Guild Wars 2

Lunarhound.7324:

Many.8419:

why shouldnt it exist?

Because it makes for a terrible cosmetic system in a game that’s supposed to place a heavy emphasis on cosmetics. Switching armor and weapons skins should be free. What we should be paying gems for are a) new skins, and b) additional skin set slots that would allow us to save multiple sets of skins as swappable “outfits”. And no, this would not result in less money for ArenaNet, it would result in more, because people see more value in a permanent purchase. Basing an appearance-altering system around a consumable cash shop resource is counterproductive, because it actually discourages people who like to change their appearance a lot from spending. I barely touch trans charge purchases and I’ve only every bought one skin because I know I’m going to have to shell out more in order to swap them out with others. If it was unlimited, I’d buy every skin that hits the shop, even if I may never use it, just to increase my options. This is the way costuming types tend to think.

You don’t make money off of us by charging us to change clothes, you make money by increasing our clothing options. We’re fine with paying for new clothes and more wardrobe space, but tell us we have to pump quarters into the dressing room every time we want to use it, and we’ll go elsewhere, and never buy clothes to begin with. Other games with cosmetic clothing systems, like LoTRO, Champions, The Secret World, and DC Universe, figured this out just fine. GW2 needs to as well.

but they charge for both and only they know if it works – but chances are, people buy enough of both. What you prefer does not define “should”.

Many.8419:

this is bullkitten
I’ve already posted about burst sales and constant income. You WANT transmutation to be free while this is only cosmetic service with 0 gameplay value. Additional services should be for additional money.

Nope, not bullkitten in the least. Charging players to change their clothing appearance is bad from both ends: It sucks as a user experience, and it cuts down on the money ArenaNet could be making from people who like to tinker with their appearances. Making changing clothes require a resource that has to be purchased from the cash shop prevents people who like buying clothes from spending money, because there’s no value in it. The whole “burst spending” thing is garbage. While a handful of people might be willing to do that, those same people will still spend money on things like more clothes and additional “set” slots, because they’re obviously going to buy clothes related stuff anyway, and meanwhile, you’ll have the business of all the people who would have bought clothes in the past but never did, because they’d have to continue paying to use what they’d already purchased. Providing players with clothes that are freely usable once obtained gets them to spend more. Simple. Elegant. 100% true. And most games with a cosmetic wardrobe system have realized this and are capitalizing on it beautifully. Until GW2 does, its cosmetic skin system is going to continue to be sub-par, both from a player enjoyment and from a profitability perspective.

Lunarhound.7324:

Many.8419:

this is bullkitten
I’ve already posted about burst sales and constant income. You WANT transmutation to be free while this is only cosmetic service with 0 gameplay value. Additional services should be for additional money.

Nope, not bullkitten in the least. Charging players to change their clothing appearance is bad from both ends: It sucks as a user experience, and it cuts down on the money ArenaNet could be making from people who like to tinker with their appearances. Making changing clothes require a resource that has to be purchased from the cash shop prevents people who like buying clothes from spending money, because there’s no value in it. The whole “burst spending” thing is garbage. While a handful of people might be willing to do that, those same people will still spend money on things like more clothes and additional “set” slots, because they’re obviously going to buy clothes related stuff anyway, and meanwhile, you’ll have the business of all the people who would have bought clothes in the past but never did, because they’d have to continue paying to use what they’d already purchased. Providing players with clothes that are freely usable once obtained gets them to spend more. Simple. Elegant. 100% true. And most games with a cosmetic wardrobe system have realized this and are capitalizing on it beautifully. Until GW2 does, its cosmetic skin system is going to continue to be sub-par, both from a player enjoyment and from a profitability perspective.

That’s exactly my through process.

Sadly, too many people who are against change want to use subpar arguments such as “it used to be worse” or “it’s ok now”, all which hold no validity as to why it cannot be improved now.

Your idea of improving it is denying ANet a source of income which in turn may lessen the longevity of this game.

As others have repeatedly pointed out, there are plenty of ways to earn free charges, you just have to have the self control not to use them up faster than you can get them.

Can’t control your armor appearance impulses? Crack open the wallet.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

That’s exactly my through process.

Sadly, too many people who are against change want to use subpar arguments such as “it used to be worse” or “it’s ok now”, all which hold no validity as to why it cannot be improved now.

