Guild Wars 2

John Smith.4610:

Wanze.8410:

Question:

I dont know how involved you have been with the chinese version of the client but in terms of game economics/mechanics (for example crafting or forge recipes), was there something that was implemented differently than in the US/NA client?
I know that you cant comment on future changes, so i dont want to know which changes might be coming over to us but maybe there is something that you handled differently over there because the market and economy was starting from scratch and when implementing it over here, it would cause too much upset to price equilibriums.

China is largely the same game. We felt like we did a good job with the original GW2 and so we carried that over. What China did get was all the adjustments we made over the last year+ to fix mistakes in the west, so they started on a better foot over there.

Follow Up Question on that:
Did the market in the first couple of months in China behave differently than over here in the first couple of months?
I would guess that many chinese players that started in China already had played the NA/US client, so they had a far greater knowledge base about stuff like forging recipes, material promotion, droprates (if they werent adjusted) etc., so maybe markets found their equilibrium faster.

phys.7689:

…..
The only people that might use extractor are those trapped with sigil/runes in karma gear andvpeople with ascended.

Any player that uses the extractor on runes that cost less than the value of the extractor (in gold) has nobody but themselves to blame for wasting resources. I’m not against a solution for the “trapped” sigil/runes conundrum, but only an idiot would use 6 extractors to pull Strength runes off a set of armor….

….
The gem pool expands when players trade in gems for gold. If you assume two stockpiles of currency, it works pretty much exactly like you would expect.

So are you willing to state (in public) that gems are never destroyed or created? (I get if you are not going to answer).

See, the ability to CONTROL the supply kind of makes it NOT like commodities at all (and anyone that believes Anet is NOT in 100% control of this is delusional). I have no problem with how it works, but I am a bit “concerned” that players being led to believe gems are a fixed quantity commodity when they are not is something the SEC might raise an eyebrow to if it were in fact a REAL market.

Brother Grimm.5176:

See, the ability to CONTROL the supply kind of makes it NOT like commodities at all (and anyone that believes Anet is NOT in 100% control of this is delusional). I have no problem with how it works, but I am a bit “concerned” that players being led to believe gems are a fixed quantity commodity when they are not is something the SEC might raise an eyebrow to if it were in fact a REAL market.

I’m pretty sure the supply for gems is based on legit transactions and not fluffing of numbers by ANet. Might they occasionally tip a few extra gems into the market? Possible, but I’ll stay away from conspiracy theories.

Thing is, some people will use gems to buy gold, especially if the price goes up significantly. That brings more supply and lowers the price. But the price keeps climbing since many more people are likely to trade gold for gems.

With a large enough pool (say, in the millions), it would take a long time for the difference in buyer rates and seller additions to leech the gem pool enough to run it out completely.

Which leads to an interesting (though likely policy-disallowed) question: How many gems did the BLTC start with? Millions? A billion? I’m totally curious.

Brother Grimm.5176:

phys.7689:

…..
The only people that might use extractor are those trapped with sigil/runes in karma gear andvpeople with ascended.

Any player that uses the extractor on runes that cost less than the value of the extractor (in gold) has nobody but themselves to blame for wasting resources. I’m not against a solution for the “trapped” sigil/runes conundrum, but only an idiot would use 6 extractors to pull Strength runes off a set of armor….

….
The gem pool expands when players trade in gems for gold. If you assume two stockpiles of currency, it works pretty much exactly like you would expect.

So are you willing to state (in public) that gems are never destroyed or created? (I get if you are not going to answer).

See, the ability to CONTROL the supply kind of makes it NOT like commodities at all (and anyone that believes Anet is NOT in 100% control of this is delusional). I have no problem with how it works, but I am a bit “concerned” that players being led to believe gems are a fixed quantity commodity when they are not is something the SEC might raise an eyebrow to if it were in fact a REAL market.

from what i remember, some posts seem to have been lost, they said they initially seeded both stockpiles of gold and gems, but now the initial money isnt a factor. After examining the system, i dont think they would gain any benefit by not having it work like a normal exchange.

before i thought they might be afraid of large fluctations, but honestly if the exchange ran out of gems or gold, it would probably correct pretty fast, and any time they created fake money, they would actually be messing up the monetary values, not in their benefit, giving people free gems hurts them, and giving people fake gold overall reduces the value of gold, and throws off the gold/gem exchange books.

essentially counterfiet money doesnt help the government, and counterfiet bonds would help them even less.

gems are destroyed when you make a purchase.

