Guild Wars 2

Meglobob.8620:

Thanks Anet for the mini’s.

I after say doing stuff like this, the characters birthday gifts etc…is sooooo much better than other software developers.

Can’t name 1 other software company that’s given freebies out ever in 30+ years of gaming…

The birthday gifts are nothing compared to GW1. Everyone got a Queen Jennah mini. No real benefit to having alts. (Remind me, why did I purchase and create 5 extra characters at launch?)

The experience scroll did sort-of benefit people with alts… As it only boosts you to level 20. So it won’t matter much for people that have had the game for a year.

Lastly, the freebies are “samples”. It’s like the free boosters. They’re trying to give you a sample in hopes that you acknowledge their goodwill and buy more.

Go through the fragrance/cosmetic section in any department store. They’ll likely be more than willing to let you sample any product.

Also, have you ever been to the iTunes app store?
Many developers give their games away for free all the time.
It’s not exactly a rare occurrence. They do it to boost numbers. More people means potentially more reviews and higher ranking in iTunes.
(And if they have a cash-shop in the game, the game itself is generally free anyway.)

Neural.1824:

They must be really desperate for people to look at their precious gem-store if they are giving stuff away.

You would be surprised how good of a marketing strategy this is. League of Legends cash shop wasn’t doing so well up until they had several weeks of server trouble about a year and a half in to the games release, and gifted every player 400 riot points as an apology for the trouble. Their store exploded immediately after and hasn’t really slowed down since.

Most people know that if they know if they spend a penny today it’ll be a dollar tomorrow. People are apprehensive to join new markets and pick up new spending habits. Riot forced their customers to overcome that apprehension by ‘gifting’, short term loss, long term gain.

I never intended to buy riot points, ever. But after that 400 RP and my first skin, I think I only lasted a few months before I had purchased RP, now I’m pretty sure I’ve spent at least fifty bucks on a ‘free’ game over the last three years.