No one is opposed to getting more transmutes. The realistic people are pointing out that any such unlimited use item WILL come with some kind of offset to make up for the lost revenue.

You can’t go to McDonald’s and demand free pickles, likewise you can’t go to ArenaNet and demand free transmutes.

Appearance is the big money maker for ANet so I doubt they would ever sell unlimited transmutes.

However if they did, I would DEFINITELY buy it. Just putting it out there. :P

mtpelion.4562:

No one is opposed to getting more transmutes. The realistic people are pointing out that any such unlimited use item WILL come with some kind of offset to make up for the lost revenue.

You can’t go to McDonald’s and demand free pickles, likewise you can’t go to ArenaNet and demand free transmutes.

No, but if I hang around ANet long enough, they’ll give me free transmutes.

If I do that at McDonald’s, they’ll give me the boot. Or hepatitis.

Kronos.2560:

Olvendred.3027:

By comparison, I remember when I bought my first unlimited gathering tool (the molten pick, when it was first out), people calculated that you’d need to use it something like 50,000 times before you started to turn a profit on the unlimited part. I suspect it’s way, way more now… given that gems cost more gold, the item itself costs more (as it was made account bound), and the comparison should rightly be made to the cheapest tools available (being the frostbitten ones, atm).

80 transmutation charges is nothing compared to that. You’d only need to change an entire outfit (7 items, including backpiece) 11 and a half times before you’re starting to make a profit. No way would this be sold for as little as 2k gems.

Comparing to harvesting isn’t really relevant as you can harvest anywhere anytime for free. The only semi comparison that can be made would be to perma merch/bl cost to gem prices. Off top of head i think it is 50 for a 1 time merch/bl and around 250-300 gold for perma version. If you want to do gold/gem conversion by all means. But comparing mining to transmuting doesn’t really make any sense.

Also the reason I settled for 2k rough price is yes it ends up a good deal for those that use lots of skins, but it also gives anet an extra 40% market that will buy them (if pole is accurate). I don’t have access to transmute sales figures only anet does but they “should” be able to do the math to settle on a price. This was just a ballpark cutting the price a bit, yet gaining a larger amount of buyers.

The 2k price might give you an extra 40% in sales, but then you lose that 40% in sales of the regular T-stones, which those people would have to still buy if the Permanent T-stone was more like 10k – 15k, or only came in a BLTC, which if ever offered is the most likely scenario, in which case it would probably rival the Queen Bee in price on the TP if A.net didn’t make it Account Bound, which they would, so you would never see them on the TP.

P.S. Making a Permanent T-stone Account Bound is the smart way to go should one ever be offered by A.net.

P.P.S. – Have almost 80 in the wallet and hardly ever use them, I don’t change my looks that much once I reach lvl 80 and have decided on the “final” look for a character.

Its funny that so many people say an unlimited stone is evil! Then immediately after say oh and I have a TON of extra FREE stones just sitting around that anet gave me…

I guess i just don’t understand why this discussion is relevant to these people in this case? If you don’t want one then great, if you don’t need one then great. But that would also put you in the category of not buying normal charges either…. so what are you complaining about?

I guess I just find it ironic. (not trying to dis anyone or anything, just found it funny)

How about if you buy a skin from the gem store it would be unlimited but to apply in-game found skin you would need those stones?

Personally i only buy outfit and not skins on the gem store because i hate having to rely on stones, even if i have more then enough to last a while.

With outfits, i can just switch to a style whenever i want too, why not to do so for store skins?

We have a lot that we got free because we don’t feel compelled to use them or realize that we should use these sparingly unless we will be forced to buy more.

But we do understand that for those who do transmute frequently, that this is a source of income that ANet wishes to tap, otherwise we would be able to transmute freely from day one.

Pretty sure they know how many charges are bought by each player for actual gems (not the occasional free one they toss out there). And if they did offer an unlimited transmutation device, it would be price beyond the 2 or even 3 standard deviation amount of charges a single player had bought. It would not surprise me if it cost 8,000 gems or more. Certainly not at the lowball prices that are being tossed around here.

mtpelion.4562:

edgarallanpwn.8739:

That’s exactly my through process.

Sadly, too many people who are against change want to use subpar arguments such as “it used to be worse” or “it’s ok now”, all which hold no validity as to why it cannot be improved now.

No one is opposed to getting more transmutes. The realistic people are pointing out that any such unlimited use item WILL come with some kind of offset to make up for the lost revenue.

