Guild Wars 2

I know they said they wouldn’t, but here’s the idea:

Sell it for significantly more than 50 dollar’s worth of gems (maybe 100 dollars worth?). Players then choose their price, some paying full price, some only converting gold to gems, but many converting some gold and buying some gems. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination

There’s also the added benefit that it populates the world as players work towards making gold to offset some of that gem cost.

Any economists care to comment? (By the way, does the dev John Smith still show up in the forums anymore?)

Arenanet needs to make RL money. It’s used to pay their programmers and artists so you have a game to play, they cannot spend farmed gold at their local convenience store, so no not for gems. Just CASH.

Else you will not have a game to play in a couple of months. due to all ppl making your game starving from hunger and not being able to pay the fuel to drive to their work or they may just freeze to death under bridges due to their houses being repo-ed.

Yes, money makes the world go round, also Tyria in this case.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Arenanet needs to make RL money. It’s used to pay their programmers and artists so you have a game to play, they cannot spend farmed gold at their local convenience store, so no not for gems. Just CASH.

Else you will not have a game to play in a couple of months. due to all ppl making your game starving from hunger and not being able to pay the fuel to drive to their work or they may just freeze to death under bridges due to their houses being repo-ed.

Yes, money makes the world go round, also Tyria in this case.

but but.. gems in the game are poured in by players who purchased them for real money anyway…..

That would only serve to cause the gem-gold rate to explode like a baby seal in a microwave.

If ANet wants to charge $50 for an expansion with so little content, but with the caveat that additional associated content will be rolled out following it, then what they should do is make the basic edition include x amount of gems.

So say it’s only $20 worth of content in the expansion, we’ll pay $50 and have $30 worth of gems included, then as more HoT-exclusive material is released we can choose to unlock it with those gems. Or squander it buying pet rocks.

ANet gets their $50 up front, we pay fair value for the expansion, and the remaining amount we paid goes to what we choose (if we waste it all on pet rocks, we can pay ANet another $30 for the gems when the additional HoT content rolls out). Win-win-win.

Pandaman.4758:

So say it’s only $20 worth of content in the expansion, we’ll pay $50 and have $30 worth of gems included, then as more HoT-exclusive material is released we can choose to unlock it with those gems. Or squander it buying pet rocks.

ANet gets their $50 up front, we pay fair value for the expansion, and the remaining amount we paid goes to what we choose (if we waste it all on pet rocks, we can pay ANet another $30 for the gems when the additional HoT content rolls out). Win-win-win.

Sounds good — for maybe a more trustworthy gaming company — I don’t think I’d trust Anet’s promises to follow through on future content.

This sounds like a terrible idea.

1. Arena-net want to make money out of this expansion. Allowing players to bypass this would be terrible business strategy. When it comes down to it, A-net and NCsoft are businesses- they are here to make money, not to conveniently hand out their content for no real-life cost.

-A counter argument for this could be that such a strategy would drive up the in-game gold-to-gem price, simply because there would be even more demand for gems. This would result in more people buying gems with real money because gold-to-gem price would be extortionate. However, I doubt that this would make-up for the profit that would’ve otherwise been obtained through regular purchase of the expansion.

2. For me, this is the most important point, and there are a number of levels to it. You’d be giving the people who are ridiculously rich in-game to have a significant financial benefit over those who are not.

-This is simply unfair. Having mountains of gold does not define somebody as being a good player. In most cases, it means that a player has either been lucky or knows how to flip the trading post. Currently, gold only benefits players as they could buy aesthetic items or convenience items, meaning they have no real advantage over people who have less gold. Being able to buy an expansion with no financial cost is quite significant compared to being able to buy an outfit or some gathering tools for “free”.

-I could delve into many nuances of this idea, but I think you’ve got the point. Either way, I’m fairly sure that this would be against A-net’s ethos. It would also make many players upset: the game is meant to be casual, so why do people who grind gold/play the TP ultimately get the real-term advantage?

