Cash Shop Overpriced?

[whiskeybravo]

Why? Because it's not "tangible"? That's BS.
Plus, the "emotional value" given from these items is directly related to their price. If they were completly free and given to you with absolutly no effort required, you would not have anywhere near the same amount of pleasure for "getting" and "owning" them.

The price is the wall between people who are willing to pay for it, and people who are not.
By paying for these item, you can set yourself appart from the rest of the players. How far you are from the rest if bound to the price of the item itself.

That pleasure is valuable.
Real people have real emotions with these items. It doesn't matter if you think that a virtual world goods are worthless just because they cost next to nothing to produce.

The only proof I need to show you that you're wrong in assuming that emotions doesn't have a monetary value is the fact that the whole entertainment industry exists. And the goods produced by this industry can be virtual or real, it doesn't matter, the emotions are the same.

I don't have a leg in this race.. But it's a good opportunity to point out that that value is subjective to the individual. Value does not equal price or cost. Some will value the "item" more than it's cost, and others will not. You can't really argue over someone else's valuation because it's their own, made for their own reasons.

And, just an aside.. Emotions do not have monetary value outside your own mind.. You can't buy anything with your emotions, and there probably isn't anyone willing to pay you to be sad or happy or angry. Nobody wants to trade you emotions.. An emotion is a psychological influence on decision making, you can value your own emotion and compare it to the cost of enjoying, amplifying, or removing that emotion to something such as a movie or video game or virtual item in a video game - but it doesn't follow that someone else has to value that emotion the same way.

As for this statement:

Plus, the "emotional value" given from these items is directly related to their price. If they were completly free and given to you with absolutly no effort required, you would not have anywhere near the same amount of pleasure for "getting" and "owning" them.

"Emotional Value" only effects the price insofar as how little or how much someone is willing to pay. Making the mount cost $200 instead of $24 does not necessarily increase any "emotional value" you might obtain by purchasing it. Second, something given to you for free can be just as pleasurable (if not more so) than earning it. For example, your workplace randomly selects an employee each month to receive a $100 gift card. They just draw a name out of a hat and the winner gets free money, you do nothing more than show up for what you're already getting paid to do. You wouldn't value that extra $100 a little more than just your regular paycheck at all? It wouldn't make you happy because you didn't "earn" it like your paycheck? Unlikely.. but this is a subjective, of course, you may not :P

[Fyce]

I don't have a leg in this race.. But it's a good opportunity to point out that that value is subjective to the individual. Value does not equal price or cost. Some will value the "item" more than it's cost, and others will not. You can't really argue over someone else's valuation because it's their own, made for their own reasons.

Of course it's subjective. And I never said otherwise.
My point was the following: saying that something doesn't have any economical value just because it's virtual and intangible is silly, to say the least.
Even if it's subjective, one cannot say for sure that "virtual = 0 value". That's it.

And, just an aside.. Emotions do not have monetary value outside your own mind.. You can't buy anything with your emotions, and there probably isn't anyone willing to pay you to be sad or happy or angry. Nobody wants to trade you emotions.. An emotion is a psychological influence on decision making, you can value your own emotion and compare it to the cost of enjoying, amplifying, or removing that emotion to something such as a movie or video game or virtual item in a video game - but it doesn't follow that someone else has to value that emotion the same way.

Well, yes. But... just like above: I never said otherwise. Plus, I never talked about "selling your emotions".
In fact, I was saying pretty much the opposite: the fact that the entertainment industry is actually selling you emotions. People are paying money for a service which will provide them some emotions. And again, my point was to say that the nature of the service and/or the goods are irrelevant. No matter if they are virtual or real, in the end, you are still getting what you want from buying those: emotions.

"Emotional Value" only effects the price insofar as how little or how much someone is willing to pay. Making the mount cost $200 instead of $24 does not necessarily increase any "emotional value" you might obtain by purchasing it. Second, something given to you for free can be just as pleasurable (if not more so) than earning it. For example, your workplace randomly selects an employee each month to receive a $100 gift card. They just draw a name out of a hat and the winner gets free money, you do nothing more than show up for what you're already getting paid to do. You wouldn't value that extra $100 a little more than just your regular paycheck at all? It wouldn't make you happy because you didn't "earn" it like your paycheck? Unlikely.. but this is a subjective, of course, you may not :P

This is something I'll disagree on. Studies and report showed that free stuff is less impactful than things you buy with your own money.
I remember of an Activision guy who said, during an interview, that the map pack they are selling had much more impact on the player's emotions than free updates.

That said, even if I said that price and emotional value are linked, I did not say that the more you increase the price, the more the emotional value rise. This is only true for rare collectible objects. But here, the mount isn't rare, it's virtually infinite and cost nothing to produce.
So, the goal is only to set the "correct" price and try to aim for what people are willing to pay to get it, in exchange of the joy of having it in game.

As for your second point, with your example, you are talking about getting money, at your workplace. If you go to work, it's to get money in the first place... so, this extra bunch is only a "bonus" that you can win, only by being lucky, which will break the monotony of your daily routine and paycheck. Of course people would enjoy that (or maybe not, because it can raise tension between co-workers if someone gets it and does not 'deserve' it).

Free stuff is not perceived like a reward. It's not something you'll buy with your own money, that very money you earned with your efforts. It's something you can easily see as "yeah it's cool, but whatever".
It's exacly the same as the actual mounts available ingame with the Extreme Primals. People will take the time and put the efforts into getting one, because they want it. However, if these mounts were just unlocked automatically and send to them via the mailmog, the emotional value of getting it would dramatically decrease.

In short: getting something you want in exchange of your own time and/or money is more often that not more "emotionaly valuable" than getting something for free without especially wanting it.