Guild Wars 2

Behellagh.1468:

Control Core.1079:

The Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have a monthly fee argument is a bit moot. Guild Wars 1 was also free to play, and over there we didn’t have a gem store. It’s just a source of extra income which I highly doubt is needed to keep the game free to play.

I would be up for a fixed price, at least that way you’d know what’s up. That way discounts on certain items would actually mean something, I mean 25% discount on something, and the price going up by 25% because of the increased sales isn’t really worth it.

Not saying to get rid of it altogether, though a bit fairer wouldn’t hurt.

First, sorry they need income from somewhere. It’s not free to keep an MMO running.

Second, Guild Wars did have a straight up cash shop where you could buy things.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_In-Game_Store

However this is a problem for someone who doesn’t have a credit or debt card. This is why just about every MMO and game system now uses a proxy currency to run their cash shop. You can still buy the proxy currency online but now you can sell those little FastCard cards in stores for those who prefer or have no other choice than using cash. Sure ANet (Gems), Nintendo (NPoints), Perfect World (Zen), XBox (XBL Points), NCSOFT (NCoin), etc will never get the full cash value from that card but it’s income they wouldn’t otherwise get. Plus you can give them as gifts in a birthday card. Also they get the money when you buy the proxy currency , not when you spend it.

You’re somewhat right. You got to take into account that they started selling stuff at the end of the GW1 lifespan, and that it wasn’t as prominent as the store in GW2. As for the expansions, I’m pretty sure that when Elona, Cantha, and The Far Shiverpeaks are introduced they’ll be released on disk. That is if they are as big as what we have now. And lets face it your not going to download a game that’s roughly 40gig, maybe more.

Waiting for the next item to become the GW Ecto…

Honestly, I don’t get on GW2 as much because I don’t feel I should work 10x harder for my gold to be converted to gems, I too do not use real $$, I rarely convert as it is. But most of the items in TP are cosmetic, but I’d like to be able to get them too.. one day

The gems currency exchange is already regulated based on supply and demand. It is good if gems are expensive as that would limit the profitability of gold sellers. Besides, you can always use real money for gems anyway when they are expensive.

When gems are cheap, I don’t feel like using real money to buy them when I can easily buy them with gold.

Ursan.7846:

It is regulated by the players though. More people converting gold -> gems means a higher exchange rate.

DarkSpirit.7046:

The gems currency exchange is already regulated based on supply and demand. It is good if gems are expensive as that would limit the profitability of gold sellers. Besides, you can always use real money for gems anyway when they are expensive.

When gems are cheap, I don’t feel like using real money to buy them when I can easily buy them with gold.

If you believe that, I have some land in Florida I’d like to sell to you

Control Core.1079:

Behellagh.1468:

Control Core.1079:

The Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have a monthly fee argument is a bit moot. Guild Wars 1 was also free to play, and over there we didn’t have a gem store. It’s just a source of extra income which I highly doubt is needed to keep the game free to play.

I would be up for a fixed price, at least that way you’d know what’s up. That way discounts on certain items would actually mean something, I mean 25% discount on something, and the price going up by 25% because of the increased sales isn’t really worth it.

Not saying to get rid of it altogether, though a bit fairer wouldn’t hurt.

First, sorry they need income from somewhere. It’s not free to keep an MMO running.

Second, Guild Wars did have a straight up cash shop where you could buy things.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_In-Game_Store

However this is a problem for someone who doesn’t have a credit or debt card. This is why just about every MMO and game system now uses a proxy currency to run their cash shop. You can still buy the proxy currency online but now you can sell those little FastCard cards in stores for those who prefer or have no other choice than using cash. Sure ANet (Gems), Nintendo (NPoints), Perfect World (Zen), XBox (XBL Points), NCSOFT (NCoin), etc will never get the full cash value from that card but it’s income they wouldn’t otherwise get. Plus you can give them as gifts in a birthday card. Also they get the money when you buy the proxy currency , not when you spend it.

You’re somewhat right. You got to take into account that they started selling stuff at the end of the GW1 lifespan, and that it wasn’t as prominent as the store in GW2. As for the expansions, I’m pretty sure that when Elona, Cantha, and The Far Shiverpeaks are introduced they’ll be released on disk. That is if they are as big as what we have now. And lets face it your not going to download a game that’s roughly 40gig, maybe more.

