Guild Wars 2

Gems can be purchased for real-world money in various fixed amounts; there is no discount for bulk purchases.

I’m no accounting major but i cant fathom why there is no break on these, ever. Obviously who ever is in charge never shopped at BJ’s Wholesale or Costco.
They can put the items in the Gem Shop on “Sale” but why not a break on the Gems themselves. Why not have a 10,000 gems for $100 and see just how many people cash in on the savings. The Gem Cards could be more flexible also, $15 or $25 doller cards that dont match the prices in the Gem Store. How about kitten or $100 card so i dont have to ask for six cards at Best Buy or Gamestop. I would like to just enter one key instead of six seperate codes. And before you awnser, “why dont you just buy $100 worth of gems off the Gem Store”, I dont need to explain to anyone why there is a $100 charge on my bank statement (for a game) when they didnt get flowers this month.
Love the Mad King Event, cant wait for Echoes of the Past, would just like a bulk sale on gems periodically and an easier way to give you guys $100

An interesting thing – my local Target doesn’t carry the gem cards anymore, and my husband was told at the local Gamestop that they were told the gem card system is changing “soon” and they don’t carry them anymore either.

I wonder if there is a new system if something like a bulk discount would be included? That would be neat.

raethe.1903:

An interesting thing – my local Target doesn’t carry the gem cards anymore, and my husband was told at the local Gamestop that they were told the gem card system is changing “soon” and they don’t carry them anymore either.

I wonder if there is a new system if something like a bulk discount would be included? That would be neat.

New system: You have to link your creditcard directly to your GW2 account to make things “easier” for you.
And I think the discount will start from 4000 gems upward.

ANet choose to put items on sale rather than offering extra proxy currency when bought in bulk.

And I checked my Target yesterday and they still had plenty of Gem cards ($25) and copies of the game on the shelves. So it could be a local phenomenon with your Target. I have two “local” Targets (within 20 miles), I’ll check the other one tomorrow.

Monk Tank.5897:

Gems can be purchased for real-world money in various fixed amounts; there is no discount for bulk purchases.

I’m no accounting major but i cant fathom why there is no break on these, ever. Obviously who ever is in charge never shopped at BJ’s Wholesale or Costco.
They can put the items in the Gem Shop on “Sale” but why not a break on the Gems themselves. Why not have a 10,000 gems for $100 and see just how many people cash in on the savings. The Gem Cards could be more flexible also, $15 or $25 doller cards that dont match the prices in the Gem Store. How about kitten or $100 card so i dont have to ask for six cards at Best Buy or Gamestop. I would like to just enter one key instead of six seperate codes. And before you awnser, “why dont you just buy $100 worth of gems off the Gem Store”, I dont need to explain to anyone why there is a $100 charge on my bank statement (for a game) when they didnt get flowers this month.
Love the Mad King Event, cant wait for Echoes of the Past, would just like a bulk sale on gems periodically and an easier way to give you guys $100

giving discounts is a bad method for currencies. They will give discounts on the items in the gem store, which basically serves the same purpose. Unless you are buying gold with your gems, but it really isnt that great an idea to give discounts for those purposes, it messes with the actual values and profits from the exchange.

As phys says, they won’t ever discount the gems, but they DO discount the items you can purchase with gems. The trick here is to buy gems when they are cheap/you have the funds, and then sit on them until the items you want go on sale (usually around anniversaries or real life events that are associated with sales).

Schwarzseher.9873:

raethe.1903:

An interesting thing – my local Target doesn’t carry the gem cards anymore, and my husband was told at the local Gamestop that they were told the gem card system is changing “soon” and they don’t carry them anymore either.

I wonder if there is a new system if something like a bulk discount would be included? That would be neat.

New system: You have to link your creditcard directly to your GW2 account to make things “easier” for you.
And I think the discount will start from 4000 gems upward.

