Guild Wars 2

I tried the search feature but didnt find any reference to gems usage.

I havent found the expansion in the gem store, only the preorder using a credit card.
I have two $25 (2,000 gem) cards from XMAS.
Can I use those to pre-order the expansion?
If not, why not? Just put the preorder in the gem store for 4,000 gems and I’ll do it.

I’m sorry I don’t have the source offhand, but they stated the expansion would not be available for purchase with gems.

Edit Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Have-to-buy-HoT-to-create-a-Revenant/first#post4867494

yeah you can not buy hot with gems at all . cash only other wise you are all out of luck . and only way that will happen is maybe in 3 more years then maybe you can get hot with gem,s .but as right now not going to happen . cash only sales is only way to get hot.

Because then people could convert gold to gems to buy the expansion. They are a company they do require real money at somepoint to keep producing updates.

There still needs to be a system in place for gem cards to be used. That said they won’t because that won’t artificially inflate their revenues…

Zypher.7609:

Because then people could convert gold to gems to buy the expansion. They are a company they do require real money at somepoint to keep producing updates.

yup and some of us are all ok with that as long as we get our moneys worth from it. and more

Zypher.7609:

Because then people could convert gold to gems to buy the expansion. They are a company they do require real money at somepoint to keep producing updates.

You do know that every gem you buy with gold is a gem some other player purchased with real money and converted into gold, right? Gold-to-gem conversion isn’t magically producing gems out of thin air – you’re selling your gold in a marketplace to people with gems, who have in turn given money to ArenaNet for those gems.

Frankly, I’m amazed gold-to-gems people still do it – you guys lose so badly on that transaction it’s unbelievable. I mean, thanks a ton for taking that gigantic hit – I’ve gotten some killer deals on gems-to-gold conversion for it, so hey awesome! – but I’m frequently amazed by how eager people are to just throw away their time like that.

Anyways.

Heart of Thorns isn’t available through the gemstore and will not be at any point. I believe it’s part of a security measure, though I could well be mistaken. Could also be that the unlock code doesn’t work well with gem purchases, though that seems an awfully thin and largely unjustified supposition. The main thing, I suppose, is simply to ensure that everyone pays their shot. Which is a little weird – if somebody wants to spend hundreds of hours earning the gold they need to convert into Heart of Thorns, I don’t know why they shouldn’t be allowed to do so.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

…snip

Frankly, I’m amazed gold-to-gems people still do it – you guys lose so badly on that transaction it’s unbelievable. I mean, thanks a ton for taking that gigantic hit – I’ve gotten some killer deals on gems-to-gold conversion for it, so hey awesome! – but I’m frequently amazed by how eager people are to just throw away their time like that.
Anyways. snip…

Exactly, I have to date made over 500 gold off those wings just by having 10000 gems saved up to convert to gold when these sales hits. About a week later I purchase my gems back and even with the exchange loss I still pocket some good gold.

To the OP, Paying your employees with gems would not keep the company afloat for long. To quote Cash Conover from Barbary Coast circa 1975 (yes I’m old) “cash makes no enemies”.

It wouldn’t be a very good business decision, so many people could pay with gems and then the company gets no new income. Remember they hand out a lot of gems every week with PvP and other give aways and people could just transfer tons of gold into gems too.

This means the company cannot predict their income easily and so cannot plan for the future.

You can upgrade from the basic HoT to the deluxe edition for gems but you have to buy HoT with cash.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Zypher.7609:

Because then people could convert gold to gems to buy the expansion. They are a company they do require real money at somepoint to keep producing updates.

You do know that every gem you buy with gold is a gem some other player purchased with real money and converted into gold, right? Gold-to-gem conversion isn’t magically producing gems out of thin air – you’re selling your gold in a marketplace to people with gems, who have in turn given money to ArenaNet for those gems.

You do know that every gem you buy with gold doesn’t generate any revenue for ANet — as you correctly stated, ANet already received the money for those gems from someone else.

• In the current scenario, person A buys 5,336 gems for US$69 and converts it to gold, giving person B 4,000 gems (since 15% is sunk via fees from each transaction). Player B also buys the expansion for US$50. Net revenue for ANet: $119.
• In the fantasy universe in which gems are usable to buy the expansion, person A buys 5,336 gems for US$69 and person B gets 4,000 gems, with which they purchase the expansion. Net revenue for ANet: $69.

tl;dr ANet loses a considerable source of revenue if they allow people to use gems to purchase the expansion.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You do know that every gem you buy with gold doesn’t generate any revenue for ANet — as you correctly stated, ANet already received the money for those gems from someone else.

