Guild Wars 2

I hadn’t been paying attention to Black Lion Chests since the big buy out back several months, but I went to sell one today and wow. Someone/s reduced the available supply again from 2.73 million to 200kish on the 7th and 8th. Since then it has been further reduced to 55k and is now back up to 65k chests. This has caused the price to go from 10c (someone reminds me where it was) to the current buy 1s8c and sell 1s48c.

Rather interesting… https://www.gw2tp.com/item/20316-black-lion-chest
Initial thread 7 months ago: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/bltc/Black-Lion-Chests-Artificial-Scarcity

edit to add link

Yeah, I noticed this earlier today when someone in my guild mentioned chests being 1 silver. It was roughly 50-60 copper each unless you’re referring to what it was a year or so ago. I had posted about this in that thread about manipulation of quartz crystals.

I wonder if it’ll pay off for them as I can see why they did it.

So around 15-16 thousand gold was spent buying up most of chests. I seriously doubt they can make a profit on them. At least it’s not 10 million 1c bids to make it seem like they are in huge demand (although there are 950K at 1c).

Considering this is the second time this has happened, I guess there is a profit to it. The storage requirements must be fierce though, since they haven’t listed them back on the trading post.

I’m thinking that those large quantities of buy orders (such as for 1s) were on purpose to encourage people to bid above them so they could sell them. All they need is something to stimulate demand such as new players starting the game and completing the first personal story chapter, expansion release and people do personal story on their new revenant, a new set skins, a sale on keys, etc.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Considering this is the second time this has happened, I guess there is a profit to it. The storage requirements must be fierce though, since they haven’t listed them back on the trading post.

They likely are using an alt account and just have them sitting waiting to be picked up rather than in their inventory.

Ayrilana.1396:

I’m thinking that those large quantities of buy orders (such as for 1s) were on purpose to encourage people to bid above them so they could sell them. All they need is something to stimulate demand such as new players starting the game and completing the first personal story chapter, expansion release and people do personal story on their new revenant, a new set skins, a sale on keys, etc.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Considering this is the second time this has happened, I guess there is a profit to it. The storage requirements must be fierce though, since they haven’t listed them back on the trading post.

They likely are using an alt account and just have them sitting waiting to be picked up rather than in their inventory.

That must be it, because it’s over 9000 stacks of chests.

Over 9000! lol….well ok tbh idk where that is from, but I’ve seen it a lot in this game. Someone help me out to get the reference?

Essence Snow.3194:

Over 9000! lol….well ok tbh idk where that is from, but I’ve seen it a lot in this game. Someone help me out to get the reference?

im too slow

Essence Snow.3194:

Over 9000! lol….well ok tbh idk where that is from, but I’ve seen it a lot in this game. Someone help me out to get the reference?

??

Is my math wrong? 2,729,000 (original) minus 212,000 remaining after buyout is 2,517,000. Divided by 250 in a stack is 10,068 stacks.

So, 10k stacks (I said over 9k)

I bought some keys, was short on chests.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

Essence Snow.3194:

Over 9000! lol….well ok tbh idk where that is from, but I’ve seen it a lot in this game. Someone help me out to get the reference?

??

Is my math wrong? 2,729,000 (original) minus 212,000 remaining after buyout is 2,517,000. Divided by 250 in a stack is 10,068 stacks.

So, 10k stacks (I said over 9k)

Nope nothing to do with your math or anything it was just a common reference, which I was not aware of it’s origin till I watched the vid linked.

Just a thought, but those Daily Log-in rewards, some of them have a Black Lion item as the reward. That item can be a key. Assuming that even 5% of the population gets a key, you’re still looking for several thousands of players at a time getting those keys. There are also players who use their free 400 gems from the 5k, 10k, 15k Achievement chest to buy keys as well.

But that won’t increase demand for chests. They drop so often they only way you’re low is farming like crazy for the most part. I don’t forsee this being a worthwhile investment.

Wanze.8410:

I bought some keys, was short on chests.

That much keys?

Prototypemind.4026:

But that won’t increase demand for chests. They drop so often they only way you’re low is farming like crazy for the most part. I don’t forsee this being a worthwhile investment.

