Guild Wars 2

If there was a “Money Spent” icon on peoples characters, similar to the mastery points next to name?

Do you think people would look at the person with $3000 next to their name and be like:

“Wow man, nice legendary weapons and armor!, you look incredible and I’m jealous!”

or maybe “Holy crap I wish I had that much money to spend on a video game!, nice stuff”

Or perhaps a simple negative reaction of “W T F” ? (etc.)

What would your reaction be?

I would wonder why Anet would publish personal information.

I would look at my own Icon
and be like: “dang son, did I really spend that much on this game?!”

Esquilax.3491:

If there was a “Money Spent” icon on peoples characters, similar to the mastery points next to name?

Do you think people would look at the person with $3000 next to their name and be like:

“Wow man, nice legendary weapons and armor!, you look incredible and I’m jealous!”

or maybe “Holy crap I wish I had that much money to spend on a video game!, nice stuff”

Or perhaps a simple negative reaction of “W T F” ? (etc.)

What would your reaction be?

Why not put a persons RL income beside the name, right along with the SS# and bank account.
Be real, Anet would face major legal actions if they were to divulge a persons purchases in a the game.

I think that would be wildly inappropriate and find difficulty in imagining how a game developer would want that to happen. Why do you ask?

I would think it would be weird.
It would be somewhat interesting if the information was only able to be seen by you. But I don’t think it would have a positive result (for Anet). Because if a person sees they’ve spent what they might deem a ridiculous of money on the game…they would stop doing it. For instance, the $3,000 you mentioned. A lot of people might think to themselves that that money could have been better spent elsewhere.
That’s why micro transactions work.

I’d love it just for the spice it would add to map chat.

sarasvatri.6871:

I’d love it just for the spice it would add to map chat.

Nothing stops YOU from divulging in map chat how much you spent in the gem store.

Eldbrand Charging.8902:

sarasvatri.6871:

I’d love it just for the spice it would add to map chat.

Nothing stops YOU from divulging in map chat how much you spent in the gem store.

But then Anet would keep track for me and I would not have to manually count dozens of transactions

Eldbrand Charging.8902:

sarasvatri.6871:

I’d love it just for the spice it would add to map chat.

Nothing stops YOU from divulging in map chat how much you spent in the gem store.

I’m poor

Also I know that even if I had the cash- buying things outright with money would trivialize them. While it would be satisfying in the short term to just have what I want instantly, I suspect it would more or less ruin the game for me.

Desire is funny like that. Often we think we want the objects of our desires when what we really want is the act of desiring itself.

Why be happy when you could be interesting?:https://youtu.be/U88jj6PSD7w

Esquilax.3491:

If there was a “Money Spent” icon on peoples characters, similar to the mastery points next to name?

Do you think people would look at the person with $3000 next to their name and be like:

“Wow man, nice legendary weapons and armor!, you look incredible and I’m jealous!”

or maybe “Holy crap I wish I had that much money to spend on a video game!, nice stuff”

Or perhaps a simple negative reaction of “W T F” ? (etc.)

What would your reaction be?

Maybe I’m a party pooper, but —

1. it’s not my business how much money people spend on this game
2. it’s no one’s business how much money I spend on this game
3. without people spending money on this game, there would be no game

I think the overall reactions would be negative — there is a tendency in online gaming to ridicule or shame people who spend a lot of money on their games. At the same time, it doesn’t seem to bother anyone if I collect expensive, I don’t know, jewellery? Clothes? Cars? Spend all my disposable income on booze, or movies, or some other tangible or intangible form of amusement?

In the end, for what I believe is the vast majority of players, gaming is just a hobby like any other.

That said…

I think my final reaction would be to quit the game immediately. Making information like that public is the surest way to get a gaming community to explode in a churning geyser of jealousy, seething hatred, finger-pointing, and anger.

sarasvatri.6871:

Also I know that even if I had the cash- buying things outright with money would trivialize them. While it would be satisfying in the short term to just have what I want instantly, I suspect it would more or less ruin the game for me.

Desire is funny like that. Often we think we want the objects of our desires when what we really want is the act of desiring itself.

Am I to assume from this statement that you never achieve any goals (objects) because you value the act of desiring itself? Wouldn’t it ruin the the game if you got anything you desired then?

