Guild Wars 2

Dench.5968:

Broadicea.8294:

Essence Snow.3194:

I stopped bothering to listen to him a while back as there is nothing of worth to gather from the words he is permitted to say to us. Kinda like the words of a fortune being meaningless as they are so generalized that they may apply to anything.

Yup, precisely. John is barely allowed to tell us anything and when he does it’s so vague and cryptic that it’s essentially worthless.

I can think of absolutely no reason why the player base shouldn’t be permitted access to basic information about the economy. His remark about the median returns from gauntlet farming is a perfect example. The median alone tells us almost nothing. What was the mean? What about gold earned by the top quintiles or deciles and the population statistics to match?

That was my problem with his old posts. He gave some information out that was so vague it could mean a lot of things from completely different sides of the problem. It was so vague that it was borderline meaningless.

I can understand that he can’t give out specifics because people will use that to their advantage come time to implement change, but as I said earlier his statements were very Baghdad Bobish, i.e. “No American tanks here!” as they roll in the background instead it was (not a quote from him) “No significant problem here!” as large parts of the games market are in ridiculous situations.

Inflation is happening. All you have to do to see that is look at the gem price and other common commodities and compare that to the games 1st quarter.

-Iron ore was a flat ~10c per unit almost since launch up until late spring. Its over 60c right now and it was slammed up to 82c during these new farming events.
-Gold ore was around ~23c right up until late spring, went insane in June, got 100% of control with these events at 1.kitten at the top.
-Platinum ore was a super low and very flat ~11c since release up until late spring and commited suicide during these events maxing out at 1.kitten during these events.
-Gem prices have steadily risen since release but in a stepped pattern that looks like it gets a bump around each main event. The thing is, it doesnt return back to the pre event price level. It just keeps going up and up and as a result the value of gold goes down and down.

Makes sense. Gold is worth less as the game ages and commonly used commodities like basic ores go up with it, although with some lag in time depending on the severity of the impact of the event. The previous Halloween, Xmas and early spring ones were not so damaging. These farming extravaganza summer ones have been.

bugged post notes
~the “1.kitten” price is bugged and I can’t get it to show the correct price for platinum there. the max price for platinum ore was one point forty six silver.
~Max gold ore price was one point forty three silver

John Smith.4610:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/bltc/Economy-concerns/page/3#post2642294

John, respectfully, that is the type of post we are talking about. It doesn’t mean much. It’s a post. It’s in English. Thats about as far as it goes in terms of precise explanations of it.

You really need to analyze deeper than looking at prices before blaming it on inflation. Various other things can cause a price increase, such as changes along the demand/supply curve, shocks and speculators. Not to mention, promotions that you have with the gem store.

azurrei.5691:

Saint.4789:

Direksone.3867:

Gold>gems rate is getting quite ridiculous.

poke
I’d bet my life savings that this gem inflation is intentional at Anet. The price inflates, making new users turn to buying gems with money rather then the exchange rate. A player with no money coming into the game is going to think trading gems is insane. They just had their free way, so they are expecting an influx of new players.

I don’t see Gems going down ANY time soon.

Gem prices will fall after Sept 1 – high demand from the Anniversary Sale is inflating gem prices. Will they go below 800/40g? Yes. Will they go back down to pre-champ/event patch prices? No.

One interesting thing to note is the crafting patch – how desperate will some players be to get to 500 crafting? Will a non-insignificant portion of the player base decide it is worth $$>gems>gold to level crafting? If the answer is yes, we might see gems drop further in price than anyone might guess.

What you’re not accounting for is that players, who normally didn’t have much, now have money. Not all the players are using the items they are getting for crafting (a lot of them are and you make a great point about buying gems to craft to 500).

Now that they have the money, they are using it to buy things like bank slots, extra characters, and convenience items.

John, correct me if I’m wrong, but gold gem conversion rate is affected by whether someone buys gems with real money and when people trade gold for gems, right?

If that’s the case, it’s going up until people spend the money for it to go down.

Saint.4789:

Wow, thank you for that! Yes I forgot that in the real world there is finite,

It’s finite for everyone but central banks or well connected entities.

Vol.5241:

You really need to analyze deeper than looking at prices before blaming it on inflation. Various other things can cause a price increase, such as changes along the demand/supply curve, shocks and speculators. Not to mention, promotions that you have with the gem store.

I could waste the entire weekend collecting endless amounts of evidence in regards to this games inflation.

Why bother? the dev’s already said it’s going on. I don’t need to collect evidence, it’s been said. They said it, and I’ve seen it. I’ve pulled in 350g+ off the market in the past 24 hours and probably 20-35% of that is profit. And that took 30 mins of effort. People have the money to blow on my listings because the game is flooded with cash. That wasn’t the case a while back. I’ve been a heavy trader since NOV, and I’ve never seen people throw money around like they are right now.

Players are going to spend more when they make more, which is going to warp the economy and cause inflation. The more money the less it’s worth.

Dench.5968:

Saint.4789:

Wow, thank you for that! Yes I forgot that in the real world there is finite,

It’s finite for everyone but central banks or well connected entities.

Vol.5241:

You really need to analyze deeper than looking at prices before blaming it on inflation. Various other things can cause a price increase, such as changes along the demand/supply curve, shocks and speculators. Not to mention, promotions that you have with the gem store.

I could waste the entire weekend collecting endless amounts of evidence in regards to this games inflation.

