First, if I ever had any intention of spending money on the game again, I’d be quite tempted to spend some because the current special offers seem pretty good. Having said that I often wonder how HHG comes up with pricing??? You have a gold depot that provides what I consider a baseline cost. When I look at special offers I’d expect a better value all the time. Oddly this isn’t always the case. For example, a week or 2 ago there was an offer that included 1 of each core and some amount of gold that was slightly less than what you’d find in the depot. The special offer cost was like $10 (maybe $20) more than the depot cost but you only got 5 total cores and a bit less gold. A short time later I seem to recall an offer that included 20 (maybe 30) of each core with gold that was comparable to an amount in the depot. In this case I believe the cost was the same or maybe a bit cheaper.
Basic marketing, if I remember anything from my business and econ classes then the gold depot is not to be trusted, it is not the baseline cost it’s what they WANT you to think the baseline is. Gold has no true value so they have to inflate that against fiat currency. The special offers are the opposite, they are super drop cuts of what the inflated prices are so it tricks you into thinking that they are a good offer when in reality the gold depot is a bad offer. This is the thing with intangible currency, it is entirely based and controlled on what they want it to be, it’s why the custom crate seems like such a bad deal because $20 gets you stuff you can buy with gold for $5 or $10, you see the correlation there. However the custom crate would suddenly become a good deal if the value of gold went up, so the prices would rise as a result of increased value, crates remain the same price but prices go up so the value is perceived in the cost increase as a result causing special offers at half the price to be praised.
Basic virtual economies, I am certain they have someone who works out all the math just like I did there but with real figures and inflation and tax etc.
I get what you’re saying but the example I gave was supposed to be a special offer. However it was spend more for less gold and 5 cores. Based on other sales that included cores, the difference in gold didn’t justify the cores. I’d love to know behind the scenes stats to see how many spend for the various offers.
As I said there is no baseline for the cost of gold, they create perceived value 
I know the offer you are tlaking about however and my guess is if they were to work it out then you would need to factor in the cost of cash and energy to gather all the requiste cores, you can take a toon from platinum base to platinum 5 very quickly with that offer when in reality it may take months to get a single plat 5 sometimes. That would be my guess, you can try but i doubt you will get an answer as to how their pricing department works 
Most items in the game have no fixed cost and the ingame economy changes over time, that is what the special offers are there to do, boost gold sales
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