Yes, there is something called risk aversion. People hate risk and pour tons of money to avoid it. That's why you easily find people spending tons on insurance fees but not using much of the service on it. Edit: It's not baseless speculation. Many businesses, the actuarial industry for one, basically survive on people's dislike of risk. Whether this works for BW is up to debate which is why I said theoretically it's possible.

It's a really nice idea. And theoretically, it's possible for BW to increase its profit through this mechanism. Edit: Lol, it's really funny how people just jump to bash this topic without a second thought. The topic is not asking for more freebies for subscribers but an extra option which can also generate more money for BW which lead to supporting the game.

The average weekly binge expense on alcohol easily gets you like 5500 CCs per week. By not drinking, you can easily find additional disposable income to entertain your CM wants.I think people spending on CM stuff forms a group in size much larger as a small minority. And they don't need to be "geeks". If you are earning a decent living and don't trash your money on stuff like alcohol etc then you can easily find money for CM. Edit: You may say it's crazy to spend so much money on pixels. But the same can be said about buying alcohol just to get yourself intoxicated for a night and alcohol sales are high in US and Europe. People have different preferences and it's just poor analysis to think on what other prefers by basing only on your preference.

Maybe your question is why the core game team design awful gear rather than why the CM team design better looking gear? That question is quite different to what you had asked.

Many just don't realise the market is changing. Games now require more and more resources to have it stay competitive and up with new content. And the gaming industry has realised the future of the business lies on the revenue from casual players and not hardcore players. Thus it's easy to imagine the industry finding ways to generate revenue from the casual crowd to have resources to stay competitive. Tbh, if you're at least above the median income range then it's quite easy to find extra disposable income to spend on CM. Hardcore players need to realise this.

Umm.... if the CM team's design is inferior then why would anyone bother buying them? It's like asking why do business produce something that people want and not have it handed down by government through taxes...

The problem is that a significant few, who hate the CM, show terribly little respect for others' choices and decisions. On quite many threads about this new update so far, you find many posts not offering constructive criticisms about BW but denigrating other players for buying CM's stuff etc. It as if all the gossipy housewives all of a sudden jumped onto playing this game after the 2.1 update. It's really sad and show the community has many players having little maturity.

You think that because you have a too closed social circle. In the mineral industries, you easily find tons of millionaires who didn't gain their fortune from inheritance, slowly saved up for things or tend to be very thrifty. Same thing can be said about many who earned their fortune through technology and finance. That's because they don't feel the waiter/waitress deserves the 10 buck tip. In fact, tipping has largely become a social convention to save face rather than truly a gesture of appreciating service.

You guys do realise everyone have different income right? Whether something is expensive/wasteful depends on people's taste and income level. You know the luxury industry earns billions of USD from finding ways for people to waste their money. But do you know what? Most of those customers probably don't know give a damn because they know they can easily earn those money back. Judging other people's purchasing behaviour, which may well be in their means, it's either a sign of envy or ignorance.

Exactly. If someone is making above a million a year, $1000 is probably nothing to him/her. Funny how everyone get to feel more financially capable over OP despite knowing OP's annual income. It's really an obnoxious attitude.

It's absolutely sickening and disrespectful for posters here to judge how others spend their money. Calling people stupid for buying lotteries and gambling box is one of worst obnoxious attitude I have seen so far. There are many people who find entertainment in gambling and gamble responsibly within their own means. In fact, it's mathematically illiterate to state people who gamble can't do maths. There tons of mathematical theorems, many on martingale processes, to back this up. Tbh, I have never seen a community who show so little respect for other's choices. I can understand your complaint if others' bad decision caused you to pay for it. But the fact is you neither helped people to earned their income nor you pay for their expenses. Probably, this a forum is becoming a recruiting ground for communists:confused:

My initial reply was to this quote: So you have made it explicit that what you meant by care goes beyond whether the game has value relative to the $15 subscription.

I honestly don't care whether Bioware/EA cares about me as long as they provide me with the content or service value deserving of $15 per month. I think most players would agree with me. If you want people to care about you beyond that then you should probably go talk with your family and friends, not from EA/Bioware.

You think the investor won't question the existence of the game when its revenue is shaved by half? If the game shuts down then frankly the rate for new content is effectively zero.

