Guild Wars 2

Gem prices continue to rise and in the very long term, I don’t see a reason why they will ever go back down. I think they will level off at some point, but it does not seem as though we’re close to that point yet. In order for gem prices to come down, lots of people will need to spend gems to buy gold, which means: other than the (probably) small fraction of players who are hoarding gems as an investment, lots of people will need to buy gems with real money. When 1g cost 2-3 euros/dollars, many people scoffed. Well, these days 1g costs about 85 cents. My question to you is: how low would gem prices need to go in order for you to buy gold? 50 cents per gold? 25 cents? Some of you already have bought gold, I’m sure: what prices did you pay?

(And of course I am only talking about transactions through Anet; please leave black market gold prices out of this discussion. Also, for reference: when 1 gold costs about 50 cents, I believe that means 100 gems will cost about 3.5g. 25 cents would mean 100 gems would be about 7g.)

At some point it seems like gold will get cheap enough that it will break some sort of barrier: many people who have resisted buying gold will finally find the price too irresistible to pass up. Then again, a few people have said they will never pay into the game – how many do they represent? Additionally, there is the issue that there will always be cool things to get with gems – it’s Anet’s business model, after all – and if 100 gems costs 3.5g, do you think more people will buy a holiday outfit that costs 700 gems for about 9 €/$, or ~24g? What about all the low-gem priced consumables? Some will always still go for the gold cost, which means there will always be upward pressure on gem prices (especially as new content continues to make gold easier to obtain, and more and more gold is created by players). There’s also the factor that you cannot “buy in” to the gem market in real money for less than 10 €/$, which some have said is a high price point for them.

I’m curious about all this because I’d like to see if we can predict the plateau: at what point are gold prices low enough that enough people are putting real money into the system that it will help stabilize the prices? Or will it “naturally” stabilize at certain points based on the amount of money / hour that the playerbase takes in, like before and after the Halloween event? Maybe I’m just vastly under-estimating the amount of real money already being put into the system: it has to be huge, or else gem prices would have gone up much more quickly long ago – but on the other hand, more people are clearly using gold to buy even more gems these days, and the real money transactions are not keeping up as the price rises higher and faster.

I think this was intended to be a “self-correcting” sort of model, where the ideal is a few stable plateaus, like the weeks preceding the Halloween announcement, or the week preceding the Karka event. At those times, money coming in was roughly equal to gold being spent, and some stability was gained. Since then, gold has been spent much more quickly, and there is no stability anymore, which I imagine actually drives many people out of the market, thus weakening gold further. I’m just wondering where or if this will all stop.

At the current state of the market and ROI from out of the market earnings,
Not a single penny

The day I can get 100g for 20 bucks through the gem store is the day I will buy gems to convert them to gold. I don’t anticipate I’ll ever buy gems to convert to gold through the gem store.

Rising Dusk: That’s 20 cents / 1 gold, which isn’t too far off from my 25 cent suggestion (80g for 20 bucks). I wouldn’t be surprised if we hit that at some point down the line. (The trick, of course, is: how much will 100g be worth to you at that point? By the time gold costs that little, it may be possible to farm 20g / hour, just like some claim they can make 5-6 gold / hour now.)

For reference, 50 cents per gold = 40 gold per 20 euro/dollars. 85 cents = 23.5 gold per 20.

Yeah, I recognize that it’s 20 cents for 1g, but I don’t think it’ll get that far. I think ANet is trying to maintain it at a level where something like the Commander icon or T3 armor are ‘standardized gold sink values’ and they won’t have to add things like an eventual ‘T4’ armor set costing 500g. I’d also be really shocked if things got to the point where it was ~8g / 100 gems to buy gems. I am already shocked that people pay what they do for them, and it’s not even 2g / 100 gems yet. What you get for those gems just isn’t worth it; it’s all power investors battling it out with each other.

That’s a good point; certainly, they currently believe 100g to be “a lot.”

I would have been shocked on release that gems would hit 2g / 100 less than 4 months into the game (especially having started around 25s), but they have. That’s an 8-fold increase in price. Are you really sure the price won’t quadruple again in, say, another 6 months? Especially with new events every month?

Certainly there is a “what is it worth” issue at play here as well: a few people are already asking what there is to spend gold on -other- than gems, since the main gold sinks are currently finite, especially if you’re not going for a legendary (or other skin-only improvement). But I still think it’s Anet’s business to make gems worth spending, and so they shall.

An interesting side bar is taking the meta-perspective of gold earning in-game: people complained for months that the sinks were tuned too tightly, and so now they’ve been loosened up a bit: to the consequence that gem prices are skyrocketing. It’s all one big web, isn’t it? (And John Smith is the spider…)

What would I pay for 1G? Depends on what I can buy for 1G.
Right now, nothing – plus I’m not paying another player with this considering the current market model.
I bought gems and converted them to gold for a Mad King outfit. Just because I wanted it then and there and the acquisition however much based on luck required the person to participate in the events.

