Well I am sure their sales are down and they are selling less since they had nothing on sale to sell at reduced prices.
I think this is the biggest area they are missing out on in terms of making money. The lack of new or interesting things combined with the removal of so much stuff has lead me to rarely even look in the store outside of claiming my DBG cash every month. I think part of it is due to people only spending their claimed cash instead of real money which is why I am in favor of having a premium section of the store where the DBG cash is not used but real money instead. Maybe this would spark the creation of more items. Saying this I would only be in favor if they kept the current items open to DBG cash and only new premium items would need to be purchased with cash or even a new virtual currency. Either way I have money to spend on my favorite hobby and form of entertainment yet they are not taking it from me because there is nothing for me to buy.
I would not be in favour of a "premium" section of the Marketplace at all. I feel that all items should be within the reach of all players in proportion to how much they play, rather than how much they pay!
Seems like they have totally done away with marketplace sales, at least for Everquest. Everquest 2 had a 25% off sale for Black Friday while we had none, Last year we had a 40% off sale over the New Years weekend, this year .. nothing. When someone inquired here if a membership sale was in the works someone from Daybreak posted they there was no plans to have one.
Idea: quest-scroll. Example: Best group available Enhanced Minion is currently EM 19, best raid is 24 (25?). Make a quest scroll (5 usd) that will allow me to do a quest that upgrades the em 19 item to an em 21. Still far from raid grade, but I would buy it without blinking. Make similar for BP/visibles/main/secondary/type 3 focus, etc. Should be so that it requires a very strong group, and so that it becomes obsolete over time with gear from new expansions. Should be above group gear, well below raid gear.
Finally broke down and bought RoS on one of my accounts (not 105 yet so I didn't need it). I just bought the cheap one but was still shocked at the lack of claimable items. I mean, it was only $35 but still they could have thrown in something. Debating if I want to even buy a 2nd one as my main account already has EoK. EQ is the cheapest game I know of when it comes to buying stuff in their store. Most games I've played at least let you claim what you buy on all the characters on an account. Things like hero's forge, for example, should be made account wide. Sometimes I wonder if they are not trying to make money but just want the game waste away so they can mothball it and move on to something else.
I don't think it's the fact they don't want any sales. I just think whoever is in charge of handling all of that dropped the ball, several times.
This is a hobby and a form of entertainment. Just because its set in a virtual world does not mean people with money to burn should be held back due to someone else not having as much money. I am not talking about PTW I am talking about a premium section with interesting things like mounts, illusions, merc contracts and maybe some really nice ornament type things. In order for development of things like this to take place they need people to spend real money and not just hoard their free cash and then buy them. A premium section would at least ensure they get paid for the purchases of said items and if it makes enough money might lead to the creation of more items. There is absolutely nothing about the marketplace that rewards people for time spent in game as that is not its intention. Its a virtual store and its whole purpose is to make money and provide its customers with goods or services which currently the goods and services part is lacking for those of us who have already bought every item worth spending money on. As it stands now I spend my free cash on a couple HC's every year that just collect dust on my character select screen.
