Guild Wars 2

Zaxares.5419:

However, I do know of a few cases where players purchased large amounts of gems (one guy traded in 20,000 gems!) and it didn’t even cause a wobble in the exchange rate. The amount of being traded must be extremely high indeed.

Because there is no sub, accounts are not deactivated, just dormant until the player logs in. So there are potentially almost four million players, if even a small percentage use the exchange on a regular basis, yeah, that’s a lot of transactions.

It’s working as intended. Eventually you’ll be able to buy some gems with your credit card and convert them to a healthy sum of gold.

phys.7689:

sorudo.9054:

phys.7689:

sorudo.9054:

phys.7689:

sorudo.9054:

phys.7689:

snow.8097:

and in 6 months 1g is 1gem worth and anet gonna swim in Money because no one can buy the gem stuff with Gold anymore and pays real Money for new skins
longtime Mission completed anet

actually they get more money from gold to gems to store, if the system is actually direct.
Due to the taxes. remember in theory every gem sold is acounted for by some one who bought gems.
so if you buy it direct, you pay for the item, if you buy it with gold, someone else paid, and they took some tax out.

The whole point of the system is that they always get paid regardless.

actually the only one who payed are the ones who used real money, the gold->gem exchange gives them absolutely no profit whatsoever.
taxes are already done by the one who actually bought the gems, no player generates any tax on anything with the gold->gem exchange, not even on the gem->gold exchange.

Essentially GW2 is selling gold, or rather, allowing players to sell gold to other players.
If any one makes a gems->gold purchase they are giving anet money, so they can trade with players.

So there is a value for gold =gems.

Essentially people who trade gold to gems are employees for anet, they are workers who create a product of game rewards for people who want stuff faster and easier.

the tax essentially is like the players getting paid less for the same service, or buyers getting less product for the same money.

…..no real money, no profit……that’s it.

the real money is the money the gem seller spent in order to get gold. Created by another player.

Essentially other players are creating a gem store item that people who dont care about what they actually produce in the gem store can buy.

they pay these players in items the guy with the money wasnt interested in anyhow. but they pay them at a lower rate than they would normally get it the sold it themselves.

Essentially lets say GW2 owned a store, and people could buy anything in the store, or pay the owner 10 bucks to kiss any employee. Every dude who spends 10 bucks to kiss an employee, was more interested in kissing the employee than anything in the store. They then pay the employee 7 in store credit dollars for every purchase.

The owner is actually getting more value when an employee buys a 10 dollar item with store credit, because if the employee had just kissed the customer outside of the store, they would have gotten 10 dollars, and been able to buy something they wanted, instead of getting 7 dollars and having to kiss more people to get the 10 dollar item.

So essentially the owner is selling a new product, and getting more value for a product that wasnt selling anyway, once you also realize the in store items are infinite, and take up no space, its a real gain in value to do it this way.

again, no real money, no profit.
nice try tho

the real money is the money the guy who wanted gold paid anet. every single gemstore item that is sold is either making as much money as it says, or more in terms of how much real money the guy wanted gold gave to the gem buyer to buy an item.
in fact every item that a gold—-> gem buyer spends on the shop actually costed more money for the guy buying gold with his gems.

when some one buys an item for 800 gold(10 dollars) with gold, some dude probably paid closer to 13 dollars for that item to come into the game.
Unless the gem exchange is not doing its job right.

they are losing nothing, its a clever system. Essentially the people with a lot of money are buying items for other players, but paying more for them. either way, anet is getting paid for every product.

sigh, i knew this day would come, the day that i need to do the seasamstreet level of explanation.

player 1: i buy gems with real money
player 2: i buy gems with in-game gold
player 1 pays 10 dollars to Anet, Anet has profit
player 2 pays with gold, Anet gains no money → no profit
player 1 exchanges the gems with gold → fills the gem bank → Anet has no profit
player 2 buys an item in the store → Anet still gains no money → no profit

that’s how things really work, there is nothing extra payed nor do gold exchangers make profit.
the only way Anet has any profit is from players who pay with real money like player 1 does, gold exchange only uses the gems that are already bought thus not giving any money just like player 2 did.

so for the third time, no money→no profit

sorudo.9054:

that’s how things really work, there is nothing extra payed nor do gold exchangers make profit.
the only way Anet has any profit is from players who pay with real money like player 1 does, gold exchange only uses the gems that are already bought thus not giving any money just like player 2 did.

so for the third time, no money->no profit

Player 1 buys gems for $10.

