Guild Wars 2

We have to look at real market scenarios for the gem market in GW2.
Until there is proof that ANet is forceably changing the prices higher we can exclude conspiracy theories for now…

The price is going up because there is more demand to buy gems with gold then there is to sell them.
I buy gems with cash as since there is no monthly sub I feel I can do $10 a month and it be like any other game. I have never considered selling gems. I have no real need for gold.

For armor and weapons I can craft. I can spend karma. I can spend dungeon badges. I can spend wvw badges. All of these can only give me armor and weapons.
For wvw siege my guild regularly farms the jumping puzzles for siege so we are covered for blueprints.
My gold is needed only for waypoints and repair and working towards a legendary weapon.

Until there is a need to spend gold myself and others will not sell gems. We don’t need to. Looking at the market prices though players with gold have to buy gems for the things they want. The price action on the gem market is proof of this.

Transistor.8746:

@ nacho, that doesn’t make sense, if people stop buying gems, the price would go down because the demand would be less.

I believe he means people stop playing they stop buying gems with money which lowers the supply of tradeable gems and prices for buying gems with gold rise.

Transistor.8746:

Something else interesting.

I put in 1g to see how many gems I can get and it comes back with 71gems.

If I then put 71gems to trade for gold, it says I will get 70s99c.

Is there an exchange fee? This makes no sense.

In real life markets there is something called a spread.
When you buy stock you pay a higher price then what the seller gets.
The difference is how the stock exchanges make their money for completing the transaction of matching a buyer and a seller.

Testing it right now…
selling 100 gems = 1g 4s 58 c
spending 1g 4s 58c to buy gems = 71 gems
It does appear to be a 30% difference.

They get the same money amount in the end as gold transfers give them no $ and make nothing on a spread that a real life exchange makes.
This is about supply and demand pressure.
Their hope (I’m guessing) is that you will get fed up with gold prices and just break down and buy with money.
This will lower demand as you have had your gem needs met and prices will drop.

Have gem prices ever come down? EVER??

No.

Why???

Simply because the more gems you buy, the more the gem prices go up. It’s not a demand/supply market transiition, like we suspected, but more of a…people buy them, the price goes up. People use gold to buy gems, the price goes up. The more gems that are bought, the more the prices continue to rise. They don’t come back down, because…why should it?? People are buying them, and they keep buying them, and will continue to feed the machine, no matter ‘how’ expensive it gets, simply because they WANT!

If it were a supply/demand it would mean that A.Net only had a limited number of gems, and that when gems start getting low…then prices go up, because they are more valuable. That simply isn’t the case. The gems are limitless, and the more that are bought, A.Net has some silly little algorithm that increases the prices (but doesn’t decrease) based on total number purchased, with gold and with real money. The more gems are purchased with gold, the greater the increase. The more gems are bought with money, the lesser the increase, but overall, all that will happen is that prices will continue to increase. The only time it will decrease is if A.Net manually goes in and decreases it.

I have watched that market for months, thinking I was going to buy gems to get the digital deluxe package at 6g. Then 6g25s…I only had 4 gold, and by the time I had enough money to buy the digital deluxe…the price was 8g40ssomeoddcopper. And that was in a 2 week period (I was not really good at making money, as you can see).
And I continued to watch, over and over and over and the prices only ever continued to climb, never decline.

So to say that they are trying to incenticize you to buy with real money is kinda true, but that is only because the prices to buy gems is static and will never change (except maybe to have a sale on how much $20 can buy you), whereas the gold to gem ratio will ALWAYS be fluxating but ALWAYS trending higher and higher.

GW2, where they replaced the holy trinity from tank/healer/dps to BLTP/Gem shop/mystic forge.

Gem prices will go down once everybody runs out of black lion salvage kits. However, ecto prices will skyrocket.

Wow, just wow. The lack of clear reading comprehension in this thread is staggering.

When you give your gold to get gems, you are NOT getting them from A.net directly.
You get them from other players that choose to sell gems they have for your gold.
The gems they have, either came from other players (bought with gold) or from A.net (bought with real money).

TL; Can’t even read: You can’t buy gems for gold until someone else buys them with real money and chooses to sell them to you.

Amonde Daneren.2380:

Wow, just wow. The lack of clear reading comprehension in this thread is staggering.

When you give your gold to get gems, you are NOT getting them from A.net directly.
You get them from other players that choose to sell gems they have for your gold.
The gems they have, either came from other players (bought with gold) or from A.net (bought with real money).

TL; Can’t even read: You can’t buy gems for gold until someone else buys them with real money and chooses to sell them to you.

You contradict yourself in your own paragraph.

People were able to buy gems with gold when the game first began. If what you say is true, then that shouldn’t have been possible. The only way this can be true is if people could buy gems with gold and then post the gems on the Tp for in game gold.

Since that is not the case, then what you have said is just your own theory (much like we all have) on what is going on.

If i buy 100gems…and they sit in my gem shop, will they ever disappear? Well…given that other people want to buy them…why not? They are mine and if I convert them to gold..is that because other people are buying them???

No.