You can’t go to McDonald’s and demand free pickles, likewise you can’t go to ArenaNet and demand free transmutes.

This is what people are failing to understand. There would be no lost revenue. Revenue would increase, because many people who weren’t buying skins before would begin to do so. Introduce a way to save multiple skin sets that you can switch between, and charge people for additional skin set “slots”, and you’ve got a winner. A system like that would increase both player enjoyment and the amount of money they’d bring in from appearance-based items and services.

Charging people more often does not automatically lead to more money. That way of thinking is misguided and simplistic. Offer more value for money (an expanding selection of appearance options that have unlimited uses, and the option to pay to increase the number of appearance sets you can have saved at once) and you will win hearts and wallets. Telling someone to “crack open the wallet” every time they want to put on a new pair of pants just means they’ll go somewhere else to buy pants. I may play GW2, but currently, I get my virtual clothing fix in LoTRO, DCU, and The Secret World. I give each of those games money every month, and I don’t pay ArenaNet a cent. That would change if GW2 wasn’t charging me to use the dressing room. It blows my mind that people have such a difficult time understanding this.

Kronos.2560:

Its funny that so many people say an unlimited stone is evil! Then immediately after say oh and I have a TON of extra FREE stones just sitting around that anet gave me…

I guess i just don’t understand why this discussion is relevant to these people in this case? If you don’t want one then great, if you don’t need one then great. But that would also put you in the category of not buying normal charges either…. so what are you complaining about?

I guess I just find it ironic. (not trying to dis anyone or anything, just found it funny)

The problem with a lot of people too, is that they don;t realize that every other game does things normally. The only reason any of this is POSSIBLY a discussion is because anet offers gem store items for in game gold. Most other games don’t do this.

Thats fine if thats how they want to do this, but this hurts people paying with cash, by forcing them to pay more, where as in most “dlc/ microtransaction” purchases, cash users compared to non cash spenders have no difference because its paid only.

Behellagh.1468:

We have a lot that we got free because we don’t feel compelled to use them or realize that we should use these sparingly unless we will be forced to buy more.

But we do understand that for those who do transmute frequently, that this is a source of income that ANet wishes to tap, otherwise we would be able to transmute freely from day one.

Pretty sure they know how many charges are bought by each player for actual gems (not the occasional free one they toss out there). And if they did offer an unlimited transmutation device, it would be price beyond the 2 or even 3 standard deviation amount of charges a single player had bought. It would not surprise me if it cost 8,000 gems or more. Certainly not at the lowball prices that are being tossed around here.

The data i want to know from this, is how much actual REVENUE are they making? People are saying they bought charges, but you can buy gems with in game gold, and that makes anet 0$. Squat.

I want to know how many people are actually paying CASH for gems, then buying charges with it. With as many people stating theyre so easy to get or that they buy them, my bet is that they’re converting in game gold to gems to buy them, and not using actual CASH

To those saying ANet would lose to much income with a permanent Infinite use T stone, how about one that’s infinite in use but only good for a period of time then needs to be rebought, say, every 6 months to a year depending in average numbers of gem store charges bought per year per account.

So if the average number is 2000 gems worth of T charges per account per year, then an infinite stone lasting one year priced at 2000 gems would interest those who both do and don’t spend to buy charges, imo.

But not charging people certainly leads to less.

What an unlimited item does is reduce the potential income from players who currently do not have a problem spending gems on bulk charge purchases.

Let say that your 2000 gem unlimited charges which is around the same cost as 80 or so charges. It would only be a good deal if you burn through more than 80 bought charges in the life of your account. It would certainly be snapped up by the players who can drop $50, $100 or more a year on gems. That’s the future income you are losing with your $20 item because once a player buys gem shop armor, outfit, slots, etc. Items with no or minimal repeat sales, what’s left are items like keys, charges, boosts, and if you use a lot of keys, you would have boosts up the wazoo so lets remove them from the repeat sale list. And with the uproar over keys being a bad deal if you only care about ticket skins that leave transmutation charges as the repeat sale item.

Behellagh.1468:

But not charging people certainly leads to less.

What an unlimited item does is reduce the potential income from players who currently do not have a problem spending gems on bulk charge purchases.

