Elder Scrolls Online Players Upset Over "Pay 2 Get Rich" Crown Store Motif

Zenimax Online Studios appears to have made quite the misstep with The Elder Scrolls Online's cash shop, known as "the Crown Store," as players are currently upset about a new motif that is both available exclusively in the Crown Store and able to be used on gear that can be sold to other players. Known as the "Grim Harelequin" motif, players have dubbed the motif a "Pay 2 Get Rich" item, as it allows those who purchase the motif to essentially sell a cash shop-exclusive item for in-game gold.

Reddit  TankyTankinson explains the logic behind the outrage as follows.

Crown store exclusive motifs can create gear in crown store only style but that gear can be sold to players for in game gold (where before any CS exclusive goods purchased from crown store that couldnt be obtained in any other way in game would be BOP). Basically people will swipe their credit cards and then start charging people in game gold for it. Moreover if style stone is not available in game, people will have to buy mimic stones which will lead to unofficial gold to USD ratio because if a credit-card crafters will set their price for piece of gear at X gold and it will use 1 mimic stone that costs Y crowns there will be a real gold:USD ratio going on.

According to a comment on the Reddit thread, there had previously been outrage over the simultaneous release of motifs both in-game and in the Crown Store for similar reasons, after which Zenimax Online Studios had stated that they would stagger the releases, with the in-game release coming first, in order to avoid situations like this. The Crown Store-first release of the Grim Harlequin motif implies a markedly different approach to the release of motifs in which there may eventually be Crown Store-exclusive motifs that can be sold for in-game gold.

Zenimax Online Studios has yet to release an official statement on the matter.