If I convert it to gold, the gems go into the great digital abyss. If I buy them from the gem shop, they materialize out of the great digital abyss. It’s not a closed loop system, which would make your statement true, but again, even if noone is selling tehir gems, the option exists to still make the exchange.

Said this in another thread: Like many predicted back when the game started, there’s really no reason the price of gems in gold will ever really decrease on a wide level. There are dips from time to time (after spikes, usually) but there’s no reason when gold can be created infinitely that gem prices won’t also continue to rise infinitely.

Generally speaking, this tends to hurt casual/new players and help hardcore/already rich players.

Many people in this thread seem to have some unique ideas about how the exchange rate works, but it’s honestly pretty transparent.

The most likely way for gem prices in gold to decrease is if a large number of players find the gem→gold ratio favorable enough that they convert gems to gold. But you cannot create gems by playing the game. So, a large number of people will need to invest a lot of real money to bring the prices down. However, you -can- always get gold by just playing the game, so there’s not really a big reason for this to happen. New players should be the most likely people to take advantage of the excellent gem→gold prices, since they need gold the most. But we just had a huge influx of new players coming on board after the free trial, and that didn’t put a dent in the prices (although the Black Friday sales made this nearly impossible).

Like others, I simply have no confidence that there will ever be a time in which the conditions for lowering the cost of gems will happen enough and on a scale large enough to make a difference. Therefore, I conclude the price of gems will only go up over time (unless Anet interferes directly).

This was posted a few weeks back for those that missed it:

John Smith.4610:

There seems to be some confusion:
The currency exchange has a supply of Gems and Gold.

If players are converting Gold to Gems, then the Amount of Gold player will receive for their gems goes up.
If players are converting Gems to Gold, then the amount of Gems players receive for Gold goes up.

The exchange rate changes based on the scarcity of each supply. You cannot inflate it, it’s an exchange rate. As players purchase in one direction, it entices purchases in the other direction.

He went on to suggest that, at this point, the initial supply of gems and gold (and the initial exchange rate that was set) have virtually no effect on the current exchange rate.

Edge.4180:

This was posted a few weeks back for those that missed it:

John Smith.4610:

There seems to be some confusion:
The currency exchange has a supply of Gems and Gold.

If players are converting Gold to Gems, then the Amount of Gold player will receive for their gems goes up.
If players are converting Gems to Gold, then the amount of Gems players receive for Gold goes up.

The exchange rate changes based on the scarcity of each supply. You cannot inflate it, it’s an exchange rate. As players purchase in one direction, it entices purchases in the other direction.

He went on to suggest that, at this point, the initial supply of gems and gold (and the initial exchange rate that was set) have virtually no effect on the current exchange rate.

That would be cool, except…this isn’t the case.

The only thing, I can see in this whole post, that is true, is that the conversion of real money to gems has never varied.

marnick.4305:

This is pretty simple. Quite some people have gems and want to sell them for gold. Since the rate is on the rise, people hold on to their gems as long as possible to get maximum gold profit. This reduces supply which in turn drives the exchange even higher. Fairly simple economics.

So what is happening is the following: gems in the exchange market are rather low but the savings in gems are very very high. A bit like the RL gold market. There’s plenty of gold for virtually everything anyone would like to do with it, the only reason it’s high is because gold is sitting in dark dungeons waiting to be sold for even higher prices. One day the rise of gems is going to stop, people will cash in and gems drop tremendously. For RL gold the same will happen eventually, just like the house market “always rises” which is exactly what sparked the current crisis.

Basically you have 3 choices:
- buy now at high gold prices
- wait until the eventual crash comes. This can take months though, don’t hold your breath
- buy gems for cash

Economics 101.

While I normally would agree since as you say its basic economics, this doesn’t seem to be the case.

ArenaNet has no cap or ‘total gems in circulation’ therefore they can always keep the ‘Gems to Gold’ much lower than it should be. The higher the demand for Gems via gold transfers should mean that people holding onto Gems should see a huge spike in profits. While the number has increased slightly it by no means is where it should be. Add on to that the huge % chunk AreaNet takes from the conversion and converting Gems to Gold is not a very lucrative bit.

Can you play the market buying Gems with Gold and turn around to make a profit by selling Gems for Gold?

- Yes, to an extent. However, since ArenaNet has no cap on the amount of gems in the market and can virtually double the entire amount of gems in circulation just from one large purchase directly from Anet (which would be identical to printing double your total currency in one run) it keeps the conversions for Gems to Gold down to an artificial level.

A nasty surprise is spending $20 USD to buy 1600 gems, turning around and converting 1600 gems into gold and receiving only really $15 USD worth of what you bought.

Also, making gold is easier than before, so more gold on the server = higher prices for everything.
Until the gold gain hits a wall gems price will go higher and higher everyday because people simply finds ways of making more gold.
There is people that makes 50g+ a day…so…wonder why gems price just keep raising

teviko.6049:

Edge.4180:

This was posted a few weeks back for those that missed it:

John Smith.4610:

There seems to be some confusion:
The currency exchange has a supply of Gems and Gold.