The end result is the same.

Someone, somewhere, spent fifty bucks on gems. Someone, somewhere, got fifty bucks’ worth of use out of those gems.

No ‘free money’ is ever generated by gold-to-gems or gems-to-gold conversion. One way or another, every single gem that’s used in GW2 has been paid for by someone. It may not be the same someone who eventually uses the gem, but that’s irrelevant.

If someone wanted to buy 4k gems and Heart of Thorns, as in your Example A, then they’d do that. If they wanted to buy just 4k gems, or just Heart of Thorns, they’d do that. Buying Heart of Thorns for 4k gems means that your Example B missed out on whatever Example A’s extra 4k gems bought him, until and unless B buys 4k more gems, either directly or via gold-to-gem exchange.

At which point ArenaNet makes its same $119.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You do know that every gem you buy with gold doesn’t generate any revenue for ANet — as you correctly stated, ANet already received the money for those gems from someone else.

The end result is the same.

Someone, somewhere, spent fifty bucks on gems. Someone, somewhere, got fifty bucks’ worth of use out of those gems.

No ‘free money’ is ever generated by gold-to-gems or gems-to-gold conversion. One way or another, every single gem that’s used in GW2 has been paid for by someone. It may not be the same someone who eventually uses the gem, but that’s irrelevant.

If someone wanted to buy 4k gems and Heart of Thorns, as in your Example A, then they’d do that. If they wanted to buy just 4k gems, or just Heart of Thorns, they’d do that. Buying Heart of Thorns for 4k gems means that your Example B missed out on whatever Example A’s extra 4k gems bought him, until and unless B buys 4k more gems, either directly or via gold-to-gem exchange.

At which point ArenaNet makes its same $119.

You’re missing the point.. Any previously bought gems have already been taken onto Anet’s balance sheet – they release HoT expecting returns on that investment through purchasing but if everyone uses all their gems which have been gained previously that means no new income (I myself have 1500 gems sitting on my account – none of which I payed money for).

Its a business, you can’t think they haven’t made assumptions on HoT sales and staffed/planned projects accordingly – your request destroys those numbers.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You do know that every gem you buy with gold doesn’t generate any revenue for ANet — as you correctly stated, ANet already received the money for those gems from someone else.

The end result is the same.

Someone, somewhere, spent fifty bucks on gems. Someone, somewhere, got fifty bucks’ worth of use out of those gems.

No ‘free money’ is ever generated by gold-to-gems or gems-to-gold conversion. One way or another, every single gem that’s used in GW2 has been paid for by someone. It may not be the same someone who eventually uses the gem, but that’s irrelevant.

If someone wanted to buy 4k gems and Heart of Thorns, as in your Example A, then they’d do that. If they wanted to buy just 4k gems, or just Heart of Thorns, they’d do that. Buying Heart of Thorns for 4k gems means that your Example B missed out on whatever Example A’s extra 4k gems bought him, until and unless B buys 4k more gems, either directly or via gold-to-gem exchange.

At which point ArenaNet makes its same $119.

The end result is not at all the same. Any person buying the expac with gems in your scenario hasn’t spent any RL cash at all — that $50 is not going to ANet. ANet already has money from the first player for gems and (if they buy it) for the expac. In your scenario, they only get paid for one game + gems; in ANet’s scenario (i.e. the current situation), they get paid for two games + gems.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

You do know that every gem you buy with gold is a gem some other player purchased with real money and converted into gold, right? Gold-to-gem conversion isn’t magically producing gems out of thin air – you’re selling your gold in a marketplace to people with gems, who have in turn given money to ArenaNet for those gems.

Well, there’s two problems with that:

First is that ANet, like any other MMO developer, is expected to report higher earnings associated with a release of an expansion. All the money made from gem sales are reported on the month they’re made, so if they let players spend gems on the expansion that can’t be reported as an earning (not legally, anyway) and would mute expansion earnings. The players aren’t the only people that ANet has to keep happy and poor expansion revenue could be very bad for the prospects of any future expansions.