Why bother? the dev’s already said it’s going on. I don’t need to collect evidence, it’s been said. They said it, and I’ve seen it. I’ve pulled in 350g+ off the market in the past 24 hours and probably 20-35% of that is profit. And that took 30 mins of effort. People have the money to blow on my listings because the game is flooded with cash. That wasn’t the case a while back. I’ve been a heavy trader since NOV, and I’ve never seen people throw money around like they are right now.

Players are going to spend more when they make more, which is going to warp the economy and cause inflation. The more money the less it’s worth.

Yes, inflation is happening but as was said here previously it’s not as rampant as people want to believe.

You don’t seem to understand what inflation is or what causes it.

Farming for an hour and getting 40g worth of materials does not cause inflation
Farming for an hour and getting 40g in pure GOLD does

You pulled off 350g from the TP in the past 24 hours? Cool, but that didn’t actually bring gold into the economy. Gold actually got removed from those transactions.

A good example is ectos.

They were steady at around 18s. Then inflation happened (among other things) and it went all the way to 22s. The gold facuet eventually got fixed.

Then we had Tuesday’s notes and it spiked way up. But that was not as a result of inflation. That was as a result of speculators which resulted in a change along the demand curve.

Vol.5241:

Dench.5968:

Saint.4789:

Wow, thank you for that! Yes I forgot that in the real world there is finite,

It’s finite for everyone but central banks or well connected entities.

Vol.5241:

You really need to analyze deeper than looking at prices before blaming it on inflation. Various other things can cause a price increase, such as changes along the demand/supply curve, shocks and speculators. Not to mention, promotions that you have with the gem store.

I could waste the entire weekend collecting endless amounts of evidence in regards to this games inflation.

Why bother? the dev’s already said it’s going on. I don’t need to collect evidence, it’s been said. They said it, and I’ve seen it. I’ve pulled in 350g+ off the market in the past 24 hours and probably 20-35% of that is profit. And that took 30 mins of effort. People have the money to blow on my listings because the game is flooded with cash. That wasn’t the case a while back. I’ve been a heavy trader since NOV, and I’ve never seen people throw money around like they are right now.

Players are going to spend more when they make more, which is going to warp the economy and cause inflation. The more money the less it’s worth.

Yes, inflation is happening but as was said here previously it’s not as rampant as people want to believe.

You don’t seem to understand what inflation is or what causes it.

Farming for an hour and getting 40g worth of materials does not cause inflation
Farming for an hour and getting 40g in pure GOLD does

You pulled off 350g from the TP in the past 24 hours? Cool, but that didn’t actually bring gold into the economy. Gold actually got removed from those transactions.

woah woah woah. you mean to tell me there is a TP tax fee?!?! WHAT! oh man, I had no clue! I also don’t understand what inflation is.

I hereby state publicly that I am far to stupid to continue on this conversation. My goals are the following:
-learn English better
-understand what inflation is
-learn to understand anet saying “yes there is inflation” means something else, depending on what the next persons interpretation of that phrase means.
-understand that money is magically removed from the game via tax on TP

In the future, please talk to me like I am 4 years old. If you could break out MS paint and draw me images describing what you are talking about, all the better.

Oh, and I’m at 378g since I last posted. I don’t have a clue how the market works probably. maybe. I don’t know. I just click around the screen randomly, don’t look at numbers really and the gold just doesn’t stop coming into my account. It’s actually really annoying.

heh

Dench.5968:

Vol.5241:

Dench.5968:

Saint.4789:

Wow, thank you for that! Yes I forgot that in the real world there is finite,

It’s finite for everyone but central banks or well connected entities.

Vol.5241:

You really need to analyze deeper than looking at prices before blaming it on inflation. Various other things can cause a price increase, such as changes along the demand/supply curve, shocks and speculators. Not to mention, promotions that you have with the gem store.

I could waste the entire weekend collecting endless amounts of evidence in regards to this games inflation.

Why bother? the dev’s already said it’s going on. I don’t need to collect evidence, it’s been said. They said it, and I’ve seen it. I’ve pulled in 350g+ off the market in the past 24 hours and probably 20-35% of that is profit. And that took 30 mins of effort. People have the money to blow on my listings because the game is flooded with cash. That wasn’t the case a while back. I’ve been a heavy trader since NOV, and I’ve never seen people throw money around like they are right now.

Players are going to spend more when they make more, which is going to warp the economy and cause inflation. The more money the less it’s worth.

Yes, inflation is happening but as was said here previously it’s not as rampant as people want to believe.

You don’t seem to understand what inflation is or what causes it.

Farming for an hour and getting 40g worth of materials does not cause inflation
Farming for an hour and getting 40g in pure GOLD does

You pulled off 350g from the TP in the past 24 hours? Cool, but that didn’t actually bring gold into the economy. Gold actually got removed from those transactions.

woah woah woah. you mean to tell me there is a TP tax fee?!?! WHAT! oh man, I had no clue! I also don’t understand what inflation is.

I hereby state publicly that I am far to stupid to continue on this conversation. My goals are the following:
-learn English better
-understand what inflation is
-learn to understand anet saying “yes there is inflation” means something else, depending on what the next persons interpretation of that phrase means.
-understand that money is magically removed from the game via tax on TP

In the future, please talk to me like I am 4 years old. If you could break out MS paint and draw me images describing what you are talking about, all the better.