If players are converting Gold to Gems, then the Amount of Gold player will receive for their gems goes up.
If players are converting Gems to Gold, then the amount of Gems players receive for Gold goes up.

The exchange rate changes based on the scarcity of each supply. You cannot inflate it, it’s an exchange rate. As players purchase in one direction, it entices purchases in the other direction.

He went on to suggest that, at this point, the initial supply of gems and gold (and the initial exchange rate that was set) have virtually no effect on the current exchange rate.

That would be cool, except…this isn’t the case.

The only thing, I can see in this whole post, that is true, is that the conversion of real money to gems has never varied.

I am curious as to why you believe it works differently than how ArenaNet’s in-house economist describes. If you are so certain that he’s deceiving you, you can always go to the thread where he made that statement and set him straight.

teviko.6049:

Have gem prices ever come down? EVER??

No.

Bold claim, can you back it up?
Cause I seem to recall it fluctuating downwards a couple times when I bought mine for bank expansions . . .

teviko.6049:

Have gem prices ever come down? EVER??

Yes, the rate of gold —→ gems fluctuates many times over the course of a single day.

http://www.guildwarstrade.com/gems

It has been trending upwards, most significantly since Halloween. More players have more gold are buying more gems with that gold. Players are not selling their gems, they are saving them since the price is trending upwards. Wintersday is coming! I expect the conversion rate to continue trending up until then, just like it did in GW1.

I have so far used in game gold to purchase:
*4 bank slots
*2 bag slots
*Witch’s costume
*Boxing gloves
*Aviator shades
*Mystic Forge stones
*Fine transmutation stones
*Karma boosters (thx for the discount ANet!)
*Miniature Spooky Trio
*Spooky Skeleton Tonic (had so much fun with this during the Mad King event, a bunch of us got tonics and we were synch dancing skeletons waiting for the Mad King’s arrival-haha)

This and the fact the RMT provides much cheaper gold to begin with. How does Arenanet believe that they can provide such expensive gold when there is soo much incentive to purchase from RMT?
igxe.com has 20G for $9, i believe.
You can say whatever you want about RMT stealing accounts, but the fact of the matter doesn’t change.

I mean listen here, Anet. If you want people to buy your gems and sell for gold, remove the transaction fee. People will manipulate the market, but they will only be speeding up the rate at which price moves from one point to another. People will sell if they can make more G’s while doing it. The higher the price rises, the greater distance there is between buy and sell price (I know it’s structurally 30%). but it’s like the difference between $3-4, and $300-400.

If anything, this means that gems should be much more expensive, if there is that much gold running around. I mean, honestly I don’t know, what do lvl 80’s spend their money on? Especially if they rake in the gold.

I think Summi is right about the “gems in circulation.” I’m not sure if this has been confirmed yet, but there is just no way that without buy and sell orders I will believe that when I purchase gems I am purchasing them from someone who sold them. Clearly, somewhere along the line gems are being generated somewhere, and if prices are rising so fast, it means that there are not enough people buying gems with real money and selling for gold.

Arenanet just generates the gems that are purchased, in my opinion, even with game gold.

@Karizee

Thanks for that graph. All it did was prove me right. I said the prices will fluxate…which means they will go up and down, but ultimately, the prices are TRENDING upwards. And between oct 28th to Nov 11th..it plateaued (evened out) but that flat rate was still far above the average than it was when the game first released. And since Nov 11th..the prices have exploded, and are trending upwards quickly…

When I mean have prices come down, what I mean is…is does it come down below a mean…a statistical average. Then no, it has not. It fluxuates, but the mean does not decrease it either evens out or goes up. When I began the game, the ‘average’ was 24s for 100 gems. Back in August…

In Oct/Nov, the mean was 74s…

Thats huge.

teviko.6049:

@Karizee

Thanks for that graph. All it did was prove me right. I said the prices will fluxate…which means they will go up and down, but ultimately, the prices are TRENDING upwards. And between oct 28th to Nov 11th..it plateaued (evened out) but that flat rate was still far above the average than it was when the game first released. And since Nov 11th..the prices have exploded, and are trending upwards quickly…

When I mean have prices come down, what I mean is…is does it come down below a mean…a statistical average. Then no, it has not. It fluxuates, but the mean does not decrease it either evens out or goes up. When I began the game, the ‘average’ was 24s for 100 gems. Back in August…

In Oct/Nov, the mean was 74s…

Thats huge.

The game had also been out not that long in August. More people on all the servers means the trend will go upwards. More people pushing more activity through the Gem for/to Gold means it will trend upwards as a natural consequence of increased activity.

. . . someone who’s an economist tell me if I’m right?

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

teviko.6049:

@Karizee

Thanks for that graph. All it did was prove me right. I said the prices will fluxate…which means they will go up and down, but ultimately, the prices are TRENDING upwards. And between oct 28th to Nov 11th..it plateaued (evened out) but that flat rate was still far above the average than it was when the game first released. And since Nov 11th..the prices have exploded, and are trending upwards quickly…

When I mean have prices come down, what I mean is…is does it come down below a mean…a statistical average. Then no, it has not. It fluxuates, but the mean does not decrease it either evens out or goes up. When I began the game, the ‘average’ was 24s for 100 gems. Back in August…

In Oct/Nov, the mean was 74s…

Thats huge.