Rauderi.8706:

Brother Grimm.5176:

See, the ability to CONTROL the supply kind of makes it NOT like commodities at all (and anyone that believes Anet is NOT in 100% control of this is delusional). I have no problem with how it works, but I am a bit “concerned” that players being led to believe gems are a fixed quantity commodity when they are not is something the SEC might raise an eyebrow to if it were in fact a REAL market.

I’m pretty sure the supply for gems is based on legit transactions and not fluffing of numbers by ANet. Might they occasionally tip a few extra gems into the market? Possible, but I’ll stay away from conspiracy theories.

Thing is, some people will use gems to buy gold, especially if the price goes up significantly. That brings more supply and lowers the price. But the price keeps climbing since many more people are likely to trade gold for gems.

With a large enough pool (say, in the millions), it would take a long time for the difference in buyer rates and seller additions to leech the gem pool enough to run it out completely.

Which leads to an interesting (though likely policy-disallowed) question: How many gems did the BLTC start with? Millions? A billion? I’m totally curious.

if the overall pool is increasing, the rate can still be high.

lets say when its 10 gold to 1 gem the ratio makes it 10 gold for one gem
you can get the same ratio with 1×10^10 gold to 1 × 10^9 gems.

essentially its theoretically possible that the value of gold to gems decreases, while the pot gets fuller on both sides.

John Smith.4610:

The gem pool expands when players trade in gems for gold. If you assume two stockpiles of currency, it works pretty much exactly like you would expect.

You have mentioned in the past (if I recall correctly) that the Gem/Gold ratio isn’t purely based on the exchange, though.

Are there restrictions in place to prevent the rate from dropping too low?
(i.e. Let’s say a group of people collaborated to buy millions of gems and trade them for gold in an attempt to drastically reduce the ratio of Gold to Gems.)

If they all hit “Exchange” at once while the rate was very favorable, they could amass a large amount of gold prior to the rate dropping.

If, say, 100 Gems then dropped from being worth 10g to 1g… They could easily buy back gems and, in effect, cheat the system.

Are there restrictions in place to prevent this?

John Smith.4610:

Mckeone.9804:

John – (1) how do you view your role in economic management . . . although a micro person, how much, if at all, do you incorporate macro modeling into your work, (2) do you have any real life role models that you follow, and (3) what papers/blogs do you read?

1. The majority of my work ends up being on the macro side, mostly due to limited time.
2/3. Does Urijah Faber count?
I enjoy reading about Nate Silver’s work and I am a big fan of Paul Krugman. I’m not sure I would call them role models because our work is so vastly different, but I would reference their traits of success and excellent work as something to look up to.

Paul Krugman + Kittens:

When it comes to rare items that only dropped during a limited time, traders gamble on the question: “Will anet reintroduce it, and if so, when?”.

Is this an intended aspect of the economy and design of the market?

Thanks for the thread, and thank you John Smith for taking the time to speak with us!

I’m just a lowly student, and not even an economics one at that, so my knowledge of these things is very limited. But I’m going to try and explain my understanding of gem and gold currencies in layman’s terms, and I hope that you would correct/clarify any misunderstandings I might have:

I think of Anet as bank with two infinitely vast pools of currency, gold and gems. When a player buys gems with money, gems are removed from the “Anet bank” and given to the player. When players exchange gold for gems, the players’ gold is transferred to the Anet bank gold pool, and the some gems from the Anet bank are transferred to the player. Conversely, when players convert gems to gold, they are adding to and taking from the Anet bank pool of gems and gold respectively. When gems are purchased, real world money is used to fuel the transaction of transferring gems. When gems and gold are converted, the “Anet bank” keeps a cut of the gold as a transaction fee. When players buy items from the gem store, the gems go to the Anet bank, and when players buy things like T3 cultural armor, gold goes to the Anet bank.