My guess is that the person in question is banking on the market memory not actually causing it to go down. If enough people just go with the current prices they’ll create enough of a buffer that the person in question will have actually created a new price for the BLC’s. Considering what we’re talking about, it’s reasonable to believe that he can succeed in doing so. The number of people that will really care about the difference between 60c and 1s40c (the Sell Listings from before and after) will largely be irrelevant, so it’s all up to the additional number of people pushing down the price through selling large quantities of Black Lion Chests directly to the bottom floor (ie. the Buy Orders). And with the massive amount of Buy Orders at 1s, it’s highly unlikely that it will manage to push through that barrier any time soon. Of course, over the course of the last couple of days the Supply has increased slightly faster than it had previously (more people are actually putting out Sell Orders due to the higher gain), so it’s possible that price memory still might take effect (ignoring the massive influx of Buy Orders suddenly thrown at 1s, the amount of people actually ordering the chests has actually managed to increase).

Of course, all this being said, this sort of maneuver won’t really gain any amount of money unless someone else actually does the same thing. Being able to sell ones bought at 50c at 1s at a profit means nothing when the ones you bought at 1s are still eating up all of your money. Unless demand actually increases by a notable amount to combat the amount of increased supply (due to more people hitting the “I’m willing to sell these now” point), the price will just have changed at that’d be that. And that sort of speculation on the BLC’s seems extremely foolish, as the entire point of them is to be a reasonably likely drop that causes incentive for people to want to spend money in the cash shop. Making them relevantly harder to obtain would go directly against ANet’s interests.

Well seemingly there are multiple accounts involved, so a fairly decent number of players colluding together isn’t out of the question, but it still doesn’t seem sound. I can’t imagine it going any better than it did last time, but we shall see.

Prototypemind.4026:

Well seemingly there are multiple accounts involved, so a fairly decent number of players colluding together isn’t out of the question, but it still doesn’t seem sound. I can’t imagine it going any better than it did last time, but we shall see.

If you’re going by the player count on the website, I wouldn’t. That is actually the number of entries made rather than unique players. If I list but a buy order for 50 and another for 200, it’ll show up as two players on the website.

I’m not saying that it can’t be multiple people as well.

Very interesting. Maybe a guild has got all its members to buy up.

Seems like way too much effort and way too slow for a single person to do.

I kinda hope it’s someone who got kittened they didn’t get a ticket from using 25 keys, so they bought all the chests to make other people kittened that they bought keys, but then couldn’t use them :P not hoping it for the drama, just for the giggles.
if someone is stocking them, they are likely storing them in the trading post pickup. infinite storage if you do it that way. some players even have 2nd accounts just for trading, so it doesn’t even have to interfere with their normal stuff.

I did the math on Black Lion Chests a long time ago. I didn’t have the capital then (or now, for that matter), but I definitely saw the opportunity to purge the excess supply (my plan was to buy it all out, DELETE the excess, and keep enough inventory to relist and sell to recoup my costs).

Just checked and they have risen to buy:1s92c and sell 2s34c. I think that’s about a 300% increase from the last buy out and about 2k% if considering both major buyouts.

Essence Snow.3194:

Just checked and they have risen to buy:1s92c and sell 2s34c. I think that’s about a 300% increase from the last buy out and about 2k% if considering both major buyouts.

Is this a good or bad thing?

Wanze.8410:

Essence Snow.3194:

Just checked and they have risen to buy:1s92c and sell 2s34c. I think that’s about a 300% increase from the last buy out and about 2k% if considering both major buyouts.

Is this a good or bad thing?

is he (they) getting rich off of it? yes? then its a bad thing, cuz he isnt me.

Wanze.8410:

Essence Snow.3194:

Just checked and they have risen to buy:1s92c and sell 2s34c. I think that’s about a 300% increase from the last buy out and about 2k% if considering both major buyouts.

Is this a good or bad thing?

It’s good for someone(s), including players who have no need of 100+ chests and can sell some off to pay for this/that. It’s bad for reasoned discussion on the forums, because some people will declare ‘manipulation’ without any evidence other than the supply/price changes, and no amount of logic will convince them there are other possibilities.

Wanze.8410:

Essence Snow.3194:

Just checked and they have risen to buy:1s92c and sell 2s34c. I think that’s about a 300% increase from the last buy out and about 2k% if considering both major buyouts.