The game had also been out not that long in August. More people on all the servers means the trend will go upwards. More people pushing more activity through the Gem for/to Gold means it will trend upwards as a natural consequence of increased activity.

. . . someone who’s an economist tell me if I’m right?

that and the increasing number of lvl 80’s with tons of money. Can’t see what you two are disagreeing about. You both seem to agree on the fact that prices have been rising.

I honestly think that gems were largely undervalued at the start. Arenanet did not anticipate how quickly players would amass money. Therefore, gems shot up, and I think they will continue to rise as the money supply keeps increasing. Can’t see what else Arenanet will tax to sink money from the system. I am not a huge believer that there is a surplus of gems and I won’t be until Arenanet releases information regarding the buy/sell orders for gems.
btw, if they have, someone please direct me to it.

K, so spend real $ or wait for months for the market to (maybe) change back a little bit.

Sad panda face

I wouldn’t mind buying gems with irl money, but i just think it’s not worth it at €1.25/100gems.

Honestly, when the game launched I was surprised the baseline conversion rate of gold to gems was so good, most games the gold/cash shop currency rate is much higher.

At any rate it’s now beginning to rise to a more “normal” level for a game with gold/currency conversion. I expect we’ll see it go higher still, as much as it sucks the price of the currency is defined by the top 50%, if you’re levelling, newly 80 or just not a regular player then affording nice stuff for gold will not be easy, this is the nature of player run economies.

There is no stock movement in gems that stimulates the market, the only way the gems are stimulated is by Anet themselves. to believe buying and selling gems through the BLTC has an outcome on gem for gold prices is nothing short of being naive.

The OP is kind of silly for a reason.

Gem/Gold conversion might be higher now. But the ability to get gold is easier.

Cod Eye.1632:

There is no stock movement in gems that stimulates the market, the only way the gems are stimulated is by Anet themselves. to believe buying and selling gems through the BLTC has an outcome on gem for gold prices is nothing short of being naive.

What exactly is the basis for this claim?

Plenty of people have spoken of buying gems in order to buy gold to buy T3 armour and precursors on the forum. And tonnes of people buy gems for gold; far more than vice versa

The price of gems coincides predictably with new releases on the CS, and there is some amount of stock trading going on (Typically the rise exceeds the 30% threshold during this kind’ve event), and events like this usually see a drop of price after as people sell gems for gold.

So how exactly does this in any way suggest arenanet/ncsoft is manipulating the market (Which would be a gross violation of consumer trust) over genuine cause and effect.

Ryuujin.8236:

What exactly is the basis for this claim?

I am going to predict that the response to this question will be like most (if not all) the other responses from people who make claims that are similar: you need to prove that it isn’t happening!

Of course, that ignores the point that since they are making the claim they need to back it up and if they are unable to do so then they are disproving their own assertion. But, since this is the internet, that doesn’t seem to matter.

People make all kinds of wild claims that they believe are self-evident and feel that they are correct – otherwise, they wouldn’t be making these claims let alone publishing them publicly. The difficulty for them happens when other people who are interested in what they are suggesting ask them to back up their claim with proof.

Unfortunately, all too often, these feelings are just feelings so the response to the request for proof is an emotional and defensive posting that doesn’t have any of the requested proof. In doing so they fail to prove that their feeling was correct which, in turns, leaves the impression (whether rightly or wrongly) that they were actually wrong which then calls into question -everything- that they post about.

After all, if someone is wrong about one thing then what are the chances that they are wrong about other stuff that they also make strong claims about?

I hope the people who are making these claims can back them up since I am curious as well.

Actually, with the black friday sales, and the new release of makeover kits, the gem prices haven’t had a chance to stabilize properly yet. It actually requires players to buy gems with real money to go down in price again. And since the majority of players is converting gold to gems to buy the new goodies, the gem prices skyrocketed.

I expect a decrease in price after the makeover kit hype is over, unless wintersday gem items will mess it up again. And even if it goes down in price, it won’t go down to the earlier price, because it requires a lot of real money to gem conversions. More than people are willing to buy.

teviko.6049:

@Karizee

Thanks for that graph. All it did was prove me right. I said the prices will fluxate…which means they will go up and down, but ultimately, the prices are TRENDING upwards. And between oct 28th to Nov 11th..it plateaued (evened out) but that flat rate was still far above the average than it was when the game first released. And since Nov 11th..the prices have exploded, and are trending upwards quickly…

When I mean have prices come down, what I mean is…is does it come down below a mean…a statistical average. Then no, it has not. It fluxuates, but the mean does not decrease it either evens out or goes up. When I began the game, the ‘average’ was 24s for 100 gems. Back in August…

In Oct/Nov, the mean was 74s…

Thats huge.

The only reason for this is: more people are converting gold to gems, than people actually buying gems. To be honest, as people are collecting more gold, I’m willing to bet that gem prices will never be as they once were. 20s for 100 gems. If only I knew back then what I know now… I would’ve bought so many gems.