This may seem like news to a lot of people, but a lot of folks spend a ridiculous amount of time at work, toiling away for money. It isn’t easy or quick to make money, it takes real-life effort and time. And when you spend a lot of time at work, you don’t always have endless time to waste grinding for a virtual object. That’s why I don’t think buying items with real money trivializes them any more than spending your valuable time.

luzt.7692:

I would look at my own Icon
and be like: “dang son, did I really spend that much on this game?!”

This. This times several thousand dollars, I suspect.

Eldbrand Charging.8902:

sarasvatri.6871:

I’d love it just for the spice it would add to map chat.

Nothing stops YOU from divulging in map chat how much you spent in the gem store.

I could divulge in map chat I’m the rightful heir of the Kings of Hawaii and people would care just as much.

There’s a huge difference between spouting whatever lies take your fancy and the game itself offering verifiable evidence of purchases.

sarasvatri.6871:

Desire is funny like that. Often we think we want the objects of our desires when what we really want is the act of desiring itself.

No, I’m pretty sure when I’m trying to put together a particular appearance for a character I want the actual tools not the annoyance of wishing I had the tools.

Likewise there’s plenty of content in game I’d like to take on with the best gear possible. I don’t always want to be thinking, “well, I’ll probably have that gear sometime in the next 6-8 weeks…” That kind of ‘anticipation’ doesn’t heighten the experience at all for me.

Would feel upset and somewhat violated having that kind of information made public. I would certainly stop playing if it weren’t something I could hide because I’ve spent a shameful amount of IRL cash on this game.

I would look at my own icon as well and then slap myself for spending that much money, lol

Esquilax.3491:

If there was a “Money Spent” icon on peoples characters, similar to the mastery points next to name? What would your reaction be?

Log out, Uninstall the game and move on to a game where people cared less about how others play.

I have to laugh at players who brag that they don’t spend money in games and look down on those who do. I am in a fortunate position where i’m very comfortable IRL as far as money and my gardener and pool boy doesn’t seem to have the same attitude.

Keep buyin my gems, it supports the game and keeps me comfortably lazy

if you play the game regularly you can tell who pays and who dont. But this game isnt pay2winwars but skinwars. So why cry about that?

I’m curious what my number would be, haha. Pretty much any time someone gives me a Visa gift card as a gift I apply it to gems. I bet I’m close to $500-600 at this point.

This is just plan stupid. You think because someone spent money in the game mean they use it to get gold?. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars in this game and never converted any of it to gold. I do it to support the game. People and their ideas lol.

" Woah! $3k , huh? I’m just over half that. Do you convert to coin?"
Yeah me neither. The rate is terrible and coin is so easy to make I feel it’d be a waste. Oh look that guy over there has $4.5k!"

Would certainly be interesting, in a way…

Obviously, they wouldn’t do it, though.

They have a ready done it. It’s called VIP program and it’s for the chinesse version.

To answer the OP question, I don’t care

Ape Ghosting.7396:

if you play the game regularly you can tell who pays and who dont. But this game isnt pay2winwars but skinwars. So why cry about that?

Congratulation, you failed to miss the point of a really simple topic to add some nonesense that has nothing to do with the question being asked. Nobody mentioned anything about “crying”. Fail³

@Topic: First reaction “Why the eff was this feature added by CashNet?” But honestly, I would probably not care that much, other than wishing I’d be so well-situated too.
Or shake my head as I couldn’t imagine myself spending thousands of euros in the cash shop. My stance is I buy gems for money if I absolutely want/need it (e.g. character slots) without trudging in the atricious money grind or playing stock exchange, and not to simply support A.Net by purchasing stuff I have no need for (or that doesn’t look nice enough by itself or be worth it for the suggested gem price).

Never going to happen, and here’s why.

The primary reason microtransaction stores use an internal currency is to abstract the actual financial cost of the items in it, and to charge you arbitrary overages so that you have enough fake money in your fake wallet that you feel like you’re “wasting” it if you don’t buy more fake money so you can use the fake money you have that isn’t enough to buy anything with.

Gems, or all of the various jewels, credits, or whatever a game calls their fake currency is explicitly designed so that you have a much more difficut time determining how much money you have spent, are going to spend, and how many actual dollars items cost.

