Guild Wars 2

The formula is very simple. There’s 15% transaction fee and it’s both ways whether you buy gold with gems or buy gems with gold. It’s different from TP where only sellers pay 15% tax. So there’s about 30% defference between gem-gold and gold-gem exchange rate. For example, if the gem-gold trade line is 50 silver coins/100 gems, minus 15% transaction fee, 50 silver coins only net you 85 gems, and 100 gems net you 42.5 silver coins.

The inflation of the exchange rate is natural because more and more players get to level 80 and make more coins. And some players buy gold from gold sellers and the price is much cheaper than gem-gold exchange. With more players buying gems with gold either farmed by themselves or bought from gold sellers, the exchange rate will go up naturally until it’s close to the gold seller’s rate.

If it is indeed 15% then that is Far too high. Currencies exchanges are different than products. IRL a good currency exchange fee is around 2%, and those places don’t profit from the currency itself (Gem selling).

Venge.6893:

If it is indeed 15% then that is Far too high. Currencies exchanges are different than products. IRL a good currency exchange fee is around 2%, and those places don’t profit from the currency itself (Gem selling).

I suspect that the large gap between the two rates is intended to discourage currency speculation. This would also explain why there isn’t the ability to place buy/sell offers on the exchange.

So I guess the question would be, should players be allowed to speculate on the currency exchange? Additionally, what would be the benefits/drawbacks of letting them do so?

Tarvok.4206:

Also, gems are more useful than gold. I’ve been spreadsheeting prices, and while I’ve not yet gotten through all the crafting components (paddings, insignias, and stuff), it seems like prices don’t go up much as you go up the ladder of gear quality, and even go down toward the top tier. So with everything so cheap on the market, what do you do with your extra gold? Buy gems.

I can’t imagine ANet is artificially setting gem prices, as I’m fairly certain the gem store is just players buying and selling gems from each other, with some buying gems with real money… but not enough, apparently. The only way they could “set prices” in this system is if they were buying the gems themselves with gold from outside the game, but I don’t think this is what’s happening.

The impression I’m getting is that the game is just not gear based, and without gear pressure, the pressure to acquire gold with gems is low; thus, people don’t really buy gems (with real money) to get gold with. It is only if people do this that gem prices can drop.

EDIT: Also, there’s this: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Gem-Purchases-Keep-Failing

ANet’s buggy payment acceptance system is probably a BIG part of the supply problem. I couldn’t even buy the game from them; I had to go to Amazon.com to get my copy.

It’s called a Database….
All Anet has to do is alter the conversion rate in the database would take only 3 seconds….

Astraea.6075:

Venge.6893:

If it is indeed 15% then that is Far too high. Currencies exchanges are different than products. IRL a good currency exchange fee is around 2%, and those places don’t profit from the currency itself (Gem selling).

I suspect that the large gap between the two rates is intended to discourage currency speculation. This would also explain why there isn’t the ability to place buy/sell offers on the exchange.

So I guess the question would be, should players be allowed to speculate on the currency exchange? Additionally, what would be the benefits/drawbacks of letting them do so?

The benefits would be cheaper costs for users and possibly more use affecting price in itself. There’s the possibility of the lowered cost and possibly use affecting cost swaying people away from gold sellers.

The only drawback is that some people may be able to make money currency swapping. I don’t think this is a real bad thing. A currency market is so big that any one speculator could not affect the market on a wide scale. I suppose it still might be possible with a group of rich people, but it would be difficult to organize and still a risk.

Thinking it through a little more, I think that if you want to allow player speculation on the currency exchange, then you would need to allow buy/sell offer listing rather than just reducing the “transaction cost” differential between the two rates.

With the current exchange it seems that if you make a purchase, it happens at the current rate regardless of the quantity involved. If this is the case, then depending on when the rate is recalculated, it could be possible (with a small transaction fee and large enough transactions) to shift this rate into a position where you could quickly sell again with an immediate profit.