Charming Rogue.8071:

Actually, with the black friday sales, and the new release of makeover kits, the gem prices haven’t had a chance to stabilize properly yet. It actually requires players to buy gems with real money to go down in price again. And since the majority of players is converting gold to gems to buy the new goodies, the gem prices skyrocketed.

I expect a decrease in price after the makeover kit hype is over, unless wintersday gem items will mess it up again. And even if it goes down in price, it won’t go down to the earlier price, because it requires a lot of real money to gem conversions. More than people are willing to buy.

teviko.6049:

@Karizee

Thanks for that graph. All it did was prove me right. I said the prices will fluxate…which means they will go up and down, but ultimately, the prices are TRENDING upwards. And between oct 28th to Nov 11th..it plateaued (evened out) but that flat rate was still far above the average than it was when the game first released. And since Nov 11th..the prices have exploded, and are trending upwards quickly…

When I mean have prices come down, what I mean is…is does it come down below a mean…a statistical average. Then no, it has not. It fluxuates, but the mean does not decrease it either evens out or goes up. When I began the game, the ‘average’ was 24s for 100 gems. Back in August…

In Oct/Nov, the mean was 74s…

Thats huge.

The only reason for this is: more people are converting gold to gems, than people actually buying gems. To be honest, as people are collecting more gold, I’m willing to bet that gem prices will never be as they once were. 20s for 100 gems. If only I knew back then what I know now… I would’ve bought so many gems.

And you think that if people BUY the gems (and then convert to gold) that the gem prices go down??

In what universe???

If you buy 1000 gems at the current conversion rate, you end up with roughly 10ish+ gold. That gold then goes into circulation and in turn raises the conversion rate from gold to gems even HIGHER since there is more gold present.

The ONLY way that the gold —→ gems prices will go down is if

a) people stop converting gold to gems
b) people buy gems with real life money
c) gems ONLY get spent in BLGS

All three things have to = true for gold to gem prices to drop.

That simply won’t happen, and therefore, prices will only dramatically increase.

The fee seems to be the worst. Look at this: http://www.gw2spidy.com/
About 50 silver difference between buying and selling per 100 gems. If you are talking about real life and say here it is about 30 percent… I don’t think anyone in real life would pay 30 percent. ;-)

There should be at least a cap to maybe 5 or 10 silver. Or better remove it completely.

I can understand that they don’t want someone to make money with buying cheap and selling high. But that still is possible at the trading post. And the persons are using their time to do research and it should be possible.

Then another reason: They might want to to increase the gem price to make people buy more gems for real money.

But I don’t think this will increase ArenaNets profit that much. People not paying won’t pay. They will just farm more and farm the more gold they need to get their gems. People buying gems for real money will in fact buy less gems because less people are likely to buy gems to just trade them into gold(only buy gems to buy the stuff you need from gem store).

If you remove the fee… I am sure more people will buy gems for real money and trade into gold because they will be able to get more gold… which in turn makes it easier for people to trade gold into gems…. price getting higher again.

I think the way it is now it will stay high and only get higher slowly.

As long as new stuff to buy with gems is added or expected to be added in a short time there will be significantly higher demand over supply. This all began with the news of the holloween gem items. It was anticipated that lost shores would have stuff and also december’s holiday event. Which with the brief exception right after hollowing has kept a steady rise on the price. One would expect that after december as long as no new gem items are added that the demand will go down and the price gradually decrease as the supply goes up.

I personally wish I had bought more gems just after halloween. But since I didn’t I am just holding out now and hoping the price goes down. If it doesn’t I don’t know what I’ll do. I previously and still do feel that 1g per 100 gems is a good value. But the amount has skyrocketed beyond that. The value of gems bought with gold is a matter of how much time is needed to get the gold. And right now it appears that too much time is needed to get the gold unless you are already doing level cap content. And that is possibly even a maybe at that. I just don’t see the average person in the game making more than a couple gold per hour of game play. Which means on average several play sessions of 2-3 hours to buy most gem store items. And that is also assuming that in the mean time the price in gold has not gone up adding more time to get the remaining gems lost from the rise in price.

Simple supply and demand..

Majority of players don’t want to actually spend real money, they want to use in game gold to buy Gems.

Number of people buying gems for real money and converting these to gold is far lower therefore the GEMs they wish to convert are worth more and more.

This has to happen to entice people to buy gems and convert for gold. I buy Gems and i wont convert them to gold unless the conversion is worth it from my point of view. So the high the better…

People buying GEMS for real cash are what support the game development at the end of the day. Expect GEMs for Gold costs to just keep increasing for many months.

Now they are about 2 gold, MOTHER OF GOD

They should really implement a limit. 1-2 day and gold/gem will be 1-1… it’s 40 now. Better remove this thing or limit the minimum 75 gem/gold, because there is no way in this game to farm gold for a normal player(daily quests etc…) ~1.5 silver/event rewards when traveling to 1 point to another costs >3 silver and with a bad economy where i can’t earn money with profession this is just lame.

Please note that this is just my personal opinion and is not meant to be an affront to any player out there.