It’s a consumer abusive model built on tried and true systems designed in the mobile space and eventually ported over to MMOs because just using fake money actually results in people spending more money in your game simply because they are less likely to think about how much money they’re spending when it’s converted to an arbitrary token currency.

Basically, think about it this way.

A harvesting tool costs 1000 gems.

You can buy gems in 10 dollar lots of 800.

This means gems, in real money terms, cost 0.0125 cents per gems.

Now, let’s remove the abstraction, and pretend gems were just their actual dollar equivalent.

While we’re at it, let’s pretend that the gem store was a real place, and your gem store items were real things.

Hello sir, welcom to Gnashmart, are you ready to check out?
Yes, I’d like to buy this harvesting flute, I’m taking a trip to Chile next week and I think it’d be safer to mine from a distance.
Okay, that’s going to be 12 dollars and fifty cents
Alright, here you go.
I’m sorry sir, we only accept ten dollar bills.
What?
Our cash register only accepts ten dollar bills.
Fine. Whatever. Here’s two ten dollar bills,
Alright, thank you for your purchase and enjoy your flute!
Uh. Aren’t you forgetting something?
Excuse me?
My change. You owe me seven fifty.
I’m sorry sir, we don’t give change.
You mean you don’t have change, right?
Uh. Well I suppose that’s technically correct… Don’t worry though. We’ll keep this amount on file so you can come back and spend it later on more of our fine products!
What if I don’t want to?
I’m sorry sir, its nonrefundable. Would you like to purchase something else to use the rest of the amount?
Uh, okay sure, give me that wreath there. I should decorate for the holidays.
Alright sir, one Festive Wreath backpack at six dollars, twenty five cents.
That’s not a backp.- you know what? forget it. Now you only owe me a dollar twenty five.
I’m sorry sir, we don’t give change
Oh I don’t need a bill, I’ll take coins. pennies even, whatever.
I’m afraid you don’t understand. This register doesn’t open. I can’t give you anything.
but you owe me a dollar twenty five
And we’ll hang on to that amount until you’re ready to buy another fine Gnashmart product or service!
What about that thing there? How much is that?
The festive hat? That’s a very popular item right now! It’s one dollar and eighty seven cents. I’m sorry but there isn’t enough here to cover that.
How much am I short again?
Sixty two cents sir
Okay here’s sixty two cents.
We only take ten dollar bills sir, remember?
So you’re telling me, that even though I’m only short sixty two cents, I have to give you ten more dollars?
Yes, but you can buy even more fine Gnashmart products and services with the remaining amount!
Exactly how much stuff do you think I came in here to buy?

As you can see, in real currency it’s probably not something people would put up with.

However, since there’s a legal language loophole in which you’re technically paying for virtual currency and not items, monetization managers the world over discovered that by locking up consumer funds in a nonrefundable vendor locked bank they can exploit people’s perception of the sunk cost fallacy to trick customers in to returning and paying in even more money, and generally charge hoigher costs than people would normally be willing to tolerate were those prices listed in easily accessible real currency amounts.

The above is true (not disputing the fact that seperating true money and currency leads to a disconnection in realisation how much money the stuff actually si and it is easier spend). But it isn’t 100 true for the fact that you can simply buy the for instance 62 cents you still need in credits by gathering some in game gold and getting the gems to order exactly. Granted someone bought those gems for sale in the tp in a larger increment though, but still.

Though while the above is technical true it isn’t the full situation which does change the whole thing.

But yeah, translating the gem prices to real money for each store item if i were to buy the gems outright, makes almost all items more expensive then I am willing to pay for. Even if i am not against spending money on games i like. It is why I don’t buy gems for real money to buy in store stuff, but have no problem spending gems i earn though playing the games. So i am glad others do wish to spend money on gems.
I do like GW2, it’s why i bought HoT even if I am not all that impressed by the expansion and a lot in it simply isn;’t for me, but after all this time i thought some investing in the game I like was good, the expansion was a logical thing for it)

I would lick their feet.
They’re the ones who keep the game going.

zeldara.4127:

The above is true (not disputing the fact that seperating true money and currency leads to a disconnection in realisation how much money the stuff actually si and it is easier spend). But it isn’t 100 true for the fact that you can simply buy the for instance 62 cents you still need in credits by gathering some in game gold and getting the gems to order exactly. Granted someone bought those gems for sale in the tp in a larger increment though, but still.

