Guild Wars 2

Why does Anet not provide full data on prices and volumes in something approaching real time? Is it just a question of (real world) cost to them? Or is there some theoretical reasoning behind having this type of market?

We know that gw2spidy et al. only publish the information that is made available: the buy and sell orders outstanding at the instant of sampling. And we also know that these data are not fully representative of the ask/bid or volume in any given good (since, e.g., they do not provide information concerning contracts fulfilled within the sampling interval).

IANAE (I am not an economist ) so this question may well be naive. It may also have been asked before, but I could not formulate a search query which discovered it. Apologies if so; and please point me to it. Pointers to applicable underlying economic theory also welcomed.

I think it’s because it was initially intended to be a passive marketplace, not a statistical gathering to gain the most profit possible.

the reason is probably that they don’t consider that a good useful to cost of making ratio. (it’d cost too much to implement, and they don’t consider it all that necessary or they think the number of people who would find it necessary isn’t very much).
personally, I’m glad they don’t provide instant market research. If they did, it would absolutely be necessary to use it in order to make a profit, which takes time I’m not willing to spend in most cases. Better how it is now: not easy, so almost no one uses it, so it’s not mandatory to out-compete others.

Honestly, I’m not sure they intended to make the information that spidy provide public. Once the cat was out of the bag, they did the right thing and have allowed it, but it doesn’t seem to me that it was intended for players to have access to even just the information we do have.

As for additional data, I’m not sure there’s much value in allowing access to more than we currently have. There’s certainly uses for it, but while most anyone can utilize spidy’s data (and the similar other resources) the other data that hasn’t become available wouldn’t likely be as uniform in its benefit. That could be interpreted as conferring unfair advantages to the players able to best utilize that. That’s just pure conjecture though of course.

Syeria.4812:

As for additional data, I’m not sure there’s much value in allowing access to more than we currently have. There’s certainly uses for it, but while most anyone can utilize spidy’s data (and the similar other resources) the other data that hasn’t become available wouldn’t likely be as uniform in its benefit. That could be interpreted as conferring unfair advantages to the players able to best utilize that. That’s just pure conjecture though of course.

I would have thought that publicly available data, ideally through an official Anet portal, would provide a more level playing field. The data that is available now is actually quite lacking since it provides little insight into the actual volumes and prices. All that it tells us is that bids below a certain price may not be being filled and that asks above a certain price may not be finding buyers. Where the spread is relatively large, there might actually be quite a healthy market which we just never hear about….

DryHumour.1307:

Syeria.4812:

As for additional data, I’m not sure there’s much value in allowing access to more than we currently have. There’s certainly uses for it, but while most anyone can utilize spidy’s data (and the similar other resources) the other data that hasn’t become available wouldn’t likely be as uniform in its benefit. That could be interpreted as conferring unfair advantages to the players able to best utilize that. That’s just pure conjecture though of course.

I would have thought that publicly available data, ideally through an official Anet portal, would provide a more level playing field. The data that is available now is actually quite lacking since it provides little insight into the actual volumes and prices. All that it tells us is that bids below a certain price may not be being filled and that asks above a certain price may not be finding buyers. Where the spread is relatively large, there might actually be quite a healthy market which we just never hear about….

The playing field would become more uneven because of the skills and knowledge required to actually utilize that type of data. Most anyone can utilize spidy at least to some decent degree (albeit some will be better at utilizing it than others). That wouldn’t be true of the other data they theoretically could make available. Those data would provide more of an advantage to those players who happen to have certain educations, working experience, or hobbies to a degree that isn’t otherwise exposed right now.

If you go to anyone who is new to the TP and expect them to flip, convert, and manipulate through multiple listings, it won’t happen.

A lot of people don’t research the TP when they do their transactions. I used to be one of them. I would do core conversions and make 2-5s a pop when I thought I was making 30s.

Nowadays, I’m still not making that much, but I always overshoot my math so I can be safe. I’d rather make more than expected than less. I make about 50-80s per conversion now, and I also do flips for about 40-80% net profit.

Like what Syeria said, the people that know how to use it will benefit more than those who just see it as it is. You can argue that people can learn how to use it well, which is true, but there are no real guides as any guide will become outdated as soon as it’s posted due to people using it to the dot. The people that innately know how to use the data will benefit more than those who do not.

In terms of what/how people can benefit, I could potentially put in a week or two to look through Zicore’s source code and then add features that I would personally use for the system to cater directly to me, and releasing that would help others, but if they don’t know what/how to use that information, it won’t help them. It’s just more stuff in a giant bundle of stuff.