Is this a good or bad thing?

Yes to both.

Good for anyone looking to sell BLC or whoever bought up all the overstock.

Bad for anyone who doesn’t have a massive amount of chests from playing the game and may need one.

Overall I don’t think it makes much of a difference to the game as a whole.

Some guildies of mine were talking about this in game, about how the price was going up. Someone else interjected that it’s only going to be for 5 more days and that they knew the person who was responsible.
So if they are to be believed, in the next couple of days you should start seeing the price go back down to normal.

Just some food for thought….

The issue was that the chests used to drop ALL the time, so supply was huge. Because keys drop at an infinitesimally small rate in comparison, there was nearly no demand (plus the chests contained nothing of value).

They’ve updated the chests to drop much less frequently now and have packed all kinds of goodies into them so the supply rate more closely matches the demand, the issue then, was the ginormous amount of cheap supply already available.

By buying up all the cheap supply, the market price quickly hit equilibrium. This allows the person who bought all the cheap supply to reintroduce the supply at a metered rate that matches demand in order to maintain a high sell price. The downside of course is that you have to sit on millions of units of inventory that will take YEARS to sell off.

If you’ve got the capital to buy out such a huge market and the patience to slowly liquidate your inventory, it’s definitely going to be profitable.

There’s a number of oddities on the market right now (BLC, Quartz Crystals, etc.)

Makes me wonder who has access to inside info, or who is taking advantage of knowledge learned from the Beta of HoT.

Last BL chests I bought were 12c. Unless I have spare chests (from drops), I don’t do key runs (that take 3 times longer now) because there is no way I’m buying chests at those prices.

I thought one of these threads (1st buyout?) had a poster claim it was them and they showed several images of tabs and tabs of BL chest stacks. Certainly could have been photoshopped, but he certainly said all the right things (and didn’t say much else) to make me consider he was legit. Even mentioned the fake buy orders to drive up the price.

Meh, maybe I dreamed it all…

Neural.1824:

There’s a number of oddities on the market right now (BLC, Quartz Crystals, etc.)

Makes me wonder who has access to inside info, or who is taking advantage of knowledge learned from the Beta of HoT.

Dont forget about the mini kasmeer buy out from the Chinese patch notes that got released and translated on reddit.

inb4 someone mined something about to be put into the chests that many people will want~

Back when chests were 3c each I bought several stacks which have been sitting in my bank for over a year now. Has anyone actually been listing theirs to see if they are moving at the current price? If so I should probably unload mine while they are up.

What’s interesting to me is how many sell from moment to moment. Supply shifts by a thousand or more in between one spot and another. I wonder if this can be used to get a very rough idea of how keys are being used and by extension, how many keys people buy from the gem store. I know people still key farm, though I think they do it in reduced numbers since the nerf. It’s obvious demand for chests is pretty stable.

mtpelion.4562:

Back when chests were 3c each I bought several stacks which have been sitting in my bank for over a year now. Has anyone actually been listing theirs to see if they are moving at the current price? If so I should probably unload mine while they are up.

I listed 250 for 3s last night, 190 of which sold within about 5 minutes before I was undercut.

I thought it’s some trading website. Basically someone bought items X in massive amount. And tell people to buy it after.

Basically flippers telling flippers to hoard things and cut down the supplies.

And those flippers tell flippers on reddit and GW2 forums “oh wow, look at how much this item rises”. Better stock things up.

It’s kind of like a pyramid scheme. But if there are people after you that fall for it, you can still make money. If you are at the end of it, probably not.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

What’s interesting to me is how many sell from moment to moment. Supply shifts by a thousand or more in between one spot and another. I wonder if this can be used to get a very rough idea of how keys are being used and by extension, how many keys people buy from the gem store. I know people still key farm, though I think they do it in reduced numbers since the nerf. It’s obvious demand for chests is pretty stable.

Unfortunately the BLC buyout really doesn’t hold much relation to actual usage. Though many people are doing the farm, the overall amount isn’t enough to really use the amount of chests bought by even close to the amount needed. The easiest way to show this is through Butter. Butter is a part of the crafting method for farming, and is an integral part of doing it the fastest way (ie. the way that would actually cause there to be any real demand for the chests). However, despite that the price on Butter hasn’t really changed at all since the change to the early levels in the first place (heck, it’s even trending downwards right now), meaning that the overall amount of runs done hasn’t increased by a significant amount of numbers in relation.