Let say that your 2000 gem unlimited charges which is around the same cost as 80 or so charges. It would only be a good deal if you burn through more than 80 bought charges in the life of your account. It would certainly be snapped up by the players who can drop $50, $100 or more a year on gems. That’s the future income you are losing with your $20 item because once a player buys gem shop armor, outfit, slots, etc. Items with no or minimal repeat sales, what’s left are items like keys, charges, boosts, and if you use a lot of keys, you would have boosts up the wazoo so lets remove them from the repeat sale list. And with the uproar over keys being a bad deal if you only care about ticket skins that leave transmutation charges as the repeat sale item.

none of this matters if everyone everyone is buying charges with gems converted from in game gold… thats the piece you are ignoring that people have said too… if they;re using the conversions system, anet makes 0 profit, so any change is better than nothing.

Lets also keep in mind the tons of players who say they DONT pay for gems at ALL, and would still pay for the stone, despite not needed any charges, just for the ease of mind. Theres multiple points that you ignored that have been brought up to counter your arguments

there’s also the 3rd point that so many people have the free charges and don’t use them, because they never run out, or they’re scared to use them all, and don’t even buy them regardless. There’s also the crown who just used gold to buy gems, to buy charges, which still nets anet 0 revenue

There may not be a large segment who buy gems with cash to buy charges, but what you are asking ANet to do is to eliminate that source of income for a one time spike by selling such an item at a price everyone can afford, especially for the minority dropping cash for charges.

You are also eliminating gold being spent to convert to gems for these items. Gold that others have argued are providing an inflated exchange rate to encourage gold purchases with cash bought gems, another source of income. Not to mention the 27.75% of gold that is sunk by the exchange between selling for gold for gems or selling gems for gold to help keep the money supply in check.

i would buy this if where for 2000 gems. this was one of things that put me off from buying the game originally. in other games that i play that have this feature you just pay in game currency to change your look, an example would be the secret world for there weapons.

if they cant do that then i say keep the trans cores but make any skin items bought from the gem store to be free perma. its kinda odd that this wasnt the normal thing already.

All the positive poll results in the world aren’t going to convince Anet to harm the sales of a profitable (yet 100% optional) item. Just not gonna happen.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Behellagh.1468:

But not charging people certainly leads to less.

What an unlimited item does is reduce the potential income from players who currently do not have a problem spending gems on bulk charge purchases.

Let say that your 2000 gem unlimited charges which is around the same cost as 80 or so charges. It would only be a good deal if you burn through more than 80 bought charges in the life of your account. It would certainly be snapped up by the players who can drop $50, $100 or more a year on gems. That’s the future income you are losing with your $20 item because once a player buys gem shop armor, outfit, slots, etc. Items with no or minimal repeat sales, what’s left are items like keys, charges, boosts, and if you use a lot of keys, you would have boosts up the wazoo so lets remove them from the repeat sale list. And with the uproar over keys being a bad deal if you only care about ticket skins that leave transmutation charges as the repeat sale item.

none of this matters if everyone everyone is buying charges with gems converted from in game gold… thats the piece you are ignoring that people have said too… if they;re using the conversions system, anet makes 0 profit, so any change is better than nothing.

Lets also keep in mind the tons of players who say they DONT pay for gems at ALL, and would still pay for the stone, despite not needed any charges, just for the ease of mind. Theres multiple points that you ignored that have been brought up to counter your arguments

there’s also the 3rd point that so many people have the free charges and don’t use them, because they never run out, or they’re scared to use them all, and don’t even buy them regardless. There’s also the crown who just used gold to buy gems, to buy charges, which still nets anet 0 revenue

Untrue. Yes when looking only at people buy gems from gold, hence anet isn’t making money. This statement is true. When looking at what is affected by this process it looses ground.

Buying gems with gold does not magically create gems. It destroys gold and produces gems while at the same time affecting the exchange rate.

Read https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gem under currency echange rate.

If you buy lots of gems with gold -> gem prices increase thus making a cash gem purchse more tempting and a gem -> gold exchange more lucrative. The statement anet is making no money with this is false. Otherwise we’d see stronger permanent gold → gem price increases (as has slowly over the last 2.5 years since the amount of gems bought with gold is higher than gem to gold conversion).

The only time gems are created out of thin air is via achievements and gems from 5k boxes.

Well it doesn’t destroy gold, it sequesters it while sinking a bit which is the reason for the difference in the exchange rate. That gold comes out when a player sells gems to the exchange. The same is true the other way around, the gems that are sold to the exchange are kept there until bought for gold.

