Guild Wars 2

The ArenaNet team published this back in June 22, 2015:

“We want to be clear about our business model for future expansions now that we are approaching our first paid expansion for Guild Wars 2. We believe that to keep the game dynamic and vibrant with a constantly growing community, it should be as easy as possible for new players to get into Guild Wars 2. For Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we didn’t want the core game’s price to be a factor in a new player’s decision to begin playing Guild Wars 2. In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.

We are committed to our players and believe we remain the single best value in the MMO space. We set out on this journey to challenge the conventions of MMOs, to knockdown the barriers to accessibility, and to fulfill the promise of what online worlds should be. "

You can find the above clarification in full at:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/

So…

“Single purchase price”. I suppose that’s accurate. Adding $20.00 to bundle Heart of Thorns together with Path of Fire. It’s still one bundle, one price. But I can’t help but feel like that was a really shady way to sell the idea of offering value to the players.

I was under the impression from that clarification that ArenaNet will always be bundling all previous expansions and the core game with the latest expac at the full retail price of ONE game.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not salty at all since I pre-purchased the core game and Heart of Thorns and am a very happy member of the community. Working in the games industry myself, ArenaNet are my heroes. So imagine my surprise when I learned that Heart of Thorns is going to cost extra.

Maybe a second clarification is in order.

“Q: Is Heart of Thorns included for free when I buy Path of Fire?

A: No. As we said when we announced Heart of Thorns, we always want to give you the option to purchase both expansions for a single price. With the purchase of any edition of Path of Fire, you can add in Heart of Thorns during checkout and purchase both expansions together for less than the combined prices of the expansions. If you already own Heart of Thorns or only want to play Path of Fire, you can purchase Path of Fire separately."

From:
https://help.guildwars2.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010688287?_ga=2.111328580.133531747.1501525481-291613596.1411503758

Guess they made that clarification after all. Oh well.

It was the plan to bundle all future expansions when they add a new one but they changed that plan.

I suppose they realised that asking people who already owned both base GW2 and HoT to once again pay €50 for the new expansion wouldn’t go down well. There was a lot of anger over the fact that you had to buy GW2 again when you bought HoT.

Now people who already own HoT can buy this expansion for €30 and those who don’t already own it can get both HoT and the new expansion for €50. Think of it as a reward for people who already own the previous expansion.

Thats pretty lame. Single purchase price, huh? Very cheeky.

They had a different game director then (if I am not mistaken). I think the expansion price it’s ok without including HoT and I totally agree with the changes and hot can be found pretty cheap.

I think it would be better to have phrased it as a discount for existing owners.

To be fair, if you purchased HoT from ANet two weeks ago, you would have paid US$30 and another US$30 for PoF. If you purchase them together today, you’d pay US$50, i.e. ten dollars less.

So it’s not entirely misleading, it’s just a sort of marketing wordplay that leaves a bad taste in some people’s mouth. Unlike the controversy with HoT’s pricing, this one is more likely to go unnoticed by the newest players and might actually please a lot of veterans, since this is the major discount people expected last time.

tl;dr I wouldn’t have done it this way, but it’s a bit better than the pricing kerfuffle 2 years ago.

Businesses adapt to their customers wishes. Lets be fair here when Anet said HoT would come free with the next expansion they were selling expansion at $50 Just like back then the expansion included the game for free.

Customers feedback to that was they felt they were being scammed because they felt they were not really getting the base game for free but were rather being forced to pay for a base game they already owned.

In response to that they created a discounted version for people who already owned everything as well as did exactly what they promised IE that with $50 you get everything.

Remember they didnt promise to lower the price for the next expansion only that you’d get everything with the purchase. You cant cherry pick factors to consider.

This is an understandably sore subject for the studio, but I think the studio, especially with Mike O’Brien at the helm, is mature enough to allow the discussion to happen.

I have a bachelors in English lit, got a near perfect score on verbal SATs, tutored college students in reading comprehension….cat me if that quote describes a la carte pricing for expansions. If you are planning to offer a la carte pricing, you describe a la carte pricing. You don’t talk about the importance of keeping players on the same page, only mention a ‘single price’ or stress how innovative you are since a la carte pricing is the industry standard. The quote describes expansions only being available as a bundle and the only way that is a square deal for existing players is if the prior expansions are considered free.

