Guild Wars 2

By turning mini pets into account bound, the market is currently undergoing a massive speculative bubble. Was it wrong to assume that patch induced bubbles and crashes was something Anet tried to prevent by hiring economist John Smith?

Yes, it is wrong to assume that.

Prices are going to change when game features change, and people are going to speculate on it once the changes become public. You can’t stop that.

John can advise designers about what the effects of a proposed change might be, and can suggest how to break the news to minimize market overreactions.

But ultimately changes are going to be made and prices are going to shift, whether you understand what those ramifications are or not.

Yes it was wrong to assume. JS’s job is to to keep the entire economy from going out of control. The same thing happened when dyes went to account bound so the reaction was quite predictable. Only difference is we didn’t have the same kind of heads up that some of us had with dyes.

The funny thing is nothing has happened supply side. Tradeable mini’s are only available through gem shop purchases, directly or indirectly from BLC/Keys. You convert one into a wardrobe item and trade the others. I’m guessing players are assuming that minis from the gem shop will automagically become wardrobe items but they didn’t say that. As a matter of fact it would be a pain to prevent dups so dups must still be tradeable. I see it as how dyes are handled. You get a mini item, that you can still trade, and have to double click to move it to your wardrobe.

Thats one way to look at things. Another way is that post patch, we will get ‘mini-pet consumption’, either from convenience or from people wanting the AP/items that can be recieved trough the wardrobe change.

So where previously, every mini that appeared trough BLC/gem shop, added 1 to supply side, post patch we will have mini’s removed from the supply side as well.

In combination with mini’s that are impossible to get giving a 0 supply (such as year1/2, karka event, etc) it is not unrealistic that this increase in demand without supply (actually negative supply! no additional minis into the game, but they will be removed) forces a price increase. The only speculation is, which mini’s will rise little, and which will make you get all warm inside after flipping.

I don’t understand this topic. So you are afraid miniature price will crash (after the rise recently because of speculation)?

And you are wondering if JS’s job is to make sure the miniature price will not crash again?

I think many of the changes more or less is trying to make sure people spend money on the cash shop, because it become more and more difficult to get it in game, either because you can’t any more(key farm), or price get more expensive(miniature change, commander tag change).

js is to make sure the economy doesnt blow up, and fix its percieved flaws, not to make sure all prices stay the same.
in fact from his words, sometimes he actively creates such change, and mini were actually in general undervalued, so it does make some sort of sense.