Quote:
Originally Posted by Will Henceforth
MA dont care about upmarks on the ML's, for them its just TT food. For the players its worth 10K+'s
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MA's "care" (concern) goes far beyond just the TT value on these items, imo. If you subscribe to the "perception equals reality" viewpoint,
MA's orchestration of the recent dramatic price spikes on nice UL weapons/armours was a masterstroke for shareholders to-be. It has created the impression that the overall, broad-based
EU economy is booming far more than it really is, while simultaneously making the (L) market (more profitable for
MA long term) more palatable to the average player who won't/can't fork out $2,200 for an ML rifle (especially when a less flashy, 10HA, SIB gun can get the job done nearly as well).
In transforming (via process of "rarification") the ML rifle from a once nice, but still rather utilitarian gun, into today's "fledgling-uber" weapon du-jour,
MA generates the needed hype and PR ammunition (sorry
) to attract new players. Its mostly light rather than heat of course, with valuation of virtual items being so "relative", but the RL price tags do attract the eye balls, just as TI and
CND did. In this case just to a lesser degree.
I'm certainly not saying the
EU economy is not growing, but the ML-Camo market (as example to attempt to cling to topic) is becoming an ever smaller piece of the overall
EU economic pie as the influx of new players slowly gathers pace. From a PR point of view (where you narrowly focus on just the positive and dramatic) publicizing charts and graphs showing 8 month price rises on the rarified UL items will seduce many investors and virtual 49'ers to join the party and ante up. I still worry about the inflation for the potential it has for divisiveness, and a burgeoning sense of "class" separation in game, but at the same time I've got to hand it to
MA for maintaining the whole marketing spin of "
Get in While the Getting's Good!", for as long as they have. Attracting the punters is the key to game's longevity, especially when your model is built apon a heavy churn rate (but that is
way off topic).