only have to pay $40, or 100 gems per $1?

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"Buy More Save More" pricing for gems?

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Posted by: Phoenixfudge.5290

Phoenixfudge.5290

Yeah, I always thought it was odd they didn’t have this in the first place. Heck, even gold sellers give people a bonus when they buy more haha.

"Buy More Save More" pricing for gems?

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Posted by: Mourningcry.9428

Mourningcry.9428

Arguably, if this was done, a corresponding “discount” for gold to gems would have to be offered. That’s if ANet really wished to keep the two in parity. Additionally, they’d have to keep the haircut between the two in proportion as well, so they don’t allow for any arbitrage.

Easier for them to manage a fixed rate, really.

"Buy More Save More" pricing for gems?

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Posted by: Vol.5241

Vol.5241

Arguably, if this was done, a corresponding “discount” for gold to gems would have to be offered. That’s if ANet really wished to keep the two in parity. Additionally, they’d have to keep the haircut between the two in proportion as well, so they don’t allow for any arbitrage.

Easier for them to manage a fixed rate, really.

Excellent point, I forgot to think about that – that would certainly be an issue.

It could be in the best interest for Anet to provide a BMSM incentive for people buying gems from gold since that keeps the gold price for gems sustained.

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Posted by: Mourningcry.9428

Mourningcry.9428

Excellent point, I forgot to think about that – that would certainly be an issue.

It could be in the best interest for Anet to provide a BMSM incentive for people buying gems from gold since that keeps the gold price for gems sustained.

I agree. Would love to see them offer something like that, perhaps if and when they’re comfortable managing that kind of environment, they’ll do it.

"Buy More Save More" pricing for gems?

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Posted by: illgot.1056

illgot.1056

They own the market for such items, they have no need to give us discounts on something where there is no other competition.

"Buy More Save More" pricing for gems?

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Posted by: Mourningcry.9428

Mourningcry.9428

They own the market for such items, they have no need to give us discounts on something where there is no other competition.

That is exactly why they would be incentivised to offer a discount.

They’re selling a virtual currency for real world currency. Gems have no real world value. 1K gems has the same real world value as 1B – zero. However, there is a in game value for $1.

Whether you get 10K or 15K gems for your money is irrelevant to their bottom line, what is rellevant is whether they get $50 instead of $40 for that same purchase opportunity.

This discount opportunity is entirely possible for them, because, as you said, they have complete control over the in game value of those same gems. This is where they can manage for the real life discount.

It’s not difficult, but would require areguably more resources/efforts on their part than currently required.

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Posted by: Vol.5241

Vol.5241

They own the market for such items, they have no need to give us discounts on something where there is no other competition.

It’s not really competition – every business, whether they have a many competitors or few, wish their customers to buy more as much as possible.

In retail it’s used often so that inventory can be cleared out. Of course, inventory is not an issue with digital goods – but discounting can provide me incentive to buy more now.

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Posted by: illgot.1056

illgot.1056

right but they do not need to discount their gems if you buy more.

They are not expecting people to buy hundreds of dollars worth of gems. They are hoping people buy at least 10-15 dollars worth a month.

I can’t think of any cash shop that discounts their currency if you buy more.

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Posted by: Mourningcry.9428

Mourningcry.9428

It is entirely true that there is no need for them to offer a discount. However, let’s say that the goal is to have a customer make one cash for gems purchase a month. The objecctive then is to maximize that one purchase. A discount is one way to incentivise a larger single purchase. Regardless if it’s hundreds of dollars, or two dollars, the goal is the same, maximize that purchase.

If managed actively, there could be no impact to the in game economy due to the exchange mecanism:

Currency -> Gems
and
Gems <- → Gold

As there is no direct Currency <-> Gold exchange, and the way in which ANet completely controls the Gems <-> Gold exchange, all economic impacts can be managed and mitigated.

To an even greater, though more obfuscated degree, ANet completely controls the supply of Gold in the world.

The issue really comes down to the amount of effort and resourcesANet wishes to spend on monitoring and mainting the economy. A fixed Currency -> Gems rate is one less thing they need to worry about.

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Posted by: Jia Shen.4217

Jia Shen.4217

The reasoning for no volume discount with buying gems with real money is simple and old information that is buried somewhere out there in the plethora of data of the internet. So I won’t be trying to find it. But it was done so that players didn’t have to feel they had to buy the largest amount of gems if all they needed was a small amount in order to get the best price. So you just buy what you need at the time you need it. And that makes perfect sense to me as in other games I always felt obligated to buy the largest volume which made deciding to buy a hard choice.

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Posted by: illgot.1056

illgot.1056

The reasoning for no volume discount with buying gems with real money is simple and old information that is buried somewhere out there in the plethora of data of the internet. So I won’t be trying to find it. But it was done so that players didn’t have to feel they had to buy the largest amount of gems if all they needed was a small amount in order to get the best price. So you just buy what you need at the time you need it. And that makes perfect sense to me as in other games I always felt obligated to buy the largest volume which made deciding to buy a hard choice.

This is probably the best reason I have read. Takes the pressure off buying a lot at one time. I usually buy 50 dollars at a time once a month anyway so never thought of how much easier it would be for someone to buy a smaller amount just to fit their needs.