Oh, and I’m at 378g since I last posted. I don’t have a clue how the market works probably. maybe. I don’t know. I just click around the screen randomly, don’t look at numbers really and the gold just doesn’t stop coming into my account. It’s actually really annoying.

heh

Awesome, glad you get it

Vol.5241:

Dench.5968:

Vol.5241:

Dench.5968:

Saint.4789:

Wow, thank you for that! Yes I forgot that in the real world there is finite,

It’s finite for everyone but central banks or well connected entities.

Vol.5241:

You really need to analyze deeper than looking at prices before blaming it on inflation. Various other things can cause a price increase, such as changes along the demand/supply curve, shocks and speculators. Not to mention, promotions that you have with the gem store.

I could waste the entire weekend collecting endless amounts of evidence in regards to this games inflation.

Why bother? the dev’s already said it’s going on. I don’t need to collect evidence, it’s been said. They said it, and I’ve seen it. I’ve pulled in 350g+ off the market in the past 24 hours and probably 20-35% of that is profit. And that took 30 mins of effort. People have the money to blow on my listings because the game is flooded with cash. That wasn’t the case a while back. I’ve been a heavy trader since NOV, and I’ve never seen people throw money around like they are right now.

Players are going to spend more when they make more, which is going to warp the economy and cause inflation. The more money the less it’s worth.

Yes, inflation is happening but as was said here previously it’s not as rampant as people want to believe.

You don’t seem to understand what inflation is or what causes it.

Farming for an hour and getting 40g worth of materials does not cause inflation
Farming for an hour and getting 40g in pure GOLD does

You pulled off 350g from the TP in the past 24 hours? Cool, but that didn’t actually bring gold into the economy. Gold actually got removed from those transactions.

woah woah woah. you mean to tell me there is a TP tax fee?!?! WHAT! oh man, I had no clue! I also don’t understand what inflation is.

I hereby state publicly that I am far to stupid to continue on this conversation. My goals are the following:
-learn English better
-understand what inflation is
-learn to understand anet saying “yes there is inflation” means something else, depending on what the next persons interpretation of that phrase means.
-understand that money is magically removed from the game via tax on TP

In the future, please talk to me like I am 4 years old. If you could break out MS paint and draw me images describing what you are talking about, all the better.

Oh, and I’m at 378g since I last posted. I don’t have a clue how the market works probably. maybe. I don’t know. I just click around the screen randomly, don’t look at numbers really and the gold just doesn’t stop coming into my account. It’s actually really annoying.

heh

Awesome, glad you get it

but in all seriousness, what you said earlier wasn’t what my point is. I understand that farming and item does not cause inflation, it will lower the value of that item especially if it is something stupid like a weapon or armor, less so if it has a legit use in game in higher volumes.

I 100% agree with you that farming gold in these events is a problem. In my opinion it is THE problem.

I can give a short example. A coworker just started playing this game last month. He has farmed on his own something like 13 gold. he plays 0-2 hours per day, just hit 80 this week and is an inexperienced and casual player (never ran a dungeon, fract, never entered wvw). It took me a LONG time as an active inexperienced player to rack up 13 gold in comparison starting in prelease.

It’s just to easy to get money.

Here is a really nice blogpost that briefly touches on the difference between a rise in price due to demand and inflation.

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.ca/2013/07/asset-price-inflation-is-not-inflation.html

It also talks about how the current usage of ‘inflation’ and ‘asset price inflation’ or ‘demand-push inflation’ is misleading. There is only one kind of ‘inflation’

Vol.5241:

Here is a really nice blogpost that briefly touches on the difference between a rise in price due to demand and inflation.

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.ca/2013/07/asset-price-inflation-is-not-inflation.html

It also talks about how the current usage of ‘inflation’ and ‘asset price inflation’ or ‘demand-push inflation’ is misleading. There is only one kind of ‘inflation’

You mean more money = the one kind of “inflation”

Now, thought experiment time. If apple demand was permanently increased by 50%, because it cure and prevent cancer. The production of apple stayed the same, and resulting in price of apple going up. Would you consider that inflation? or just a random blip? (AKA level 500 crafting as a permanent addition)

Just curious.

Dench.5968:

Vol.5241:

Dench.5968:

Vol.5241:

Dench.5968:

Saint.4789:

Wow, thank you for that! Yes I forgot that in the real world there is finite,

It’s finite for everyone but central banks or well connected entities.

Vol.5241:

You really need to analyze deeper than looking at prices before blaming it on inflation. Various other things can cause a price increase, such as changes along the demand/supply curve, shocks and speculators. Not to mention, promotions that you have with the gem store.

I could waste the entire weekend collecting endless amounts of evidence in regards to this games inflation.

Why bother? the dev’s already said it’s going on. I don’t need to collect evidence, it’s been said. They said it, and I’ve seen it. I’ve pulled in 350g+ off the market in the past 24 hours and probably 20-35% of that is profit. And that took 30 mins of effort. People have the money to blow on my listings because the game is flooded with cash. That wasn’t the case a while back. I’ve been a heavy trader since NOV, and I’ve never seen people throw money around like they are right now.

Players are going to spend more when they make more, which is going to warp the economy and cause inflation. The more money the less it’s worth.

Yes, inflation is happening but as was said here previously it’s not as rampant as people want to believe.

You don’t seem to understand what inflation is or what causes it.

