I don't think this is a bug any more so I think some discussion is in order.

Since the last update my trophy income has almost completely disappeared. Apart from the 1 trophy for 150 gold per day and the occasional win against the arena challenges (which now gives 1 trophy at most), I'm not getting anything. Killing gladiators by initiating the fight gives me arena tokens, when the opponent is initiating it and gets killed by some of my fighters, I only get extra gold. Since the update I've "missed" winning at least several trophies which would've been added to my budget otherwise.

So, I guess this thing is supposed to balance out the new gold price of the blue items AND to... hm, stimulate the players to buy trophies with cash. Here are the problems I see with this approach:

1. All new players who are not paying for trophies are now effectively locked out of the high levels of Primus and the Blood Games because the pruple items are now almost unaffordable. Alternatively one might save for purple items for... months but without guild memberships his/her gladiator will gain new skill levels very slowly and the repair cost + the injury healing will eventually ruin the stable. Membership + purple items is out of the question, except if you are planning to have a fighter able to challenge the best Primus fighters after... an year after you start playing maybe. Fighting them with green and blue gear is an uphill battle at best, it's difficult enough to fight them with purple, given that they are usually heavily armed with achievements.

2. All fighters possesing some purple gear will be stuck with it for quite some time. I have a very promising gladiator in Primus but he's fighting with level 40 purple weapon (and winning against some of most effective fighters in the game even with it) which is disadvantageous against fully equipped fighters, not to mention the ones with all 6 achievement slots used. I was intending to buy him something better after a few weeks but that will be very difficult now.

3. Due to the above, the current top performers in Primus are essentially subscribed to their status of top performers for quite some time (months, at least), except if some new player paying for trophies pops up. The others may occasionally score some lucky win against a gladiator from top 50 in Primus but it's far more likely that their gladiators will lose - optimistically - 9 out of 10 fights against some of the said monsters.

4. Therefore the game's summit becomes locked for a very long time (I suppose enough to get tired of the game or of losing to far better equipped opponents) for all non-paying players.

I perfectly understand that no amount of enthusiasm can keep a game of such quality free forever and that the devs need some compensation for the time and the efforts that they invest in the product (I've read somewhere that even the programmers need to eat). I'm actually a bit surprised that the game doesn't require a monthly subscription in the first place, it's better than some games developed by huge companies with enormous budgets, so make no mistake, it's an excellent achievement. It's also understandable that a future development of the product - and even maintaining its current state - requires money and a game that is free can't generate them quickly enough as long as it is indeed free. These things I'm perfectly fine with and I'm even willing to donate something in case the devs start a wikipedia-like campaign to gather funds to support the game.
However, the current backdoor approach is a bit... well, sly in a bad way. It's fairly obvious that if the game stays on the current track, it will turn into a "pay-to-win" one where all new "free" players will eventually hit a wall which can't be climbed if they don't start paying. They'll realize it at some point of course but the vast majority of them will just drop instead of start paying and may start spreading anti-advertisements as a consequence.
Anyway, the point is that these "free" players shouldn't be completely robbed from the opportunity to compete with the people who pay for the game - which is currently an ongoing process. If the devs need funds, it might be worth it to request them directly and see what happens (the Internet tends to be generous towards products which stay accessible to all) - if it doesn't help, then the game could be moved into a more payable direction. In my opinion.