Based on the fixed costs on other current NPC sold items I would say $10 for 100G, so 10 cents per one gold.

But really I would rather have more variety to buy from the store directly for gems.

Right now I don’t know that I’d pay much for a gold. Back when I was broke in-game it was a different story. I converted some gems to gold when it was around $1 = 1g because I needed a start-up fund for playing the TP.

I started with 50 gold, I have about 70 gold right now. But I have also required ridiculous amounts of stuff that I still have (2000 ancient wood planks, 250 emerald and sapphire orbs, 500 orichalcum ingots, etc…) that probably all cost a total 300g or more at the time of purchase and most of it I could sell right now for a profit (but I actually want the stuff).

So how much would it cost right now to get 100G from gems?

Shanna.4762:

So how much would it cost right now to get 100G from gems?

http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem

1g = 0.84 USD atm.

Rouven.7409:

Shanna.4762:

So how much would it cost right now to get 100G from gems?

http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem

1g = 0.84 USD atm.

=/ I don’t get it…

Shanna.4762:

Rouven.7409:

Shanna.4762:

So how much would it cost right now to get 100G from gems?

http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem

1g = 0.84 USD atm.

=/ I don’t get it…

100 gold from gems
1g = 0.84 USD

100 × 0.84 = $84

You can’t spend $84 but you can spend $85 ($50 + $35). So 100g = $85

Oh ok thanks, I was trying to figure out how the whole system works and for some reason my brain was not computing the simple part rofl

I`m still hesitant to get gold with gems, mainly as the things i would like, such as a commander tag or the racial armour are just so horribly overpriced. I feel better about very slowly saving the in-game gold to get those items.

Similarly, after i have a commander tag, i wont actually have anything left to spend gold on anyway.

I don’t particularly want to buy gold at ANY price with the couple k of gems I already have. Doing so will only put more coin into the hands of traders who will turn around and use it to launch new buy-walls.

What I do want to do is buy some sort of T6 random mats-packs or for the love of all that is fluffy and kitty, some sort of random Loadstone pack. That way I can meet my crafting needs without contributing to the ongoing mudflation of the game.

Give me that option and I’ll buy more gems, the transaction ANet really wants to see happen.

I think when retail prices match pirate gold sellers, that’s when
1.) more people will convert gems → gold and
2.) hopefully gold sellers will lose out their markets.

I have already bought gems to convert to gold in game. At release, the exchange rate was too expensive for me to consider it, but it has much improved. I know I could have gotten a better cheaper “deal” using black market gold, but I’ve never supported bots in 12+ years of MMOs and I see no reason to start supporting their ilk now. I AM very glad the cash to gem to gold rate has reached this point, and it looks like it is only going to get better.

Now if Anet could figure out how to stock their store with more desirable items and price them better, we’d really be talking. (And if a Dev sees this, you really need to look at other games with item shops to see what you’re doing wrong/what you should be doing better. Seriously.).

If the exchange rate rises to a point where 100 gems sells for 10 gold, then I’d buy some gems to convert into gold. However, this would also depend on whether or not there were actually items I wanted which I desperately needed money for. Thus far I’ve been saving up a modest amount of gold through normal play, and I expect that by the time I’m ready to start hunting for Ascended/Legendary items, my ‘income’ in-game would also be at a point where I wouldn’t need to supplement it with gem purchases.

I find the whole concept so hard to understand. The most likely candidates to convert gems to gold are casual players with limited time. But past getting an exotic armor set and weapons why would they do it more than once ? So realistically there’s never going to be a supply big enough to drive the prices down.

Even if it reached a point where you could craft a Legendary from one 2000 gem purchase how many would bother ?

Bluesavanah.8562:

I find the whole concept so hard to understand. The most likely candidates to convert gems to gold are casual players with limited time. But past getting an exotic armor set and weapons why would they do it more than once ? So realistically there’s never going to be a supply big enough to drive the prices down.

Even if it reached a point where you could craft a Legendary from one 2000 gem purchase how many would bother ?

I think if it ever reached that point, you’d be surprised at the amount of people running around wearing twilight/sunrise/etc. and you’d see their /age to be <<< age of hardcore players/low influence points :P I myself will find means to buy gems and convert at that price.

Psychology > Inflation > Numbers.

For 1g, I would pay about…… 1g.

Back on topic,
I don’t think I would purchase gold. It kind of defeats the purpose of the game IMO if you use RL money to get in-game currency.
Nothing wrong with getting gems though, as that isn’t the same as purchasing better stats. The expanded bank is nice.

I’m not very fond of purchasing gold, as it kind of takes the ‘game’ out of the game, but I think with the current market state I would probably give $10 for 30g. That’s the point where I could envision using a bit of disposable income, because the price becomes a drag on time.

$10 buys you 800 gems, so:
100 gems = (30 / 8 ) = 3.75g for selling 100 gem
As per the wiki, the rate to buy gems with gold is roughly 36% higher, thus
3.75 + (3.75 * 0.36) = 5.1g to buy 100 gems.

