Guild Wars 2

I’m not actually listing the item. I’m meeting a buy order. It’s not sitting on the AH, I’m not gambling hoping to make more than the current offer, in many cases I’m already undervaluing my item, so why do I get charged a listing fee if I’m not listing the item?

You’re paying the black lion trading company. It’s a fee regardless.

The question is not “What?” but “Why?”

Because you are using a trading service that charges for selling items through them. That’s not unique to video games.

BLTC does have real life people working on it .. just as programmers, not sales representatives.

So, in a way, I see some justification to the taxation, even if I don’t particularly like it.

It sucks gold out of the game to slow inflation, too.

That said, you don’t have to pay a listing fee if you don’t go through the BLTC. (disclaimer: I am not condoning any actions contrary to the Terms of Service agreement)

Allisa Wonderland.8192:

That said, you don’t have to pay a listing fee if you don’t go through the BLTC. (disclaimer: I am not condoning any actions contrary to the Terms of Service agreement)

You don’t have to. Player to player “trades” are allowed, but done at your own risk due to no trade system being implemented. Bypassing it is really only advised for use with friends/trusted players (noteworthy to mention: Guildmates, at least, they SHOULD be trustworthy).

The question is not “what” or “why”, but “who”; and ANet has decided that the buy order costs nothing and the seller pays both the listing fee and the sale tax.

Zid.4196:

The question is not “what” or “why”, but “who”; and ANet has decided that the buy order costs nothing and the seller pays both the listing fee and the sale tax.

Because the seller is making the profit… before we get into all the economic marketing whatnots.

The buyer doesn’t make a profit off of a sale. (At least, not immediately.)

The profit is met by the sale tax and it’s natural all of it is the seller’s responsibility.

Listing fee however is a different matter. In other games, whoever sets up the listing pays the fee. It may be the seller, but it may also be a buyer that has set up a buy order. In GW2, the seller has to always pay the fee, even when responding to an existing buy order. A lot of people find this strange.

Technically, you need to list an item before it can be sold on the TP. Meeting a Buy Order is shortcutting the process for the seller, but the fees are there as if you posted the item for sale as normal. So there’s nothing strange about being charged fees or taxes.

Filling a buy order = listing the item on the TP at that price.

As simple as that. You list is all the same.

Because ANet needs to keep the economy in working order – and, indirectly, make money.

filling a buy order doesn’t involve “listing” anything. if fulfilling someones buy order only had the 10% sales tax and excluded the 5% listing fee for NOT listing anything, it would be more enticing for people to do so.

maybe if they change it from listing fee to “the fee you pay because your forced to use our BLTP since we wont let you safely trade between players” but just abbreviate it of course

Zid.4196:

The question is not “what” or “why”, but “who”; and ANet has decided that the buy order costs nothing and the seller pays both the listing fee and the sale tax.

Who pays the tax isn’t important. If the share of the tax each person paid, while keeping the total percentage the same, prices would just shift so the same amount comes out of the buyers wallet, the same amount goes into the sellers and the tax take remains unchanged except in rounded amounts.

The important thing is that the tax is the only goldsink that can stop long term inflation, as it’s the only gold sink that takes more as prices rise*. Which means that any way to avoid the goldsink is bad for the economy.

*Meaning that if incomes remain the same, inflation will just lead to a point where the tax is sinking more gold per hour than is being created. Thus inflation gets reversed for a while, until the TP isn’t sinking enough. Then you have a cycle of inflation and deflation around a point.

There was a similar thread here a while ago where John Smith posed the question of what the market would look like if there was no listing fee involved in selling to a buy order. How would this change the behaviours of buyers and sellers?

As an example, if there was an item with a lowest sell listing of 75c and no fee for meeting buy orders, then I could make more money by filling buy orders at 72c+ than I could by listing them at the current price. This effectively means that sellers who have listed at 75c have both an opportunity cost (waiting for sales to complete) and a reduced return.

Filling a buy order = listing the item on the TP at that price.

As simple as that. You list is all the same, as any item.