I would never, ever link my personal information to anything to do with purchasing gems via the company that currently handles their in-game purchase transactions. I have personal experience with the company and know people that work there, so I prefer my data to not reside on their servers. It’s why I always purchase gem cards with cash.

come to think about it, why isn’t there a discount on gem purchases (with RL money, not gold)? LotRO (as an example) gives you a certain % of your gem purchase as a bonus. i think it should be incorporated in GW2 – like, when you buy 1600 for $20, you get 1800, or 2000 gems, and so on for the other options available.

Zaxares.5419:

As phys says, they won’t ever discount the gems, but they DO discount the items you can purchase with gems. The trick here is to buy gems when they are cheap/you have the funds, and then sit on them until the items you want go on sale (usually around anniversaries or real life events that are associated with sales).

while that is true, most of the times its not the items that you want.

The two Targets in my area had a fire sale on gem cards a few weeks ago. Buy one and get one for half price or similar.

They have not restocked.

phys.7689:

Monk Tank.5897:

Gems can be purchased for real-world money in various fixed amounts; there is no discount for bulk purchases.

I’m no accounting major but i cant fathom why there is no break on these, ever. Obviously who ever is in charge never shopped at BJ’s Wholesale or Costco.
They can put the items in the Gem Shop on “Sale” but why not a break on the Gems themselves. Why not have a 10,000 gems for $100 and see just how many people cash in on the savings. The Gem Cards could be more flexible also, $15 or $25 doller cards that dont match the prices in the Gem Store. How about kitten or $100 card so i dont have to ask for six cards at Best Buy or Gamestop. I would like to just enter one key instead of six seperate codes. And before you awnser, “why dont you just buy $100 worth of gems off the Gem Store”, I dont need to explain to anyone why there is a $100 charge on my bank statement (for a game) when they didnt get flowers this month.
Love the Mad King Event, cant wait for Echoes of the Past, would just like a bulk sale on gems periodically and an easier way to give you guys $100

giving discounts is a bad method for currencies. They will give discounts on the items in the gem store, which basically serves the same purpose. Unless you are buying gold with your gems, but it really isnt that great an idea to give discounts for those purposes, it messes with the actual values and profits from the exchange.

The main glaring difference is with a discount to currency, I can choose to apply the saving to whatever item(s) I want. Most MMOs that I know of have bulk discounts otherwise why purchase $100 in-game currency at once?

BilboBaggins.5620:

phys.7689:

Monk Tank.5897:

Gems can be purchased for real-world money in various fixed amounts; there is no discount for bulk purchases.

I’m no accounting major but i cant fathom why there is no break on these, ever. Obviously who ever is in charge never shopped at BJ’s Wholesale or Costco.
They can put the items in the Gem Shop on “Sale” but why not a break on the Gems themselves. Why not have a 10,000 gems for $100 and see just how many people cash in on the savings. The Gem Cards could be more flexible also, $15 or $25 doller cards that dont match the prices in the Gem Store. How about kitten or $100 card so i dont have to ask for six cards at Best Buy or Gamestop. I would like to just enter one key instead of six seperate codes. And before you awnser, “why dont you just buy $100 worth of gems off the Gem Store”, I dont need to explain to anyone why there is a $100 charge on my bank statement (for a game) when they didnt get flowers this month.
Love the Mad King Event, cant wait for Echoes of the Past, would just like a bulk sale on gems periodically and an easier way to give you guys $100

giving discounts is a bad method for currencies. They will give discounts on the items in the gem store, which basically serves the same purpose. Unless you are buying gold with your gems, but it really isnt that great an idea to give discounts for those purposes, it messes with the actual values and profits from the exchange.

The main glaring difference is with a discount to currency, I can choose to apply the saving to whatever item(s) I want. Most MMOs that I know of have bulk discounts otherwise why purchase $100 in-game currency at once?

the difference is that gem currency is tied to gold to gem exchange. Its not impossible, its the type of thing most people wouldnt like to do. Because it essentially means the exchange could be operating at a loss, which could cause a lot of issues.

if they had a discount it would have to factor in the exchange cost, so that would put the exchange rate even higher.

your better off asking for a coupon for gem store savings when people buy a lot of crap. Or some system for discounts. It would not be good to tie it directly to gems because of the exchange.

phys.7689:

BilboBaggins.5620:

phys.7689:

Monk Tank.5897:

Gems can be purchased for real-world money in various fixed amounts; there is no discount for bulk purchases.