Player 1 trades gems for gold from exchange.

Player 2 trades gold for gems from exchange, gets player 1’s gems.

Player 2 buys $10 worth of stuff from the gem store.

While he does not directly put money into Anet’s pocket, without the gem/gold exchange Player 1 wouldn’t have a reason to buy gems, and Anet wouldn’t get their $10. Player 2 is the reason why Player 1 bought gems, both are responsible for Anet making money.

sorudo.9054:

sigh, i knew this day would come, the day that i need to do the seasamstreet level of explanation.

player 1: i buy gems with real money
player 2: i buy gems with in-game gold
player 1 pays 10 dollars to Anet, Anet has profit
player 2 pays with gold, Anet gains no money -> no profit
player 1 exchanges the gems with gold -> fills the gem bank -> Anet has no profit
player 2 buys an item in the store -> Anet still gains no money -> no profit

that’s how things really work, there is nothing extra payed nor do gold exchangers make profit.
the only way Anet has any profit is from players who pay with real money like player 1 does, gold exchange only uses the gems that are already bought thus not giving any money just like player 2 did.

so for the third time, no money->no profit

player one buys gold with $ from another player
this is the key step you are missing,
the system only works because another player is willing to give up his time to the other player.
player one has no desire for the other products anet has at that point.

basically in order for player 2 to get gem store item X player one has to buy it for him. In buying it for him, player one actually spends more money on that item than if player two had bought it himself.

The problem is you are thinking anet is selling player one gold, that is not really true, anet is allowing player one to sell his gold to player two, at a cost. If anet did not use this type of system, the economy would probably fail and have to be extremely different. Creating money out of nothing devalues your money, and makes it impossible to actually manage the money flow. Money has to be created through gameplay/time and balanced/accounted for.

with the gem system, anet is not printing money, they are basically allowing players to barter for goods with real money and time played.

take a look at wildstar system, its packaged in a lump sum, but it basically works the same.
player one buys monthly membership tokens for real dollars, he sells it to player two for gold.
player two is not really playing for free, he actually was paid for by player one, carbine is still getting 15 dollars a month for every single player who plays. in fact they are getting more money, because credds cost 20 bucks, and there is a tax on the exchange, which amount basically means for the same amount of gold as he wants, player one has to pay more, and for the month that player two wants to get, he has to play more.

tldr, anet is getting paid for every single item sold in the gem store, aside from the gems they give away for fixed amounts of work/compensation/promotions etc.

The gem trade just allows anet to monetize people who would not normally buy their products, and get more money from people who would spend more money for more value in game without totally devaluing the product that they are selling

phys.7689:

sorudo.9054:

sigh, i knew this day would come, the day that i need to do the seasamstreet level of explanation.

player 1: i buy gems with real money
player 2: i buy gems with in-game gold
player 1 pays 10 dollars to Anet, Anet has profit
player 2 pays with gold, Anet gains no money -> no profit
player 1 exchanges the gems with gold -> fills the gem bank -> Anet has no profit
player 2 buys an item in the store -> Anet still gains no money -> no profit

that’s how things really work, there is nothing extra payed nor do gold exchangers make profit.
the only way Anet has any profit is from players who pay with real money like player 1 does, gold exchange only uses the gems that are already bought thus not giving any money just like player 2 did.

so for the third time, no money->no profit

player one buys gold with $ from another player
this is the key step you are missing,
the system only works because another player is willing to give up his time to the other player.
player one has no desire for the other products anet has at that point.

basically in order for player 2 to get gem store item X player one has to buy it for him. In buying it for him, player one actually spends more money on that item than if player two had bought it himself.

The problem is you are thinking anet is selling player one gold, that is not really true, anet is allowing player one to sell his gold to player two, at a cost. If anet did not use this type of system, the economy would probably fail and have to be extremely different. Creating money out of nothing devalues your money, and makes it impossible to actually manage the money flow. Money has to be created through gameplay/time and balanced/accounted for.

with the gem system, anet is not printing money, they are basically allowing players to barter for goods with real money and time played.

take a look at wildstar system, its packaged in a lump sum, but it basically works the same.
player one buys monthly membership tokens for real dollars, he sells it to player two for gold.
player two is not really playing for free, he actually was paid for by player one, carbine is still getting 15 dollars a month for every single player who plays. in fact they are getting more money, because credds cost 20 bucks, and there is a tax on the exchange, which amount basically means for the same amount of gold as he wants, player one has to pay more, and for the month that player two wants to get, he has to play more.

tldr, anet is getting paid for every single item sold in the gem store, aside from the gems they give away for fixed amounts of work/compensation/promotions etc.