Behellagh.1468:

Well it doesn’t destroy gold, it sequesters it while sinking a bit which is the reason for the difference in the exchange rate. That gold comes out when a player sells gems to the exchange. The same is true the other way around, the gems that are sold to the exchange are kept there until bought for gold.

I was talking from a visible player perspective. But yes, the actual gold/gems are hidden away in the exchange. My point was that buying gems via gold is not free and does affect anet income or monetization.

You;re assuming that regular charges would go away, and destroy that and nobody has mentioned that. We’re merely talking about the addition of an extra item. And with its relatively high item price, it most likely would be one that people would actually have to drop cash to get enough gems for, where as low amounts of charges don’t cost that many gems.

For the record, 2k gems was something like 300+gold under normal rates(when not spiking)

I know exactly how the system works, and charges are not the only source of gem usage by far. there many other gem items i’m sure people are buying from any source(whether conversion or cash).

As i stated before most people in this thread have way too many charges to begin with and aren’t even buying them. If that’s the case with a permanent item addition, you wouldn’t see too much fluctuation as it would add both cash purchases, and conversions as well. You also forgot about increases due to inflation and increased ability to farm gold than before, and a few other factors which affect the system as a whole, as opposed to the one item addition this discussion is about.

You can try to use the exchange to say that, but in the end what matters to anet is how much real$ comes in. If the market crashes, that can be fixed.

What never changes, is how much gems you get for x$. The item that they actually make income on.

Again the only reason this problem exists is anet gives the ability to have that conversion, which most other games don’t. At the same time, other games are purely cash based on their micro store, and function fine, while making plenty of profits. Most of these are f2p games as well.I already explained multiple times in previous posts how this affects a certain group but repeating myself over and over isn’t going to make people pay attention to it.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

You;re assuming that regular charges would go away, and destroy that and nobody has mentioned that. We’re merely talking about the addition of an extra item. And with its relatively high item price, it most likely would be one that people would actually have to drop cash to get enough gems for, where as low amounts of charges don’t cost that many gems.

For the record, 2k gems was something like 300+gold under normal rates(when not spiking)

I know exactly how the system works, and charges are not the only source of gem usage by far. there many other gem items i’m sure people are buying from any source(whether conversion or cash).

As i stated before most people in this thread have way too many charges to begin with and aren’t even buying them. If that’s the case with a permanent item addition, you wouldn’t see too much fluctuation as it would add both cash purchases, and conversions as well. You also forgot about increases due to inflation and increased ability to farm gold than before, and a few other factors which affect the system as a whole, as opposed to the one item addition this discussion is about.

You can try to use the exchange to say that, but in the end what matters to anet is how much real$ comes in. If the market crashes, that can be fixed.

What never changes, is how much gems you get for x$. The item that they actually make income on.

Again the only reason this problem exists is anet gives the ability to have that conversion, which most other games don’t. At the same time, other games are purely cash based on their micro store, and function fine, while making plenty of profits. Most of these are f2p games as well.I already explained multiple times in previous posts how this affects a certain group but repeating myself over and over isn’t going to make people pay attention to it.

I’m assuming nothing. I was merely pointing out that the argument that Anet is making no money off of gold -> gem conversion is wrong.

Me personally I’d be fine with them adding a permanent tranmutation stone and I’d likely buy one, but I know what factors need to be balanced and I do not have Anet data to calculate if adding such an item is worth it (monetization wise).

Let’s assume Anet wants to increase their income by adding a permanent trans stone (because them willingly reducing their income is stupid, they are a company after all).

Pros:
- some people will buy the item even if they would have never consumed this amount of transmutation stones
- skins might become more attractive since the ability to change at will might increase interest in owning multiple expansive skins -> more gem to gold conversion to buy expensive skins, more gem skin sales
- one time upfront cash flow from selling an expensive item (money now is worth more than money in the future. see present value)

Cons:
- people who are inclined to buy this service are likely ones heavily using the wardrobe now droping out of buying future tranmutation stones
- loss of constant low revenue from people buying constant tranmutation stones

The question that needs to be answered now is theoratically simple. Do the Pros outweigh the Cons from a monetization standpoint. In essence it’s a trade-off between a short term influx of cash vs a steady income over a long period of time , and people who buy the item without actually needing it vs people heavily using the wardrobe (thus relying on transmutation stones) on the other.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Again the only reason this problem exists is anet gives the ability to have that conversion, which most other games don’t. At the same time, other games are purely cash based on their micro store, and function fine, while making plenty of profits. Most of these are f2p games as well.I already explained multiple times in previous posts how this affects a certain group but repeating myself over and over isn’t going to make people pay attention to it.