It seems to me that the current system has been set up to provide instant transactions (liquidity) while disallowing (short term) speculation. If you want to allow speculation in the exchange, it would be better for the liquidity to be provided via buy/sell offers (and the actions of speculators/flippers) than use the existing mechanism.

I am quite happy with the fees, and if anything I’d like the gap to be larger. Quite a few of you are too focused on free markets and real life comparisons, when neither would benefit the game as a whole. As obfuscated as it is, the gem store serves two purposes: A source of income for ANet through gem-for-cash sales, and a gold sink through gem-for-gold sales. Removing the fees would not only take away the gold sink but indeed open the gem exchange up for speculators.

On top of that, a lot of posters are in favor of a buy/sell order system. As I have mentioned earlier, I think that is a terrible idea. Let us assume that exchange fees are removed and the exchange is based purely on buy/sell orders. Let us also assume that all players spend an equal amount of gems in the gem store. Finally, let us assume that only half the players ever buy gems for real money. At this point, those players would have to trade half their gems for gold for the market to be stable. Now, the problem is that we don’t know how many players actually buy gems for real money versus gems for gold. Personally I think 50% is quite a high estimate and I’m guessing we’re closer to 20% (and even that feels optimistic). Now we are looking at a ratio that says those players must trade 80% of their bought gems for gold to achieve a stable market. I have one question… What would they do with all that gold?!

A 100% free market in an MMO would be an utter kittenstorm, and it would be more likely to benefit 24-7 gamers that it would weekend or occasional players, which is something that goes dead against that game’s design manifesto.

DarkfyreAlgoma.4967:

I can’t imagine ANet is artificially setting gem prices, as I’m fairly certain the gem store is just players buying and selling gems from each other…

Really? Then you haven’t read my post post from the first page (not the OP).

The seller doesn’t get to set a price for their Gems.

The buyer doesn’t get to put in a buy order. In each case they put up a number, either the number of Gems they want to sell, or the amount of gold/silver/copper they want to spend, and the TP gives them the other number, i.e. how much Gold you’ll get for X amount of Gems or how many Gems you’ll get for X amount of Gold.

So if neither the buyer nor the seller is setting the price, who is? There are only 3 parties in this transaction, it’s not rocket science.

geraden.8619:

If anyone cares, this is about what I’d be willing to pay for things in the Gem Shop:
Character Slot – $5.00
Character Bag Slot – $1.00
Bank Space – $2.50
Black Lion Key – $1.00 for four
Dye Pack – $1.00
Consumable Buffs – $0.50

If prices were closer to this level, I’d be buying stuff several times a month.

I’d pay $4 for an extra bank tab, that’s something that useful across all your characters.

But the point here is one that all these microtransaction based games miss.

50% of something is worth an infinite amount more than 100% of nothing.

I know, and I’m not the only one who knows, that;

1. digital goods are created ONCE
2. They have an infinitesimal storage requirement

This means that the usual overhead associated with selling items is almost completely absent.

So why am I paying extortionate rates for virtual items?

The answer is, I’m not. I refuse to.

( Disclosure: I’ve bought ~$150 worth of gems in the shop since release. )

My 2 cents:

I’ve always considered gem prices odd – even if I personally can afford them easily – because of the definition of microtransactions.

Correct me if I am wrong but wasn’t the game designed to be supported by microtransactions? Feel free to look it up, the original concept for MT was sub dollar items, as in less than $1. Now I understand that transaction margins at the card processor bank might not make it feasible but ANet would be wise to consider introducing sub $10 prices for gems. Let’s say $4 for 800 and go higher from that. It would mean more sales – somewhat offset by more administration/bank fees – and probably more profit longterm.

( I apologize for any gammatical/spelling errors, English is not my native language )

Hecuter.6274:

Correct me if I am wrong but wasn’t the game designed to be supported by microtransactions?

I don’t think so. If it was, the game client would be free or much less expensive. We pay for the basic game and have the opportunity to buy additional convenience/just for fun items for much less than an expansion. Permanent upgrades to your account, like extra character slots or bank expansions should be expensive. I much prefer that to the Hellgate model where you rent extra stash space.