I’m no accounting major but i cant fathom why there is no break on these, ever. Obviously who ever is in charge never shopped at BJ’s Wholesale or Costco.
They can put the items in the Gem Shop on “Sale” but why not a break on the Gems themselves. Why not have a 10,000 gems for $100 and see just how many people cash in on the savings. The Gem Cards could be more flexible also, $15 or $25 doller cards that dont match the prices in the Gem Store. How about kitten or $100 card so i dont have to ask for six cards at Best Buy or Gamestop. I would like to just enter one key instead of six seperate codes. And before you awnser, “why dont you just buy $100 worth of gems off the Gem Store”, I dont need to explain to anyone why there is a $100 charge on my bank statement (for a game) when they didnt get flowers this month.
Love the Mad King Event, cant wait for Echoes of the Past, would just like a bulk sale on gems periodically and an easier way to give you guys $100

giving discounts is a bad method for currencies. They will give discounts on the items in the gem store, which basically serves the same purpose. Unless you are buying gold with your gems, but it really isnt that great an idea to give discounts for those purposes, it messes with the actual values and profits from the exchange.

The main glaring difference is with a discount to currency, I can choose to apply the saving to whatever item(s) I want. Most MMOs that I know of have bulk discounts otherwise why purchase $100 in-game currency at once?

the difference is that gem currency is tied to gold to gem exchange. Its not impossible, its the type of thing most people wouldnt like to do. Because it essentially means the exchange could be operating at a loss, which could cause a lot of issues.

if they had a discount it would have to factor in the exchange cost, so that would put the exchange rate even higher.

your better off asking for a coupon for gem store savings when people buy a lot of crap. Or some system for discounts. It would not be good to tie it directly to gems because of the exchange.

I understand this concern but Perfect World does this across all their games and each one has a gold/cash exchange in game. Zen can be purchased in bulk at a discount and zen can be exchanged for in game currency. i couldn’t tell you if they’ve had issues or how they addressed them. I just know other companies have made it work. I personally would rather have a discount on the gems than hope I don’t miss the sale on the one item I want.

As pointed out (by ANet and by players) in other threads, every store that offers gem cards runs out sometimes. Most of the time, the retailer’s staff doesn’t why this happens, so they try their best to offer an explanation. However, they are just about the last people who would find out if ANet is going to change their system of selling currency.

tl;dr it’s just your local store that has run out. Call around or buy online. (If buying from Amazon, make sure it’s not some Amazon-partner who is selling them for a higher price.)

Finally, sure, Costco and the like will offer items at bulk discounts, but currencies generally don’t get treated the same at the retail level.

Behellagh.1468:

ANet choose to put items on sale rather than offering extra proxy currency when bought in bulk.

And I checked my Target yesterday and they still had plenty of Gem cards ($25) and copies of the game on the shelves. So it could be a local phenomenon with your Target. I have two “local” Targets (within 20 miles), I’ll check the other one tomorrow.

As I promised, checked the other Target near me today and it too had both Gem Cards and copies of the game in stock.

if no discount, at least correct the euro prices. (and yes, even with VAT it’s lower then what they claim it is, i even got the VAT amount when i bought gems and their calculation is incorrect)

There is no discount, because ArenaNet’s data suggests that offering a discount would not increase revenue.

No business offers a discount unless they determine that in doing so, they increase sales enough to offset the discounted amount with the net result being MORE TOTAL PROFIT.

This suggests that they’ve already got a lot of people buying the top amounts of gems on a regular enough basis that they don’t need to discount them.

What mtpelion said is right. The presumed amount of gems that would be sold with the discounts or offered bonuses would probably not offset the losses in revenue or not be good enough in the long run (when you put up sales or bonuses, as a company, you should always think about the long term effects because people will certainly demand more sales if you’re planning them as short term campaigns).