Am I doing ok so far? I guess one confusing question I have is, on the macroscopic level (i.e. not individual cases), how does buying gems with money and exchanging gold and gems affect the exchange rate? How is it all connected?
I think I read somewhere once (I think the official GW2 hardcover strategy guide) that “every gem in existance was purchased with money”, which lead me to believe that there was a finite pool of gems available for exchange, but I don’t really understand how that fits in.

You’re close.

John Smith.4610:

John Smith.4610:

As a quick aside. Gems in the currency exchange are finite. You may buy gems with real money to your hearts content, but if you don’t put any of them gems into the currency exchange the currency exchange’s stock of gems never changes.

John Smith.4610:

Think of it this way. The government can print as much money as they want, that doesn’t mean your bank account has access to that money. The currency exchange does not have access to gem creation. It has a limited stock that players add and subtract from.

Ayrilana.1396:

You’re close.

Think of the gem/gold exchange like this:

There are two boxes. One has gold in it, the other has gems in it. If you want to take some gold out of the box, you have to put gems in the other box. If you want to take out gems, you have to put gold in the other box.

You can’t put something in without taking something out, and you can’t take something out without putting something in. How much of each depends on how full the boxes are. Right now there’s a lot of gold in one box, but only a few gems in the other box. So in order to take out one gem you have to put in a lot of gold. But on the other hand, if you put just one gem into the box you can take out a lot of gold.

tolunart.2095:

Ayrilana.1396:

You’re close.

Think of the gem/gold exchange like this:

There are two boxes. One has gold in it, the other has gems in it. If you want to take some gold out of the box, you have to put gems in the other box. If you want to take out gems, you have to put gold in the other box.

You can’t put something in without taking something out, and you can’t take something out without putting something in. How much of each depends on how full the boxes are. Right now there’s a lot of gold in one box, but only a few gems in the other box. So in order to take out one gem you have to put in a lot of gold. But on the other hand, if you put just one gem into the box you can take out a lot of gold.

I like your response more than the previous quotes response because its a simpler analogy. But, how does buying gems with money fit into the analogy?

Gems are created from scratch when you buy them with cash. Since your choice is either spend them in the shop for items or exchange them for gold that was already in the game, it doesn’t really affect the economy because those buying gems with gold is looking to spend them in the gem shop which destroys them.

To build on tolunart’s wonderful analogy, at the start of the game, the gold box only had a little gold while the gem box was filled to the brim. The value of the two boxes are the same. So as the gold box fills while the gem box is emptying, to keep the value of the two boxes equal, it means that the remaining gems are worth more than at the start of the game.

Wonderly.1324:

I like your response more than the previous quotes response because its a simpler analogy. But, how does buying gems with money fit into the analogy?

The same way that running a dungeon fits: in both cases, there is no interaction with the gems/gold exchange because the exchange is a separate thing.

When you pick up your credit card and buy gems, they are created from thin air. Poof! Now there’s gems.

When you finish a dungeon run and collect your loot, poof! There’s gold.

This has nothing to do with the exchange. The boxes can only be filled with gold or gems that already exist. In theory, if no one ever puts gems into the box and players only take them out, gems will get more and more expensive until the box is empty and there is only gold left.

In reality, long before this happens casual players will pull out their credit cards and buy gems. Now that they have gems, they can put them in the box and draw out lots and lots of gold.

Wonderly.1324:

tolunart.2095:

Ayrilana.1396:

You’re close.

Think of the gem/gold exchange like this:

There are two boxes. One has gold in it, the other has gems in it. If you want to take some gold out of the box, you have to put gems in the other box. If you want to take out gems, you have to put gold in the other box.