I haven’t seen any of ANet’s business strategy documents, but from the outside it looks like they’re relying on a few folks willing to pay more less frequently than strong arming lots of folks into paying a little bit all the time.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Hecuter.6274:

Correct me if I am wrong but wasn’t the game designed to be supported by microtransactions?

I don’t think so. If it was, the game client would be free or much less expensive. We pay for the basic game and have the opportunity to buy additional convenience/just for fun items for much less than an expansion. Permanent upgrades to your account, like extra character slots or bank expansions should be expensive. I much prefer that to the Hellgate model where you rent extra stash space.

I haven’t seen any of ANet’s business strategy documents, but from the outside it looks like they’re relying on a few folks willing to pay more less frequently than strong arming lots of folks into paying a little bit all the time.

actually what gw2 has is more or less a completely average f2p cash shop/MT model.

STO’s f2p model for example is very similar, with teh exception that accounts without pruchases on them have limited access- we can say though that that is simply similar or equal to the gw2 box price entry fee to playing at all.

especially in terms of the high drop rate chests that are unlocked by keys which in f2p games typically sell for $1-3 a piece. they tend to have some ultra low drop rate reward that compells people to spend hundreds of dollars in puruitof that item. we already see this in gw2 with the bank access express and perma tonic, with hints that this will be further augmented to make spending a great deal of money on the keys more desierable.

it’s not really any different from many many many games’ cash shops that are fully f2p model.

oh except in many of those games the item or currency that is used to trade between real life money and in game tradeable currency(ie gold) generally is freely tradeable, and there is direct trading as opposed to funneling all trade through anet’s market which disallows people from avoiding the destructive sales taxes on TP transactions(not really an argument that it mitigates scamming here, since people already trade directly in gw2 and thus are increased risk of being scammed as a result of lack of proper direct trading mechanisms)

John Smith.4610:

There has been no price manipulation, there is a transaction fee, I don’t feel these are the same thing.

Call it whatever you want, third party seller’s prices reflect what a real competitive market on gems and gold looks like with no price controls.

Its really too bad, you could have discouraged soo many more third party sellers from your game or they would have just went through your company if you were actually doing what you’re claiming and charging a fee rather than attempting to control prices.

Real tangible control of your game has been sacrificed for the illusion that you’re going to control this part of the money. This is like the one thing D3 devs understood.

there has been observable changes in drop rates of key items, temporary mystic forge recipes and so on to manipulate prices indirectly that are not fees.

why the need for doublespeak anyway?

Vlaxitov.5693:

John Smith.4610:

There has been no price manipulation, there is a transaction fee, I don’t feel these are the same thing.

Call it whatever you want, third party seller’s prices reflect what a real competitive market on gems and gold looks like with no price controls.

I disagree with that – the gold farmers are NOT getting their gold the same way players are… they’re using bots and exploits which makes their acquisition of gold a lot cheaper.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vlaxitov.5693:

John Smith.4610:

There has been no price manipulation, there is a transaction fee, I don’t feel these are the same thing.

Call it whatever you want, third party seller’s prices reflect what a real competitive market on gems and gold looks like with no price controls.

I disagree with that – the gold farmers are NOT getting their gold the same way players are… they’re using bots and exploits which makes their acquisition of gold a lot cheaper.

Bootleggers were also well known for commiting all kinds of different crimes other than making illegal drink for the same reason. I never said it would stop the 3rd party gold farming either. It would have put Anet more in control of it just like the end of prohibition put the govt. in control of booze and reduced alot of other crime.

Average Anet price on gems is around 60 silver per 100, 10 USD gets you around 6 gold.

Farmer advertised price is 45 cents per gold. 10 USD gets you 9 gold.

Non legit player buys 3rd party gold for gems, price of gems goes up in game, farmer website gets to actually raise their price on gold and still undercut Anet enough to make buying it worth it to enough people. The legit player gets screwed with either being forced to earn more in game gold for the same things he wants or else just giving up and buying it, which I think is kind of the point. Great for everyone but the actual player.