Farming for an hour and getting 40g worth of materials does not cause inflation
Farming for an hour and getting 40g in pure GOLD does

You pulled off 350g from the TP in the past 24 hours? Cool, but that didn’t actually bring gold into the economy. Gold actually got removed from those transactions.

woah woah woah. you mean to tell me there is a TP tax fee?!?! WHAT! oh man, I had no clue! I also don’t understand what inflation is.

I hereby state publicly that I am far to stupid to continue on this conversation. My goals are the following:
-learn English better
-understand what inflation is
-learn to understand anet saying “yes there is inflation” means something else, depending on what the next persons interpretation of that phrase means.
-understand that money is magically removed from the game via tax on TP

In the future, please talk to me like I am 4 years old. If you could break out MS paint and draw me images describing what you are talking about, all the better.

Oh, and I’m at 378g since I last posted. I don’t have a clue how the market works probably. maybe. I don’t know. I just click around the screen randomly, don’t look at numbers really and the gold just doesn’t stop coming into my account. It’s actually really annoying.

heh

Awesome, glad you get it

but in all seriousness, what you said earlier wasn’t what my point is. I understand that farming and item does not cause inflation, it will lower the value of that item especially if it is something stupid like a weapon or armor, less so if it has a legit use in game in higher volumes.

I 100% agree with you that farming gold in these events is a problem. In my opinion it is THE problem.

I can give a short example. A coworker just started playing this game last month. He has farmed on his own something like 13 gold. he plays 0-2 hours per day, just hit 80 this week and is an inexperienced and casual player (never ran a dungeon, fract, never entered wvw). It took me a LONG time as an active inexperienced player to rack up 13 gold in comparison starting in prelease.

It’s just to easy to get money.

Well of course, that’s prelease. There wasn’t enough gold generated in the world to have 13g.

Ensign.2189:

The strength of GW2’s money sinks rests on the 15% TP fee – because it scales up with the amount of money in the economy. Even T3 cultural armor is only a one time sink, and only pulls a flat amount of money out. The TP fee takes 15% over and over and over again – the game cannot generate more money than the TP fee can sink.

The Strength?? …heh, that’s the weakest strength I’ve ever heard. They wouldn’t be changing how magic find works if that was the case. What you’re leaving out here is the psychological / cognitive factor. People just automatically subconsciously adapt to that 15% “Captial Gains” tax. Often by using subtle exploits to save atleast 20% more time and then nullify that constant sink. Those very bankers you lauded for keeping the RealWorld rate low, (2.25% by their claims when many conservative economists are saying the real rate is 6-8% Y.o.Y.) have done the same thing by cooking CPI and hiding real inflation rates while also doing this Too Big to Fail hostage taking crap that forced currency printers to flood an already overcapitalized market during record low interest rates (b/c they manipulate those too). which is now backfiring if you’re keeping an eye on Bonds like I am. Meanwhile here, Up until this month, it even looked like Gem prices were seeing a similar 15% week over week mystery suppression when they should have been nearing 5G per 100 almost 2 months ago….

Even when you can fool most people’s frontal lobes and get the Marketeers themselves to drink the koolaid… there’s still that not quite yet fully explained by science instinct clawing at the back of their skulls telling them that something bad can still happen and they have to keep cheating their way around the agreed-upon framework. And there is no possible better place to observe this behavior than an MMO. Especially with double-blind seller data and the history/fluctuations having to be tracked by 3rd Parties (just like how we still don’t have a Looking for Group framework either). ….I guess if you were a humanist/optimist you could say they just automatically work 15% harder. (maybe many casuals even do??) But let’s get real here… that only works all around when there’s compounding rates & diminishing returns on exploitive behavior to really keep it in check.

…No I don’t know the exact point this intersects with the current inflation trend but I’m pretty sure it’s atleast an 8-15% deviation over that first layer of 15% already being canceled out subconsciously

.
PS: If I was in charge of “making a better sink”?… I’d do what my super annoying MMO friends were always going on and on and on about which was stuff like Home-instance, GuildHalls, & Player housing items and CRAFTING especially…Look at how much money we sink on Crafting staples like Sugar, Flour, Silk Thread, Primordium, etc!…I guarantee that exceeds everything the average player has EVER spent on Cultural skins. — Oh along with that stuff, adding pricey Mounts fueled by a heavy “Junk Food” sink whose only purpose was to provide a 50% non-combat swiftness for Gathering the high-demand nodes and scouting for Scavenger events with random spawn locations (sort of like bounties).

Hell Avenger.7021:

Vol.5241:

Here is a really nice blogpost that briefly touches on the difference between a rise in price due to demand and inflation.

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.ca/2013/07/asset-price-inflation-is-not-inflation.html

It also talks about how the current usage of ‘inflation’ and ‘asset price inflation’ or ‘demand-push inflation’ is misleading. There is only one kind of ‘inflation’

You mean more money = the one kind of “inflation”

Now, thought experiment time. If apple demand was permanently increased by 50%, because it cure and prevent cancer. The production of apple stayed the same, and resulting in price of apple going up. Would you consider that inflation? or just a random blip? (AKA level 500 crafting as a permanent addition)

Just curious.

Even with your condition of ‘permanently’, I would not consider it inflation. I’m no economist, but from my understanding of the theory it wouldn’t be. Apples are just one product. Inflation takes an index of products. Maybe if you had a world that just consisted of apples but…that thouht would be absurd.