Just a different thought, I personally find the increasing value of Gems to be a good thing. It gives those who cannot play often a chance to get a taste of the wealth of the privileged few in this game. In my own case, I work during the day and cannot play as heavily as the privileged few who can.

I realize that even if I wanted to, I can never join the ranks of the super rich (those who “cooked” during the early stages of the game, TP wizards, and generally lucky RNG people). This is a mix of both lack of luck and real life constraints. Likewise, I seem to be unable to make more than a gold an hour on average (some hours you get more, some hours you get less). This really just places me in the majority of people who just get to about 20 to 30 gold post-exotic gearing (at least, before the ascended came).

I always admire those who can flip the TP market like a master. I watched in vain as I missed opportunity after opportunity (dyes, BLTCs, ectos, mats) as I did not realize it early enough when these opportunities happened. Now though, with gold to gem rates moving to 2 gold per 100 gems, it suddenly lets me use real world skills to achieve wealth in game.

To put it simply, I can either get 1 gold while playing for an hour or clock in an extra hour of work and get US$ 40 which I can exchange for 3600 gems or 72 gold (At 2 Gold:100 Gems). This way, I can now focus on getting the things I wanted at a more efficient pace (in terms of use of time) rather than endlessly grinding and getting minimal returns.

Lazuline.3876:

Please note that this is just my personal opinion and is not meant to be an affront to any player out there.

Just a different thought, I personally find the increasing value of Gems to be a good thing. It gives those who cannot play often a chance to get a taste of the wealth of the privileged few in this game. In my own case, I work during the day and cannot play as heavily as the privileged few who can.

I realize that even if I wanted to, I can never join the ranks of the super rich (those who “cooked” during the early stages of the game, TP wizards, and generally lucky RNG people). This is a mix of both lack of luck and real life constraints. Likewise, I seem to be unable to make more than a gold an hour on average (some hours you get more, some hours you get less). This really just places me in the majority of people who just get to about 20 to 30 gold post-exotic gearing (at least, before the ascended came).

I always admire those who can flip the TP market like a master. I watched in vain as I missed opportunity after opportunity (dyes, BLTCs, ectos, mats) as I did not realize it early enough when these opportunities happened. Now though, with gold to gem rates moving to 2 gold per 100 gems, it suddenly lets me use real world skills to achieve wealth in game.

To put it simply, I can either get 1 gold while playing for an hour or clock in an extra hour of work and get US$ 40 which I can exchange for 3600 gems or 72 gold (At 2 Gold:100 Gems). This way, I can now focus on getting the things I wanted at a more efficient pace (in terms of use of time) rather than endlessly grinding and getting minimal returns.

YOu are the consumer the game is designed towards

Congrats, you win GW2

Reikou.7068:

A simple answer as to why the Gold/Gem exchange rate is at where it is now, is because buying gold from RMT is still about 1/3 the price of buying gold via gems.

Therefore, it is still much cheaper to purchase gold via rmt to convert to gems. Infact, if you do the math you can probably get the same amount of gems at half price for purchasing it through RMT gold.

For anyone actually actually interested in purchasing gems, their best deal would be to purchase gold through RMT and then use the gold to buy gems in game.
For those willing to purchase gold, again, their best deal would be to purchase through RMT.

Therefore in this situation no one is buying gems with real money to sell for gold. The only gold/Gem transactions occurring are gold purchases of gems, thus driving the price up.

Sounds as though you are recommending people violate TOS.

Gem prices are pretty sad for the people who do not play lot (it is sad for everyone, but let’s not forget there are people who do not play ALL day). I mean someone who does not play a lot like my brother (who only has like … idk a few hours in the weekend and not even every weekend) does not need most items from the Gem Store and therefor won’t have to buy the gems, however during events it was a bummer he could not get the gems to pay for what he liked during Halloween … or someone else with the same problem might like a make over some day wich is now a new gem feature….great. With prices today this is insane :/
Even for me! I want a kitten make over but I rather look ugly then pay the gem prices now x.x it’s so high!
I guess if I have to be fair… I do kinda play ‘a lot’ but simply do not know how to ‘farm’ gold and do not want to spend my time all day on making money. I want to enjoy the game. I do not need a lot from the Gem Store but some things are nice to have. It’s no fun seeing your friends walk around in nice fashionable clothes in town, have fun with their pirate canons… or get make overs and parade with their mini pets. Thank god I was able to get a mini from the Trade Post lol. But seriously :/ Why cant there be one ingame Price for gems like there is with real money? Would that not be the most fair option?

nachtnebel.9168:

If you want gems you should by them for real money since it’s the only income GW2 generates for Arena Net.

Except the tens of millions of dollars they’ve made (and are still making) from people buying copies of the game of course.

As the amount of gold the average player has, the price of gems increases. As you have more money, you have more to spend on buying gems. Since 1000 gems is as useful at lvl 2 as it is at lvl 80 (assuming you don’t want to trade them for gold), people will be willing to spend that extra money on those gems. Thus gem prices increase. If you look at it in terms of gems per hour, its just as easy (easier for those of us around since launch) to earn gems through gold now as it was at the beginning of the game. So while it may seem like it, we’re not actually paying much more because of the relative value of gold then and now.