However, this only holds true for the faster method, and not the total number of people doing the runs. This sort of leads into what I assume to be the thought process of the person/people that did this buy-out: there are a ton of new people in the game, and many of them are doing the slower methods that doesn’t require gold (more likely the “town exploration” method, as that gives Transmutation Charges). Each of these people haven’t played the game long enough to have an extra stack or two of the Chests around, and will need to purchase the chests. Similarly, Chest Farming is becoming more profitable, and thus more appealing to people doing it, so the overall amount of people doing it should increase in relation (up until the overall price on the weapons goes down enough that the profit from doing the key farming becomes significantly lower than the time taken to do it). Finally, Black Lion Chests may be easy to obtain, but the overall amount of people who have been selling them at the lower prices is drastically lower than that number (I know that I have a couple of stacks of it just from playing the game that I haven’t sold for that reason). This leads into a rapidly increasing price once the initial barrier has been broken, increased by the number of people that want to quickly get onto the action (which is probably why there has been a second resurgence, as I doubt that this has much, if anything, to do with the first person/people).

The interesting thing about Black Lion Chests as an investment is that they should have an absurdly low elasticity of demand – that is, it really shouldn’t matter if they cost 5c or 50s, people will still actually buy and consume roughly the same numbers.

Chests are a pure complementary good – you only consume them with keys, and vice versa – so you really want to evaluate the cost of the pair, and the cost of the key is so high that the price of the chest can move quite a bit before people would start to notice.

There’s no way that the supply on chests (that is, the number dropped in game) is lower than the number of keys demanded if the price of a chest were 0. That would be radical mismanagement on their part.

I’d bet a lot of those chests just get destroyed or stashed or otherwise never hit the market because people have figured out they aren’t worth the time to list. Since there’s a substantial glut, the long run equilibrium price of a chest really reflects the transaction costs of listing a chest on the TP (as the underlying value without transaction costs is easy to show to be (arbitrarily close to) 0).

Since demand is so inelastic it’s a great market to try and manipulate. It’s clearly not making things more efficient, so it isn’t sustainable (profitable) long term – but depending on how much it cost to throw the market off in the first place I can definitely see the profit potential before the market starts to wise up.

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

Victuswolf.5286:

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

A good reason for starters.

Victuswolf.5286:

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

Not sure about BLC’s, but there are plenty of other areas where it would benefit their bank account to do such things. There is no law against it, and they’ve never told the user base they wouldn’t do it, so.. yeah.

Neural.1824:

Victuswolf.5286:

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

Not sure about BLC’s, but there are plenty of other areas where it would benefit their bank account to do such things. There is no law against it, and they’ve never told the user base they wouldn’t do it, so.. yeah.

I am pretty sure that JS stated that Anet, as a company, doesnt participate in the trading market.

Wanze.8410:

Neural.1824:

Victuswolf.5286:

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

Not sure about BLC’s, but there are plenty of other areas where it would benefit their bank account to do such things. There is no law against it, and they’ve never told the user base they wouldn’t do it, so.. yeah.

I am pretty sure that JS stated that Anet, as a company, doesnt participate in the trading market.

Well, I guess if John said so, it must be true, because no employee of a company has ever lied on the forums.

(Not saying he is lying, but his statement does not necessarily make it true)

cranked.3812:

Wanze.8410:

Neural.1824:

Victuswolf.5286:

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

Not sure about BLC’s, but there are plenty of other areas where it would benefit their bank account to do such things. There is no law against it, and they’ve never told the user base they wouldn’t do it, so.. yeah.

I am pretty sure that JS stated that Anet, as a company, doesnt participate in the trading market.

Well, I guess if John said so, it must be true, because no employee of a company has ever lied on the forums.

(Not saying he is lying, but his statement does not necessarily make it true)

I don’t remember seeing anyone from Anet ever lying. Besides, this accusation is not constructive nor is it on topic with the thread.