And besides. If demand were to permanently rise, that means price will go up right? That would signal the suppliers to start producing more to take advantage of the price. But that would eventually lead to more competitive prices and we would end up at an equilibrium.

ilr.9675:

Ensign.2189:

The strength of GW2’s money sinks rests on the 15% TP fee – because it scales up with the amount of money in the economy. Even T3 cultural armor is only a one time sink, and only pulls a flat amount of money out. The TP fee takes 15% over and over and over again – the game cannot generate more money than the TP fee can sink.

The Strength?? …heh, that’s the weakest strength I’ve ever heard. They wouldn’t be changing how magic find works if that was the case. What you’re leaving out here is the psychological / cognitive factor. People just automatically subconsciously adapt to that 15% “Captial Gains” tax. Often by using subtle exploits to save atleast 20% more time and then nullify that constant sink. Those very bankers you lauded for keeping the RealWorld rate low, (2.25% by their claims when many conservative economists are saying the real rate is 6-8% Y.o.Y.) have done the same thing by cooking CPI and hiding real inflation rates while also doing this Too Big to Fail hostage taking crap that forced currency printers to flood an already overcapitalized market during record low interest rates (b/c they manipulate those too). Up until this month, it even looked like Gem prices were seeing a similar 15% week over week mystery suppression when they should have been nearing 5G per 100 almost 2 months ago….

Even when you can fool most people’s frontal lobes and get the Marketeers themselves to drink the koolaid… there’s still that not quite yet fully explained by science instinct clawing at the back of their skulls telling them that something bad can still happen and they have to keep cheating their way around the agreed-upon framework. And there is no possible better place to observe this behavior than an MMO. Especially with double-blind seller data and the history/fluctuations having to be tracked by 3rd Parties (just like how we still don’t have a Looking for Group framework either). ….I guess if you were a humanist/optimist you could say they just automatically work 15% harder. (maybe many casuals even do??) But let’s get real here… that only works all around when there’s compounding rates & diminishing returns on exploitive behavior to really keep it in check.

…No I don’t know the exact point this intersects with the current inflation trend but I’m pretty sure it’s atleast an 8-15% deviation over that first layer of 15% already being canceled out subconsciously

u wot m8?

Vol.5241:

Here is a really nice blogpost that briefly touches on the difference between a rise in price due to demand and inflation.

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.ca/2013/07/asset-price-inflation-is-not-inflation.html

It also talks about how the current usage of ‘inflation’ and ‘asset price inflation’ or ‘demand-push inflation’ is misleading. There is only one kind of ‘inflation’

Please excuse me that I won’t take an assistant professor’s/phd student’s blog post as the end all be all of economic inflation.

That said what is driving the increasing demand for some items? Fad? Novelty? Increased utility? Increased funds?

As a side note what keeps the term “inflation” from being applied to the micro?

Vol.5241:

u wot m8?

I’d be skeptical too… But judging by your comments on Ectos, it seems you were surprised by them almost hitting 30s, is that not too much of an exaggeration? …okay well I anticipated it, and had bought 20 stacks of T5’s weeks ago specifically to craft a stack of Ectos to then sell at 28s…. which I’ve been doing. And I’m not even a market guy, I don’t flip, I don’t racketeer, I hardly even touch Gw2Spidey. And other casual friends of mine were PM’ing to make similar remarks on the market. I’m not saying I’m like smart or anything, I’m just saying, stop underestimating us more casual folks plz. We’re not all a bunch of newbie stereotypes

Essence Snow.3194:

Vol.5241:

Here is a really nice blogpost that briefly touches on the difference between a rise in price due to demand and inflation.

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.ca/2013/07/asset-price-inflation-is-not-inflation.html

It also talks about how the current usage of ‘inflation’ and ‘asset price inflation’ or ‘demand-push inflation’ is misleading. There is only one kind of ‘inflation’

Please excuse me that I won’t take an assistant professor’s/phd student’s blog post as the end all be all of economic inflation.

That said what is driving the increasing demand for some items? Fad? Novelty? Increased utility? Increased funds?

As a side note what keeps the term “inflation” from being applied to the micro?

Economists are a fickle bunch and can’t even agree on theories (Smith, Keynes, Marx, Hayek, Friedman, e.t.c., though Keynesian economists is quite popular)

I think it’s primarily a combination of several things.
-Increased funds (imore money to spend thanks to the increased gold supply from gauntlet)
-speculation (people want to buy because they think it will go up)
-player needs (the playerbase wants to get lvl 500, so they are willing to pay a premium now)

You also have gold holders who have a lot of gold and didn’t have much of a reason to spend it until now. As such, they are willing to pay a premium.

ilr.9675:

Vol.5241:

u wot m8?

I’d be skeptical too… But judging by your comments on Ectos, it seems you were surprised by them almost hitting 30s, is that not too much of an exaggeration? …okay well I anticipated it, and had bought 20 stacks of T5’s weeks ago specifically to craft a stack of Ectos to then sell at 28s…. which I’ve been doing. And I’m not even a market guy, I don’t flip, I don’t racketeer, I hardly even touch Gw2Spidey. And other casual friends of mine were PM’ing to make similar remarks on the market. I’m not saying I’m like smart or anything, I’m just saying, stop underestimating us more casual folks plz. We’re not all a bunch of newbie stereotypes

I’m more surprised at how quickly it rose to 30s (and if it will stay there). If it rises too much the suppliers of ectos will come out in force.