The interesting factor in all this discussion is the ever-presence of the gold farmer/seller.

I personally don’t buy from them on principle (also for scams/security), but I guess the price differential does generate appeal.

Still, I’d love to think that if ANet did get a better control on bots/gold sellers, this would become less of a factor. They did claim to be making strides in this department… still have some faith

Vlaxitov.5693:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vlaxitov.5693:

John Smith.4610:

There has been no price manipulation, there is a transaction fee, I don’t feel these are the same thing.

Call it whatever you want, third party seller’s prices reflect what a real competitive market on gems and gold looks like with no price controls.

I disagree with that – the gold farmers are NOT getting their gold the same way players are… they’re using bots and exploits which makes their acquisition of gold a lot cheaper.

Bootleggers were also well known for commiting all kinds of different crimes other than making illegal drink for the same reason. I never said it would stop the 3rd party gold farming either. It would have put Anet more in control of it just like the end of prohibition put the govt. in control of booze and reduced alot of other crime.

I specifically disagreed with is that “third party seller’s prices reflect what a real competitive market on gems and gold looks like with no price controls".

The black market will always be less expensive if you only look at the price of the goods – the hidden cost is the risk of participating in it.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vlaxitov.5693:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vlaxitov.5693:

John Smith.4610:

There has been no price manipulation, there is a transaction fee, I don’t feel these are the same thing.

Call it whatever you want, third party seller’s prices reflect what a real competitive market on gems and gold looks like with no price controls.

I disagree with that – the gold farmers are NOT getting their gold the same way players are… they’re using bots and exploits which makes their acquisition of gold a lot cheaper.

Bootleggers were also well known for commiting all kinds of different crimes other than making illegal drink for the same reason. I never said it would stop the 3rd party gold farming either. It would have put Anet more in control of it just like the end of prohibition put the govt. in control of booze and reduced alot of other crime.

I specifically disagreed with is that “third party seller’s prices reflect what a real competitive market on gems and gold looks like with no price controls".

The black market will always be less expensive if you only look at the price of the goods – the hidden cost is the risk of participating in it.

I can’t help but to feel that you’re sidestepping what has always been my point out of lack of humility.

That “hidden cost” you’re talking about isn’t soo hidden. Third party sellers would have to sell gold for much less if there was no risk and anyone could do it openly. Gold prices would likely drop to the point that removes alot third party incentive for farming it, incentive for botting, incentive for hacking accounts. It wouldn’t stop those things but it would put Anet further in control of monitoring and regulating what happens in their game than what they are now.

Vlaxitov.5693:

Farmer advertised price is 45 cents per gold. 10 USD gets you 9 gold.

That’s a very low number. 10$ USD gets you 20+ gold easy from the sellers now.

But it seems like people think everything is fine and A.Net will end the Gold sellers. That’s just not going to happen. If there’s a profit incentive, there will always be gold sellers. Even if you do something drastic that punishes regular players like remove money sending in mail, they’ll just find a way around it such as through the TP.

Obviously A.Net cannot wholly compete with the gold sellers prices. But that can take steps to be more competitive. Going with Vlax’s prohibition analogy, moonshine is still somewhat prevalent, especially in states with state-run ABC stores, but the price difference is pretty minimal. And the convenience/security of going to a local ABC store outweighs the lower price of the moonshiners.

Unfortunately the current disparity in prices is so great (like 6x) due to things like lack of transparency, use, and a huge tax. That it would be like you can either get a 1/5th for 25$ or go to the government run store and get one for 150$. Unless you were wealthy or scared of the government/bootleggers.

The fact is that gem prices (in gold) need to be considerably higher than they are. The reverse is also true, gold prices (in gems) needs to be much lower.

One of the main functions of the currency exchange should be to prevent the sale of gold from 3rd parties. Its hard to justify spending $35 dollars in the gem store for 10-15 gold when buying it from a 3rd party gets you 65-70 gold for the same price. This also nets more gems by using the exchange then by just buying them outright.