What bothers me is that in GW, we had the whole “pay for the item you want” when it came to costumes/skins. What I do not like about GW2 is that said skins is a “random chance”. Why not just release a skin and ask for upfront gem payment rather than putting it as a “chance” item? This gives everyone a fair chance, those who use credit cards, or convert currencies, to plan and buy what they want. I miss what ArenaNet used to do with the GW market. I wish they would do the same here.

AmadeoKristoff.5493:

What bothers me is that in GW, we had the whole “pay for the item you want” when it came to costumes/skins. What I do not like about GW2 is that said skins is a “random chance”. Why not just release a skin and ask for upfront gem payment rather than putting it as a “chance” item? This gives everyone a fair chance, those who use credit cards, or convert currencies, to plan and buy what they want. I miss what ArenaNet used to do with the GW market. I wish they would do the same here.

That’s because it has gotten into a lot of MMO cash shop team’s heads that Gashapon/Capsule Toys/Blind-Box/CCG card packs are the way to to sell “rares”. While opening such an item can be exciting the first time, it quickly leads to disappointment. This isn’t a problem for children who might only be able to buy a few every month but of a employed adult, one who wouldn’t hesitate to buy cases to get a set of rares or all the toys in that line. The trick is to find the right rate where the moneyed adult can get what they want for $X but not so common that it redefines the concept of “rare”.

Sure they could offer those skins in the store but I cringe at the thought of how much they would be, to be equivalent to what they got by using an RNG.

AmadeoKristoff.5493:

What bothers me is that in GW, we had the whole “pay for the item you want” when it came to costumes/skins. What I do not like about GW2 is that said skins is a “random chance”. Why not just release a skin and ask for upfront gem payment rather than putting it as a “chance” item? This gives everyone a fair chance, those who use credit cards, or convert currencies, to plan and buy what they want. I miss what ArenaNet used to do with the GW market. I wish they would do the same here.

If there is anything I dislike about the current state of Gem-Only Items, it is this. I hate gambling and I’ve never bought the BLC from Halloween and F&F, Wintersday Boxes, and now this Consortium Crate.

I’d happily pay a premium on the items inside of them for gems. I just don’t like the possibility of spending 4,000 gems on these “boxes” and getting nothing in return. I’d rather spend 4,000 to get say a guaranteed Foostivoo or some of those weapon skins.

But this is for another topic. Maybe we should regulate the release of these boxes instead of the exchange. Haha.

December 2013

1 gold = 1 gem flat

Clever.1302:

December 2013

1 gold = 1 gem flat

So you’re thinking that by this December folks are going to be able to buy about 70 G for $1.25 and still won’t convert more gems into gold than folks converting gold into gems at 1:1? That seems… unlikely.

I would have unloaded my gems way before it went that high.

Clever.1302:

December 2013

1 gold = 1 gem flat

Highly doubt it would ever get much above 1g per 20 gems… too many people happily would spend their real life money to convert gems to gold at that point.

TheLaughingMan.4320:

If you believe that, I have some land in Florida I’d like to sell to you

Then sell to me, cheap.

Despite what you think the currency exchange does take supply and demand into account.

There are actually a lot of advantages to the gem→gold rate floating. I have gathered preliminary data to suggest that the widespread buying power of gems has increased relative to gold for some (many) sectors of the economy. Would not be so under a fixed exchange rate, and maybe you don’t like that idea either. I think it’s pretty neat & am interested to see how it unfolds further.

welcome aboard the CoF train 26s and whatever you find garanteed every 10-15 minutes

munkiman.3068:

marnick.4305:

Aurisai.3416:

So in an attempt to bring this conversation back on track, the crux of my argument is that while the in-game ability to to earn gold in gw2 has remained flat, or slightly increased, the total gold supply in the game has drastically increased thanks mostly to gem->gold conversions. As a result, price is pressured upwards and scarce items become more difficult to attain by people not willing to make gem->gold conversions or spend their game time flipping items on the TP.

Gold isn’t put into the economy by gems> gold but rather sinked. Every gem/gold transaction destroys 30% of the gold involved!!! This a very important point you don’t seem to get. As long as you don’t acknowledge that, further discussion is moot.

You are so set on this Austrian idée-fixe of an increase money supply, that you’re clinging to the one thing that could potentially create loads of money, while disregarding all evidence to the contrary. To your defense though, videogames are probably the only economies where Austrian ideas hold merit.

What 30% are you on about? When you buy gems with cash there’s no 30% fee. If you’re talking about gold->gems there’s still no fee. There is just the disparity between the 2 to keep people from creating endless wealth in gold.