The gem trade just allows anet to monetize people who would not normally buy their products, and get more money from people who would spend more money for more value in game without totally devaluing the product that they are selling

uhmm….you’re seeing a step that doesn’t exist, you only want to see that step.
player 1 doesn’t buy gems for player 2, player 1 buys gems only for him/her self.

to make it even easier to understand the system, the moment player 1 pays for the gems, no other profit is made.
what happens with the gems is no concern of Anet, they just want your money in trade of gems.
all the gems sold with real money are there anyway and they can just make gems at any time, the gems that are used to buy gold are just thrown in a bucked and anyone can buy gems with gold.
ill even make a whole diagram if i have to, explaining it trough text is clearly not good enough.

sorudo.9054:

phys.7689:

sorudo.9054:

sigh, i knew this day would come, the day that i need to do the seasamstreet level of explanation.

player 1: i buy gems with real money
player 2: i buy gems with in-game gold
player 1 pays 10 dollars to Anet, Anet has profit
player 2 pays with gold, Anet gains no money -> no profit
player 1 exchanges the gems with gold -> fills the gem bank -> Anet has no profit
player 2 buys an item in the store -> Anet still gains no money -> no profit

that’s how things really work, there is nothing extra payed nor do gold exchangers make profit.
the only way Anet has any profit is from players who pay with real money like player 1 does, gold exchange only uses the gems that are already bought thus not giving any money just like player 2 did.

so for the third time, no money->no profit

player one buys gold with $ from another player
this is the key step you are missing,
the system only works because another player is willing to give up his time to the other player.
player one has no desire for the other products anet has at that point.

basically in order for player 2 to get gem store item X player one has to buy it for him. In buying it for him, player one actually spends more money on that item than if player two had bought it himself.

The problem is you are thinking anet is selling player one gold, that is not really true, anet is allowing player one to sell his gold to player two, at a cost. If anet did not use this type of system, the economy would probably fail and have to be extremely different. Creating money out of nothing devalues your money, and makes it impossible to actually manage the money flow. Money has to be created through gameplay/time and balanced/accounted for.

with the gem system, anet is not printing money, they are basically allowing players to barter for goods with real money and time played.

take a look at wildstar system, its packaged in a lump sum, but it basically works the same.
player one buys monthly membership tokens for real dollars, he sells it to player two for gold.
player two is not really playing for free, he actually was paid for by player one, carbine is still getting 15 dollars a month for every single player who plays. in fact they are getting more money, because credds cost 20 bucks, and there is a tax on the exchange, which amount basically means for the same amount of gold as he wants, player one has to pay more, and for the month that player two wants to get, he has to play more.

tldr, anet is getting paid for every single item sold in the gem store, aside from the gems they give away for fixed amounts of work/compensation/promotions etc.

The gem trade just allows anet to monetize people who would not normally buy their products, and get more money from people who would spend more money for more value in game without totally devaluing the product that they are selling

uhmm….you’re seeing a step that doesn’t exist, you only want to see that step.
player 1 doesn’t buy gems for player 2, player 1 buys gems only for him/her self.

to make it even easier to understand the system, the moment player 1 pays for the gems, no other profit is made.
what happens with the gems is no concern of Anet, they just want your money in trade of gems.
all the gems sold with real money are there anyway and they can just make gems at any time, the gems that are used to buy gold are just thrown in a bucked and anyone can buy gems with gold.
ill even make a whole diagram if i have to, explaining it trough text is clearly not good enough.

let me attack this from another angle.

every item in the gemstore is paid for with gems correct?
every gem (aside from achieves and promotions) is created through someone giving real money to anet.

This means that every single purchase in the gem store, no matter its source was paid for by real cash at the end of the day.

what happens to the gems is a concern of anet, because gems are only bought to get a product. IE, in your example,
player 1 will not buy any gems
because he doesnt want anything in the shop

the only thing he wants is someone to play for him while he is at work so that he has money to do what he wants to do in game.

player 2 wants items, and is willing to play for this guy in order to get it. Anet steps in and makes the deal for these players, but they take a fee.

heres what it boils down to
gold is worth money.

sorudo.9054:

phys.7689:

sorudo.9054:

sigh, i knew this day would come, the day that i need to do the seasamstreet level of explanation.