In one word: inflation

teviko.6049:

If you buy 1000 gems at the current conversion rate, you end up with roughly 10ish+ gold. That gold then goes into circulation and in turn raises the conversion rate from gold to gems even HIGHER since there is more gold present.

lol, that is the stupidist thing I’ve ever heard. In what universe does 10g go in circulation and end up back at buying gems?

Yes, converting gold to gems raises the price, but it has nothing to do with people that actually buy gems with real money. And more to do with people farming gold in various other ways and then buying gems.

Just a question, is the current exchange rate based/affected by the inflating prices of commodities/decrease in value of gold?

Charming Rogue.8071:

teviko.6049:

If you buy 1000 gems at the current conversion rate, you end up with roughly 10ish+ gold. That gold then goes into circulation and in turn raises the conversion rate from gold to gems even HIGHER since there is more gold present.

lol, that is the stupidist thing I’ve ever heard. In what universe does 10g go in circulation and end up back at buying gems?

Yes, converting gold to gems raises the price, but it has nothing to do with people that actually buy gems with real money. And more to do with people farming gold in various other ways and then buying gems.

Apparently, someone doesn’t know how economics works.

The more gold you have in circulation, the higher ‘base’ prices of things become. Gems included since they can be purchased with gold.

So, if you buy gems with IRL money, and CONVERT to gold, you affect the economy, and hence, gem prices.

If gems were unable to be purchased with gold, then no, then converting gems to gold would not affect gem prices, but since gold is a currency, the conversion of one currency to another will affect prices of them both.

The only way Gem prices can come down, is if EVERYONE starts buying gems with IRL money, spends gem in the gem shop, and does NOT convert remaining gems to gold, but rather, holds on to them.

Basically:

Gems are a static figure. What you can buy with gems does not change, so, in fact, the value of a gem does not change.

The only thing that is changing is the value of a gold piece in game. Gold is actually less valueable (since there is so much of it).

Its just the basic principle of inflation. (check the trending patterns on the TP if you don’t believe me. WHen I played, 20s was a good deal for ectos, then they trended downwards to 14s, and now are up to 30s. That’s inflation. Because there is more gold, and the supply vs demand has radically changed) these prices have soared.

Stop pumping gold into the economy!

Moderator edit: removed CoC infraction

teviko.6049:

Charming Rogue.8071:

teviko.6049:

If you buy 1000 gems at the current conversion rate, you end up with roughly 10ish+ gold. That gold then goes into circulation and in turn raises the conversion rate from gold to gems even HIGHER since there is more gold present.

lol, that is the stupidist thing I’ve ever heard. In what universe does 10g go in circulation and end up back at buying gems?

Yes, converting gold to gems raises the price, but it has nothing to do with people that actually buy gems with real money. And more to do with people farming gold in various other ways and then buying gems.

Apparently, someone doesn’t know how economics works.

[…]

Sadly, it’s you.

You do realize with gold turned into gems, gold is leaving the economy? You should rethink your whole argumentation.

When people turn gems into gold the gold cost of gems goes down directly because that’s how the exchange rate is determined. The inflation caused by it doesn’t equally deny the ammount it went down because the fresh gold is used in too many ways. E.g. if all the gold is spent on a vendor it doesn’t cause any inflation at all.

BiJay.9830:

You do realize with gold turned into gems, gold is leaving the economy? You should rethink your whole argumentation.

When people turn gems into gold the gold cost of gems goes down directly because that’s how the exchange rate is determined. The inflation caused by it doesn’t equally deny the ammount it went down because the fresh gold is used in too many ways. E.g. if all the gold is spent on a vendor it doesn’t cause any inflation at all.

A small amount is but unfortunately no virtual economy to date has been able to sufficiently sink gold out of the system in order to stop inflation or reduce it to the point of a very slow rate like real world economy. What is happening is the gold is transferring hands from those who have tons to those who don’t more or less. Because those with tons will spend the gold over using real money and those who are willing to spend real money for gold will sell their gems to get what they feel they are lacking or for other reasons that drive the demand to buy gold.

In fact even npc vender’s aren’t all that great of a gold sink but somewhat better if they sell high demanded items for a high but not too high price. Which I’m not aware of anything that practically everyone will want that fits that requirement. Right now the two most effective gold sinks in the game are way points and repairs since everyone has to repair their gear and it is highly desirable to rapid travel. I can’t speak of how effective they are though. Mainly because I’m not aware of any player visible way of watching inflation. The gem exchange is just not getting to the point to match the average persons reasonable income rate. I’m not even sure outside of crafting materials if most items have reached their mean value. It seems to me of those items that have reached their mean value that there have been no signs of rise in price due to inflation but it might be early yet for those signs to be seen.

What we do know if there are players out there with 100s of gold. Just how many is not known at this point but enough of them to drive the current market for all the items selling for 100s of gold. As that gold gets spread around to a much larger portion of players inflation will occur as a result. Along with continued introduction of gold as the result of playing. And as long as there are insufficient gold sinks.