Not sure how you’re relating casual players with market discussion. I admit I don’t like playing with casual players, but that has more to do with in-game ability rather than smarts. Both hardcores and casuals can be very clueless on other topics as well.

Vol.5241:

I’m more surprised at how quickly it rose to 30s (and if it will stay there). If it rises too much the suppliers of ectos will come out in force.

Not sure how you’re relating casual players with market discussion.

Well okay… not even what I meant, but thanks for being honest. Ahhh…. what I actually meant by you being surprised, was that you specifically mentioned Speculators. ….No, not at all. See you’re automatically doing that exact same thing I just pointed out: assuming it’s some hardcore force at work that can just be circumvented with a different approach / exploit. Not at all! …and no this isn’t intended to be patronizing in the least….

See b/c you prefer not to be around the “sheep”, you wouldn’t be aware of just how badly daily World-Chest, Temple, & DE in general participation has dropped off. THAT is where nearly all of the Ecto generation really came from. So much that it completely could cancel out (and constantly did) any attempts by flippers to jack Ecto rates above 19s for very long. That price was written in stone even when it no longer made sense for it to remain that low. (once COF gold gen really kicked in…). So just put 2 & 2 together here with this Pavilion & then Scarlet meta shift. Then tack onto that how badly ectos are also required for T6 upteiring and Obsidian Recipe …. I think it should be obvious that speculators are NOT the cause of that. And I think Smith would back that up too if he was able & allowed to gather and release the possible data on it. ….I hadn’t even checked Spidey on it, until just a second ago, but look at it… the supply history corroborates this explanation…

Essence Snow.3194:

Yep…makes perfect sense.

Try it this way. Think of one of those pinball-like toys where you shoot the ball up, and it drops down a series of pegs to land in the slots at the bottom (pachinco). If you shoot thousands of pinballs (dense), most end up in the center slot, with less and less as you get further away. The end slots have the least number of pinballs. In this analogy, each player is one of those pinballs. Some barely play the content at all (leftmost slots). Most did it for a short while (middle slots), while some farmed the heck out of it (rightmost slots).

Now, what John is saying, ignore those leftmost slots, those guys obviously didn’t play. Dump out those pinballs. Count all the balls that are left. Divide that by 2 (median). Now starting at the leftmost slot, start counting pinballs until you hit that number. Where that slot is located is the median. Half, of all the players who actually tried the content, made that much money or less. Half made more. We don’t know how much more, and really, it doesn’t matter because of the built-in limiters (you can only farm so much gold/hour, and only so many people can farm at the same time in the Gaunlet).

Knowing where the median is located is more important than the average, since the median is a better indicator of what the majority of the players experienced. (because of the large number of pinballs/density). Also, throwing away the leftmost slots skews the median past the top of the distribution, so the most commonly earned amount is definitely less than the median.

Even with my only basic understanding of macroeconomics (taking intermediate this fall), I know that eventually expected inflation will fall, causing prices to return to “normal”. Expected inflation may be part of the price increase now, with all the crazy speculation going on.

Vol.5241:

Hell Avenger.7021:

Vol.5241:

Here is a really nice blogpost that briefly touches on the difference between a rise in price due to demand and inflation.

http://noahpinionblog.blogspot.ca/2013/07/asset-price-inflation-is-not-inflation.html

It also talks about how the current usage of ‘inflation’ and ‘asset price inflation’ or ‘demand-push inflation’ is misleading. There is only one kind of ‘inflation’

You mean more money = the one kind of “inflation”

Now, thought experiment time. If apple demand was permanently increased by 50%, because it cure and prevent cancer. The production of apple stayed the same, and resulting in price of apple going up. Would you consider that inflation? or just a random blip? (AKA level 500 crafting as a permanent addition)

Just curious.

Even with your condition of ‘permanently’, I would not consider it inflation. I’m no economist, but from my understanding of the theory it wouldn’t be. Apples are just one product. Inflation takes an index of products. Maybe if you had a world that just consisted of apples but…that thouht would be absurd.

And besides. If demand were to permanently rise, that means price will go up right? That would signal the suppliers to start producing more to take advantage of the price. But that would eventually lead to more competitive prices and we would end up at an equilibrium.

Assuming if the price does not go up to the point of the new gold generation, as a result the opportunity cost is much higher to come add to additional supply of apple.

What I am trying to say is increasing in the demand of certain goods can increase the prices. Inflation as a CPI is a basket of goods, but it can be affected by few goods. Especially, all the T6 materials will likely have a usage in creating T7 materials. That is a permanent new usage, which could cause a permanent increase in price. AKA, Your living standard just decreased, because you could no longer afford “basic necessity.”

moronwmachinegun.3815:

Essence Snow.3194:

Yep…makes perfect sense.

Try it this way. Think of one of those pinball-like toys where you shoot the ball up, and it drops down a series of pegs to land in the slots at the bottom (pachinco). If you shoot thousands of pinballs (dense), most end up in the center slot, with less and less as you get further away. The end slots have the least number of pinballs. In this analogy, each player is one of those pinballs. Some barely play the content at all (leftmost slots). Most did it for a short while (middle slots), while some farmed the heck out of it (rightmost slots).