Though while the above is technical true it isn’t the full situation which does change the whole thing.

But yeah, translating the gem prices to real money for each store item if i were to buy the gems outright, makes almost all items more expensive then I am willing to pay for. Even if i am not against spending money on games i like. It is why I don’t buy gems for real money to buy in store stuff, but have no problem spending gems i earn though playing the games. So i am glad others do wish to spend money on gems.
I do like GW2, it’s why i bought HoT even if I am not all that impressed by the expansion and a lot in it simply isn;’t for me, but after all this time i thought some investing in the game I like was good, the expansion was a logical thing for it)

The gems/gold exchange is a failsafe you’re seeing a lot of companies do because it solves two problems.

It legitimizes gold buying and selling while ensuring the developer makes all of the money from the transaction, and it allows the developer to claim they have the best interests of players at heart.

In truth, however, Most games which have such a currency trade system don’t factor currency trading at all in to monetization as on the company’s end it simply results in another (albiet unlisted) product.

It’s an invention designed to convince people that a fundamentally anti-consumer monetization setup is actually pro-consumer.

Again, though, imagine what would happen if those amounts were listed in real currency. Change the instances of ‘gems’ to ‘dollars’ in the store and you suddenly have people complaining they have X amount of money that they feel they should be able to withdraw.

That obfuscation is there for multiple reasons, but the biggest reason is to allow you to spend money while forgetting how much money you’re spending, and the gold/gems is designed to make you forget how badly the system treats you while requiring you to log in to the game, pad concurrent subscriber numbers, and most importantly be advertised to for new and exciting items and sales.

I’m not saying people at Arenanet don’t want to make a great game. I am, however, saying that ArenaNet isn’t “one of the good guys” in this regard. They’re using metrics proven monetization schemes driven by profit rather than customer care principles.

Take a look at a game like Path of Exile, which monetizes by microtransactions as well, but does so from a customer care standpoint. They list their items individually, in real dollar amounts, and none of those items are tradable or in any way affect gameplay. They’re all skins, bank slots, or housing decorations, and they’re all permanent. No consumables, no boosters, and none of it is tradable.

PoE has done extremely well with this model. So well they’ve funded development of a massive post-release expansion for a game that has no box cost buy-in, and is otherwise completely free to play without limits.

However, when you’re working for a publisher overseeing your finances, rather than working for yourself, sometimes you don’t get to make decisions about monetization methods for youself either, since you have to make enough to pay your team as well as sufficient profit to pay the publisher that funded your development before you started making money.

Sometimes, when you want to make a game as big, intriciate, and graphically polished as GW2 is, that’s a price you find yourself paying. Selling a bit of your soul to get the game made at all.

The current gaming profit model is based on convincing people that want to earn rewards and people that want to buy rewards that they are both getting an equal achievement, prestige and value.

Why would you potentially open your “buyers” to abuse, when they are your target customers?

PopeUrban.2578:

Never going to happen, and here’s why.

The primary reason microtransaction stores use an internal currency is to abstract the actual financial cost of the items in it, and to charge you arbitrary overages so that you have enough fake money in your fake wallet that you feel like you’re “wasting” it if you don’t buy more fake money so you can use the fake money you have that isn’t enough to buy anything with.

Gems, or all of the various jewels, credits, or whatever a game calls their fake currency is explicitly designed so that you have a much more difficut time determining how much money you have spent, are going to spend, and how many actual dollars items cost.

It’s a consumer abusive model built on tried and true systems designed in the mobile space and eventually ported over to MMOs because just using fake money actually results in people spending more money in your game simply because they are less likely to think about how much money they’re spending when it’s converted to an arbitrary token currency.

Basically, think about it this way.

A harvesting tool costs 1000 gems.

You can buy gems in 10 dollar lots of 800.

This means gems, in real money terms, cost 0.0125 cents per gems.

Now, let’s remove the abstraction, and pretend gems were just their actual dollar equivalent.

While we’re at it, let’s pretend that the gem store was a real place, and your gem store items were real things.