This business some of you are describing where the studio remains true to the quote because $20 + $30 = $50 only makes sense if there is a rule that expansions cost $50. As well, the argument falls apart when the studio releases future expansions and it looks like Anet is set up to deliver expansions regularly.

To be clear, I applaud the studio’s decision to use a la carte pricing for expansions. A la carte pricing for expansions is the industry standard because it is the intuitive form for expansion pricing. A la carte pricing is free of gimmicks, gives the consumer a defined product that they can judge the value of, results in a product line that is easy to navigate and is resistant to a studio’s efforts to pad the price.

I would not describe the change as Anet lying to us. Instead, I would describe it as the studio maturing past the stage where they promise more than they can deliver because they are overconfident in their abilities. I also suspect the studio had less control over the pricing of HoT than PoF and the quote is their effort to rationalize and internalize.

In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.

Which is what they did. It’s $20 more package deal.

This game has ZERO monthly access fee, so I think some of you need to stop complaining about the $30 for an xpac (that took 2 years to create)…

Swagger.1459:

This game has ZERO monthly access fee, so I think some of you need to stop complaining about the $30 for an xpac (that took 2 years to create)…

I’m with this guy. 30 bucks is peanuts for entertainment value you get. If you played 2 years then that’s $1.25 a month to play. If you can’t afford that then get a job for crying out loud.

Me – I’ll be buying multiple expacs asap for me and my family.

Scalyon.7028:

Swagger.1459:

This game has ZERO monthly access fee, so I think some of you need to stop complaining about the $30 for an xpac (that took 2 years to create)…

I’m with this guy. 30 bucks is peanuts for entertainment value you get. If you played 2 years then that’s $1.25 a month to play. If you can’t afford that then get a job for crying out loud.

Me – I’ll be buying multiple expacs asap for me and my family.

hey its me ur brother

Irvine.3487:

hey its me ur brother

+1 for making me LOL for realz…

Swagger.1459:

This game has ZERO monthly access fee, so I think some of you need to stop complaining about the $30 for an xpac (that took 2 years to create)…

It’s not the cash value that is the issue here, it’s the lack of consistency. When you say one thing and then do another… well… you know how that is.

Then again, they did not lie. They just used alternative facts.

I don’t recall at any point ArenaNet stating that HoT would become free with the launch of next expansion… I do recall a lot of players making baseless claims that HoT would become free when the next expansion comes out… ArenaNet stated quite clearly that you will get all expansions and a full license to the base game at a single purchase price of one full game.

Did they lie? Not at all.

$50 is still the price of one full game, and $50 gets you both expansions and a full license to the base game.

What changed? Simple… They LISTENED to us! Now those of us who have the base game and previous expansions DO NOT have to pay the price of one full game just for an expansion, we get the expansion alone at a reduced cost of $30.

Coincidentally, because ArenaNet isn’t making HoT a requirement to PoF, new players can also buy just HoT or just PoF and the base game at the reduced price of $30. But the full game (all expansions) still costs the price of one full game.

Panda.1967:

I don’t recall at any point ArenaNet stating that HoT would become free with the launch of next expansion… I do recall a lot of players making baseless claims that HoT would become free when the next expansion comes out… ArenaNet stated quite clearly that you will get all expansions and a full license to the base game at a single purchase price of one full game.

Did they lie? Not at all.

$50 is still the price of one full game, and $50 gets you both expansions and a full license to the base game.

What changed? Simple… They LISTENED to us! Now those of us who have the base game and previous expansions DO NOT have to pay the price of one full game just for an expansion, we get the expansion alone at a reduced cost of $30.

Coincidentally, because ArenaNet isn’t making HoT a requirement to PoF, new players can also buy just HoT or just PoF and the base game at the reduced price of $30. But the full game (all expansions) still costs the price of one full game.

^ THIS — Finally someone gets it. This expansion is cheaper than the last one and yet people complain… The previous expansion forced players to pay more because it included the base game, THAT was the original debate on this. This time however it is 30$ for the base game and expansion, but is 50$ for the bundle of HoT and PoF and the core game. This expansion release is 40% cheaper than the last one! Let’s stop these ridiculous posts that really just do nothing but give Anet a bad name for something they never said. If something is free, they will say free, if they say bundle, it still doesn’t say free game.