Patently false. Both exchange directions incur a 15% gold tax, which creates the 30% disparity. That has been affirmed by the devs on several occasions. I’m too lazy to find the quote myself but I’m sure you could find it with a bit of googling …

marnick.4305:

munkiman.3068:

marnick.4305:

Aurisai.3416:

So in an attempt to bring this conversation back on track, the crux of my argument is that while the in-game ability to to earn gold in gw2 has remained flat, or slightly increased, the total gold supply in the game has drastically increased thanks mostly to gem->gold conversions. As a result, price is pressured upwards and scarce items become more difficult to attain by people not willing to make gem->gold conversions or spend their game time flipping items on the TP.

Gold isn’t put into the economy by gems> gold but rather sinked. Every gem/gold transaction destroys 30% of the gold involved!!! This a very important point you don’t seem to get. As long as you don’t acknowledge that, further discussion is moot.

You are so set on this Austrian idée-fixe of an increase money supply, that you’re clinging to the one thing that could potentially create loads of money, while disregarding all evidence to the contrary. To your defense though, videogames are probably the only economies where Austrian ideas hold merit.

What 30% are you on about? When you buy gems with cash there’s no 30% fee. If you’re talking about gold->gems there’s still no fee. There is just the disparity between the 2 to keep people from creating endless wealth in gold.

Patently false. Both exchange directions incur a 15% gold tax, which creates the 30% disparity. That has been affirmed by the devs on several occasions. I’m too lazy to find the quote myself but I’m sure you could find it with a bit of googling …

I can find no such quote, the only thing i’ve ever seen any dev elude to is a transaction fee. If you start at beginning the disparity was aprox. 28.5%, where we are now currently is 27.75%. This leads me to believe it’s on a scale, meaning the higher you go up in value the less disparity between the 2 is. If it was a flat 30% @ 10g per 100 you’d have a 3g disparity. Doing the math, it’s not looking like that’s how it’s functioning at all.

Gem to Gold has been ~72.25% of the Gold to Gem price from nearly the begining. Check the history at GW2Spidy

Oct 1, 2012: Gem to Gold – 27.90s Gold to Gem – 38.62s Ratio: 0.72242
Now: Gem to Gold – 221.04s Gold to Gem – 305.95s Ratio: 0.72247

Difference due to not allowing fractional copper.

Behellagh.1468:

Gem to Gold has been ~72.25% of the Gold to Gem price from nearly the begining. Check the history at GW2Spidy

Oct 1, 2012: Gem to Gold – 27.90s Gold to Gem – 38.62s Ratio: 0.72242
Now: Gem to Gold – 221.04s Gold to Gem – 305.95s Ratio: 0.72247

Difference due to not allowing fractional copper.

I took the first one, it’s 71.5… Not sure where the discrepancy there is, maybe the data was wrong.

Using that info from Spidy the 15% double tax can be detailed more closely.

Assume there is a uniform internal conversion rate of x gold per 100 gems. Anet treats gem trades internally as TP transactions.

In the case of buying this means you have to cover the compounded cost of the gems and the added tax. So you don’t pay 1.15x, but x/0.85 ~ 1.176×. This is how any seller would calculate the list price when targeting a receipt of x. The twist is that, as the buyer, you pay the tax for the seller (Anet).

When you sell 100 gems, you lose 15% as normal to sales tax, so Anet takes x out of their coffers, of which you get 0.85×. This is the amount provided in the quote.

As a sell:buy ratio, the expected value is 0.85x/(x/0.85) = 72.25% which is the observed value from Spidy.

edit: clarified inclusion of tax in quoted prices

munkiman.3068:

Behellagh.1468:

Gem to Gold has been ~72.25% of the Gold to Gem price from nearly the begining. Check the history at GW2Spidy

Oct 1, 2012: Gem to Gold – 27.90s Gold to Gem – 38.62s Ratio: 0.72242
Now: Gem to Gold – 221.04s Gold to Gem – 305.95s Ratio: 0.72247

Difference due to not allowing fractional copper.

I took the first one, it’s 71.5… Not sure where the discrepancy there is, maybe the data was wrong.

Please explain your math.

edit: never mind, by “first one” he apparently means the prices from Sep 10.

Leablo.2651:

Using that info from Spidy the 15% double tax can be detailed more closely.

Assume there is a uniform internal conversion rate of x gold per 100 gems. Anet treats gem trades internally as TP transactions.

