Guild Wars 2

OK… in selling items on the TP, I’m left with a question. I understand the paying to sell an item through the posting, but I fail to understand where all the extra money goes. What do I mean? Well, if you list an item for 15s, then the listing fee is (for example only) 80c. Why is it that my projected profit, provided the item sells as listed for 15s, is only 13s80c? Someone’s math is certainly off — I try not to complain, but over time I’ve lost a LOT of money that seems to get siphoned off the top of my selling price without explanation. So my question to the ANet staff is this: where is the money going???

To the “BLTC”

or

No one if you prefer… same place your travel cost money goes to

its a gold sink

There are actually two separate fees, but the trading post UI does not adequately make this clear.

There is a (non-refundable) listing fee of 5%, which you pay when you list your items, regardless of whether they sell or not.

In addition, there is a 10% fee/tax on successful sales. The “projected profit” value displayed in the UI shows the value of the items you are selling after this 10% is deducted, but does not include the listing fee in the calculation.

They eat it. The code gets wiped and puff, it’s gone. It’s a gold sink to help with inflation. Same as WP and armor repair.

It’s Anet’s way of keeping inflation down. Think about it. If all money gained stayed around, people would get more rich, collectively, as the game went on. 1gold today would be worth 10s in a couple of months. Money rewards from kills/dungeons etc. would have to increase all the time or else they would be worthless.

This seems to me a very good argument that power traders are actually keeping the prices of goods DOWN.

It goes into the big secret BLTC vault, from there it is stolen by skritt, krait and the occasional bandit or even thief. One of us then slay’s said skritt (etc) and we are happy about the loot. Sometimes the thieves bought themselves stuff, that’s when the stuff drops. And so goes the cycle.

This video does a great job of explaining how the GW2 economy works. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx7o7CRoDXc

It has the answer to your question.

Come to think of it, I just re-watched it and realized the BLTP isn’t mentioned at all… bit it’s one of those places where money goes to die.