That only proves that enough people are buying enough gems at a rate that is regular enough for sales or bonuses to not be necessary or profitable.

Also, no matter how you think about it, a discount in gems or an offered bonus WOULD largely affect the rate of Gold:Gems and Gems:Gold as they are both entirely reliant on the supply and demand of the other.

And yet STO and PWI already do it with no apparent damage to the exchange rate.

BilboBaggins.5620:

And yet STO and PWI already do it with no apparent damage to the exchange rate.

i dont believe they operate an currency exchange in those games, i think it is just selling of gold.

anyhow i would need the details of their systems to truely understand them, i have only found limited information

phys.7689:

BilboBaggins.5620:

And yet STO and PWI already do it with no apparent damage to the exchange rate.

i dont believe they operate an currency exchange in those games, i think it is just selling of gold.

anyhow i would need the details of their systems to truely understand them, i have only found limited information

it’s exactly the same, they even use bundle deals to give more credit for your buck.

oh and don’t look at STO, they have even more expensive stuff then GW2 (try to buy a max level ship, it’s gonna cost you 25 bucks) and keep in mind, STO is a freemium game so you have a F2P and a P2P part.
if you want a better comparison, look at LOTRO and RIFT.

sorudo.9054:

phys.7689:

BilboBaggins.5620:

And yet STO and PWI already do it with no apparent damage to the exchange rate.

i dont believe they operate an currency exchange in those games, i think it is just selling of gold.

anyhow i would need the details of their systems to truely understand them, i have only found limited information

it’s exactly the same, they even use bundle deals to give more credit for your buck.

oh and don’t look at STO, they have even more expensive stuff then GW2 (try to buy a max level ship, it’s gonna cost you 25 bucks) and keep in mind, STO is a freemium game so you have a F2P and a P2P part.
if you want a better comparison, look at LOTRO and RIFT.

i dont mean the fact that they sell it, i mean can players trade it for it the other way. Ie spend gold in game to get the currency.

LOTRO and RIFT are freemium as well.

Behellagh.1468:

LOTRO and RIFT are freemium as well.

in LOTRO you can get the credits while doing deeds, rift is completely F2P with a premium buff to purchase.
they are fair, STO isn’t.

i dont mean the fact that they sell it, i mean can players trade it for it the other way. Ie spend gold in game to get the currency.

in STO it takes an extreme amount of grinding and not GW2 gold kind of grind, see it 20.000x worse.
LOTRO grands you 5 or 10 turbine points for completing deeds, rift doesn’t have an exchange by in-game means but the credit price -> store price makes that not necessary. (you already have 975 credits for €5,- and the cheap mounts are 15 credits)

sorudo.9054:

Behellagh.1468:

LOTRO and RIFT are freemium as well.

in LOTRO you can get the credits while doing deeds, rift is completely F2P with a premium buff to purchase.
they are fair, STO isn’t.

i dont mean the fact that they sell it, i mean can players trade it for it the other way. Ie spend gold in game to get the currency.

in STO it takes an extreme amount of grinding and not GW2 gold kind of grind, see it 20.000x worse.
LOTRO grands you 5 or 10 turbine points for completing deeds, rift doesn’t have an exchange by in-game means but the credit price -> store price makes that not necessary. (you already have 975 credits for €5,- and the cheap mounts are 15 credits)

ah in that case they have different issues, it doesnt seem either is set up with a system that actually has players trading gold. (the exchange in gw2 is players in game trading gold with people outside of game)
Which suggests as far as selling gold goes, these other games arent particularly worried about creating wealth from nothing. They probably have fairly high gold sinks to compensate i can only imagine. Either that or they dont particularly care about inflation for profit.

What if there were subsequent discounts for things like gathering tools?

A pick starts at 1000 gems, then there’s 20% subsequent discounts the more you buy. Next is 800, then 640, etc. It bottoms out somewhere.

It rewards return customers and would be cool for people with multiple chars.

