Runes of Magic US / AU

It helps to first discuss the nature of micro transactions and how they are marketed towards a very specific customer segment.

In general within the gaming industry, the majority of revenues come from 1.5% of the player base (mobile monetization report 2014). These big spenders, known as "whales", are the primary target audience for game publishers and this does affect the pricing. This is not to say that publishers do not value those who spend considerably less or nothing at all in "free to play" games. After all, the whales need someone to play with

To these “whales”, there really is no limit to the amount they are willing to spend and to some degree it does make sense. A player who has limited game time but plenty of discretionary income will likely value these orbs if they can't commit the time to level but still want to play and be somewhat competitive. It's also not entirely unheard of that someone would spend over $2k to do this, I have personally talked to a player (who no longer plays btw) who had spent over $7k in just one year playing.

While this type of spending might seem pretty foreign to most US consumers who are typically more value conscious, not all consumers are. This is true in many areas of the economy not just video games. Take cars for example. There is a market for fords and a market for a Ferrari. Sure, ford will sell more cars for less, but some customers want a Ferrari and are willing to pay quite a bit more than they would for a ford to get one.

Ok, so back to the orbs. There is a market for those in game but it is a targeted market. Just like in the car example, they might not sell a lot of them but that is why sell them at such a high price.

Hope this helps

Ok, let me approach it a different way: If a player thinks those orb prices are too high and that they can achieve the same results through other means such as daily resets, etc. then they are NOT the target audience for those orbs. On the other hand, if you want to get xp orbs and you are not really concerned how much they cost then you ARE the target audience for those orbs.

So, if you are not part of the target audience you don't buy them which is pretty much common sense. That said, just because you are not buying them doesn't mean that nobody is buying them. Hope that clarifies things.

It's a convenience item.

Bad examples are bad, here's another:

Why would you go to a high-end restaurant and pay $25 for a Steak and Potatoes when you can go to Wal-Mart, buy the New York Strip for $12, the potatoes for like $3 and make it yourself? Convenience of not having to cook yourself.

Same thing here: You can go buy the XP orbs and level up to max in 190 clicks and about 10 minutes. It's just a simple balance of time and money versus convenience.

Why would making a puri 199 diamonds be anything related to what we're talking about: convenience.

You can't get puri's any way outside of the item shop at a high enough chance to making the purified fusion stone be the same situation as the XP/TP orbs in the item shop. Sure, you can try buying Fusion Stones until you get a blank but the last time I tried that it took so long that I just bought a puri anyway. Additionally, you can still get purified fusion stones with Pcoins.

Additionally, how does "as for your food example" relate to me buying diamonds? Sure, I used to buy diamonds frequently - probably not one of the biggest diamond purchasers. The reason why I had so much to sell was because I didn't go spending them all in one place, I had tons stocked up (and I rarely spent any diamonds on myself). And when I bought/sold diamonds, these weren't even in the item shop in any form.

Gameforge by putting these into the item shop are making a sound business decision, considering all the power levelling that's been going on. People want to get to max as fast as possible, why not try and cater to that audience by adding these to the item shop, not in a gasha but rather straight up. Sure, the price is extreme, but back to my food example, that's the convenience of not having to take the time to do something.

Another example: why spend $25,000 a year for 3 years to get a project done with a regular employee that has some experience in what project you're needing to get done when you can spend $100,000 for 1 year to hire and contract someone to get it done in that timeframe?

Not sure why this is so hard to comprehend: Those who have the money will choose to spend it on convenience items. This is a convenience item. If you don't like the convenience of level 87 in 10 minutes, then it's as simple as not partaking. As a few of the GM's have said: No one's holding a gun to your head to buy these, don't buy them.

My part in this one sided conversation is over. Whether or not you choose to comprehend instead of looking at it like "they're so expensive waaaaah" is your decision, not mine.