Irvine.3487:

Thats pretty lame. Single purchase price, huh? Very cheeky.

I suspect the problem was the outrage from entitled Core Owners who were expecting a reduced price for Heart of Thorns for having already purchased the base price. So now we can buy Path of Fire for a reduced price if we already have HoT.

So what is the problem?

Yes, I’m sure most of us expected that the purchase of xpac2 would come with HoT based on how HoT was released and the statement they made. But what reasonable person was expecting PoF to be $30 and still include HoT? Going by HoT’s release, I expected a 50$ expansion that would include HoT.

This is clearly better. $50 would still get you both HoT and PoF. Those who already have the former pay less. Those who don’t have it and don’t want it but still want the new xpac also pay less. Yay!

They definitely backpedaled on the statement they made after HoT, no question. But either way you’d be paying $50 for a full package, and now have an option to buy separately. I don’t think there would be a situation where you pay $30 and get both. So it’s “close enough” to satisfy the original expectation and a better deal for those who already have HoT.

That said, if they were planning to do this all along then I’d have preferred that they announce it earlier like during the HoT sales. I would have picked up HoT back then if I had known they would split the price for the next expansion.

They weren’t 100% clear on whether HoT would be included “free” in the next expac, but their statement at the time gave the impression that it would be. It seems quite possible that they intended to do that, but left room in their wording to change to what was announced today. It’s something to roll your eyes at, but as others have said, we’d not be getting PoF for $30 if it included HoT for “free”.

Like MO said, they are selling to existing players, not trying to market to new players that already passed on buying the core game in 2012 and HoT in 2015. Including HoT and raising the price would be trying appeal to those no-buyers once again, at the cost of making existing player feel overcharged to benefit them.

The only part of excluding HoT that I see as being bad is the fact that it is required for gliding. PoF and future content will all have to be designed to be completed without it, which means we won’t be seeing some of the design/mechanics we’ve gotten used to having in HoT/Season 3. It would be nice to see gliding slipped into the core game so it can be used in later expansions, instead of those relying only on whatever new movement mechanics they introduce.

mrstealth.6701:

The only part of excluding HoT that I see as being bad is the fact that it is required for gliding. PoF and future content will all have to be designed to be completed without it, which means we won’t be seeing some of the design/mechanics we’ve gotten used to having in HoT/Season 3. It would be nice to see gliding slipped into the core game so it can be used in later expansions, instead of those relying only on whatever new movement mechanics they introduce.

The new movements from the mounts should do a good job of supplementing gliding for those who don’t have HoT. The Skimmer has the ability to GLIDE short distances even… and is it really so bad that each new area might have different travel systems? Honestly it makes the world feel more alive.

Central Tyria had a vast network of Waypoints that were developed and placed by the Asura. As you moved further from Central Tyria Waypoints become less common place as the areas are more remote. Hense why the Maguuma Jungle has so few way points that they are practically non-existant.

Travel throughout Maguuma was never easy, even before the dragons awoke. So setting up waypoints all around Maguuma would have been impractical not only because it’s so remote and rarely visited, but because transporting the materials would have been too much of a hassle for more than just a few waypoints in select locations.

Move out to the Desert and Elona and you encounter a similar issue… so much of the landscape is barren lands, there’s no real reason to place a million waypoints in the desert. Populated villages and major cities may have waypoints, as well as some important cultural spots. But beyond that you’re really on your own to navigate the desert. Since the desert is a mostly flat land as well, you’re not going to be seeing much use from a glider. The mounts provide superior options for horizontal traversal, but may not be as efficient at lateral movement like the glider was. Of course, they don’t need to be as the terrain is completely different and expected to be completely different.

Sylum.1806:

The ArenaNet team published this back in June 22, 2015:

“We want to be clear about our business model for future expansions now that we are approaching our first paid expansion for Guild Wars 2. We believe that to keep the game dynamic and vibrant with a constantly growing community, it should be as easy as possible for new players to get into Guild Wars 2. For Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns, we didn’t want the core game’s price to be a factor in a new player’s decision to begin playing Guild Wars 2. In the future, if we release further Guild Wars 2 expansions, we plan to offer all of the prior expansions, the core game, and the latest expansion for one single purchase price.