I DO NOT CONDONE 3RD PARTY SALES OF GOLD. I still believe that people who use bots and gold sellers need to be banned. I am just pointing out that ANET can and should use their own micro-transaction business model to edge them out.

In addition, inflation needs to be curbed. As someone who doesn’t get to play as much as others, I find the current rates of inflation to be staggering. Since many of the cool exotics don’t have drop rates outside of the mystic forge (which they should, it would moderate prices considerably) I will never have a chance at them by just playing. At this rate I will NEVER be able to afford anything I actually want in this game without buying gold (I haven’t yet, but I’d be lying if I said I had not considered it), and even then I would HAVE to buy it from a 3rd party to get any kind of value for my money.

One way to help alleviate both problems is have actual items people farm for/craft sell for gems instead of gold. This would force people to use the currency exchange for more than the odd transmutation stone/black lion key.

Since ANET can directly control the price of gems it would simultaneously edge out competition from 3rd party gold sellers, increase their own profits (Who would buy 3rd party if you could buy from the source for less?) as well as moderate the economy.

I read at least 50% of this thread, the risks mentioned doesn’t seem mitigated whether it is a free market or not – gold traders can trade gold now as it is, probably more profitable now, considering depreciation of gold is buffered by the current system.

In my opinion, it should not be the role of the gem auction to regulate/ force out illegal gold traders – even though they can screw traders badly by spiking the prices when gold trading is on the rise. It makes more sense to use other specific techniques to detect and curb illegal gold trading.

I think the gem auction is doing great now, just need to fix performance/ bugs. it is a –
> gold sink with taxes
> avenue for paying customers to get gold by trading gems
> avenue for customers to get gem items by trading in their gold

and anet probably knows this – the only way to encourage trade is great content perhaps via events, selling non-permanent, long duration items? e.g. a hot bikini for summer month.. or a sexy outfit for halloween. I expect great things for coming halloween event profit generation will then become periodic huge spikes of entertainment, which i surely agree and support

EDIT:
i missed the key question – i dont think it matters if its controlled by market or anet. it just needs to be fair and transparent.

Jason.9643:

EDIT:
i missed the key question – i dont think it matters if its controlled by market or anet. it just needs to be fair and transparent.

I was going to comment on your post prior to the edit.

This IS the key question. ANet has a vested interest in Gems costing much gold. It encourages people to invest in Gems using real money, which goes in their pocket.

With no transparency, who’s to say ANet didn’t “rebalance” the numbers on the back end to jack up the Gold cost of Gems?

And mind you I’m not saying they did. I’m just saying they won’t prove it either way. We trusted them, we gave them $50 or more in cash just to get in the door. And I mean even for the “open beta” (which was neither open, nor beta as far as I could tell), if you didn’t pay, you didn’t play. So we all bought a pig in a poke, trusting to ANet to write a good game and play fair with the cash shop.

So why won’t they trust us with the information we need to justify giving them more of our money?

Colonel Kernel.7506:

With no transparency, who’s to say ANet didn’t “rebalance” the numbers on the back end to jack up the Gold cost of Gems?

I think you’re onto something there…

One issue with gems is their price keeps rising, atm they are trading at 75/100, when they hit 84.91/100 within the next week or 2 it will be more expensive to create mystic forge salvage kits than to buy masters salvage kits. I will stop buying gems when they hit this price and suffer the slight inconvenience of having to carry around more salvage kits. What is GW2 doing about the ever increasing price?

Over the last few days I saw the rate of gems increase to 61s/100 gems, so I thought that would be a decent rate to convert some gems. I get my credit card out buy 800 gems, upon purchase I immediately see a new conversion rate of 45s/100 locked in.
I has not changed since. I find this hard to believe there was such a drastic drop in gem prices in the few seconds it took me to do my transaction. Nor can I set a rate that I am willing to sell at. I don’t believe that Anet will ever ALLOW gem sellers to realize anything higher that what they decide THEY want us to sell at. I am not happy.