Second is that the gem-gold exchange would be insane. Gold-gem exchange already spiked to near 100g from wings alone, think about how bad it would be if the entire expansion was made available in the gem store; can you imagine what kind of impression that would leave on new players who were lured in by HoT if they see exchange rates at 100, 200, 300 gold per 400 gems? That would price them (and a lot of existing players) out of pretty much everything in the gem store and effectively make it a cash-only shop (gold-gem rates only go down if someone sells gems for gold, not if they buy gems with cash and spends it on store items directly, which is dumb but apparently how it works). Customer acquisition is just as important as customer retention, a hyperinflated gem exchange wouldn’t help the former and only a part of the latter, so the drawback outweighs the benefit.

Making the expansion available on the gem store would be more bad than good, for both ANet and players in general.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You do know that every gem you buy with gold doesn’t generate any revenue for ANet — as you correctly stated, ANet already received the money for those gems from someone else.

I thought the exchange was just a pool of gold and a pool of gems that players pay into/purchase from at prices based on the size of one compared to the other…? They weren’t empty at launch. Gems cost ~50s/100 when I started about two weeks in.

I’m not saying the expansion should be gem-storable. I don’t feel strongly one way or the other, and there are good arguments for keeping it cash-only. What I’m trying to knock on the head is the super-popular and completely nonfactual perception that gold-ing your gems means you just got free gems.

There ain’t no such thing as free gems. If you buy them with gold, ArenaNet’s made their money off of them same as if you’d bought them with money. It boggles my mind that people are still too dense to realize that.

Lhos.1643:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

You do know that every gem you buy with gold doesn’t generate any revenue for ANet — as you correctly stated, ANet already received the money for those gems from someone else.

I thought the exchange was just a pool of gold and a pool of gems that players pay into/purchase from at prices based on the size of one compared to the other…? They weren’t empty at launch. Gems cost ~50s/100 when I started about two weeks in.

Yes, the exchange is a pool of gems.

• When player A buys gems from the exchange with gold, they don’t add any revenue for ANet.
• When player B spends cash for gems, they do add revenue. They don’t add gems to the exchange. That only happens if they exchange their gems for gold, increasing the supply (and lowering the exchange rate a barely noticeable amount).

DevilLordLaser.8619:

There ain’t no such thing as free gems. If you buy them with gold, ArenaNet’s made their money off of them same as if you’d bought them with money. It boggles my mind that people are still too dense to realize that.

You are still missing half of the transactions.

• Yes, people who buy gems with RL cash generate revenue for ANet. And yes, others can exchange gold for those gems.
• No, people who exchange gold for those gems do not generate revenue — that revenue was already received.

Your underlying assumption is that just as much money is going into ANet’s coffers, even if only one person is spending actual money, which doesn’t reflect how it plays out. In order for that to be true, the gem-buying person would have to spend enough for two players and (on average) that isn’t so.

tl;dr ANet won’t ever enable game or expac purchase for gems because it means a significant loss of revenue for them.

DevilLordLaser.8619:

I’m not saying the expansion should be gem-storable. I don’t feel strongly one way or the other, and there are good arguments for keeping it cash-only. What I’m trying to knock on the head is the super-popular and completely nonfactual perception that gold-ing your gems means you just got free gems.

There ain’t no such thing as free gems. If you buy them with gold, ArenaNet’s made their money off of them same as if you’d bought them with money. It boggles my mind that people are still too dense to realize that.

The gems a player buys for gold are free from their perspective, other than the work involved to get gold.

However it was another player who first bought those gems with cash and sold them to the exchange for gold.

For the expansion they want every player to pay cash. However they did throw players a bone with an upgrade from standard to deluxe edition in the store for a premium of gems, 2400 which is $30€ vs $25€ if you pre-purchase/buy online with cash.

Other games sell their expansions for cash shop currency. I am disappointed that Anet has decided not to. I will make sure that no one buys me or my kids Gem cards for gifts anymore. That will be a revenue loss to Anet.

Zypher.7609:

Because then people could convert gold to gems to buy the expansion. They are a company they do require real money at somepoint to keep producing updates.

I believe thats not an excuse, because people buy gems (who dont wish to greed for gold) and buy gold with it, from players who greed and get gold.

Thats how the money flows. Its not a money damage or something. The only problem I see, if they did that, it will cost allot of gold to get 400-800-1600-2000 gems!! I noticed that each time they add a cool item or offer in gemstore, gold/gem exchange rate increases dramatically.

I am a new player and when I first logged in, the exchange rate was 65 gold for 400 gems. Durring the feather offer, it went up to 114 gold for 400 gems!!! Now its 95

its like a bitcoin.

dndhatcher.1769:

Other games sell their expansions for cash shop currency. I am disappointed that Anet has decided not to. I will make sure that no one buys me or my kids Gem cards for gifts anymore. That will be a revenue loss to Anet.