You really have a weird definition of fraud. Price rises occasionally in the real economy, it's called inflation. But you don't find everyone accusing stores of fraud with every price rise?

In the real world, business doesn't lose anything significant from gaining hate from a few in public. Banks are hated but they are now still bringing in millions. Walmart is hated for their poor treatment of their workers but it's probably one of the world's most profitable chain store business. The moral of the story is business survive and thrive by offering things people want and not by appeasing everyone in the public with its moral character.

Tons, new EC SM in gf, Hazmat loots in hardmode lvl 50 ops, new talent tree etc.

Well, there is a significant difference here. With SWG, ppl were complaining about not liking the content. Here, ppl are complaining about paying for new content which they want. When the stuff has demand, money usually start to flow in. and those, who can't afford/don't want to pay for it, are usually not missed in the end. When the stuff is losing demand that's when revenue start to have a problem. SWG was in the second situation and TOR is in the first situation. Inference from the second says little about the first.

Funny thing is, the businesses who usually succeed in squeezing out money from its customer tend are also the ones who are most successful. I think their revenue would probably increase. I just purchased CC, worth of two month subs value, for this update. And I know a few who did the same. So mostly likely the lost income from the "new" unsubs, over BW's "greed", would probably not be noticed in their income sheet. The entire game is a business. I find it really weird people complain that the business is finding ways to make money off its customers without re-packaging existing features for more income. Edit: IMO, if you get upset over this kind of issue then I highly doubt Bioware would miss your money.

You are right about future profit is important but wrong about needing to please people to ensure future profit. Without anti-trust laws etc, microsoft could probably screw its customers harder and still increase its profit. It's not even close being a monopoly. It strives on cutting price and not being sole provider of a good.

Rommel disliked most of Hitler's crazy ideas. And there are other generals, in the Nazis organisation, who weren't as bad like Rommel. But that doesn't change the fact the Nazis is filled with many lunatics. Same idea applies, few exceptions in GE won't get close to show what most are like. In the SE, you also have exceptions and, most of time, you aren't meeting them. Edit: Some of the officers you meet, like the guys in Hoth, as BH can be considered as these exceptions in SE.

This might be explained by that you have more interaction with officers from SE compared to GE? It takes time and opportunity for someone to reveal their true colours.

So you think company owners would persistently push the company to survive when it's constantly in red and, in their eyes, having no prospect of generating future profit? Other than the case of having loads of money to blow, I highly doubt mentally sane owners would do that. If we should always turn ourselves around when profit is made at huge expense of others then we probably still living in the medieval ages and this game wouldn't exist. Making profit as a goal for a company is not a bad thing and is actually one of the huge drivers for all the advances we have now. But never confuse executives taking huge risk, on behalf of company, for their private gains as behaviour of a company seeking profit. Recent financial crisis clearly shows this otherwise with banks going bust and executives cashing in the pay.

Don't know what world you have been living in but clearly it's not this Earth. Go read up on how people construct CPI index measuring inflation etc. You soon realise they look for goods which has the least noisy components. The key argument is that less noise is better which you seem to persistently ignore or miss. Never said using one item would give the most accurate result but it's distinctly superior to look at goods whose prices movements are largely driven by changing preferences and market speculation. The key is to understand Revan mask will deliver a good qualitative measurement, i.e. whether there is inflation, but not necessarily a good quantitative measurement, i.e. how much inflation. To why this is so, you just need to follow my previous post's logic. For the sake of sanity, please realise that your corvette analogy to what I said is a complete strawman argument. Corvette is limited in total quantity while Revan Mask is not. Hence they have different supply shape so your argument is mute at best, silly at worst. For sake of sanity, as I already explained, just give yourself a moment to think why, in real world, people use food etc. and new automobiles, not obsolete ones, in measuring inflation. Please understand the logic behind it before trying to pass it as substance for your argument.

Again, the sentence didn't claim there is "one reliable item" to measure inflation but simply it's better to use one reliable item over using bunch of other extremely noisy items. It's simply an argument that quantity doesn't necessarily overcome quality. It all depends on what you are measuring and making sure your gauge entails logical consistency to what you measure. I am not claiming it measures anything other than inflation. Honestly, not sure what you mean by measuring a real economy with sales of luxury cars. First of all it doesn't specify what you are measuring.