Guild Wars 2

I purchased the CD key through a cheaper 3rd party and do not plan on buying any micro-transactions items unless it is offered through google wallet or some other 3rd party gateway. After all this, me… who hasn’t even entered my info to anet, would never trust them with my card details after knowing of these practices.

It’s that kind of negativity and bad vibe, no trust from consumers that lead to company down falls. I hope Anet make the right decisions on this one. Good luck to all of you who are at the mercy of them holding your card info, I’d flip my lid if i was in your situation, I’d personally cancel my card at my bank though and get them to re-issue you a new one.

Bluest.5123:

No it isn’t! there has been people that have been compromised already through the account being hacked and the CC stored has been used to purchased more gems to buy more gold coins,that’s the point you are missing.

If you’re not happy (which quite frankly if you want your CC info removed, that request should be fulfilled.) Then you should cancel your card (issue a new one) and do a charge back on any payments made to ArenaNet.

zaxziakohl.5243:

so your telling me they don’t have to pay fees for internet, data center upkeep, wages for employees who work on said data centers, the maintenance and upkeep, and utilities for the places housing the data centers….need I continue. It’s very possible that because EU wages are higher, and possibly the cost of services mentioned above, you pay more….

the sheer power needed to maintain the data centers alone would need regular income, and lets face it, the game purchase is a one time deal. So they make millions of dollars (which they spent in making the game) by the sales. They worked on the game for 5 years, so don’t forget to include the wages of all the hundreds of employees and contractors working on the game for a 5 year period. Now you can subtract all that from the profit made from initial sales. Don’t forget to also subtract initial server/data center cost and set up.

Your right, the gems don’t cost them anything, but all the things that keep the game running do. Every second the game is up, is money out of their pocket.

Simply, don’t expect customers to pick up your companies short fall if you fail to make a profit from game sales its self (Note GW2 is 20-30% more expensive out of the gate than regular games and MMOs). Now tell me how many people buy MMOs and keeping playing after their one month free sub. So with that in mind, GW2 is set to make more money using a higher market value of its game/box purchases than any MMO would do in it’s first 3-4months of operation out of the gate, some pick up and go on with it but many turn and fail, take Star wars the old republic, it soared to 1.4m out of the gate but many didn’t continue playing after the first month, now it’s going F2P this year. So judging from all this data, ANet priced the game initially to cover all expected costs and the gems are an added bonus to their profits… every business has a plan and one does not simply hope people buy gems in game. Lastly, the fluctuation in international pricing of virtual currency is going to be very off putting to the consumer as they will feel very ripped off, regardless of any excuses forth coming.

Gems are virtual goods and micro transactions within a game, it’s not like it costs them to “conjure” up these gems, buying the game is what pays for all staff hours into it. So therefore gems are extra gain, why would they charge more in different countries that is digital, virtual and costs nothing to make, even if there was extra taxes for allowing international custom on this, they wouldn’t be selling at cost price or lower, they’d merely be matching their prices globally. Since gems have zero cost price, it’s not like they have to pay to conjure them up as I say. Corporate greed always forces companies into squeezing as much as they can from people, just the nature of the business. Gaming markets/consumers are at risk of this just as much as any other sector, if not more so due to the ease of distributing virtual goods.