Guild Wars 2

Whilst farming gold in Cursed Shore for some very fancy cultural armor, I was having an interesting conversation with somebody in my party in between waves.

Here’s a brief summary of the conversation. Mind, these aren’t exact quotes since GW2.exe decided that when I ask for it to take a screenshot, I really mean NOT to take a screenshot (-_-).

Me: Man, I bet that inflation goes up a few percentage values during each of these events.

Other guy: Nah man, the bigger issue is diminishing returns. Along with that, the gem market makes bigger problems.

Me: How so?

Other guy: Well what’s been happening since around launch is that people buy a TON of gems with cash, turn it into gold, and then buy out the entire trading post of a particular material (say, cotton) and then jacking the price up.

Me: So, a monopoly?

Other guy: Yeah.

Me: Well, I don’t think it can be that much of an issue. Just like in the real world there’s forces to prevent a monopoly (free market monopolies aren’t common). I’d guess that the biggest one is other guilds/clans arising to counter the monopolists by eyeing commodities that this sort of thing happens to, and then keeping stockpiles so as to undercut monopolists.

Me: Along with that, a monopoly like that would be VERY short term. Very quickly, small-time producers/suppliers would begin farming the goods or selling off their own stockpiles, leading to a steady game of undercutting until the price reaches its original location, give or take a bit.

Other guy: I think you’re underestimating how much money people are willing to throw at the problem.

Me: I have no doubt about it, but there’s forces to counter any monopolistic intent.

Other guy: Still though, until ANet fixes the gem/gold conversion the market will never reach its equilibrium.

Me: light bulb appears over head Wait a second. So basically the gem/gold problem is a type of inflation!

Other guy: Yup.

Me: Ok that IS a problem. That would lead quickly lead to business cycles, the misallocation of resources in the economy, and the stealing of value (albeit abstract value) from the rest of the players. kitten that makes sense!

Anyways, I thought I’d just post it here to see what other people’s thoughts were. Especially since it’s the most intelligent conversation I’ve had in awhile

The basis of his argument is “there’s always someone with more money.” This is not necessarily false, but it becomes impractical to completely fix. Unless gems-> gold is completely removed, there always remains the possibility of this happening.

Even then, things like MF Stones can be turned into money using several methods. Remove them, too? How about miniatures? You can technically “buy gold” by buying minis and then selling them. Ok let’s make those account bound. Fish through BL chests to find the contracts and sell those, effectively buying gold with gems?

My point is that if you’re going to assume that the market is being controlled by people with infinite money, there’s probably no “fix” that will ever satisfy you.

So what do I think about all this? Well, i’m open to the possibility of that cash-based method of market control happening, but that seems unnecessarily wasteful. Given how easy it is to generate gold with no gems (~25-50g is about an hour’s worth of clicking), I don’t think the cash shop gold buying is the big culprit everyone thinks it is. At least I never found it necessary, though I do buy gems every month just to support ANet.

The main reason I can profit and influence the TP is simple: human nature. People are rash, impulsive, and buy things according to their pleasure principle. I will always be able to “steal” value from someone who wants something, right away. Whether or not cash<->gems is open has no impact on this. Until you change the very nature of the mob (good luck ), business opportunities will always be present.

LFk.1408:

I will always be able to “steal” value from someone who wants something, right away.

Just to be clear, I don’t consider you using market trends to your advantage stealing. I view inflation as theft because it steals value from people the farther down the line you go, i.e. the first person to get the inflated dollar gets the full dollar’s value, but the second or third person won’t be getting the full dollar’s value since the economy adjusted for inflation. In short, when you inflate currency you’re gaining value by stealing from the rest of the economy.