I am curious to see if the prices to drop down in a few days as mentioned in an earlier post.

cranked.3812:

Wanze.8410:

Neural.1824:

Victuswolf.5286:

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

Not sure about BLC’s, but there are plenty of other areas where it would benefit their bank account to do such things. There is no law against it, and they’ve never told the user base they wouldn’t do it, so.. yeah.

I am pretty sure that JS stated that Anet, as a company, doesnt participate in the trading market.

Well, I guess if John said so, it must be true, because no employee of a company has ever lied on the forums.

(Not saying he is lying, but his statement does not necessarily make it true)

As I mentioned, maybe you should produce a proper reason, why Anet should do it in the first place before considering that they actually do it.

Wanze.8410:

cranked.3812:

Wanze.8410:

Neural.1824:

Victuswolf.5286:

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

Not sure about BLC’s, but there are plenty of other areas where it would benefit their bank account to do such things. There is no law against it, and they’ve never told the user base they wouldn’t do it, so.. yeah.

I am pretty sure that JS stated that Anet, as a company, doesnt participate in the trading market.

Well, I guess if John said so, it must be true, because no employee of a company has ever lied on the forums.

(Not saying he is lying, but his statement does not necessarily make it true)

As I mentioned, maybe you should produce a proper reason, why Anet should do it in the first place before considering that they actually do it.

You are being deliberately obtuse. You know very well that the trading post is a massive gold sink and higher price equal greater gold sink effectiveness through taxation.

INB4 \Company has to make money instead of company shafts you

Neural.1824:

Wanze.8410:

cranked.3812:

Wanze.8410:

Neural.1824:

Victuswolf.5286:

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

Not sure about BLC’s, but there are plenty of other areas where it would benefit their bank account to do such things. There is no law against it, and they’ve never told the user base they wouldn’t do it, so.. yeah.

I am pretty sure that JS stated that Anet, as a company, doesnt participate in the trading market.

Well, I guess if John said so, it must be true, because no employee of a company has ever lied on the forums.

(Not saying he is lying, but his statement does not necessarily make it true)

As I mentioned, maybe you should produce a proper reason, why Anet should do it in the first place before considering that they actually do it.

You are being deliberately obtuse. You know very well that the trading post is a massive gold sink and higher price equal greater gold sink effectiveness through taxation.

conspiracy theories abound…………..

insanemaniac.2456:

Neural.1824:

Wanze.8410:

cranked.3812:

Wanze.8410:

Neural.1824:

Victuswolf.5286:

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

Not sure about BLC’s, but there are plenty of other areas where it would benefit their bank account to do such things. There is no law against it, and they’ve never told the user base they wouldn’t do it, so.. yeah.

I am pretty sure that JS stated that Anet, as a company, doesnt participate in the trading market.

Well, I guess if John said so, it must be true, because no employee of a company has ever lied on the forums.

(Not saying he is lying, but his statement does not necessarily make it true)

As I mentioned, maybe you should produce a proper reason, why Anet should do it in the first place before considering that they actually do it.

You are being deliberately obtuse. You know very well that the trading post is a massive gold sink and higher price equal greater gold sink effectiveness through taxation.

conspiracy theories abound…………..

So does naivety

Neural.1824:

Wanze.8410:

cranked.3812:

Wanze.8410:

Neural.1824:

Victuswolf.5286:

Is there anything stopping Anet from buying items on the BMT to artificially make the item more rare and expensive?

Not sure about BLC’s, but there are plenty of other areas where it would benefit their bank account to do such things. There is no law against it, and they’ve never told the user base they wouldn’t do it, so.. yeah.

I am pretty sure that JS stated that Anet, as a company, doesnt participate in the trading market.

Well, I guess if John said so, it must be true, because no employee of a company has ever lied on the forums.

(Not saying he is lying, but his statement does not necessarily make it true)

As I mentioned, maybe you should produce a proper reason, why Anet should do it in the first place before considering that they actually do it.

You know very well that the trading post is a massive gold sink and higher price equal greater gold sink effectiveness through taxation.

Yes that is true. Was there a point that you were trying to argue? If you were trying to argue against Wanze with it, could you please provide evidence that isn’t conjecture or circumstantial? I’m curious about how you think Anet is manipulating the market for black lion chests.