Those “other games” that allow expansions to be bought with cash shop store currency — do they allow players to convert their in-game currency to cash shop currency? If they do, they are losing more money that way than by people deciding not spend cash any longer because they are “disappointed” by this decision.

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Zypher.7609:

Because then people could convert gold to gems to buy the expansion. They are a company they do require real money at somepoint to keep producing updates.

You do know that every gem you buy with gold is a gem some other player purchased with real money and converted into gold, right? Gold-to-gem conversion isn’t magically producing gems out of thin air – you’re selling your gold in a marketplace to people with gems, who have in turn given money to ArenaNet for those gems.

You do know that every gem you buy with gold doesn’t generate any revenue for ANet — as you correctly stated, ANet already received the money for those gems from someone else.

• In the current scenario, person A buys 5,336 gems for US$69 and converts it to gold, giving person B 4,000 gems (since 15% is sunk via fees from each transaction). Player B also buys the expansion for US$50. Net revenue for ANet: $119.
• In the fantasy universe in which gems are usable to buy the expansion, person A buys 5,336 gems for US$69 and person B gets 4,000 gems, with which they purchase the expansion. Net revenue for ANet: $69.

tl;dr ANet loses a considerable source of revenue if they allow people to use gems to purchase the expansion.

This. “somebody else bought the gems with real money” isn’t an excuse for a gold farmer to get it for free by conversion.

BIGHARSHNESS.3510:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

DevilLordLaser.8619:

Zypher.7609:

Because then people could convert gold to gems to buy the expansion. They are a company they do require real money at somepoint to keep producing updates.

You do know that every gem you buy with gold is a gem some other player purchased with real money and converted into gold, right? Gold-to-gem conversion isn’t magically producing gems out of thin air – you’re selling your gold in a marketplace to people with gems, who have in turn given money to ArenaNet for those gems.

You do know that every gem you buy with gold doesn’t generate any revenue for ANet — as you correctly stated, ANet already received the money for those gems from someone else.

• In the current scenario, person A buys 5,336 gems for US$69 and converts it to gold, giving person B 4,000 gems (since 15% is sunk via fees from each transaction). Player B also buys the expansion for US$50. Net revenue for ANet: $119.
• In the fantasy universe in which gems are usable to buy the expansion, person A buys 5,336 gems for US$69 and person B gets 4,000 gems, with which they purchase the expansion. Net revenue for ANet: $69.

tl;dr ANet loses a considerable source of revenue if they allow people to use gems to purchase the expansion.

This. “somebody else bought the gems with real money” isn’t an excuse for a gold farmer to get it for free by conversion.

WOW is going to do that, in the new expansion, you will pay ur subs and stuff with ingame currency and with ingame gold (if you are good of getting it).

Anet did that, to avoid/eliminate(?) illegal gold farming. And this somebody who payed these money to get gems and get gold (with Anet service), HE WOULDNT buy these gems , if Anet didnt gave this service from the first place. So there is no loss of revenue.

It is just some people who play allot and some others who pay allot.

Oyranos.9750:

And this somebody who payed these money to get gems and get gold (with Anet service), HE WOULDNT buy these gems , if Anet didnt gave this service from the first place. So there is no loss of revenue.

It is just some people who play allot and some others who pay allot.

There is most definitely a loss of revenue:

• Scenario 1: Person A buys the expansion with cash and buys gems with cash, selling the gems for gold. Person B buys gems with gold to pay for expansion. Total received: $119 = $119 from A (50 + 69) and 0 from B.
• Scenario 2: A buys the expansion with cash and buys gems with cash. And person B buys the expansion with cash: Total received: $169, the same 119 from A and another 50 from B.

A is always going to want to sell gems for gold, so ANet gets that money in both scenarios. (Player A doesn’t care what others use the gems for; they just want the gold.)

Put another way, players would have to buy 40% more gems (using them or selling them for gold) in order to get the same amount of RL cash, if they allow us to upgrade using gems. Even if the gem:gold ratio increased to 50g/100 gems, I doubt if we’d see a 40% net increase (more likely, we’d see a drop, with some players reluctant to spend at all). Maybe some day in the future, it will be a viable tool for a GW2 expansion. For HoT, it’s not.

tl;dr there’s a huge drop in revenue if players can purchase the upgrade using gems.