I will lay good odds that nothing priced in the store, is the same amount, as the 'packs' of ARX we can buy. Therefore, it induces the buyer to buy more and always have. Just a few, to use, next time.
My total ARX in game is 18. That is three gaming sessions for me, played over two to three weeks.
I don't just get why. Why is it the only way to buy stuff? Why have they made it harder to buy stuff? Things like paypal works right across the planet. It was not broken, the methord has worked for years. Add the option, fair enough, but making it the only option, is just silly. If it is simply to be 'trendy' or fit in line with console play, it will cost them a lot of money.
The main reason they gave was in fact to do with consoles. Console players can't just use a cash shop on the website in the same way as we PC players could, they've always had to use a two step process of buying 'Frontier Points' first, then spending those on stuff in the store, and they said they wanted to unify the way cosmetics were purchased. From FDev's point of view, I imagine it streamlines things if they no longer have to maintain separate systems of selling cosmetics for different platforms.
Given that the last time they sold me a game or game update was in late 2015 (Horizons on pre-order) I'd imagine that a significant chunk of the revenue they've made since then comes from console players buying in and given that they simply
can't convert the way console players have to buy stuff to the way we used to do it on PC via a simple cash shop, if they were going to merge the streams they had to do it the other way.
For me, I won't be buying Arx packs at all I don't think (unless they chuck out some really attractive paintjobs at Christmas or have a crazy sale) mainly because I've already got more than enough paints bought over the last four years. If I do though, I expect I'll be doing it the other way round - buy a mimimum cost pack and then top up the difference with whatever I've made in-game.
As for earning Arx in-game I expect the distribution will get some tweaks over time because the way it gets doled out at the moment does seem a bit mystifying at times. As an example last week I sold 493m credits worth of mined Painite (a T-9 full) and got about 8 Arx for that session, all shown as from 'trade'. Another day I bought a Python, sold all the crap gear on it and A-spec'd it then logged out - got over 100 Arx for that session, all of which was shown as coming from 'trade'. I also engineered a Mamba to the best levels you can do in Colonia and bagged over 200 Arxc for that session, again all shown as 'trade' so engineering clearly gives a high payoff.
The only logic I can detect to it is that there seems to be an inverse relationship between activities that earn credits and those that earn Arx. If you're getting paid in spacebucks, you're not getting much Arx. As for exploration, cashing in data gives decent Arx payouts but the actual act of exploring and scanning earns next to nothing. I sure as hell won't be 'grinding' Arx, I've just been keeping an eye on how much I get out of curiosity really.
Like I said I'm not defending it, I'm just not particularly attacking it either. One thing will say though is that before the Arx update I can say exactly how many free paintjobs and stuff I'd acquired in four years, other than the occasional giveaway - none. For someone like me, the fact I will occasionally be able to buy something from earned Arx is a nice little payoff for doing stuff I'd be doing anyway. I think the people who now feel compelled to focus their gameplay around acquiring Arx are missing the point a bit to be honest.