We are committed to our players and believe we remain the single best value in the MMO space. We set out on this journey to challenge the conventions of MMOs, to knockdown the barriers to accessibility, and to fulfill the promise of what online worlds should be. "

You can find the above clarification in full at:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/pre-purchase-community-address/

So…

“Single purchase price”. I suppose that’s accurate. Adding $20.00 to bundle Heart of Thorns together with Path of Fire. It’s still one bundle, one price. But I can’t help but feel like that was a really shady way to sell the idea of offering value to the players.

I was under the impression from that clarification that ArenaNet will always be bundling all previous expansions and the core game with the latest expac at the full retail price of ONE game.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not salty at all since I pre-purchased the core game and Heart of Thorns and am a very happy member of the community. Working in the games industry myself, ArenaNet are my heroes. So imagine my surprise when I learned that Heart of Thorns is going to cost extra.

Maybe a second clarification is in order.

HoT was priced higher then normal expansion price at the price of whole game. They cover it with that statement and explained that new players don’t have to worry about missing content – they got everything if they buy last expansion.

PoF pricing is exactly how HoT should have been priced. Their explanation is that you can still buy whole package for 50 so they did not brake promise, and there is PoF only version.

Question is why there was no HoT only version when it was new?

kristinal.3421:

Question is why there was no HoT only version when it was new?

They made a mistake. They didn’t consider the negative impacts of not offering that option for existing players, and they had to deal with the consequences. With PoF they are showing that they learned from their previous mistake and doing what they should have done with HoT from the start. They can’t go back in time and correct their mistake with HoT, all they can do is learn from the mistake and go forwards with the knowledge they gained from that mistake, as they are now.

I don’t agree with you, Panda. Pls don’t take this personal. I don’t think HoT price was a mistake. Those who pay for it has to deal with consequences now… Look there is PoF only mode made possible.

Is it unintentional or not we can not really know. I have my opinon you have yours. But does it matter? If its unintentional should they explain why is now possible to offer PoF only and where unable to do so with HoT.

Nvidia made a mistake with 970…

Yes, this is clearly Anet learning from their own mistakes.

They were sticking to the $50 price idea back then, so future expansions would probably come with older stuff at that price. Now, we’re still getting a bundle for $50, but they’re giving us the option to only buy the new expansion at a cheaper cost.

Ultimately, this is better fo us players.

Wouldnt suprise me the slightest if this is pre-order + 6 months down the line… then they make a single GW2+HoT+PoF pack for normal full cost.

kristinal.3421:

I don’t agree with you, Panda. Pls don’t take this personal. I don’t think HoT price was a mistake. Those who pay for it has to deal with consequences now… Look there is PoF only mode made possible.

Is it unintentional or not we can not really know. I have my opinon you have yours. But does it matter? If its unintentional should they explain why is now possible to offer PoF only and where unable to do so with HoT.

Nvidia made a mistake with 970…

It’s not an opinion… ANet stated it was a mistake on their part after the backlash from the community on the pricing. They didn’t reduce the price at the time because of another potential outlash from the large portion of the playerbase that had already purchased the expansion at the full price. Instead they offered some consolation bonuses and made assurances that they would do better with the next expansion release and more recently reduced the price of HoT to reflect the new pricing model that they intended to move forwards with.

Could they have reduced the price of HoT after the public outlash over the initial price? Sure, but they would have had to find some way to refund a portion of the original purchase price to everyone who had bought it to avoid a second outlash. A direct refund would have been impossible as many bought physical copies from retailers, or bought their digital copy from a 3rd party. They could have granted everyone who bought it at the full price a free upgrade (base to Deluxe, Deluxe to Ultimate) but then those who bought Ultimate would still feel slighted unless they got yet another pack of Gems… they could even have given everyone who already bought the expansion at the full price $20 worth of gems and called it a day… There are a lot of could haves… but ultimately they decided that the best course of action at the time was to apologize and offer a free character slot ($10 value) to everyone who had bought it already and everyone who has the base game who was going to buy it.

It was a mistake, they admitted it was a mistake, and they attempted to make amends for the mistake. With PoF they are moving forwards with knowledge of their mistake and making a solid attempt to avoid making the same mistake a second time.

http://massivelyop.com/2015/06/22/arenanet-addresses-guild-wars-2-pre-purchase-controversy/
I quote:

Finally, ArenaNet said that all future Guild Wars 2 expansion purchases will include the core game and previous expansions bundled together.

