Guild War store = rip off?

What the hell? Charging $49.99 for their games??

I bought prophcies for $39.99, and with that came a very nice case, TWO cd's, several booklets which include all the keyboard commands and emotes, and a general players guide, AND a booklet that contains a summary of the storyline (without spoilers).

I've also seen Factions for $39.99 in some stores (but I haven't bought it yet).

So, please explain why anyone would spend MORE on something that comes with absolutely nothing else besides access to the said campaign?

I was hoping ANet would be rational about their prices, but obviously they have begun to feel the cooperate greed that will eventually ruin Guild Wars IMO.

They are not paying to ship, manufacture the case, CD, booklets ect... why are we being charged full price? What happened to "Factory direct"?

I will be boycotting the store, and any expansions I decide to buy will come from retailers.

They will not undercut their sellers i.e. Best Buy, CompUSA, etc. They would rather have you walk into Best Buy, EBGames, etc. to purchase this because they need their retail partners to continue their business. If they were to undercut their retailer, why would they support NCSoft /ArenaNet and sell any products of their's at all?

You are paying for the convenience of not having to jump in your car, find the game, waste gas getting back home and then having to install. Convenience always comes with a price

The official price of the GW games is $49.99. ANet/NCSoft selling their game at that price is perfectly reasonable. If you don't want to buy it at that price then don't.

And what Inde said too.

Well, if they sell their accounts cheaper..then the stores won't be getting any business. And when stores aren't getting any business for a certain item, they drop the item completely.

I wouldn't think that ANet would want stores to stop selling their products now, would they?

If you got the games for $39.99, you got a good deal. I and many others paid $49.99. And... what Inde said, about the rest. They won't undercut their suppliers. THAT would be bad business.

I don't know, what about those who are stationed in Antarctica for 3 years, with nothing but state-of-the-art satellite broadband and raw fish to eat all day and need the best way to play Guild Wars? I would pony up the extra $10 for the digital distribution

Meh, the online store is just going to be a ornament on my screen, I dont have a CC, but at least the graphics looks cool^^.

It's weird though. Their online store can only apply to those who already own a GW game... I wonder where they're headed with this... is this an opening to super-dooper-conveniance when they release games in 6 month invervals?

Just going along with what had been said...

Only people who know of guildwars would buy from GW store, while people that aren't aware of GW will find theirs in places like walmart/gamestop most likely.

To increase and keep their game population, more need to come faster and keep people playing longer.

I wondered the same thing. Here are some thoughts:

• Some people think that boxes are a bother. As one coworker told me, "The first thing I do when I get home is throw away the boxes and nearly everything that comes inside." That's not my style, but a few others nodded in agreement with him, so it's not unusual for some people to think of everything except the game CD as disposable.

• The Manuscripts (game manual) for Factions and Prophecies are both available online at www.guildwars.com. Some would prefer to consult an online site for an online game, rather than try to root around and locate the hard copy you misplaced two months ago.

• Online sales = instant purchase. No waiting for the weekend to go shopping, trying to beg a ride to the mall, or ordering and waiting for the package to arrive.

• Some people don't have a local retailer, so they order online anyway.

• There are savings with online purchases. First of all, you save time. But for actual things of cost, consider there are no shipping fees. You don't use gasoline ($3 in the US, about $5/$6 in Europe, I believe) to get to the store. There are no parking fees, no risk of impulse shopping at the 50% off sale at the shoe store...

lol, also no traffic accident, or something really really weird happening to one self.

Which remind me, there were a research on the % of people getting hurt how/where/when/etc. The result was, home was one of the most dangerous place percentage wise, lol (I guess thats because people stay home too often).

So think twice before pressing the "click here to buy" button! You might jam a finger or something.

I payed 35$ Canadian for each of the games.

Also, what easier place to sell extra character slots (!) and have them easily linked to your game. I would likely never buy one if I had to go to the store and get it, but online...who knows how many I can get

edit:

on a side note, I noticed a while back that you could not get WoW online at all. That was the biggest reason I didn't buy it, it wasn't available when, where, and how, I wanted it (holy crap I am picky). Go figure, I purchased GW in a store a few months prior to this happening.

I don't see going to the store as some big hassle at all, I find it enjoyable and adds the the excitment of getting a new game. I also would much rather have a box case than just an upgrade to my account. I like to have a sense of ownership.

Plus, I can get the games cheaper than you offer them for, so there is no reaon I would ever use the store. Only time will tell if it becomes successful or not though.

(On a side note, while I was looking at the store I noticed in the product description you fail to mention the addition of two new proffessions with the purchase of Factions! That's a pretty big seller, might want to include that.)

FWIW, EB Games sells Prophecies here for $39.99 and Factions for $49.99. Other retailers here go as low as $34.99 for Prophecies, but Factions is still usually around $50.

I use Wal-Mart as a base for just about anything I buy. Both chapters are still $49.99 at Wal-Mart, so having the in game store charge the same is perfectly fine with me.

Come to think of it, like Gaile said, computer boxes are usually trashed within minutes of the game being loaded and working in my home. Paying full price for the convenice of GW on demand? Well worth it. It's even better than online shopping, because you get it right when you order it.

To the OP, you are well within your rights to seek the lowest price, and boycott the store if you wish. However I believe that the prices are perfectly rational. I'm surprised retailers haven't complained simply because of the ease and speed of it.

In europe we are lucky

http://www.play.com/Games/PC/4-/6772...s/Product.html

£17.99 = $33 = €27

I love channel islands.. i'd like to move there some day

Well you have to remember, stores take a good chunk of the $50.00 as profit, only about 50% goes back to the company.

Back when I was playing Planetside I started having my friend who worked at EBGames get them for me, he got them at a 40% employee discount, with the store getting 10% profit on it and the rest going back to Sony. Same thing more or less applies to other things aswell. Stores sure don't let their employees purchase things at less than cost.

So where GW may be listed as $49.99, those listing it at $34.99 are still pulling in a profit of it. Now the Guild wars store, all of that $49.99 is going straight to Anet.

As far as I know, full retail price is the policy of all direct computer game sales online. No ripoff here. If you do not want the convenience of buying online, go buy a discounted packaged box from a reseller.

Yep.. it's a huge profit for Anet, since they have basically no cost, apart a little more server ad bandwidht usage.

I don't buy stuff online, since I don't trust my computer to be free of keyloggers and virusses. Sure my virus scanner tells me so, but it also makes me aware of some stuff that's on my hard drive, which it can't remove.
I consider it a big NoNo, to give private information like bank account numbers and creditcard numbers on the internet. There is no such thing as perfect internet protection.
You can call me paranoid, if you like

you are paranoid