100% free market is a bad idea IMHO.

Gems need to match gold sellers prices on a daily basis.

I think that Gem prices need to be controlled by Anet, so that they can match gold sellers prices. Why they haven’t already done this, makes zero sense to me.

Wyrdthane.6801:

I think that Gem prices need to be controlled by Anet, so that they can match gold sellers prices. Why they haven’t already done this, makes zero sense to me.

Because no player in their right mind would exchange gold for gems/dollars at the prices that the gold sellers do. The only reason the gold sellers are able to do it so cheaply is because they use bots and exploits.

Every time you think to yourself that you don’t get enough gold for your money through the gem store, flip it around and ask yourself if you earned that amount of gold in game through legitimate farming, would the time and effort it took you to get that much gold be worth that amount of money.

Chiming in, though I found this rather late.

1. Gold sellers are the reason gem prices are skyrocketing. More easy to obtain gold in the game, cheaper than selling gems to gain, drives up the price of Gems as the demand goes up, less people flip gems for gold and the product on hand dimishes.

Now for my unbiased opinion on the Free question.

If the BLTC helps keep this game floating, helps pay the bills for updates, free new content, running the servers, etc., I am happy with that. As long as it remains a cosmetic and quality of life added based design. As long as it doesn’t go into the Pay to WIn category.

Would I like everything to be more like GW1? Sure, but I was happy in GW1 when buying extra character slots first became available. I wasn’t around much longer after that though as my interest had declined due to playing the game for 2 years.

Colonel Kernel.7506:

I’d pay $4 for an extra bank tab, that’s something that useful across all your characters.

But the point here is one that all these microtransaction based games miss.

50% of something is worth an infinite amount more than 100% of nothing.

I know, and I’m not the only one who knows, that;

1. digital goods are created ONCE
2. They have an infinitesimal storage requirement

This means that the usual overhead associated with selling items is almost completely absent.

So why am I paying extortionate rates for virtual items?

The answer is, I’m not. I refuse to.

Okay, you’re right. I’d be willing to pay a bit more for a bank slot as it’s shared between all characters. But any single use or single-character upgrades should be a lot cheaper than they currently are.

Was it not inevitable that the exchange rate would and will continue to rise? The longer the game exists, the more gold is generated in-game and the higher prices for all items will become.

Sista.1925:

Over the last few days I saw the rate of gems increase to 61s/100 gems, so I thought that would be a decent rate to convert some gems. I get my credit card out buy 800 gems, upon purchase I immediately see a new conversion rate of 45s/100 locked in.
I has not changed since. I find this hard to believe there was such a drastic drop in gem prices in the few seconds it took me to do my transaction. Nor can I set a rate that I am willing to sell at. I don’t believe that Anet will ever ALLOW gem sellers to realize anything higher that what they decide THEY want us to sell at. I am not happy.

More likely, you looked at gold>gems, instead of gems>gold. Well, then again I’m still used to daily fluctuations on the order of +/-2s in the price. I wish I knew what was up with the current growth in the rate.

Daroon.1736:

Was it not inevitable that the exchange rate would and will continue to rise? The longer the game exists, the more gold is generated in-game and the higher prices for all items will become.

This does not explain the 300% increase in price over a 4 day period around when I started this thread.

Yes, mudflation is inevitable. Yes, the current prices will eventually be reasonable. But not today.

Polaritie.4851:

More likely, you looked at gold>gems, instead of gems>gold. Well, then again I’m still used to daily fluctuations on the order of +/-2s in the price. I wish I knew what was up with the current growth in the rate.

It has been speculated that there will be Halloween items in the Gem store for a brief period and people are snapping up Gems in hopes of this. Given that we have multiple holidays, possibly with an event for each, over the next few months I’m guessing we can expect this trend to continue till early January.

Colonel Kernel.7506:

This does not explain the 300% increase in price over a 4 day period around when I started this thread.