Refunds for those who already have em, obviously

phys.7689:

sorudo.9054:

phys.7689:

BilboBaggins.5620:

And yet STO and PWI already do it with no apparent damage to the exchange rate.

i dont believe they operate an currency exchange in those games, i think it is just selling of gold.

anyhow i would need the details of their systems to truely understand them, i have only found limited information

it’s exactly the same, they even use bundle deals to give more credit for your buck.

oh and don’t look at STO, they have even more expensive stuff then GW2 (try to buy a max level ship, it’s gonna cost you 25 bucks) and keep in mind, STO is a freemium game so you have a F2P and a P2P part.
if you want a better comparison, look at LOTRO and RIFT.

i dont mean the fact that they sell it, i mean can players trade it for it the other way. Ie spend gold in game to get the currency.

Yes, zen for dilithium / dilithium for zen (zen=gems, dilithium=gold). Although there are energy credits and latinum in the game as well, along with several more types of “coin” but they’re more like laurels and badges.

I do find it interesting ANet decided not to go in that direction; it seems like an easy way to encourage larger purchases of gems. I wonder why they didn’t set it up that way.

BilboBaggins.5620:

phys.7689:

sorudo.9054:

phys.7689:

BilboBaggins.5620:

And yet STO and PWI already do it with no apparent damage to the exchange rate.

i dont believe they operate an currency exchange in those games, i think it is just selling of gold.

anyhow i would need the details of their systems to truely understand them, i have only found limited information

it’s exactly the same, they even use bundle deals to give more credit for your buck.

oh and don’t look at STO, they have even more expensive stuff then GW2 (try to buy a max level ship, it’s gonna cost you 25 bucks) and keep in mind, STO is a freemium game so you have a F2P and a P2P part.
if you want a better comparison, look at LOTRO and RIFT.

i dont mean the fact that they sell it, i mean can players trade it for it the other way. Ie spend gold in game to get the currency.

Yes, zen for dilithium / dilithium for zen (zen=gems, dilithium=gold). Although there are energy credits and latinum in the game as well, along with several more types of “coin” but they’re more like laurels and badges.

did a little research, looks like energy credits are primary currency. Dilithium is mostly and endgame currency with a max output based on daily missions. It has specific limits on how much each player can earn within a time period (without buying zen) Its also capped on a per day basis in terms of refining dilithium.
and finally they also cap the max trade amount to 500 dilithium to 1

sooo its a more complex system, but dilithium is a controlled currency, the amount you can trade per day is controlled, another factor is dilithium is not tradeable between players so they may not have to worry as much about the effects on the economy.

still its a rather convulted system, but doesnt seem like they can blow up the player economy with dilithium/zen because the player market is based on a different currency, so they dont have to worry as much about it.

Yes it is a more complicated system but you can get energy credits from dilithium:

“1. Convert your Dilithium into ‘Unreplicatable Materials’ and post them on the Exchange
2. Use ‘Unreplicatable Materials’ in ‘Crafting’ and post the items on the Exchange
3. Convert your Dilthium into C-Points, and purchase ‘tradeable’ C-Store items (e.g. Pets, some BOs, DOFFs) and post on the Exchange

To go in the reverse direction, (convert ECs into Dilithium) you can buy up DOFFs off of the Exchange, then dismiss them to get recruitment CXP and Dilithium (75 per common, more for higher quality DOFFs)"

The quoted section was from a forum post from STO, I’d quote the poster but it’s an archived post with no names.

But ec are primarily used for lower level items while leveling up. All the top tier items are bought or crafted using dilithium in one way or the other.

I’m sure ArenaNet doesn’t want to undertake creating a complex system like this if it is the complexity that keeps STO’s economy stable, and maybe it’s un-doable in GW2, I still would love it if they could find a way.

When is the last time you saw any currency on the international currency exchange put on sale?

I get the “gems” are not a real currency, but Anet MUST maintain the illusion that they are a currency, or their main source of income becomes unstable. Sales on Gems will not happen.