This is a long-time feature and I know it's probably been asked plenty before, but what is the point of:
-Locking cosmetic items to classes/class branches? (I bought it, why does it matter under who if it's on the same account?)
-Making some event-based cosmetics and chairs untradable instead of movable through the account. (Again, I earned the item through the event. Who under my account uses it after that point shouldn't matter.)
-Overlaps of the first two, you earned the event item and you can move it but only in a class-locked way.
Cash Shop Inventory Transfer events have happened before and prove this isn't a hard limit.
If it's about money, I'm less likely to spend money if I know I could end up with a clothing item I want to send to another character but won't be able to for an indefinite period of time.
Nexon implementing this, is almost like star-forcing Kanna's Treasure ring past 17 stars. There's no turning back if they decide to make moving cash items between class branches unrestricted.
Let me explain.
I do agree with you that being able to transfer cash items unrestricted would be nice. I'm more reluctant to purchase more outfits since cash items can't easily be transferred over to other characters. Due to this, I stick to only one outfit each for the two characters I play often and avoid spending anymore than I need to. However GMS needs to earn some sort of revenue somehow, and with Reboot being the the most populated world when compared to the other worlds, most of GMS revenue likely comes from cosmetics and pets. Right now, Nexon doesn't really have a way to know for sure if adding this feature would result in players spending more money, or if this would actually result in decreased spending.
Perhaps players would be willing to spend more money if they know that they could transfer cash items between class branches without restriction. However, once some players have acquired enough cash equips that they are satisfied with the amount of outfit combinations they can make, and spread outfits between all the characters they wish to play, they may stop spending money in the game all together. If Nexon notices that it results in less spending later in the future, they can't exactly revert cash items back to being locked onto one character again.
Whenever something beneficial is add to the community, it extremely difficult to remove it without causing backlash from the players. A prime example of this is Kinshin. Due to the benefits of being able to increase spawn rate and limit, even making any negative changes to the skill's ability sparks outrage throughout the community. Nexon is pushing for the removal of the Kinshin from GMS, but are also aware of how the GMS community would react if it is completely removed. If the ability to transfer cash items and chairs without restriction turns out to harm their revenue stream significantly later in the future, Nexon simply won't be able to revert back to locking most cosmetic items to a single class branch without starting another dumpster fire. Having a large decrease in revenue stream may also result in Nexon making decisions about whether it is worth continuing to operate GMS.
From the linked PDF, you can see that Online PC games hosted by Nexon North America make up a small portion of revenue when compared to the likes of Nexon Korea. If the total revenue drops to the point where Nexon deems that GMS is no longer worth investing resources into, they'll pull the plug on GMS.
I don't know about you, but I prefer to wait patiently for the next cash item transfer rather then risk the chance of having GMS getting shutdown earlier. That said, perhaps making this change could actually boost the revenue stream, but no one knows for sure. Unless there are some similar case studies (where a free MMO that has no P2W, no longer locks cash cosmetic items to one character) to base reliable predictions off of, it might be safer to leave things as is for now.
The reason why Nexon probably locks event cosmetics and chairs to one character is so that they don't have to deal with "The event items I earned are movable within my account, why are my cash items not? Why are the cosmetic items that cost money restricted to a single character, while the free ones are not?".
1) Untradable chairs should be made to freely move within account through storage. There's no good argument to why some chairs are untradable and not "movable within account".
2) Some cash shop items, like the Noble Maple 5 piece set from the Pixel coin shop, and the RED t-shirts (male and female) / Red Paint Bucket aren't able to be moved to the cash shop at all; they're stuck on whatever character you got them on. There's no good argument to why this is a thing either.
3) Cash shop should be shared between all characters on a server no matter what class. People will argue Nexon would make more money keeping it as is, but I know I'd be willing to buy a lot more cash shop items if I could transfer them freely between all my characters. I'm not alone. I'm sure Nexon would make more money in both the short and long term.
1 and 2 should be easy to implement and done as soon as possible. There is no negatives at all to doing those.
3 would take some convincing for Nexon to do, but it would very likely be profitable if they went through with it.
Comments
Let me explain.
I do agree with you that being able to transfer cash items unrestricted would be nice. I'm more reluctant to purchase more outfits since cash items can't easily be transferred over to other characters. Due to this, I stick to only one outfit each for the two characters I play often and avoid spending anymore than I need to. However GMS needs to earn some sort of revenue somehow, and with Reboot being the the most populated world when compared to the other worlds, most of GMS revenue likely comes from cosmetics and pets. Right now, Nexon doesn't really have a way to know for sure if adding this feature would result in players spending more money, or if this would actually result in decreased spending.
Perhaps players would be willing to spend more money if they know that they could transfer cash items between class branches without restriction. However, once some players have acquired enough cash equips that they are satisfied with the amount of outfit combinations they can make, and spread outfits between all the characters they wish to play, they may stop spending money in the game all together. If Nexon notices that it results in less spending later in the future, they can't exactly revert cash items back to being locked onto one character again.
Whenever something beneficial is add to the community, it extremely difficult to remove it without causing backlash from the players. A prime example of this is Kinshin. Due to the benefits of being able to increase spawn rate and limit, even making any negative changes to the skill's ability sparks outrage throughout the community. Nexon is pushing for the removal of the Kinshin from GMS, but are also aware of how the GMS community would react if it is completely removed. If the ability to transfer cash items and chairs without restriction turns out to harm their revenue stream significantly later in the future, Nexon simply won't be able to revert back to locking most cosmetic items to a single class branch without starting another dumpster fire. Having a large decrease in revenue stream may also result in Nexon making decisions about whether it is worth continuing to operate GMS.
If you check Nexon's quarterly earnings report for investors and view the "Consolidated Financial Results for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2020", on page 18 in the PDF you can see the total revenue from customers Nexon has earned, as well as by region from January 1, 2020 to March 31, 2020.
From the linked PDF, you can see that Online PC games hosted by Nexon North America make up a small portion of revenue when compared to the likes of Nexon Korea. If the total revenue drops to the point where Nexon deems that GMS is no longer worth investing resources into, they'll pull the plug on GMS.
I don't know about you, but I prefer to wait patiently for the next cash item transfer rather then risk the chance of having GMS getting shutdown earlier. That said, perhaps making this change could actually boost the revenue stream, but no one knows for sure. Unless there are some similar case studies (where a free MMO that has no P2W, no longer locks cash cosmetic items to one character) to base reliable predictions off of, it might be safer to leave things as is for now.
The reason why Nexon probably locks event cosmetics and chairs to one character is so that they don't have to deal with "The event items I earned are movable within my account, why are my cash items not? Why are the cosmetic items that cost money restricted to a single character, while the free ones are not?".
1) Untradable chairs should be made to freely move within account through storage. There's no good argument to why some chairs are untradable and not "movable within account".
2) Some cash shop items, like the Noble Maple 5 piece set from the Pixel coin shop, and the RED t-shirts (male and female) / Red Paint Bucket aren't able to be moved to the cash shop at all; they're stuck on whatever character you got them on. There's no good argument to why this is a thing either.
3) Cash shop should be shared between all characters on a server no matter what class. People will argue Nexon would make more money keeping it as is, but I know I'd be willing to buy a lot more cash shop items if I could transfer them freely between all my characters. I'm not alone. I'm sure Nexon would make more money in both the short and long term.
1 and 2 should be easy to implement and done as soon as possible. There is no negatives at all to doing those.
3 would take some convincing for Nexon to do, but it would very likely be profitable if they went through with it.