If by “problem” you mean the ability for people to not spend 1$ in the cash shop and still be able to aquire everything (theoretically, though there are people with thousands of gold), then please explain to me how people were to react if Anet decided to remove the gem exchange. Here’s a hint: the flames would reach miles high.

Comparing games without a conversion to GW2 is comparing apples to oranges. Those games have a very different business model. At the end of the day every company needs to make money. I’m pretty sure a lot of people would rather have transmutation charges instead of the loss of the exchange.

As Cyn points out, the buying of gems through the exchange as the effect of raising the gem to gold rate which in turn makes buying gold with gems, cash bought gems since the difference in the exchange rate isn’t conducive to short term back and forth exchanges.

While I don’t disagree to the attraction of such an item, finding a price that is income neutral yet still within a reasonable price for those who normally wouldn’t buy gems is fundamentally incompatible. Set the price to low, ANet loses money in the long term. Set it too high, those frustrated with charges won’t be able to rationalize the cost (say $50/4000 gems) and remain frustrated.

Behellagh.1468:

As Cyn points out, the buying of gems through the exchange as the effect of raising the gem to gold rate which in turn makes buying gold with gems, cash bought gems since the difference in the exchange rate isn’t conducive to short term back and forth exchanges.

While I don’t disagree to the attraction of such an item, finding a price that is income neutral yet still within a reasonable price for those who normally wouldn’t buy gems is fundamentally incompatible. Set the price to low, ANet loses money in the long term. Set it too high, those frustrated with charges won’t be able to rationalize the cost (say $50/4000 gems) and remain frustrated.

I would easily pay that. Even if the price is too high at least it is attainable.

For me what it comes down to it, I don’t like worrying about things getting low (price per charge or how easy farming them is irrelevant). I like to never worry, similar to perma bl trader. I have one and still have 30+ of the 1 use ones because i didnt want them to get low, but now that i have perma one (no worries) I can use to its fullest. I just dont like the deep mental block keeping me from using trans charges. So in the end for me its irrelevant the price as long as it exists.

^

I don’t use my charges either. I have 62 right now and can get more easily by doing PvP but in the back of my mind is always the knowledge that they are a scarce resource that cost me time to get. So, I hoard them. If I could buy a permanent T stone from the store, that would be money from me that ANet wouldn’t otherwise see.

If it needs to be bought again every 6 months or every year because it has a timer on it to make it economically feasible to ANet, I would be fine with that also.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If it needs to be bought again every 6 months or every year because it has a timer on it to make it economically feasible to ANet, I would be fine with that also.

This would actually seem/be more ‘fair’ for both players and Anet. Allowing free transmutes for X months, till you’ll need to pay another semi-annual fee to have it renewed.

But I’d still buy a perma stone if they made one

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Behellagh.1468:

But not charging people certainly leads to less.

What an unlimited item does is reduce the potential income from players who currently do not have a problem spending gems on bulk charge purchases.

Let say that your 2000 gem unlimited charges which is around the same cost as 80 or so charges. It would only be a good deal if you burn through more than 80 bought charges in the life of your account. It would certainly be snapped up by the players who can drop $50, $100 or more a year on gems. That’s the future income you are losing with your $20 item because once a player buys gem shop armor, outfit, slots, etc. Items with no or minimal repeat sales, what’s left are items like keys, charges, boosts, and if you use a lot of keys, you would have boosts up the wazoo so lets remove them from the repeat sale list. And with the uproar over keys being a bad deal if you only care about ticket skins that leave transmutation charges as the repeat sale item.

none of this matters if everyone everyone is buying charges with gems converted from in game gold… thats the piece you are ignoring that people have said too… if they;re using the conversions system, anet makes 0 profit, so any change is better than nothing.

Lets also keep in mind the tons of players who say they DONT pay for gems at ALL, and would still pay for the stone, despite not needed any charges, just for the ease of mind. Theres multiple points that you ignored that have been brought up to counter your arguments

there’s also the 3rd point that so many people have the free charges and don’t use them, because they never run out, or they’re scared to use them all, and don’t even buy them regardless. There’s also the crown who just used gold to buy gems, to buy charges, which still nets anet 0 revenue

What?