Which 300% increase would that be, exactly?

http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem

Looks there like the most recent maximum for coin → gems was about 80s for 100 gems. A 300% increase would require that it was ever 20s for 100 gems. Which I’m pretty sure has never been the case.

Hippocampus.8470:

Colonel Kernel.7506:

This does not explain the 300% increase in price over a 4 day period around when I started this thread.

Which 300% increase would that be, exactly?

http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem

Looks there like the most recent maximum for coin -> gems was about 80s for 100 gems. A 300% increase would require that it was ever 20s for 100 gems. Which I’m pretty sure has never been the case.

IIRC, back around the 10th or 11th it was in the low 20s for silver to 100 Gems conversion.

Last time I looked (and it’s been a few days) it was in the mid to upper 60s for silver to 100 Gems.

And I phrased it incorrectly, the price was 300% of what it was. That’s not a 300% increase.

And a 200% increase in a 4 day period is still ridiculous.

Who is setting these prices? It’s not the players.

IIRC, back around the 10th or 11th it was in the low 20s for silver to 100 Gems conversion.

I don’t think you RC. That may have once been the amount you got from gems → gold, but I have a really hard time believing gold → gems shot up from low 20s to the low 50s in only two days, considering it has never grown by that much in any other 2-day period since the game came out.

And in fact Guild Wars Trade never has it falling below 35s for 100 gems any time in the past month.

And in fact Guild Wars Trade never has it falling below 35s for 100 gems any time in the past month.

I got my 3rd character slot of just a hair over 2 gold. I think the trade was 26s for 100 gems.
Character slots are 800 gems.

That was pretty early on though.

Colonel Kernel.7506:

Yes, the current prices will eventually be reasonable. But not today.

The current prices are always reasonable to someone. The day the prices are reasonable to everyone is the day ANet can no longer sell gems for real money.

As unclear as the inner workings of the gem exchange are, you have to keep the business plan in mind.

The idea of a free market is a myth anyways, no true free market exists. Look at the US economy which everyone calls a free market, but in reality is full of cronyism and collusion.

Corporations collude to keep product prices high, market managers scheme how to bend financial rules to make an extra buck. Lobbyists buy politicians to pass legislation to give them an unfair market advantage, generic drugs and ethanol embargo’s are a perfect example.

Whenever you open an economy that isn’t highly regulated you get chaos and corruption.

John Smith.4610:

Out of curiosity, how many feel that a 100% free market would be a good idea?

John, I agree with most of who have said here. I have flipped on my free time and come to find out that there’s a lot that goes on behind closed doors. A completely free market would have its pros and cons. If you take out the floor, then there’s no price that is too cheap, thus dampening the TP’s use in the first place.

CON: If you actually allow people the freedom to do what they want, it will completely throw a screwball in the system completely. Allowing the players to set the economy in a game that you’ve worked so hard to make sure that its fair for everyone would just kill the experience.

PRO: (Subjectively speaking) Anyone who is a flipper and sees potential profit to be made with any item is going to do everything that they can do to make that profit. They will sit and watch the market even more closely and will make a drastic profit on the items that they watch.

My opinion: Coming from a flipper and someone who has watched the market closely, it would undo the delicate fibers of webbing that you have sewn into the experience that is GW2. I say no, don’t allow a free market. It will crumble what you have built and discourage people to use the system.

Another thing to consider is that they released the Gem Cards this passed weekend. People came to GW2 to not have to pay to play. That included the Gems. Trading IGC for Gems which could be considered RMT for ANet, the people that think it would be worth it that DO NOT posses a credit card are going to their local game-trading store and are going to be flooding the market and probably going to drive prices down for a while until it stabilizes. I have a feeling that ANet knows what they want to accomplish and they are going to do just that. In the meantime, play their game that they allow you to play and allow them to do as they wish. Its their game, you’re in their universe.

Basically the system is the same as in GW1 for traders. In GW1 it took some time but in the end prices stabilized. Some events seriously shaked the economy and could influence prices but on average ecto was extremely stable in the long run.

