Guild Wars 2

I always thought that the tax was a flat one, around 25%. Looking at spidy however, and it looks like it is now days it is around 50%.

What has changed, and wasn’t this supposed to be market based, supply and demand?

1.) The numbers on gw2spidy have been off for months if not years as far as the gem-gold exchange goes

2.) Instead of guessing, why not edjucate yourself and know exactly how something works?:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Currency_exchange

3.) Nothing has changed as far as the exchange goes.

Supply should be removed from the statement as supply has never been an issue with gems.

It should also be removed from statement as supply is affected by those selling gems to other players. Anet are the ONLY entity that can sell to players, we cannot. We sell back to Anets pool.

So anet buy them off us, but don’t pay us the tax. Then resell for higher price with tax on to players. This is an unfair system. Prices should only rise when the demand outweighs the supply, yet we do not get to see how many gems are available at any one time to buy or exchange gold for.

If people found a way to farm a new item, flooding the market with that item, it’s price drops because supply outweighs demand. So the only way prices should rise is if:

1. An item is in scarce supply or
2. An item is removed from the game or it’s drop rate is adjusted.

We don’t know if either anet gems are ever in scarce supply or if they decrease the amount available in the pool.

Considering people pay real cash for gems, I’m pretty sure that gems will never be scarce. In fact I’ll go as far to say that anet would ensure that the supply of gems far outweighs the demand.

This leads to the realisation that perhaps anet fixes the price themselves and can raise an lower the cost of gems for gold as they see fit. If gems were traded from player to player we would see a more accurate price.

HenleyLegoMan.4987:

It should also be removed from statement as supply is affected by those selling gems to other players. Anet are the ONLY entity that can sell to players, we cannot. We sell back to Anets pool.

So anet buy them off us, but don’t pay us the tax. Then resell for higher price with tax on to players. This is an unfair system. Prices should only rise when the demand outweighs the supply, yet we do not get to see how many gems are available at any one time to buy or exchange gold for.

While correct that in this case the supply/demand function is leveraged, you are incorrect.

Players do affect supply of gems through conversion, so the supply and demand argument still stands. It does not matter that anet is working as a middleman.

How do you they affect supply? Sure they are taking gems out of the pool but to what extent is supply affected?

Without the figures neither of us can say for sure if players affect the amount in pool enough to warrant a raise in price.

And you also need to understand that players don’t convert gold to gems to convert back again, they convert to spend gems on gemstore items, therefore replacing the gems they took out of the pool, with the very gems they TOOK OUT!

So I’m not incorrect, I have in fact just showed you that the supply of gems never really decreases, think about that for a moment.

Then factor in cash purchases of gems used either in gemstore or to convert to gold that actually INCREASES the amount of gems in the pool. Therefore making the supply and demand statement null and void.

If anything, this could also mean that there is not enough GOLD available in game at the moment.

Just wait for HoT release. Two factors will modify the gold to gem ratio at this time:

• the number of players that bought the basic extension, will need to buy a character slot from the gemstore to create a Revenant, and will do so through a gold to gem exchange. This should create a sharp decrease of the available gem pool at that time
• the number of players that bought the ultimate extension and may be tempted to convert some of their 4k gems to gold when the ratio is most interesting for them (or, for that mater, other players who may routinely exchange gems for gold). This will increase the gem pool

Depending on these two driving forces, we may observe sharp changes in the gold<→gem ratios over the few days before and after HoT release. This is will be a good time to validate that players affect the pool enough. However, keep in mind that only a change will be significant. The lack of change won’t because there may still be an effect caused by supply/demand from players, however if the base pool size is very large, it may very well buffer these effects.

HenleyLegoMan.4987:

How do you they affect supply? Sure they are taking gems out of the pool but to what extent is supply affected?

Without the figures neither of us can say for sure if players affect the amount in pool enough to warrant a raise in price.

And you also need to understand that players don’t convert gold to gems to convert back again, they convert to spend gems on gemstore items, therefore replacing the gems they took out of the pool, with the very gems they TOOK OUT!

So I’m not incorrect, I have in fact just showed you that the supply of gems never really decreases, think about that for a moment.

Then factor in cash purchases of gems used either in gemstore or to convert to gold that actually INCREASES the amount of gems in the pool. Therefore making the supply and demand statement null and void.

If anything, this could also mean that there is not enough GOLD available in game at the moment.

Players buy gems with real $. The moment this conversion happens, arenanet creates gems for said player which he can now enter into the gem-gold market by selling those gems.

