Why are Character Rename Tokens so expensive?

First off, I'm not a Paragon Store price basher, so please don't think that's what this is.

But why are those rename tokens so darned expensive? I know they're the same price as they've always been, but I've never been able to figure out why something that is handled by the automation of the game system cost as much as it does.

not hard to avoid buying name change though, if your VIP you can use the free server transfers to get free rename tokens (since you can change the name when they are transfered) or if its low enough you could just reroll since lvling is not hard (if you save costume can just reload it and be back up to speed in no time)

I think it is this way because it is considered a vanity service and it makes them money, sort of like reserving a seat in first class versus coach. I've spent--well I'm not sure I'm comfortable admitting what I've spent on renames, transfers, and server slots over the years, but its enough at least to pay for an extra two years of subscriptions. Too bad there were no reward tokens back then or I'd be a lot further ahead.

If I really wanted or needed one I'd definitely buy it, but I still think it's kinda steep.

Ultimately what I'd like to see is that instead of a free Transfer Token every month that we get to pick between two or three different tokens, like Rename, Transfer or Character Slot. I know that I never use Transfer Token's, so they're kinda diminished as a bonus to me personally, but eveyone is different.

Just because the service is automated isn't justification for lowering the price. From looking at other hybrid MMO's in the industry it seems to be in the same price range. Some are lower, some are higher, and some are right around ten bucks.

In the old days, such services were kept fairly expensive to keep them from being overused or abused. These days with the current CoH environment, a higher cost to slow-down it's use isn't the necessity it was in the old days. The process is mostly (entirely?) automated now, so no extra GM work is needed. In addition, we have a Global Naming system now, so there's no need to worry about people changing their name to "hide" from their reputation.

I play entirely on Virtue, and I never have had a need to transfer a character off of Virtue to another server, and the only use I was seeing for the monthly transfer tokens was to "bank" some of my older characters I don't want to delete onto another server. I never considered a Transfer/Rename trick, and in fact a simple conversion from 2 transfer tokens to a single rename token would be rather nice.