Incoming Cartel Market Sale

Just about every week there are new threads started in the forum asking when xyz embargoed pack is coming back on sale... and sometimes it includes some well placed begging or even demanding.

So this is a good thing for several reasons:

1) It addresses the demand for older packs by the players. Veterans here seem to forget that people are coming and going from the game all the time as active players.. and people naturally want access to something that they desire but they missed it due to active player timing, etc. That is Bioware being proactive to player requests.

2) It is an effective tool for drawing many players attention concurrent with the release of a new competing MMO. That's just good marketing in action right there. And most players that are insistent on jumping to the next new MMO will in fact still have some active subscriber time during this sale and I bet even some of the "publicly negative" toward the packs will be taking advantage of said sales (either directly, or indirectly via the GTN).

3) It demonstrates a consistency in marketing of cartel market items..... where items are released, later withdrawn to let the demand saturation settle down, and then re-release them for new sales to newer players or players that for whatever reason missed out on a pack last time.

4) All of this feeds the player economy with a wide variety of gear. And if anything has been demonstrated over the last 18 months it's that there is a sincere and immersive demand for new gear in this game. Yeah.. the Cartel Market steams the crafters to some degree..... but really... "crafting as an in-game business for profit" has always been niche in this game. Good crafters are able to sense and adapt to changes in the market.. and profit regardless of any competition from world drops or CM items. [None of which implies that crafting does not need a complete refresh in this game. the game is heading towards 3 years old.. and it does indeed need a complete overhaul on crafting IMO... and I say this even though I personally do not craft].

As for people alleging that the market is saturated, or it won't hold player interests, yada yada..... speculation absent any objective data across the player base (any single persons view about the evil of cartel packs is just that.. an personal anecdote). Bioware clearly has the raw data and analytics to assess the demand for everything inside this game. Evidenced by the way they set selling and sales pricing and discounts on CM content. So to pretend that they are killing their own market with this is complete nonsense.

I call this "The Disney Vault Model."

Exactly. And interestingly enough... it works superbly with consumers on "branded" items (be they virtual or tangible) for Disney and just about every other company that applies the practice.

WOW! It absolutely is isn't it lol. Good call

My pay day is poorly timed. Oh well, I'll still be able to get some bargains on the GTN.

i want the new ones!

What forum do you see these posts in?

I saw one or two just a few weeks back in the cartel suggestions forum and in the regular suggestion forum

I usually see them come up in threads about "How do I get Revan's Armor/Mask of Nihilus/etc.?" because with the answer being "Those are in an older pack that has been embargoed" the question "When are they coming back?!?!?" always follows.

Well...this proves 2 things...Bioware listens to the players AND they're the only ones who read the Suggestion forum besides you