Thus players are supplying gems into the gem-gold market. Arenanet is the one not affecting the gold-gem market directly. They simply provide the marketplace and a tax (and behind the scene conversion rates etc, but they don’t directly affect supply or demand).

Once something is bought out of the gem store the gems get removed (destroyed). Be it with gems from real $, or gem-gold exchange (which in turn had to have been bought by someone else and sold for gold).

Both the gem and gold side of the market have an internal supply which is wheighed against each other to determain price for the conversion. Arenanet takes a cut from both ends.

tl;dr: players/customers are the main contributors of supply and demand of gems/gold in the gem-gold market.

Belorn.2659:

I always thought that the tax was a flat one, around 25%. Looking at spidy however, and it looks like it is now days it is around 50%.

Nothing has changed. There’s a flat rate of 15% in both directions, which is the same for “selling” anything on the trading post (5% listing fee, 10% sales tax), since you “sell” gems (for coin) or you “sell” coin (for gems).

Belorn.2659:

What has changed,

Nothing.

Belorn.2659:

and wasn’t this supposed to be market based, supply and demand?

Still is.

• Around December 2013 and around December 2014, the conversion rate dropped noticeably, each time for over a month, probably due to the large number of people getting gift cards for the holidays and cashing them in.
• Also in December 2013, folks who bought at least 4,000 gems got an exclusive Mini, driving up the supply.
• Any time something new or special goes on sale in the gem shop, the ratio has gone up. (The amount depends on player interest and what else people might be spending gold on.)

If gems are destroyed instead of being put into the gem pool then this system is flawed.

If I bought a load of euros with my gbp and then spent it, those euros would not be destroyed but would go back into the economy.

A concerning issue indeed.

HenleyLegoMan.4987:

If gems are destroyed instead of being put into the gem pool then this system is flawed.

If I bought a load of euros with my gbp and then spent it, those euros would not be destroyed but would go back into the economy.

A concerning issue indeed.

…. please read up and at least TRY to understand how the gem – gold conversion works.

-> Gems get removed from the game when you BUY from the gem store. Why would they get added into the exchange?

-> Gems sold for gold get added into the gem-gold marketplace supply.

-> Gems bought with gold are removed from the gem-gold marketplace supply.

-> Gems bought with real money get added to the persons account (created) and do not affect the gem-gold exchange at all unless sold for gold.

Edit: The gem store and it’s items has nothing to do with the gem-gold marketplace exchange besides offering a way to spend the premium currency.

2nd EDIT:

I’ll just link the wiki since you seem not to have bothered to read it:

Exchange rates are determined by supply and demand from players. Since supply and demand affects the rate, the ratio can shift rapidly depending on market conditions, especially when the Gem Store adds new items.

The exchange has a supply of both Gems and Gold. When you trade to the exchange you influence the supply of each. The exchange rate is relative to current supply of each. The price changes geometrically as one pool empties creating a better exchange rate for the low supplied currency. The supplies are contained entirely within the exchange.¹

3rd EDIT: you can’t seriously be comparing gbp – euro conversion to this. It’s a completely different system. The closest thing this come to is taking or paying back a loan in which case yes, money gets created and destroyed in the real world economy.

If the issue is just with spidy not correctly reflecting the actually price, then that answer to my question is simple. It lists a historical gold-gem price of 20g, and gem-gold of 10g, which a 15% tax could not possible explain (thus this thread). If spidy is broken, then whatever conclusion one might want to draw from it is incorrect.

Looking in game, current prices say a buy price of 17.5g and sell price of 12.5g. That is indeed 15% on both sides, and reflect a “true” price of 15g (rounded). It also shows a total of 30% added tax on the price the seller is willing to sell his gems for.

The ratio between the rates is that gems to gold is roughly 72.25% of the gold to gems rate. Starting last August 2014 Spidy became unreliable (except when Spidy’s sampling was down, the obvious straight line). Before then the prices are accurate. If you are looking for an accurate history after than, at least for the Gold to Gems ratio, then GW2TP.com has a chart going back to late Sept 2013.

https://www.gw2tp.com/gems

When I bring up the exchange in game right now I can:

Buy 2000 gems for 358g 40s 18c
Sell 1933 gems for 250g

This sets the rate for 100 gems as

Gold to Gems ~ 17g 92s 1c
Gems to Gold ~ 12g 93s 33c (remember this conversion only gives you whole gold, any silver and copper you should be getting is truncated so this value isn’t exact)

12.9333 g / 17.9201 g ~ 72.17%