player 1: i buy gems with real money
player 2: i buy gems with in-game gold
player 1 pays 10 dollars to Anet, Anet has profit
player 2 pays with gold, Anet gains no money -> no profit
player 1 exchanges the gems with gold -> fills the gem bank -> Anet has no profit
player 2 buys an item in the store -> Anet still gains no money -> no profit

that’s how things really work, there is nothing extra payed nor do gold exchangers make profit.
the only way Anet has any profit is from players who pay with real money like player 1 does, gold exchange only uses the gems that are already bought thus not giving any money just like player 2 did.

so for the third time, no money->no profit

player one buys gold with $ from another player
this is the key step you are missing,
the system only works because another player is willing to give up his time to the other player.
player one has no desire for the other products anet has at that point.

basically in order for player 2 to get gem store item X player one has to buy it for him. In buying it for him, player one actually spends more money on that item than if player two had bought it himself.

The problem is you are thinking anet is selling player one gold, that is not really true, anet is allowing player one to sell his gold to player two, at a cost. If anet did not use this type of system, the economy would probably fail and have to be extremely different. Creating money out of nothing devalues your money, and makes it impossible to actually manage the money flow. Money has to be created through gameplay/time and balanced/accounted for.

with the gem system, anet is not printing money, they are basically allowing players to barter for goods with real money and time played.

take a look at wildstar system, its packaged in a lump sum, but it basically works the same.
player one buys monthly membership tokens for real dollars, he sells it to player two for gold.
player two is not really playing for free, he actually was paid for by player one, carbine is still getting 15 dollars a month for every single player who plays. in fact they are getting more money, because credds cost 20 bucks, and there is a tax on the exchange, which amount basically means for the same amount of gold as he wants, player one has to pay more, and for the month that player two wants to get, he has to play more.

tldr, anet is getting paid for every single item sold in the gem store, aside from the gems they give away for fixed amounts of work/compensation/promotions etc.

The gem trade just allows anet to monetize people who would not normally buy their products, and get more money from people who would spend more money for more value in game without totally devaluing the product that they are selling

uhmm….you’re seeing a step that doesn’t exist, you only want to see that step.
player 1 doesn’t buy gems for player 2, player 1 buys gems only for him/her self.

to make it even easier to understand the system, the moment player 1 pays for the gems, no other profit is made.
what happens with the gems is no concern of Anet, they just want your money in trade of gems.
all the gems sold with real money are there anyway and they can just make gems at any time, the gems that are used to buy gold are just thrown in a bucked and anyone can buy gems with gold.
ill even make a whole diagram if i have to, explaining it trough text is clearly not good enough.

Your missing one point, reason for buying gems.

Situation one. A game where you can’t buy gems to sell for gold.
Player one doesn’t want anything from the gemstore. He does want more gold though. However he can’t sell the gems to get gold so that month he doesn’t buy gems. The game earns no money.

Situation two. Guild Wars 2 where you can buy gems to sell for gold.
Player one doesn’t want anything from the gemstore. He does want more gold though. He buys X amount of gems with real money and sells the gems to player two for gold. The game earns money.

What I’m trying to say here is yes, ANet only gets money for gems that player one buys. But there would be no gems to put in the pot for player 2 to buy without that motivation. Without it, “all the gems sold with real money are there anyway and they can just make gems at any time” this step is absent.

I don’t believe that there’s more demand for gems than for gold because there’re few items worth to buy and much more items for gold, I’m guessing that Anet is tampering with the price.

Psychol.5783:

I don’t believe that there’s more demand for gems than for gold because there’re few items worth to buy and much more items for gold, I’m guessing that Anet is tampering with the price.

theres items for gold, that people already got, or arent that interested in. For gems you got armor, minis, special dyes, new weapons, more bank tabs more loot slots, charachters, transmutations, etc.

Anyhow, it doesnt mean overall demand, its more about the demand of the types who want to buy gems with gold, versus the demand of people who want to sell gems for gold. There are a lot of people who dont really fit into either category, who dont contribute to either side.

mtpelion.4562:

“What’s happening to gems?”

Basic economics.

More people want to avoid spending real money for gem store items, so they spend gold. This depletes the “stock” of gems and causes the remaining gems to cost more.

At some point, we will have a relatively equal number of people who are buying gems for gold as we have using gold for gems which will stabilize the exchange rate.

When it costs $10 to get a commander tag for all my alts (ten and counting), I’ll be buying gold with gems.

Gems never go down. Never ever.

Ever.

Svarty.8019:

Gems never go down. Never ever.

Ever.

Except the last two weeks in December of 2012. Or the entire month in December of 2013.