If I buy 800 gems with gold, I am buying them from a Player who bought them with Cash. Anet still made $10. Period.
Buying Gems with gold is not manufacturing gems out of thin air “depriving” anet of profit. That would be idiotic and there would be no gem to gold conversion if that was the case.

Every. Single. Gem. in the game is from a cash purchase, period. Every single one.
It doesn’t matter if I fork out my credit card, or farm for a few days and convert the gold, SOMEONE bought those gems and Anet makes money.

Monkey Fritz.9052:

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Behellagh.1468:

But not charging people certainly leads to less.

What an unlimited item does is reduce the potential income from players who currently do not have a problem spending gems on bulk charge purchases.

Let say that your 2000 gem unlimited charges which is around the same cost as 80 or so charges. It would only be a good deal if you burn through more than 80 bought charges in the life of your account. It would certainly be snapped up by the players who can drop $50, $100 or more a year on gems. That’s the future income you are losing with your $20 item because once a player buys gem shop armor, outfit, slots, etc. Items with no or minimal repeat sales, what’s left are items like keys, charges, boosts, and if you use a lot of keys, you would have boosts up the wazoo so lets remove them from the repeat sale list. And with the uproar over keys being a bad deal if you only care about ticket skins that leave transmutation charges as the repeat sale item.

none of this matters if everyone everyone is buying charges with gems converted from in game gold… thats the piece you are ignoring that people have said too… if they;re using the conversions system, anet makes 0 profit, so any change is better than nothing.

Lets also keep in mind the tons of players who say they DONT pay for gems at ALL, and would still pay for the stone, despite not needed any charges, just for the ease of mind. Theres multiple points that you ignored that have been brought up to counter your arguments

there’s also the 3rd point that so many people have the free charges and don’t use them, because they never run out, or they’re scared to use them all, and don’t even buy them regardless. There’s also the crown who just used gold to buy gems, to buy charges, which still nets anet 0 revenue

What?

If I buy 800 gems with gold, I am buying them from a Player who bought them with Cash. Anet still made $10. Period.
Buying Gems with gold is not manufacturing gems out of thin air “depriving” anet of profit. That would be idiotic and there would be no gem to gold conversion if that was the case.

Every. Single. Gem. in the game is from a cash purchase, period. Every single one.
It doesn’t matter if I fork out my credit card, or farm for a few days and convert the gold, SOMEONE bought those gems and Anet makes money.

Corrrect… but only the people who bought gems with cash…. actually generated revenue.. just because you think your gem has value due to the inshore exchange… doesn’t actually generate MORE revenue, you’re just supplying your gems with a value.

You just countered yourself in the same paragraph, AND agreed with me.
That’s my WHOLE POINT, is that people using gold to gem conversion are not creating revenue. The people who pay CASH are.

How simple is this to figure out? Remove cash payments. Now where is anets revenue from the gem shop? there is none.

Just because you want to assign your gem’s a “cash value”, the fact stands they have no value until SOMEONE with CASH buys gems. Someone has to give anet that money, and its not the players converting gold to gems.

So saying people who user the conversion system are not generating revenue, is indeed a TRUE statement. You can value your gems at 10$, yes, but that is not new profits above the original sale. You did not give anet that profit, and you are not making them more money. You are merely holding 10$ WORTH of gems. Not generating 10$ profit.

Two COMPLETELY different things.

edgarallanpwn.8739:

Corrrect… but only the people who bought gems with cash…. actually generated revenue.. just because you think your gem has value due to the inshore exchange… doesn’t actually generate MORE revenue, you’re just supplying your gems with a value.

You just countered yourself in the same paragraph, AND agreed with me.
That’s my WHOLE POINT, is that people using gold to gem conversion are not creating revenue. The people who pay CASH are.

How simple is this to figure out? Remove cash payments. Now where is anets revenue from the gem shop? there is none.

Just because you want to assign your gem’s a “cash value”, the fact stands they have no value until SOMEONE with CASH buys gems. Someone has to give anet that money, and its not the players converting gold to gems.

So saying people who user the conversion system are not generating revenue, is indeed a TRUE statement. You can value your gems at 10$, yes, but that is not new profits above the original sale. You did not give anet that profit, and you are not making them more money. You are merely holding 10$ WORTH of gems. Not generating 10$ profit.

