What if promotional boxes that contained armor and or weapons that are re-skins had a chance at also dropping a recipe for said item?
If I recall correctly the Splash Prize box had around a 25% chance to drop one of three re-skinned weapons. What if the box also had a X% chance to drop a recipe for one of those weapons instead?
The recipes would be the high value item that whales go after, as time goes on the recipe price would increase because supply vs demand.
On the other hand, after the promotional box is over the value of the re-skinned weapons would decrease, becoming more and more affordable.
Note: This probably shouldn't be retroactive, and can't apply to costumes because they don't have stats.
These recipes would be kind of like buying the patent on teleportation- the minute one fell into your hands, you'd rule an industry which would inevitably lead to you ruling several industries. If you want one after the box, you have to go to someone with the recipe. If merchants want them to sell, they have to know someone with the recipe. This is a monopoly not only in terms of just economy, but also popularity and therefore opinion.
I'm not so sure if I like the idea of a handful of players dominating an entire market, especially since the players that would be able to afford this already compete for (and win) dominance in markets and know exactly how to leverage this to their advantage.