I think this is a fun little game... But have to say, seems to me like the devs are leaving money on the table. I would maybe pay a dollar for this event to support the devs. $14 for a short term event imho is ridiculous... as are a lot of other of the costs in the game, and hence I have spent nothing. This is more than many other iOS games are to buy outright, and is a good chunk of the cost of an AAA game and imho way out of touch with reality. I pay about the same amount every month for humble bundle and get so much more. So I wonder how much MORE money the devs would make if they actually put pricing out there that made sense. How many MORE people would go... hey I like this and I don’t feel like I am being ripped off, so I will support you. Just 1 in 14 more people would need to do it for the dev to do way better financially.
The event lasts for 28 days. It's actually a really good value to get the event ticket. Plus, it's optional. There's two 28 day events happening concurrently. One is completely free and the paid event is completely optional. If the devs made it $1 to join the event, they would need to have 10x the players buy in to it to turn a profit, and the balance in the game would break down very quickly when they give out 10x as many event prizes. That or the prizes world be 10x less than what they are, which would spark a whole new round of people complaining. TL;DR if you don't like the price, don't buy it. I guarantee that ATA will never lower the price on the event tickets.
Too many players waste hundreds of dollars on this game for ATA to lower the price of items. :/ Though I agree that a price drop would be nice. Like the golden ticket for being in the top 25. I would love to buy an extra reward when getting that high. There is absolutely no way i'm going to drop $200 to get those rewards though. This is why so many people think ATA employees drink at work. xD