I do know where the last two posts come from, regarding being over priced.
But at the same time you can play without spending any money at all. So I don't think the statement about it being over priced is so clear cut as you think - it's actually priced at whatever level you choose it to be.
If there are people that are willing to spend thousands and in some cases, tens of thousands of dollars a month at current prices then lowering the price to say an ARS level will reduce the current revenue stream by 90%.
Now all us hobby level spenders who will spend at ARS prices but not at full price (I count myself as one of them) would need to by x10 more packages than the 90% of revenue lost from the big coiners (x10 times because the packages are now approx 10 times cheaper) for the game to get back to it's starting profitability.
So if the function of pricing is to maximise profit (and it would be hard to tell Plarium as a company to completely disregard that objective), it doesn't take much to realise that ARS prices weren't maximising profits.
So actually it's your fellow players that set the pricing. If the mega coiners kept it in their pants then the game would be a lot cheaper. It's priced at the level that loosens their wallets.... not that loosens the wallets of hobby level spenders.
Sad fact is, its not "overpriced", when the purpose of pricing is to maximise profit.
And yet clearly it is hugely "over-priced" based on what you get back for your money. A game that gets virtually no updates ever, other than very small things that are quite obviously little more than fronts for new shop spending. Game has offered little more than Raid / BG / PvP for 7 years of gameplay (maybe you could argure champs). Support is also terrible and non-response. Interaction with players (actually listening) is minimal and quite often directly antagonistic.
But if some ppl price the lack of delivery we currently get as "worth" thousands of dollarrs a month then Plarium will take the money and price accordingly. So it's actually players that set the price, Plarium are just following an algo based off our actions.
And why do people thousands of dollars to play. Because the status they get from being "famous" and the ability to "dominate" makes them feel good about themselves. Their ego's are so fragile that to "lose" at a strategy game would seriously damage their self worth. When you see it like that, they are paying for mental well being, then you can begin to see why they might pay thousands for that. They aren't paying for the reality of the game, they are paying for something they have projected onto it.
Unfortunately that is why the games aren't "over-priced". Not in Plarium's view anyway.
Maybe you could argue (and I often do) that the pricing maximises short term profits but unbalancing the games so much they become inactive over the long run, damaging long run profit. There are alternatives business models of taking a small amount from a large amount of players, rather than a massive amount from a tiny amount of player (which will always unbalance and therefore kill the long term). But the blinkers are firmly on the short term at Plarium, they haven't listened to that argument ever (to actually care about the health of their games for the benefit of the medium/long term).
Sorry for the long post. But no easy way to cover those issues quickly.