Jairlyn.1429:

Transistor.8746:

Something else interesting.

I put in 1g to see how many gems I can get and it comes back with 71gems.

If I then put 71gems to trade for gold, it says I will get 70s99c.

Is there an exchange fee? This makes no sense.

In real life markets there is something called a spread.
When you buy stock you pay a higher price then what the seller gets.
The difference is how the stock exchanges make their money for completing the transaction of matching a buyer and a seller.

Testing it right now…
selling 100 gems = 1g 4s 58 c
spending 1g 4s 58c to buy gems = 71 gems
It does appear to be a 30% difference.

They get the same money amount in the end as gold transfers give them no $ and make nothing on a spread that a real life exchange makes.
This is about supply and demand pressure.
Their hope (I’m guessing) is that you will get fed up with gold prices and just break down and buy with money.
This will lower demand as you have had your gem needs met and prices will drop.

15% Transaction cost going either way.

TWMagimay.9057:

Gwartham Haldane.8459:

There’s no resistance to buying gems, its purely a matter of value, for most of us, including you it seems, there is not enough VALUE in giving these guys any of our money.

And the recent trends and changes are not helping Anets situation at all.

And im the type of guy who when playing F2P model games, its not uncommon for me to spend $40.00+ a month supporting that game. If they offer something I want, and the price for what I want is reasonable, then I am all over it, and dont think twice before charging my account.

And what exactly would you consider worth buying? And how many other people would consider it worth buying? A witch costume? A knight armour? An OP stat boost? Another cute pet to follow you around?

I really don’t get the complaints about gem prices. Somebody somewhere is working for that money. While you are playing a game for that gold. How can you even attempt to claim that your fun is worth more than their work?! If gems are too expensive to buy with gold, go ahead, get a job and buy them with real money. That’s so easy, right? How can those greedy hard working b******s have so little appreciation of your farming skills…they should be flooding the market with gems so you can be happy….

This seemed to be very strongly aimed at one persons opinion, but I felt it should be addressed as you’re clearly one of the strongest advocates of the system thus far in the thread, you also get a little skewed in your views and extreme I feel…

To answer what would we consider buying, you have to look at what’s on offer ASIDE from the skins, black lion chests with temporary boosts to farming and grinding… really? how about you just don’t have the need for them in the first place? those items are a RELIC of the WORST examples of MMO cash shop items. Sure there’s worse mechanics to support stuff like exp loss on death usually pumped to the most extreme levels along with bad balancing, but those near pointless gambling boxes are some of the worst to seep out from those bad games into the mainstream market of MMO’s in terms of design.

Pretty much everything you ask then make more sense to me, A witches outfit, a cute pet, a nice weapon skin perhaps they all makes sense to me as something I’d really go out of my way to buy, and they should be there… but there’s not much choice is there? no instead they’re making another event to grind and farm that starts in LA do drive players mad with lag… as for the question of an OP stat boost ANY stat boost even MF is OP, should never exist and is indicative of some pretty bad management IMHO.

You then go on to claim that anyone complaining of the exchange rate and it’s inflation to be more precise, is a whingeing child who doesn’t appreciate those that buy gems with real money. This could be due to the fact that one glance at the shop clearly sees that it’s not catering to those that are looking for quality aesthetic items and instead the gambling boxes with temporary boosts, by all means you are awesome by buying gems and supporting the game, but.. and I mean this with all due respect, I and many others it would seem are thinking that you’re being short changed and not valuing your so called hard earned cash enough, to buy gems that have little to no value vs gold, and in fact only serve to get you a limited set of cosmetic changes in a shop that many feel should sell you a wide variety of options.

From what I recall being told, the Gems purchased for Gold are the same pool as the Gems sold for Gold.

A possible theory is that gem prices change depending on the current amount of gold of all the players combined. If there is 10,000,000 gold total, then the value of coin is greater than if there were 1,000,000,000 gold total. Since there is more gold to purchase gems, more gems are purchased with gold. To keep the value of gems at a constant, ArenaNet ups the price of gems.

There are alot of people with time but not much money, so the price will go up as it’s only natural.

Aeneas.6852:

From what I recall being told, the Gems purchased for Gold are the same pool as the Gems sold for Gold.

You recalled correctly, John has talked about this before

As a quick aside. Gems in the currency exchange are finite. You may buy gems with real money to your hearts content, but if you don’t put any of them gems into the currency exchange the currency exchange’s stock of gems never changes.

The currency exchange pool is independent of how much gold players earn in game and how many gems players buy with real money. The only thing that affects it is when gold is converted to gems or gems are converted to gold.

And from another thread talking about how sales in the gem store impact the conversion rate (also, this probably applies to new items being added, not just sales)

John Smith.4610:

With the sale on bank and bag slots, the demand for gems increased dramatically. Inside the currency exchange as players receive gems for their gold, the gems become more scarce and the exchange rate is adjust to reflect the different level of scarcity. This in turn creates a better rate for Gems -> Gold in which the players will receive more gold for their gems. This generates additional demand for Gold. So the sale has created two distinct increases in demand, for both gems and gold.