Of course it fluctuates daily, today’s low so far was 11.43g while the high was 13.25g.

really don’t care about the gold→gem exchange, i want the gem→gold exchange to rise enormously.

^ Same here! Still waiting patiently for the magical day of 100 gems for 10g.

Behellagh.1468:

Svarty.8019:

Gems never go down. Never ever.

Ever.

Except the last two weeks in December of 2012. Or the entire month in December of 2013.

Of course it fluctuates daily, today’s low so far was 11.43g while the high was 13.25g.

Finally stocked up my gems from 5.000 to 13.000 today since the rate was 11.10g – 11.13g .. and like always i think : why the hell do i not exchange ALL my gold

silvermember.8941:

Charak.9761:

I made 200k gold

But iunno what else to buy

You could donate it. You could do what scrogged mcduck and swim in it. Or buy someone random player the anomaly.

I’ve gotten 3 precursor’s since I started playing less than a year ago and have given away over 400g to people I care about. If you have nothing to buy and nothing you need, spread a bit of joy. If I were this rich IRL I’d do the same. Buying a dozen people kites just for the sake of having us all jump around with them is a hard feeling to match.

Beldin.5498:

Behellagh.1468:

Svarty.8019:

Gems never go down. Never ever.

Ever.

Except the last two weeks in December of 2012. Or the entire month in December of 2013.

Of course it fluctuates daily, today’s low so far was 11.43g while the high was 13.25g.

Finally stocked up my gems from 5.000 to 13.000 today since the rate was 11.10g – 11.13g .. and like always i think : why the hell do i not exchange ALL my gold

So you spent about 800 gold on gems? I’m a gold cost averaging kind of guy so I buy a little everyday, more on days before Gem Store update.

Behellagh.1468:

Beldin.5498:

Behellagh.1468:

Svarty.8019:

Gems never go down. Never ever.

Ever.

Except the last two weeks in December of 2012. Or the entire month in December of 2013.

Of course it fluctuates daily, today’s low so far was 11.43g while the high was 13.25g.

Finally stocked up my gems from 5.000 to 13.000 today since the rate was 11.10g – 11.13g .. and like always i think : why the hell do i not exchange ALL my gold

So you spent about 800 gold on gems? I’m a gold cost averaging kind of guy so I buy a little everyday, more on days before Gem Store update.

Yeah .. it was time again to get rid of my nearly 3000g before i get the stupid idea to buy another Legendary

And .. i also think that the prices will never go down again. Last time i bought gems was now nearly a year ago where i also bought 2 times gems for 1000g ..

And now .. where are the new shiny gemstore Armors ?

The more GW2 will go, the more the average player won’t be able to trade is few golds for some gems to get that sweet item in the store. He will have to cash up and use is credit card without thinking. Making me sick when you see that 10€/$ is worth only 800gems !
I’m still glad GW2 is not a subscription MMO but that economy system in the store and the idea that everything involving gear and other items is based on Gold and gems is for me the biggest down of GW2. Anet really need to do something or in the near future juste 100gems will be worth 100gold and many (counting myself) players refuse to pay 10€ to only get 800gems.

AuKosS.3597:

Making me sick when you see that 10€/$ is worth only 800gems !

Vs 800 point for XBox Live points for $10€. Or 800 NCoin for $10€.

Here’s Aion’s store if you want to compare prices.

http://store.aiononline.com/store/index

AuKosS.3597:

Anet really need to do something or in the near future juste 100gems will be worth 100gold and many (counting myself) players refuse to pay 10€ to only get 800gems.

In that case, won’t 800 gems ($10€) get you 800 gold as compared to the 94 gold that 800 gems gets you today? I bet a lot of new players would be tempted to trade 800 gems to get 800 gold.

Behellagh.1468:

AuKosS.3597:

Making me sick when you see that 10€/$ is worth only 800gems !

Vs 800 point for XBox Live points for $10€. Or 800 NCoin for $10€.

Here’s Aion’s store if you want to compare prices.

http://store.aiononline.com/store/index

if you really want to talk prices, let’s talk about the prices in rift.
i can buy 1250 points for €7,50, allot of character-only stuff are about 30-100 points, account unlocked items are a bit higher but every single character get it even if it’s a new character.
i bought a mount for 1700 points which is unlocked for every character and had plenty left, payed only €12,50, try that in GW2 and we’ll talk.

FYI, i can get a costume piece for 15-30 points, when comparing the price of the points them self it makes the costume piece extremely cheap.