Guild Wars 2

So, I was thinking. Subscription = bad, but supporting the game = good (if you feel it’s worthy, of course!). But if I’m being honest, I’m a little stingy and I don’t usually purchase gems, in practice. What would entice me to get in on gem purchases more often? And this is what I came up with…

Each account may purchase their first 400 gems at a 25% reduced rate, their second 400 gems at a 15% reduced rate, and their third 400 gems at a 10% reduced rate. In other words, you may purchase up to 1200 gems for $10 each month rather than $15.

It’s silly, but I think if you did this I would purchase gems because I know that sooner or later I’m going to want something from the gem store but I won’t want to pay in full to get it (there’s that stingy part again!). If I ever need to purchase gems in excess of the monthly allotment of 1200 gems at the discount rate, I will essentially have overpaid by passing on a previous month’s purchase. The pressure’s on (and uhh, I want to support the game and all)!

Or is this a terrible idea for the gold/gem exchange? You tell me what you think.

Err sorry, bad math on the 10$. But whatever. Discount TBD for someone with a calculator.

Speaking of Gem purchases, anyone know why when you buy Gems from the Black Lion TP they charge tax but I go to my local Target or Best Buy and they don’t charge taxes?

I’ve always thought that ANet could encourage me to spend dollars instead of gold on gems if they had sales on large numbers of gems purchased with dollars, or had some kind of volunteer ‘subscription’ where you pay $10/month every month for a minimum of X months, but get 1000 gems for each month as part of your ‘subscription’ instead of 800. Whether or not any of this is realistically viable for them and their bottom lines I’d leave up to ANet’s marketing team, but I think those kinds of ‘bulk discounts’ could really work on a player like myself.

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Speaking of Gem purchases, anyone know why when you buy Gems from the Black Lion TP they charge tax but I go to my local Target or Best Buy and they don’t charge taxes?

Yep, that’s where I get my gem cards from. In fact, I’ll be going to pick up a card today since it’s payday for me.

$15 gem card, you pay $15 exactly, same with the $25 gem card.

I exchange gold for gems sometimes.

I buy gem cards sometimes.

I spend gems when they have sales in the gem store…discounts, not “limited time releases”. Put up discounted sales and I’ll spend cash for gems, especially discounts on bank expansions, additional bags, material storage, ETC. I don’t buy fluff items like minis, mail carriers, or finishers. I have my 3 unlimited harvesting tools, won’t spent a cent on any of those going forward.

When Anet had their month of daily sales, I spent cash. Probably the last time I did…

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Speaking of Gem purchases, anyone know why when you buy Gems from the Black Lion TP they charge tax but I go to my local Target or Best Buy and they don’t charge taxes?

Because laws. Not sure if it’s universal across all states but gift cards, which the gem cards at stores ars classified as, are exempted from tax. Internet purchases on the other hand lost their exemption a couple of years ago. EU has always payed tax but VAT is baked into the price while in NA it’s added on and is different state by state.

Behellagh.1468:

Lite Ning Strike.5203:

Speaking of Gem purchases, anyone know why when you buy Gems from the Black Lion TP they charge tax but I go to my local Target or Best Buy and they don’t charge taxes?

Because laws. Not sure if it’s universal across all states but gift cards, which the gem cards at stores ars classified as, are exempted from tax. Internet purchases on the other hand lost their exemption a couple of years ago. EU has always payed tax but VAT is baked into the price while in NA it’s added on and is different state by state.

And Gift Cards are exempt because if they were not, they would be collecting tax twice on the same sale/money. Once on the money on Gift Card, and once, again, on the money used to purchase items.