So paying less and having options is bad now?

As I have posted before, the big problem with this business model is that going forward, we will have alot of community segregation.

Just imagine the next time you’re about to do the new raid (when it comes out), and you ask your guildmates to gather up and get ready— and all the replies you get are “I only have core game”, or "I only have HoT’. Or maybe you’re going to Verdant Brink raid and the answers you get are “I only have PoF, I didn’t buy HoT”.

This may not seem like such a big deal—afterall, you can just find other people. But what if those people don’t exist ? Look at how dead some of the HoT and LS3 maps already are, now imagine that the majority of the player base is going to move away from them, good luck ever doing anything difficult on them.

Maybe-MAYBE if the game used a different balance model, but it targets groups and group content like Dragon’s Stand will become… well, how long do you expect just the people who don’t want to buy HoT to carry the entirety of the game that [those of us who are upgrading to PoF] are leaving behind?

This model will become unsustainable after only a few years… we already have people who can’t do champion HPs, extend that to entire maps.

I’m not sure what people are complaining about?? Why should there be one price for both new, and existing players? It makes sense to be able to purchase the expansion standalone, and then include HOT as well if you want in a single bundle, which is what they have done. The Core game is also free so you can just buy HOT or POF as a new player, or both.

More choice is better than 1 price for all.

Dawdler.8521:

Wouldnt suprise me the slightest if this is pre-order + 6 months down the line… then they make a single GW2+HoT+PoF pack for normal full cost.

6 months is not terribly unreasonable for a discount. I am more concerned that we will see HoT bundled in as soon as pre-purchase is over. It’s not unprecedented as this is basically the same kind of time frame that we had for HoT pre-purchase and then suddenly F2P. Did Anet really learn from the last experience? Now I’m not so sure.

I’m on board for PoF but I’ll have to mull over pre-purchasing with HoT.

Panda.1967:

The new movements from the mounts should do a good job of supplementing gliding for those who don’t have HoT. The Skimmer has the ability to GLIDE short distances even… and is it really so bad that each new area might have different travel systems? Honestly it makes the world feel more alive.

Having new movement systems is fine, especially with the way mounts appear to be done in PoF. We don’t have to search for and pick up items to use that prevent normal combat, as we did with oakheart vines and Zephyerite skills. It wouldn’t really make sense for movement systems like those or thermal tubes to show up Elona. But gliding is already part of the core game (provided HoT is unlocked), and something our characters have learned how to do with just a carry-along tool. It’s not exclusive to any specific area, and makes sense to be usable game-wide.

We will be able to glide in PoF, but the content there and going forward will have to be designed as if we can’t. The same seems likely to happen with mounts in future expansions. It’s not a big deal, it’s just a shame to see tools taken out of consideration in design because access to them remains locked to certain expansions. It would be nice for central systems like these to be made available to everyone with future releases, just to keep the options open for making new content.

I understand your points i honestly do, but my 2 cents on the topic are this game has unmatched quality and fun for the price they are asking (which if you want the standard version is half of most retail games now a days). There is also no sub fee and everything in the cash shop is very fair and not required for gameplay. I’m an MMO junkie and ive played pretty much all of them, i recently came to gw2 i had 2 days left of wow time when i bought hot not knowing if i was going to stick around, well for the first time in 6 years ive let my WoW sub expire and have no plans to re-sub for the time being (atleast until 7.3 because i want to see where wow is potentially going and if i even want to play it anymore). My point is there isn’t anything like this game on the market with that being said if A-Net was only worried about making money they could 360 on everything they said for the worse if they truly wanted to (although it would be a horrible decision and probably kill the game) and make it very hard for you to progress without spending money in the gem store ect, i think what they are doing is to benefit everyone in the most fair way possible. This game doesn’t have nearly as many players as say wow and no monthly fee they have to make money some other way and i think the way they are is respectable especially in this genre. I’m not bashing you or anything just maybe hoping i can get you to see a more logical side of it rather then kitten they are trying to get an extra 20 dollars off each person or whatever.

