Guild Wars 2

I feel gems are too expensive for 800, It should be more like 800 for $5.00 for the price of items in the store. Would you rather get more gems for your money or have items charge much less in the store. I know in AOC, I spent more money to spend in the stores because the cost was cheaper. Do you feel you would buy more if the cost went down?

This is what I was taught by one of my bosses that owned a sub shop. He used fresh steak cut from roasts every other day. Pizza dough made up every morning. Three cheeses on the pizzas, you would think that having top grade ingredients would cut too much into his profits. The subs were maybe 15 cents more for the steak and crab cakes. but because the were a good price and were great, more sold. This placed hopped daily and he made bank.

I feel if the gems were twice as many for the $10.00(1600), they would sell more. Or if the store dropped everything by half the cost of gems people would buy more.

Instead of the I love both dresses, which do I choose, its now I will get both and more because I feel I am over charged I will only get something if I am dying to get it, as if it was cheaper, all impulse buying would go ahead. Or I am nuts.

Giving the same dollar value for more gems would be quite a terrible idea due to gold exchange. Cheaper gemstore items however I do agree with. I find myself often dropping 15 CAD on an armor set where I only want 2/6 of the parts. It would be nice if we could buy single skins off sets as well but obviously it’s a long shot.

It’s a balancing act between number of sales and profit-per-sale. That concept is true for pretty much all businesses, that you have to figure out where the sweet spot is.

I’m guessing Anet is pretty confident that they’ve got it, or else they’d lower prices. Whatever I think of their prices, I can’t imagine they’re making those decisions totally blind to their sales metrics.

Redenaz.8631:

It’s a balancing act between number of sales and profit-per-sale. That concept is true for pretty much all businesses, that you have to figure out where the sweet spot is.

I’m guessing Anet is pretty confident that they’ve got it, or else they’d lower prices. Whatever I think of their prices, I can’t imagine they’re making those decisions totally blind to their sales metrics.

The price of the upgrade extractor makes that seem suspicious. Unless it has some bizarre psychological motivation in encouraging people to spend on other things.

As I’ve said in other threads though, it isn’t just a matter of balancing sales and profit-per-sale. They also need to encourage customer loyalty and, by extension, word-of-mouth sales. I don’t see the gem store doing that very well.

Some lower gem or gem store prices would be nice for sure.

The problem with the upgrade extractor could be solved by adding a couple/few more uses, I think everyone would be ok with that, the one time use really makes it a terrible deal.

The first question is how many disgruntled players will Anet have to deal with asking for money back or extra gems based on either change.

If they reduce the cost of gems I think most people would just spend less money to get what they want. Maybe some buy more gems but if they gave twice as many gems people would have to buy more than twice as many gems for Anet to see an increase in revenue from gems.

If the reduce the gem cost of items then more people would be able to buy the items by converting gems to gold and Anet gets less revenue from gem sales.

The fix would be to offer better discounts on the gem store, and don’t apply that to gem purchases/trades.

I think they need to do more discount weeks on account upgrade items, as the rest of the trash on the Gem store is all cosmetic or you get it from login rewards.

I don’t even buy anything from the gemstore, it all feels like a rip off with he 2k bundles when you only want 1 item from it. I feel some of the things for the price in gems are not justified, but I don’t buy those things. The only thing that stays constant for me in makeover kits. But I don’t buy those unless there are new hairstyles and faces. So anet only makes money off of me anymore when they come out with actual good cosmetics, which has been almost a year now.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

As I’ve said in other threads though, it isn’t just a matter of balancing sales and profit-per-sale. They also need to encourage customer loyalty and, by extension, word-of-mouth sales. I don’t see the gem store doing that very well.

You can get an idea of the financial big picture by looking at NCSoft’s quarterly reports, which are usually posted here by someone. I haven’t kept an eye on them but from what I remember the game is financially very healthy.

kitten.4078:

The first question is how many disgruntled players will Anet have to deal with asking for money back or extra gems based on either change.

If they reduce the cost of gems I think most people would just spend less money to get what they want. Maybe some buy more gems but if they gave twice as many gems people would have to buy more than twice as many gems for Anet to see an increase in revenue from gems.

If the reduce the gem cost of items then more people would be able to buy the items by converting gems to gold and Anet gets less revenue from gem sales.

If there are actually enough people buying them at current prices that their complaints need to be a concern then there is probably no need to change the price.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Redenaz.8631:

It’s a balancing act between number of sales and profit-per-sale. That concept is true for pretty much all businesses, that you have to figure out where the sweet spot is.

I’m guessing Anet is pretty confident that they’ve got it, or else they’d lower prices. Whatever I think of their prices, I can’t imagine they’re making those decisions totally blind to their sales metrics.

The price of the upgrade extractor makes that seem suspicious. Unless it has some bizarre psychological motivation in encouraging people to spend on other things.

As I’ve said in other threads though, it isn’t just a matter of balancing sales and profit-per-sale. They also need to encourage customer loyalty and, by extension, word-of-mouth sales. I don’t see the gem store doing that very well.

Time is money. The extractor was for saving people 50-80g by paying a cheap amount of cash vs spending hours upon hours re-earning that gold.

If I’m ANet, what’s my motivation?

1. If I lower the gem cost of items, this means that players spend less money to get what they want.
2. If I lower the gem cost of items, people need to spend less gold to get gems to get what they want. If the amount of gold in the exchange drops, then gem buyers get less gold for their RL money. This is a disincentive to buy gems to exchange for gold. this is the opposite of what I want.
3. If I lower the price of gems instead, the same issue in #1 occurs. Also, if it takes less RL money to get gold, then fewer gems go into the exchange. The cost of gems in gold goes up even over what it is now.

To make up for the revenue lost by implementing either of the OP’s ideas, many more players would have to spend money. The amount more would depend on the reductions. Thus, the benefit hinges on the OP’s assertion that more would buy if prices were lower.

This is counter to the psychology we see in the real business world. Reduce prices on basic goods, sure, but on luxury items — no. Luxury items are priced at what the market will bear. This enables the revenue spikes seen during sales, when those prices are temporarily reduced. People spend more on sales because the normal prices are high.

lunarminx.3624:

I feel gems are too expensive for 800, It should be more like 800 for $5.00 for the price of items in the store. Would you rather get more gems for your money or have items charge much less in the store. I know in AOC, I spent more money to spend in the stores because the cost was cheaper. Do you feel you would buy more if the cost went down?

This is what I was taught by one of my bosses that owned a sub shop. He used fresh steak cut from roasts every other day. Pizza dough made up every morning. Three cheeses on the pizzas, you would think that having top grade ingredients would cut too much into his profits. The subs were maybe 15 cents more for the steak and crab cakes. but because the were a good price and were great, more sold. This placed hopped daily and he made bank.

I feel if the gems were twice as many for the $10.00(1600), they would sell more. Or if the store dropped everything by half the cost of gems people would buy more.

Instead of the I love both dresses, which do I choose, its now I will get both and more because I feel I am over charged I will only get something if I am dying to get it, as if it was cheaper, all impulse buying would go ahead. Or I am nuts.

It’s been that price since the game’s launch. Since the purpose of the cash bought gems is to provide cash flow for the game and that hasn’t changed, why would they feel the need to reevaluate that ratio, 80 gems for $1€/0.85£ (note the Euro and Pound price includes a baked in 20% value added tax)? Did it suddenly become less expensive to develop and run the game?

And while true that there is a maximum for price x volume of sales, they do tweak this via weekly sales. We would likely never see an across the board sale, as in everything is X% off nor will we ever see a standalone discount on gems. Either of those would make me worry about the remaining life of the game.