In the case of buying this means you have to cover the compounded cost of the gems and the added tax. So you don’t pay 1.15x, but x/0.85 ~ 1.176×. This is how any seller would calculate the list price when targeting a receipt of x. The twist is that, as the buyer, you pay the tax for the seller (Anet).

When you sell 100 gems, you lose 15% as normal to sales tax, so Anet takes x out of their coffers, of which you get 0.85×. This is the amount provided in the quote.

As a sell:buy ratio, the expected value is 0.85x/(x/0.85) = 72.25% which is the observed value from Spidy.

edit: clarified inclusion of tax in quoted prices

Duh! Of course, 0.85 squared. Brilliant! Kicking myself for not realizing that myself. I use to be so much better at spotting things like that.

Of course, no conspiracy theorist was ever convinced by facts.

Leablo.2651:

munkiman.3068:

Behellagh.1468:

Gem to Gold has been ~72.25% of the Gold to Gem price from nearly the begining. Check the history at GW2Spidy

Oct 1, 2012: Gem to Gold – 27.90s Gold to Gem – 38.62s Ratio: 0.72242
Now: Gem to Gold – 221.04s Gold to Gem – 305.95s Ratio: 0.72247

Difference due to not allowing fractional copper.

I took the first one, it’s 71.5… Not sure where the discrepancy there is, maybe the data was wrong.

Please explain your math.

edit: never mind, by “first one” he apparently means the prices from Sep 10.

Yeah, i was scratching my brain on that little anomaly. I actually thought for awhile that as the prices go up the “tax” went down, keeping the spread a little tighter. If the cost of 100 gems went to 10g… well you see what i mean

For everyone that argues that it drives up the cost of storage I’d like to point out that you can join up to 5 guilds iirc creating a personal guild and buying influence to get storage isn’t that expensive, it’s even cheaper if you dedicate all of those influence bags you get as drops.

The money supply is only one possible factor in inflation. However an increase in money supply does not neccesarily mean an increase in the price of goods and services. The only thing an increase in money supply means inherently is that horded money becomes slowly less valuable over time.

Thus 100g at release no longer has the purchasing power that it did, however it is far easier to get that 100g in current day economy. The only time you can say that inflation has happened though is if the increase in the price of goods and services is greater than the increase in the total money supply. Information we are not privy too as players really.

I for one would argue that this still draws real life parallels and still harmful due to it’s precise nature. The lion’s share of the money supply is most likely made by a relatively small % of the player base, the same as the lion’s share of the total money supply is made by a small % of billionaires and corporations IRL. Explained below in more detail.

Thus I would say the situation is similar. People that play the game “just for fun” are left out in the cold by comparison, as are casual players. Whereas the people farming constantly are left in good standing. The ability to game the market easily only supports the ability of people who already possess money to make more money.

Essentially you end up with the same problem as the real life economy which boils down to a situation of the haves and have nots. The idea behind this is capitalistic, you “work harder” you make more money. However this is also somewhat inherently flawed because 1. RL is much more biased towards the already wealthy (ty lobbyists and corporations) and 2. This is a video game, any time I have to “work” to achieve something is a failure imo because this is supposed to be something I do for fun, not something I do as a part time job.

Now herein we hit an additional wrinkle, what do you consider “working” for that gold? I would stipulate that this is behavior far in excess of the normal players performing of generally mundane activities with the express purpose of making gold. While opinions vary, it’s easy to see exactly how many people are running X or Y for gold or in current situation are farming the crap out of Southsun.

While this indeed can be the source of a small % of the populations “fun” this is the temporary and transitory sort of fun which is ultimately harmful to the rest of the video game population.

Final Thoughts

I’m just a 28 year old video game player who has watched and played MMORPG’s and the situational climes of reality with great interest. I am no expert and even experts are quite simply subject to being wrong. In the case of economics specifically sometimes experts overly complicating things or downright attempting to confuse people. Depends on who is paying them really. Still, it makes interesting conjecture and the overall cause of inflation seems to be greed in every case. Guild Wars 2 is not immune to this, though it is generally better than many/most games.

Also, hire meh :P. (sense of humor intact!!)

As a side note, the more alts you have the lower the relative value of gems is. So the value of the goods and services offered decreases markedly with each additional alt. This makes an additional imbalance in the overall population between those who have single characters and those who play multiple characters.

For instance, I would have gladly bought the mining pick, but upon hearing i only get one of them I decided against it. It would be fabulous were it available to every character like the Collectors edition bonuses I got. Same story with the additional bag slot and mini pets. However it is near pointless when you run multiple alts, much less the unreasonable amount of alts I own.