Hannelore.8153:

As I have posted before, the big problem with this business model is that going forward, we will have alot of community segregation.

What alternative do you propose?

• ANet tried charging one price for Core + HoT
• ANet is charging a lower price for PoF and a discount for HoT, with the total price being the same as the previous expac.

How does ANet make enough from expacs to keep funding LS + new features + the next expac without charging for all parts of the game?

Hannelore.8153:

This model will become unsustainable after only a few years… we already have people who can’t do champion HPs, extend that to entire maps.

If I agreed that champion HPs weren’t doable now, I might be worried. They were designed for groups and they get done by individuals and small groups (as well as large ones).

More importantly, it’s hard to know what’s sustainable or not without much to go on. How about if we wait to see how PoF affects HoT and LS3 maps and whether ANet responds to those effects? What if PoF brings in more new people than HoT did and what if some of those people like it well enough to buy HoT? Then we’d end up with more people, not less.

I think it’s premature to start worrying before we even know how PoF does.

I really don’t think the HoT maps will have less players per instance after the expansion. Even the DS meta is done all the time. No matter which time I choose to do it, there are more people joining the squad than the map can hold. And the event never failed for me.

For doing HP champs, you don’t need 6 full map instances. It doesn’t matter if only 100 people want to play in Auric Basin or 1000. I’m convinced that out of ten thousands of players, a couple of dozens want to play each of the HoT maps at a time. Right now, we probably have several squads doing the Chak Gerent meta simultanously, on different instances. This is not some indie game that’s only played by 150 people. If all people who fear they cannot do HP champs because everybody plays the expansion gather on a map, it will probably be full.

I don’t understand the point. Even though they stated that they will want new players to have easy access with new expansions they kind of fulfilled that promise. With that in mind newcomers might have to pay a bit more for all the expansion but on the other hand they don’t need them to play. So the direction kinda changed from the original statement but actually makes more sense to me.

When HoT was released this forum (and Reddit and Facebook and 3rd party sites) was full of people saying “But I already have the base game, where can I get just HoT on it’s own instead of buying both together?” and then being angry when they were told they couldn’t.

So they fixed it. If you already have HoT you just buy PoF, if you don’t you get the base game + HoT + PoF for the same price as a new game.

It’s unfortunate that there doesn’t seem to be a way for them to explain that which ensures every single person feels like they’re the one getting the best deal, but that’s life.

This thread shows the pain that devs have to go through.

Create an expansion and charges one price for the expansion+core where most others charge full price for both. People complain. The devs listened to the feedback and gave an option to buy all expansions+core for a single price or buy just the expansion for a cheaper price. People still complain.

I’m just glad that I found this post. I KNEW I had read that post from Arenanet back when HoT first came out. Hell, I purposefully held off on getting HoT because I wasn’t all that interested in what it had to offer, and I figured I could easily wait for the next expansion.
I thought I was going crazy when I saw the ‘pay more for the bundle’ but I see I’m not the only one angered by this.
And because Arenanet was shady with how they handled it, I’m likely not going to buy this expansion either. Arenanet won’t get a dime more from me and I will continue to play for free. Eventually all the expansions will be dirt cheap anyways. I can wait….

Yea they changed it, this is good though as it no longer screws veteran players by making us pay double, now the expansion actually costs as much as an expansion.

Hedake.3859:

I’m just glad that I found this post. I KNEW I had read that post from Arenanet back when HoT first came out. Hell, I purposefully held off on getting HoT because I wasn’t all that interested in what it had to offer, and I figured I could easily wait for the next expansion.
I thought I was going crazy when I saw the ‘pay more for the bundle’ but I see I’m not the only one angered by this.
And because Arenanet was shady with how they handled it, I’m likely not going to buy this expansion either. Arenanet won’t get a dime more from me and I will continue to play for free. Eventually all the expansions will be dirt cheap anyways. I can wait….

I’m confused by why you think this is ‘shady’. They said they’d offer a bundle; they’re offering a bundle. I admit that I assumed that what they meant was that HoT would be included with the price of PoF…

But as it turns out, this is better: instead of being asked to spend US$50 for both, I only have to spend $30 for the one I’m missing. In your case, you can still spend US$50 for both — the exact same price you were reluctant to spend 2 years ago gets you both PoF and HoT.

So how again is that “shady”?