Guild Wars 2

To my understanding this game was marketed to have a player controlled market, where players decide the cost of items available through normal gameplay as well as the gold to gem conversion prices.

I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but if Arena Net controls the price of gems for cash, the amount of gold(and other currencies for that matter) available in game, the cost of items from vendors, the rarity, appearance and usefulness of the items available through normal gameplay and the appearance and usefulness of the items available for gems, dont they in fact control the market and conversion prices, or at least have a fair degree of control over it?

I apologize if this has been asked and answered.

A-Net does have the ability to “reset” the market on the gems-to-gold since they own the rights to the game for one.

As to the internal economy, they are the “Gods” of the game and can flood the loot with items that they feel are getting out of control with their prices. IE: they can up the drop rate on unidentified dyes to curb the climbing prices.

In the end, yes A-Net “can” have full control of the market and all currencies if they feel they need to intervene. They made the game after all.

They don’t control the price of gems for gold. That is determined and fluctuates along with gems to gold.

the trading post is controlled by players. and so is the gem pricing when players sell gems the price of buying goes down and when players buy gems the price of gems goes higher. the same thing with the trading post its controlled by players.

Insofar that Anet is the developer of the game and responsible for the creation of everything in it, yes, they have baseline control over various aspects of the economy. You’re trying too hard to state the obvious. The only way for this to not be true is for them not to create any gold or items, which in effect means there is no economy, nor much of an RPG. See also: Observer effect