Two COMPLETELY different things.

Um… wow.
So far off base. So if an oil company buys oil from audi arabia, is it worthless since it won’t be sold in the us again for 6 months? Or is the fact that I bought gas at the station a meaningless exchange since the oil was first purchased six months ago?

People who buy gems to trade them for gold, wouldn’t buy gems to trade them for gold if they could not do so.

It’s is utterly ridiculous to assume anet views in game purchases of gems as worthless or that they aren’t making a profit off of that. The final transaction may take place a few days or weeks after the initial cash purchase, but that in no way invalidates that the initial purchase only happened because the final purchase was going to happen.

That is such a convoluted copout because you personally believe that gold > gem conversion is “cheap.”

The economic reality is that gold > gem is ADDED value to the gem purchaser, and therefore more reason to buy gems. In fact, it is very likely the primary reason to purchase gems. It doesn’t take a very big leap to conclude that more gems are purchased to get gold than to get the handful of items on the gem shop, and that those items exist as a carrot for non-cash players specifically to promote the conversion which fuels the purchase of gems.

The one guy who decides to buy gems to get a legendary buys more gems than ten people who only buy a few infinite tools and transumutation charges, which makes the conversion of gold > gems intrinsically more profitable than a direct cash purchase of gem store items.

Far more purchaser’s are going to recognize the value of converting $10 of gems into gold than wasting away hours of their life grinding the same amount of gold. In fact, it’s flat out smarter in time = money scenario. And the only reason that $10 buys such a large amount of gold is because of gem > gold purchases for people who do grind out their infinite harvest tool purchases.

To even entertain the idea that any one gem spent is worth less than another because of the acquisition method, when all gems are created equally, is silly.

Lets please try to keep this on topic (I do see relevance of the arguments given but it is still just an argument of opinion unless you have the data that only anet has), we don’t need another “was the chicken or the egg first?” discussion.

Also I would like to thank everyone for the many posts thus far! I’ve enjoyed reading the many varied views the community has.

Kronos.2560:

Lets please try to keep this on topic (I do see relevance of the arguments given but it is still just an argument of opinion unless you have the data that only anet has), we don’t need another “was the chicken or the egg first?” discussion.

Also I would like to thank everyone for the many posts thus far! I’ve enjoyed reading the many varied views the community has.

Quantum physics says there had to be both a chicken and an egg…..

Okay, I’m done. :P

In have over 200 and I never use them I’m not one to play Barbie dress up with my characters so I would not buy an unlimited use one. They are so easy to get I don’t see the point it most likely will not happen.

I often buy transmute stones with gems as I have multiple toons and like to keep their appearances up to date with the latest skins (weapons and armor). I also need to change my appearance regularly if I start to get commander sniped in wvw.
I would pay for an unlimited stone… not a chance in a locked box but off the store. 2000g is cheap I think it would most likely be 5000gems. But I would be willing to pay this as it would only take me a few months for this to turn a profit for me (so to speak).

EDIT: I would like to see them the charges drop in wvw too as I don’t do much pve or pvp content.

Smartcat.2130:

.

EDIT: I would like to see them the charges drop in wvw too as I don’t do much pve or pvp content.

I agree to charges dropping in wvw (or maybe make rare drop from champ chests etc). Many players only play 1 aspect of the game and its annoying to need to do pvp to easily get them (or map completion in pve but that’s about as boring as it gets the 100th time..). But then again if they just would release an unlimited version it wouldn’t matter. (at least to me)

Monkey Fritz.9052:

Orangensaft.7139:

that stone would have to be like.. at least 10.000 gems for being infinite use….
(probably more)

2k gems … anet would never do that xD

but i would love to have one…

and had no problem with paying that much because
it is definitly worth it for anyone who has a sense of fashion and more than 1 character….
and for people who dont just buy outfits but create nice mix and match looks instead…

2000 gems is already $25 dollars…. and you think that isn’t expensive enough…. You are the reason pay to win games with $60 mounts exist.

Lol, you are kidding right? An infinite transmutation stone to be used to change your looks every time you feel like it for ONLY 2,000 gems…. I guess you really do not understand business…. if anything, they may have a 2,000 gem transmutation stone that lasts for 6 months and then expires or has a finite number of charges before you have to purchase another one….

Unlimited Transmutes doesn’t have to mean unlimited time. You can make it unlimited transmutes for 60-90 days and come up with a fair price.