So right now, in my opinion, gems are still far, far too cheap. I will continue to use gold to purchase gems when there are items that I want. Whatever your opinion may be, I guess I will be part of the force that continues to drive gem prices upward until the point where it becomes a bit irritating to acquire the gold to do what I want.

Bluesavanah.8562:

I find the whole concept so hard to understand. The most likely candidates to convert gems to gold are casual players with limited time. But past getting an exotic armor set and weapons why would they do it more than once ? So realistically there’s never going to be a supply big enough to drive the prices down.

Even if it reached a point where you could craft a Legendary from one 2000 gem purchase how many would bother ?

Well, I typically pay about $1,500 per year on commissioned art of my on-line characters, so I’m perfectly willing to spend $80-$120 as a reasonable expense of my hobby to get my chatacter to look right in games so that when I commision art I can just point at a screenshot and say “Like that”. The problem for me is the weapon I want for one of my characters costs about $750-$800 dollars for the loadstones (I’m farming the orichalcum myself beause doing that is comparitively relaxing). $750-$800 is simply far beyond my means, same as I rarely commision a piece for over $200.

Thing is I’m not casual. I can put in a huge amount of time per week, and even with that time I’ve only managed to gather 4 (5 if you count unconverted cores) charged loadstones ‘off the landscape’.

By the way… You all know that you get substantially improved returns when you trade in higher numbers in a single transaction, right? Selling 2000 gems gives you a lot more gold than selling 1000 gems twice.

Likewise, spending 2 gold on gems, gets you more than spending 1 gold twice. If you are buying gems with gold, you might get better results if you save up a bit more first.

penatbater.4710:

Bluesavanah.8562:

I find the whole concept so hard to understand. The most likely candidates to convert gems to gold are casual players with limited time. But past getting an exotic armor set and weapons why would they do it more than once ? So realistically there’s never going to be a supply big enough to drive the prices down.

Even if it reached a point where you could craft a Legendary from one 2000 gem purchase how many would bother ?

I think if it ever reached that point, you’d be surprised at the amount of people running around wearing twilight/sunrise/etc. and you’d see their /age to be <<< age of hardcore players/low influence points :P I myself will find means to buy gems and convert at that price.

I should of been more specific I’m not talking the high end Legendarys, you can still buy some precursers for 15g, so anyone just wanting the achievement would probably go for that.

Is it seriously that hard to understand?

Inflation.

More gold in the game, therefore gold buys less and it just happened to start with gems. Because you get to buy stuff that you would have otherwise spent real money on.

The price will only get higher. It wi never level off. Stop this madness.

Couple things:

100 gems for 10 gold = $10 for 80g = 12.5 cents per gold

100 gems for 30 gold = $10 for 240g = ~4.2 cents per gold

To expand earlier examples:
Currently, 100 gems is 1.5g = $10 for 12g = 83 cents per gold
100 gems for 2.5g = $10 for 20g = 50 cents per gold
100 gems for 5g = $10 for 40g = 25 cents per gold
100 gems for 12.5g = $10 for 100g = 10 cents per gold

I know it’s hard since there’s about a jillion different ways of looking at things, but the standard I’ve been using is “cents per gold.” I think it helps to compare apples to apples, and it’s hard to know how “100 gems for 30 gold” compares to “10 cents per one gold.”

Also, I’ve said this many times before but it’s worth repeating: black market trades are pointless to compare because they will ALWAYS be lower than Anet’s services. Always and forever. They do not pay hardly any time or effort for their gold, therefore it is basically free, therefore they are running on pure profit. If Anet’s prices were 5 cents per gold, black market would be 1. If Anet’s was 1 cent per gold, black market would be 1 cent per 4 gold. That is a hole with no bottom.

Bluesavanah.8562:

I find the whole concept so hard to understand. The most likely candidates to convert gems to gold are casual players with limited time. But past getting an exotic armor set and weapons why would they do it more than once ? So realistically there’s never going to be a supply big enough to drive the prices down.

I am also curious if this is true. Also, casual players seem the least likely to actually buy a lot of gold. I’m pretty sure than >90% (or more) of gold sales come from hardcore players who are dropping hundreds or even thousands of dollars/euros into the system. I mean, if you’re 85% of the way toward a legendary and you can drop another 50 to make it, why not? But if you’re 5% of the way and it would take another 600, why would you?

Also interesting to note: so far most responses have been non-responses (typical forum complaining about something unrelated) or “I wouldn’t spend any.” Some extremely low numbers have been thrown out as well.

There’s obviously nothing scientific about a forum poll but I hope we hear from more who have purchased gold and what rates they thought were fair.

I dont get what op’s complaining about… the price of gems for gold right now is more than fair. Yesterday I played for 4 hours and earned nearly 15g doing dungeons with pugs. PUGS PEOPLE. These runs were so slow I could have easily made 20-25g if I was running with guildies on TS. Btw, if you only earn 2-3g per day… quit farming orr.