Now, what John is saying, ignore those leftmost slots, those guys obviously didn’t play. Dump out those pinballs. Count all the balls that are left. Divide that by 2 (median). Now starting at the leftmost slot, start counting pinballs until you hit that number. Where that slot is located is the median. Half, of all the players who actually tried the content, made that much money or less. Half made more. We don’t know how much more, and really, it doesn’t matter because of the built-in limiters (you can only farm so much gold/hour, and only so many people can farm at the same time in the Gaunlet).

Knowing where the median is located is more important than the average, since the median is a better indicator of what the majority of the players experienced. (because of the large number of pinballs/density). Also, throwing away the leftmost slots skews the median past the top of the distribution, so the most commonly earned amount is definitely less than the median.

I actually understood it, but was being sarcastic and tbh a bit of an kitten .

That aside. The info that that gives us doesn’t really mean much unless we have something to compare it to. Now what we compare it to can alter what we derive from that info. For example comparing it to the opportunity costs or the price of something that may be effected by it.

The Reason why Gold is losing value compared to Gems is because Anet wants to inflate the markets with gold causing gems to skyrocket so players who don’t grind gold as much find it easier to just buy gems and get items from the BLTP or transfer it to gold I am sure that Anet will stabilize the markets in the next 2-4 months but for now I would just farm champs get 300+ gold and be happy with the changes there not going to make gold completely worthless its there main currency other than the random items they add every living story.

Unlike the real world, the game is made up of code that they wrote, code that can be created, altered or deleted as they wish. It is entirely possible for them to type type click click and do what they want with the economy, gold or gem wise. Them actually doing so, is another story though.

Ensign.2189:

The strength of GW2’s money sinks rests on the 15% TP fee – because it scales up with the amount of money in the economy.

The currency in a game is not the same as currency exchanged among people for goods and services in the real world, so drawing sketchy parallels between them only invites confusion.

Think of the gold you have in your inventory as “points”, OR you can think of your weapon as currency, in that you need to deal X amount of damage to kill monster Y and receive loot Z.

There really is no intrinsic value to the game’s currency so it doesn’t matter if an item sells for 10,000 G or 100 G – it will sell at the price that a player can pay. You can list something on the TP for 10,000 G but if most players have 1,000 G or less in their accounts you will not sell, forcing you to reduce your asking price or accept that you will not sell the item.

The KEY difference is that real-world currency relies on a mutual trust among people that $1 is worth a certain amount and has a certain buying power. There is no such trust among the players in GW2 or any game, which means that the currency has NO value and that “inflation” cannot exist.

Another key reason that game currency cannot have a value is that there is an infinite supply available…and as you know, if you are on a numbered line that extends to infinity in both directions, no matter how far you go in either direction you are always at ZERO.

As you correctly pointed out, players who play the game generate currency for themselves, which they can then spend. The rate at which they generate currency determines the prices that items would sell at on the TP. ANet can easily adjust the amount of “gold” that monsters drop as well as the prices you get for vendoring items.

ANet has a vested interest in minimizing the amount of gems a player can buy with gold because they sell gems to generate real revenue, and the price of gems is set by ANet.

It might make more sense for them to make gem to gold purchases one way only, and not allow people to sell gems on the TP for gold.

Ensign.2189:

It isn’t fixed, though: the rate of gold generation scales with the number of players (more players farming = more players generating gold).

Right, but the fact that there is no upper limit on the amount of game currency that can exist in the economy means that whether you have 1 copper or 1,000 gold, you have the same amount of nothing. Players cannot sell items for more game gold than other players have, thus TP prices will rise or fall based on how much game gold players earn from doing quests and events.

Ensign.2189:

You’re right that all inflation is temporary – in the real world central bankers work really hard to balance money flows to keep inflation within an acceptable range. Since WWII they’ve done a pretty remarkable job of keeping inflation in a controlled range, enough so that most people kind of understand slow, stable inflation to be ‘normal’.

Off topic, but the central bank is really an assault on capitalism. It shifts the valuation of currency from “trust” to decree and it also makes it easier to keep the gap between social classes wider. Since the industrial revolution in America, when the US Government realized it needed to borrow money to continue to function, it created the central bank and gave itself the power to print money.

Imagine if ANet sold us “magic money maker” in-game item that generates 10 gold each time we click it. That’s pretty much what you get with the federal reserve.

Ensign.2189:

Big bursts of inflation, or deflation, in the economy these days are going to be from something changing – and recently we’ve had a lot of big changes.

Also off topic, but in the USA most of the key industries – Energy, Natural Resources, Communication, Transportation – are all socialized and heavily regulated by our government. Did you ever think about starting your own energy company, bank, toll road or TV station? If you could, you would have the potential to earn a lot of money…but the way it’s set up now, you have to already be worth hundreds of millions to billions just to get a shot at playing in any of those arenas.

The reality is that the markets for providing things that people need to live are often manipulated by the wealthy to keep that wealth concentrated among a small group of the world’s population, while presenting the illusion of possible wealth to everyone else.

Inflation is really just side effect of the government printing money to pay for things it can’t afford. They realized that they can gradually devalue currency without most people noticing, and then indoctrinate the public into believing that inflation is “normal” and acceptable (it’s not).

I’d just like to point out that a player’s first bag slot expansion now costs 23 gold. That’s a lot of work even for a level 80. At level 20, it’s basically pay to play, or playing games with bank alts.

Haven’t let bought a bag slot expansion, hadn’t needed it.

