Guild Wars 2

Gold or gems. More people use gold and/or real world money to purchase gems. This pushes the price of gems up, even though the supply of gems is infinite. People use their gems to buy make over kits and all the things their heart desires. However this also raises the price of items where the demand for them is decreasing, or worst, are free in the virtual world.

When a single repair kit now costs 5 gold shows not all items in the gem store should be sold for gems, but a constant fixed gold price.

From what I understood (I could be wrong), was that the more players bought gems with gold, the price for gems bought with gold increased. But the more players that bought gems with cash, and converted to gold, the price for gems with gold went down.

For ANet to set fixed gold prices they would need to benefit from this. How would they benefit from selling you items with gold that they give you for playing? How would they earn real money from doing this?

gem price only decreases when players convert gems into gold. the vast majority of players that buy gems use those gems in the gem store, so they never get converted to gold, so there are far more players converting gold to gems than visa versa.

Wait – people buy repair kits? I understand the use for them if you’re running fractals; but I get so many from dailies, I thought they were the new Laurel.

Yeah, the only time I’d actually use them now is in Fractals (and only high-level Fractals, at that). You can WP back to the start of a dungeon at any time to repair, and if you’re dying so often in the open world that you need to use repair kits, something is seriously wrong with your build.

Astral Projections.7320:

For ANet to set fixed gold prices they would need to benefit from this. How would they benefit from selling you items with gold that they give you for playing? How would they earn real money from doing this?

Figure it out. You see it everyday in the real world. A set service or good being sold for a set price. Take a snickers bar for example or a can a coke.

Now say your response back to yourself;
“If coke sold a can of coke for a set price to a consumer, how would coke benefit from this?”

This is why coke sells their product at a set price, but their share price if you want to buy into coke is floated and variable.

Services in gem store such as repair kits should a set gold price. Variable items that will fluctuate according to demand because of limited time offers remain as gems. Just like you see in the real world.

Repair kit was just the item chosen as an example to illustrate how inflation in game is affecting some goods/services in negative ways. Because of the recent massive raise in gems (12 gold=100 gems) This means lower ticket items, which were designed to be lower ticket items are now expensive items by default. (Repair kits now costs 5g to purchase the gems for and is a completely free service in the open world.) This shows negative aspects are forming in the trading post. A free service is now horrendously expensive to buy and store because the payment method for the service is not set in gold, but the currency used is floated and variable, which makes no sense. Even in real world economics there is the big mac index of which different countries can value their dollar by figuring out how much a big mac costs in their currency. The big mac is chosen because it tends to adhere to a fix price over time that is proportionally in line despite the currency differences.

You don’t need anything in the gem store to play the game. They are entirely convenience (or cosmetic) items. Plus we have a chance to get them (I assume you want “the staples” to be listed for gold instead of gems) from daily or achievement chests.

How does putting a revive orb, lets say at 10g help the game compared to the current gem cost.

Also (unless something has changed) your first statement is wrong. The amount of gems is not infinite. Every time someone buys gems with gold they pull gems out of the “pot”. Every time someone buys gold with gems they add gems into the “pot”. Gems that are bought with real money and then buy something in the gem store do not effect the pot. I can see in a years time (sadly most likely less) of it being 1g—>1gem because it is a more popular option, and you have people (speed dungeon runners, farmers, and tp flippers) who have thousands of gold and can buy gems anytime they wish.

To just parrot what I see others say. The prices in the gem store are priced from a gem perspective (or real money perspective). If you feel the object is worth that much real money you can buy it, if not, and you still want it you have the option to convert gold into gems. Nothing in the gem store is priced via gold (or the gold to gems exchange rate).

To get a bit hyperbolic, if you say inflation is hurting the game, how is your suggestion any better? In 1 year, 5g could be gained in one 10 min speed dungeon clear. The items would have to keep rising in price with inflation (which is too much work to do manually, but hey look, that’s what the gem price already does). Or just make them all trade-able on the tp, you get a repair canister from the daily, congrats you just gained 10g!