BTW - for those who've mentioned the limited number of players that do gvg, I say this:
What percentage of the top 100 players on any server plays or used to play gvg?
What percentage of the top 100 players on any server pays for diamonds?
How many gvg fighters on these servers pay for diamonds?
You may be able to make a pretty good guess at how many top 100 players play GvG, but you have no idea how many pay for Diamonds. And any one of them that buys Diamonds to spend on GvG is pretty stupid. As far as I know, healing units is the only way to spend Diamonds in GvG. And anyone who needs to spend Diamonds to heal units shouldn't be playing GvG in the first place. They may buy Diamonds, but it ain't for GvG.
I mention used to play gvg, since many have quit playing altogether or have stopped playing gvg due to problems playing the game.
Or... problems with GvG itself. Such as lag, lack of tangible rewards, or just got bored with it. (That last happens despite how many find it fascinating to play.)
I mention diamonds since it is the source of INNO's revenue in game.
Duh.
If 3% of players do gvg and 5% of players buy diamonds, people may think, out of 1000 players:
1.5 buy diamonds
if 70% of the top 100 plays gvg and 60% of those buy diamonds:
42 buy diamonds
Is it 1000 players or 100 players? And stringing a bunch of "if" statements together with each one of them containing random numbers you made up doesn't make any of the statements valid.
INNO will certainly lose revenue by closing gvg.
You have no way of knowing if this is true. What is probably true is that Inno has decided that they'll lose
less revenue by closing GvG then by keeping it.
The question is, can it create a replacement that can incent people to start buying diamonds.
Apparently they think they can. They won't know this for sure until they roll it out. But if it doesn't do what they want it to do, revenue-wise, rest assured that it won't last long.
This is not a suggestion to make Guild Raids a money grab. It needs to be fun on it's own and any diamonds spent need to be organic
Other than saying that Diamonds is the source of Inno's revenue, this is the only statement out of your whole post that's actually valid.
How's that for addressing your entire post?