Dench.5968:

Vol.5241:

Dench.5968:

Saint.4789:

Wow, thank you for that! Yes I forgot that in the real world there is finite,

It’s finite for everyone but central banks or well connected entities.

Vol.5241:

You really need to analyze deeper than looking at prices before blaming it on inflation. Various other things can cause a price increase, such as changes along the demand/supply curve, shocks and speculators. Not to mention, promotions that you have with the gem store.

I could waste the entire weekend collecting endless amounts of evidence in regards to this games inflation.

Why bother? the dev’s already said it’s going on. I don’t need to collect evidence, it’s been said. They said it, and I’ve seen it. I’ve pulled in 350g+ off the market in the past 24 hours and probably 20-35% of that is profit. And that took 30 mins of effort. People have the money to blow on my listings because the game is flooded with cash. That wasn’t the case a while back. I’ve been a heavy trader since NOV, and I’ve never seen people throw money around like they are right now.

Players are going to spend more when they make more, which is going to warp the economy and cause inflation. The more money the less it’s worth.

Yes, inflation is happening but as was said here previously it’s not as rampant as people want to believe.

You don’t seem to understand what inflation is or what causes it.

Farming for an hour and getting 40g worth of materials does not cause inflation
Farming for an hour and getting 40g in pure GOLD does

You pulled off 350g from the TP in the past 24 hours? Cool, but that didn’t actually bring gold into the economy. Gold actually got removed from those transactions.

woah woah woah. you mean to tell me there is a TP tax fee?!?! WHAT! oh man, I had no clue! I also don’t understand what inflation is.

I hereby state publicly that I am far to stupid to continue on this conversation. My goals are the following:
-learn English better
-understand what inflation is
-learn to understand anet saying “yes there is inflation” means something else, depending on what the next persons interpretation of that phrase means.
-understand that money is magically removed from the game via tax on TP

In the future, please talk to me like I am 4 years old. If you could break out MS paint and draw me images describing what you are talking about, all the better.

Oh, and I’m at 378g since I last posted. I don’t have a clue how the market works probably. maybe. I don’t know. I just click around the screen randomly, don’t look at numbers really and the gold just doesn’t stop coming into my account. It’s actually really annoying.

heh

No to be a kitten but it would be very wise of you to actually take your own advice.

And you youngsters … I’m still using paintbrush.

Sunlyte.3768:

Inflation is really just side effect of the government printing money to pay for things it can’t afford. They realized that they can gradually devalue currency without most people noticing, and then indoctrinate the public into believing that inflation is “normal” and acceptable (it’s not).

Sure is acceptable to me. The loan on my house gets 2% cheaper every year, my salary gets adjusted automagically to inflation. People do notice, people don’t really complain. The ones who are against normal inflation the most are the extremely rich. Should give you a little hint about who profits most

As long as it isn’t a hyperinflation spiral, small amounts tend to improve the economy, stimulate business and form an effective form of tax relief for the lower and middle class. Think about it next time you go voting.

market was on fire last night. lots of transactions going on. Lots of easy money to lube the gears on the TP.

marnick.4305:

Sure is acceptable to me. The loan on my house gets 2% cheaper every year, my salary gets adjusted automagically to inflation. People do notice, people don’t really complain. The ones who are against normal inflation the most are the extremely rich. Should give you a little hint about who profits most

As long as it isn’t a hyperinflation spiral, small amounts tend to improve the economy, stimulate business and form an effective form of tax relief for the lower and middle class. Think about it next time you go voting.

I play a mesmer and I can assure you that’s an illusion.

People who are not passive about their finances (includes rich people) don’t keep their money in the bank; they invest it into something – often into a combination of stocks, bonds or mutual funds. Bonds are all but worthless right now, so most of the money is going into stocks, which is why we have this artificial bubble forming again.

You can leave your nest egg in an “index” fund that follows Nasdaq or the S&P500 (if you have faith in America’s economy) and get pre-tax returns around 14% per year on average. Inflation is hardly an issue because when you own shares in a fund or stock in a company, the price of the shares will rise and fall with whatever inflation happens to be, meaning that your actual wealth stays the same.

Conversely, leaving your money in a savings account means that every year it loses about 3-5% of its buying power due to inflation.

The reason we have low interest rates right now is a combination of the Fed attempting to stimulate the economy with spending, by making money cheap, and also due to the sheer volume of new money being printed.

So in reality your mortgage never really changes; it’s just that the money is worth less and is available at a lower interest rate (reflecting its lower value). Your salary increases but your buying power remains more-less the same. This is how the Fed tries to keep most people locked into their “class” – they give you the illusion of progress when the truth is that you don’t really move very far from where you start out in life.

As for your comment about voting – this isn’t the appropriate forum for a political debate so I’m not going to say anything on that matter.

Oh man, all these people out doing the invasions or the Crown Pavillion Train are devaluing the masses of gold stockpiled by the CoF1-loopers and the merchant princes of days gone by.

my heart bleeds for them. It really, really does.

Gold sink… itself

Is Ascended Crafting the reason for all the mega-farmable events we’ve had for months on end?

@Svarty i think that’s part of the reason Anet did it.

Brow.9425:

I’d just like to point out that a player’s first bag slot expansion now costs 23 gold. That’s a lot of work even for a level 80. At level 20, it’s basically pay to play, or playing games with bank alts.

After people got done cashing out from these farming events they went to the legendary market. I’ve havent seen this many legendaries sold out for a long time.