…if anything, my impulse is to find a way to profit off the luxury market. It has a tendency to value the weirdest things (don’t get me started on the art world in that respect), and if you find the right niche, there’s good money to be made from those who seem to want to throw their cash away. (Alienware computers for an example closer to home, maybe?) Games are luxury products, and frippery within games, even more so. It’s all about capturing that top end of the demand curve. If they do that without breaking the gameplay balance… that’s a good thing.

It suggests that there could be (alarming) price hikes and price-gouging in the future. Might as well make a fuss now to prevent something worse happening in the future.

Would anyone be willing (wanting?) to pay $25 for a mount, if the game subscription was only $5/month? What if the sub was $20/month and the pony game as part of the game itself? Would the game be too expensive then?

Tesh said, “I don’t spend as much money on entire games as I spend on a good shirt.” You sir, have the most expensive wardrobe of any person I know.

I’m assuming most here play at least 1 subscription based game, paying an average of ~$15/month to play that game. That’s $180 over the course of a year, not counting buying the game and/or expansions/DLCs. Going from $180 to $200 dollars for a year-long subscription is inconsequential for most players (equal to raising the monthly sub to $16.67). But paying an extra $20 -TODAY- seems like too much at once.

It’s all about what you as a person get out of the game you’re paying for. One might argue that with $68, you could pay for over 4 months of subscription time. But if that monacle makes you chuckle to yourself everytime you see it – thus making the game more fun for you – then cost is worth it To you at least.

I can’t fathom paying $50k for a car myself. But BMW continues to make profits, clearly indicating there are enough people out there that are willing to pay a premium for something that’s more than the bare essentials. I don’t see how other luxury items (virtual or otherwise) should be any different.

CCP will eventually make rather a lot of money off these items. There’s an element of wearing the colours, just like sports fans pay £40 for an official Man Utd shirt.

A lot of Eve players are extremely rich, both in real money and in isk. Even as a comparitive noob I bought 5 plexes to speculate on these cloths without more than scratching my personal fortune.

Any of the new items added to the NEX store is ingame immediately is re-tradable back on the ingame market system which is a bit different to allot of game when it comes to vanity items. The cost of the new NEX Vanity clothing which is bought with the new currency “Aurum” is also tied to the price of PLEX which players buy and trade to pay for their monthly subscription fee converted from ISK. Price of PLEX is usually rather stable and guess CCP wouldn’t want to do anything to “intensionally” destabilize the PLEX market which is all traded by players.

Players make, sell, kill loot stuff in game for ISK > ISK buys PLEX > PLEX buys Aurum > Aurum buys NEX items/clothing/furniture > Aurum items can sell back for ISK. Its one complete circle with everything tradable.

All the way up to Incarna release the price of PLEX has steadily been rising to which a few days ago it was over 400 Million ISK per PLEX. Was quite a bit of game trading/volume due to market speculation for Incarna. PLEX prices were high and increasing everywhere in game as its traded on the market. The higher the cost of PLEX the more it would cost to buy the new currency Aurum which in turn buys the new Vanity Items. Jita market price of PLEX today in game was down to 391 Million ISK per PLEX.

The way i see this and my best guess is CCP probably made the decision to artificially increased the price of the NEX store Vanity items which is purchased by the new Aurum currency to maybe “not” destabilize the PLEX market which was already believed to be a “Bubble”. Which as much market speculation that was going on months heading up to Incarna and players hoarding PLEX it was likely that PLEX would probably continue to increase with the “PLEX Bubble” if NEX store Vanity items were too low maybe.

I can only guess more players would cry tears for their monthly subscription that use PLEX to pay for it if PLEX prices kept skyrocketing like it has in the PLEX Bubble vs not being able to buy Vanity items. I remember when players were crying when PLEX price went over 300 Million ISK per PLEX. Now its right at 400 Million roughly.

So the way i see it is probably CCP did the right thing and artificially increased the price of the NEX Vanity store items for some unknown period of time to maybe not destabilize the PLEX market and maybe in doing so pop the artificial PLEX Bubble a bit. But thats just my speculation as to why NEX Vanity store items are higher than anticipated and it sure make sense to me since it all start roughly with buying PLEX or as traders like to do speculate on trading PLEX.

What makes it worse is that there’s still no public space for your avatars, so short of taking a screenshot and posting it somewhere then getting your friends to view it, there’s no way to get anyone to see how you look with your overpriced vanity clothing.

Cosmetic sales still baffle me, to be honest, but I’m an advocate of them. I know some people like them, and that they are harmless, so they are a good way of supporting a dev budget.