Also, traders could run out! The same can and will happen to the gem trader, where some day all his gems are spent and he can’t sell any, not even at 100gp/100gems, until someone puts gems into the system again.

To get rid of the players buying gold from gold sellers, increase the amount of gems converted into gold and slightly increase the amount of gold needed to convert into gems. ArenaNet still get’s quite a bit of pay even with a lesser cost for an infinite supply thus increasing the demand for the goods, players get the currency they want, and less gold sellers are in the game.

TL;DR: ArenaNet —> Decrease price to buy gems with real life currency by 25% and slightly increase amount of gold needed to acquire gems by 20% --> More players buy gems —> ANet get’s more money in the long run/Players are happier with gold & gem increase overall.

Players (After price change) —> Don’t buy as much gold from gold sellers because the price is beat --> Gold sellers are minimized —> Less bots --> More motivated players in PvE/WvW —> More meaningful and active player farming groups --> A better feeling of accomplishment knowing that a reasonable amount of effort and time was inputted

Why should ANet change things when the gold:gem exchange rate is already adjusting itself in that direction?

Mythinite.7130:

So what, nobody wants to answer my question why a solid 1 gold = 100 gems idea is bad?

If the currencies were linked at a fixed rate without transaction fees, there would be no need for two separate currencies. You could just buy gold directly from ANet instead of gems, and pay with gold in the gem store. That’s not really an argument either way though.

The gem store is a gold sink. Every time a player exchanges gold into gems, it removes gold from the game. At release, gold was scarce and you could get a lot of gems for it. As the game progresses, gold becomes much more common. The exchange rate has to keep up with the gold inflation, ensuring that gem store items are always priced in such a way that players can justify purchasing gems for real money. If it didn’t, a year or two down the line, players would have no incentive to buy gems for real money as everyone is sitting on hundreds if not thousands of gold.

What?! Are you playing the same game as everyone else? Where is gold falling from the skies? I’m level 80 and I’m struggling to find a good source of gold. There are already so many gold sinks in the game that I don’t see anyone sitting on a pot of it unless that’s all they’re doing. Repair bills are very high already as well as travel costs. Now one O’m armored up, I imagine that unless I buy it, it’s hard to keep one gold in my inventory for more than a few days.

marnick.4305:

Basically the system is the same as in GW1 for traders. In GW1 it took some time but in the end prices stabilized. Some events seriously shaked the economy and could influence prices but on average ecto was extremely stable in the long run.

That’s not the way I understand the GW1 economy. From what I understand (didn’t play long enough to know personally) Glittering Dust (or maybe it was another commodity) became the de facto currency of GW1

marnick.4305:

Also, traders could run out! The same can and will happen to the gem trader, where some day all his gems are spent and he can’t sell any, not even at 100gp/100gems, until someone puts gems into the system again.

And that right there is the natural balancing factor of the system. Long before 100Gold = 100 Gems someone will say it’s worth their while to buy Gems with cash and sell them.

However, if you read one my earliest posts in this thread, I don’t believe that will be allowed to happen naturally.

The moment a seller puts Gems on the market they receive Gold in return.

How is this possible when players can’t place Buy Orders?

And what’s to stop ANet from supplying the Gems to fill a player’s order when they buy some Gems with Gold?

The problem here is based on three things

1. ANet supplies all the Gold
2. ANet supplies all the Gems
3. The process of buying Gems for Gold from other players is NOT transparent.

I don’t understand why they don’t make it so only players can sell gems and let the players dictate pricing. If Anet supplies no gems on the gem exchange, and 100% of the gems come from players who sell them the prices should even out over time. Currently speaking, there is little to motivate selling gems (as a player) considering we cannot set the price, and there is a rather noticeable difference between what you can sell them for and how much they cost to buy.

If ANet supplies no gems, then gems will eventually disappear, since they get destroyed when people buy from the gem store.

If you mean on the gem/gold exchange, it’s my understanding that ANet already supplies no gems there (though in practice they kinda do as a middle man, so trades can be instant instead of needing to place orders like on the TP).