Hello sir, welcom to Gnashmart, are you ready to check out?
Yes, I’d like to buy this harvesting flute, I’m taking a trip to Chile next week and I think it’d be safer to mine from a distance.
Okay, that’s going to be 12 dollars and fifty cents
Alright, here you go.
I’m sorry sir, we only accept ten dollar bills.
What?
Our cash register only accepts ten dollar bills.
Fine. Whatever. Here’s two ten dollar bills,
Alright, thank you for your purchase and enjoy your flute!
Uh. Aren’t you forgetting something?
Excuse me?
My change. You owe me seven fifty.
I’m sorry sir, we don’t give change.
You mean you don’t have change, right?
Uh. Well I suppose that’s technically correct… Don’t worry though. We’ll keep this amount on file so you can come back and spend it later on more of our fine products!
What if I don’t want to?
I’m sorry sir, its nonrefundable. Would you like to purchase something else to use the rest of the amount?
Uh, okay sure, give me that wreath there. I should decorate for the holidays.
Alright sir, one Festive Wreath backpack at six dollars, twenty five cents.
That’s not a backp.- you know what? forget it. Now you only owe me a dollar twenty five.
I’m sorry sir, we don’t give change
Oh I don’t need a bill, I’ll take coins. pennies even, whatever.
I’m afraid you don’t understand. This register doesn’t open. I can’t give you anything.
but you owe me a dollar twenty five
And we’ll hang on to that amount until you’re ready to buy another fine Gnashmart product or service!
What about that thing there? How much is that?
The festive hat? That’s a very popular item right now! It’s one dollar and eighty seven cents. I’m sorry but there isn’t enough here to cover that.
How much am I short again?
Sixty two cents sir
Okay here’s sixty two cents.
We only take ten dollar bills sir, remember?
So you’re telling me, that even though I’m only short sixty two cents, I have to give you ten more dollars?
Yes, but you can buy even more fine Gnashmart products and services with the remaining amount!
Exactly how much stuff do you think I came in here to buy?

As you can see, in real currency it’s probably not something people would put up with.

However, since there’s a legal language loophole in which you’re technically paying for virtual currency and not items, monetization managers the world over discovered that by locking up consumer funds in a nonrefundable vendor locked bank they can exploit people’s perception of the sunk cost fallacy to trick customers in to returning and paying in even more money, and generally charge hoigher costs than people would normally be willing to tolerate were those prices listed in easily accessible real currency amounts.

lol, very true.

Of course, you can transfer gold to gems, to make up the difference.

So, that is what I tend to do, if I have some left over gems that aren’t enough to buy anything I want with.

But, yeah, essentially that is true.

I think they can also get away with other things, that they wouldn’t be able to get away with, with a non fake currency.

For example, in the UK, you can’t claim something is discounted from “regular price”, unless you have already offered that item, at that price, for a certain amount of time.

A famous sportswear retailer, for example, tried to flout this consumer law and were in hot water over it.

But, the gems conversion probably circumvents that law.

Similarly, children are not allowed to gamble, or enter raffles, or lotteries, in the UK.

So, the gambling elements, in the gem store (like keys), would almost certainly be considered illegal, if they were (directly) sold for real money.

Honestly, it’s all a little shady, IMO and is essentially about skirting around the law and finding loopholes, rather than being totally and irreproachably above board.

At some point, we may see that consumer law is amended, to take things like alternative currencies into account.

I’m not that insecure to care either way. Rationalizing envy is pathetic and the only skins that matter are in my wardrobe or will be aimed for by me.

As long as they acquired their pixels through legitimate means (aka not hacking or theft), I really don’t care.

Can you imagine being discriminated against based upon how much or how little you have spent on the game?

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

Would feel upset and somewhat violated having that kind of information made public. I would certainly stop playing if it weren’t something I could hide because I’ve spent a shameful amount of IRL cash on this game.

I’m pretty sure we’re talking about a voluntary toggle.

Esquilax.3491:

What would your reaction be?

If someone started a thread meant to provoke emotional responses rather than invite an interesting discussion? I’d probably ignore it rather than feeding the flames.

Esquilax.3491:

What would your reaction be?

Probably a lawsuit for them blatantly violating their privacy policy.