-Another counter-argument. It would be a great gold-sink, mainly affecting those with enough gold to consider purchasing the expansion with gems (i.e. the “1%-ers”). It would be a short-term fix though, I’m sure the “1%-ers” would be able to earn the gold back fairly fast.

Lord Kuru.3685:

Pandaman.4758:

So say it’s only $20 worth of content in the expansion, we’ll pay $50 and have $30 worth of gems included, then as more HoT-exclusive material is released we can choose to unlock it with those gems. Or squander it buying pet rocks.

ANet gets their $50 up front, we pay fair value for the expansion, and the remaining amount we paid goes to what we choose (if we waste it all on pet rocks, we can pay ANet another $30 for the gems when the additional HoT content rolls out). Win-win-win.

Sounds good — for maybe a more trustworthy gaming company — I don’t think I’d trust Anet’s promises to follow through on future content.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say ANet is untrustworthy, but even if that were the case 2400 gems could still be spent on other gem store products even if something shiny distracts the devs and they forget to update HoT until after they make underwater combat viable.

While it would make a good gold sink, it would also cause the gold to gem price to balloon.

Crimson Clouds.4853:

This sounds like a terrible idea.

1. Arena-net want to make money out of this expansion. Allowing players to bypass this would be terrible business strategy. When it comes down to it, A-net and NCsoft are businesses- they are here to make money, not to conveniently hand out their content for no real-life cost.

-A counter argument for this could be that such a strategy would drive up the in-game gold-to-gem price, simply because there would be even more demand for gems. This would result in more people buying gems with real money because gold-to-gem price would be extortionate. However, I doubt that this would make-up for the profit that would’ve otherwise been obtained through regular purchase of the expansion.

2. For me, this is the most important point, and there are a number of levels to it. You’d be giving the people who are ridiculously rich in-game to have a significant financial benefit over those who are not.

-This is simply unfair. Having mountains of gold does not define somebody as being a good player. In most cases, it means that a player has either been lucky or knows how to flip the trading post. Currently, gold only benefits players as they could buy aesthetic items or convenience items, meaning they have no real advantage over people who have less gold. Being able to buy an expansion with no financial cost is quite significant compared to being able to buy an outfit or some gathering tools for “free”.

-I could delve into many nuances of this idea, but I think you’ve got the point. Either way, I’m fairly sure that this would be against A-net’s ethos. It would also make many players upset: the game is meant to be casual, so why do people who grind gold/play the TP ultimately get the real-term advantage?

-Another counter-argument. It would be a great gold-sink, mainly affecting those with enough gold to consider purchasing the expansion with gems (i.e. the “1%-ers”). It would be a short-term fix though, I’m sure the “1%-ers” would be able to earn the gold back fairly fast.

It works really well for grocery stores (coupons).

A lot of people are simply not going to buy at full price. So either Anet loses their sale altogether, or these people wait for sales — but it’s better to get their money now: who knows when the sales come whether they’d still be interested in the game. People are generally happier as well since they always feel like they got a deal.

And if you’re really worried about people having too much gold, you can always solve this the Anet way: create a new currency! You get this new currency playing parts of the game Anet needs to be more populated (i.e. PvP). In short, Anet pays you to prop up the failing parts of their game.

azizul.8469:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Arenanet needs to make RL money. It’s used to pay their programmers and artists so you have a game to play, they cannot spend farmed gold at their local convenience store, so no not for gems. Just CASH.

Else you will not have a game to play in a couple of months. due to all ppl making your game starving from hunger and not being able to pay the fuel to drive to their work or they may just freeze to death under bridges due to their houses being repo-ed.

Yes, money makes the world go round, also Tyria in this case.

but but.. gems in the game are poured in by players who purchased them for real money anyway…..

You seem to be forgetting you can just farm gold and buy gems, or be a flipper and get unlimited gems.

This will not provide income to the companya and as such it is illogical to provide an expansion for gems.

I’d also see ppl convert all their gold to gems and gold to gem pizes going to the roof, making it very intersting for ppl with worng intentions to buy a couple of hundred dollars worth of gems to becom and instant millionaire, ingame.