You can’t put something in without taking something out, and you can’t take something out without putting something in. How much of each depends on how full the boxes are. Right now there’s a lot of gold in one box, but only a few gems in the other box. So in order to take out one gem you have to put in a lot of gold. But on the other hand, if you put just one gem into the box you can take out a lot of gold.

I like your response more than the previous quotes response because its a simpler analogy. But, how does buying gems with money fit into the analogy?

gems are created by people spending real money, except for when anet seeded it, unless they did so by spending real money.
gold is created by people playing the game.

they exchange doesnt create either, their goal is to transfer it over, but some amount stays in the pool.

as for the math behind the algorithm that decideds the value of each, who knows, but i would guess they compare the amount of people supply gems versus supplying gold in specific time frames.

tolunart.2095:

Wonderly.1324:

I like your response more than the previous quotes response because its a simpler analogy. But, how does buying gems with money fit into the analogy?

The same way that running a dungeon fits: in both cases, there is no interaction with the gems/gold exchange because the exchange is a separate thing.

When you pick up your credit card and buy gems, they are created from thin air. Poof! Now there’s gems.

When you finish a dungeon run and collect your loot, poof! There’s gold.

This has nothing to do with the exchange. The boxes can only be filled with gold or gems that already exist. In theory, if no one ever puts gems into the box and players only take them out, gems will get more and more expensive until the box is empty and there is only gold left.

In reality, long before this happens casual players will pull out their credit cards and buy gems. Now that they have gems, they can put them in the box and draw out lots and lots of gold.

Thanks everyone, for the replies and for explaining!
^_^

So, to be clear, when you make an exchange you put something in one box and withdraw from the other box (with Anet taking a cut). When you run dungeons, gold goes into your account but from thin air, not from the gold box. When you buy gems with money, the gems that go into your account are created and do NOT come from the gem box. So if you buy gems with money and then exchange gems for gold, you are putting new gems into the gem box and taking gold from the gold box (which consists primarily of other players’ gold, gold which they put in the box in exchange for gems created by other players’ money). I see!… I think? = p

Wonderly.1324:

Thanks everyone, for the replies and for explaining!
^_^

So, to be clear, when you make an exchange you put something in one box and withdraw from the other box (with Anet taking a cut). When you run dungeons, gold goes into your account but from thin air, not from the gold box. When you buy gems with money, the gems that go into your account are created and do NOT come from the gem box. So if you buy gems with money and then exchange gems for gold, you are putting new gems into the gem box and taking gold from the gold box (which consists primarily of other players’ gold, gold which they put in the box in exchange for gems created by other players’ money). I see!… I think? = p

Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

Another question for John:

What do you see as the main challenges/risks faced by MMO economies, and how well do you think GW2’s economy has fared against these?

This is a great thread — and very good for the community (at least those that take the time to read it).

Thanks for the time and effort John!

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

2. Roughly what percentage of the GW2 player population would fall into this “rich” category (probably tough since “smart” players would have their wealth in inflation-proof investments instead of cash in the vault — an educated percentage based upon your view of the data would be more than satisfactory)

3. How does this category of players effect the economy? (maybe a good/bad/neutral type of classification with a brief reason or two as to why)

Thanks!

John Smith.4610:

Astraea.6075:

Another question for John:

What do you see as the main challenges/risks faced by MMO economies, and how well do you think GW2’s economy has fared against these?

The standard challenge is always hyper-inflation. I would argue that GW2 has tackled this challenge very, very successfully.

Second, a major risk is cartels controlling your economy(ies) and I would argue that we’ve done an excellent job there as well.

If i am interpreting cartel control correctly, is this an undesirable outcome, and would anet respond negatively to, for example, a guild designed for market manipulation.

Wonderly.1324:

tolunart.2095:

Ayrilana.1396:

You’re close.

Think of the gem/gold exchange like this:

There are two boxes. One has gold in it, the other has gems in it. If you want to take some gold out of the box, you have to put gems in the other box. If you want to take out gems, you have to put gold in the other box.

You can’t put something in without taking something out, and you can’t take something out without putting something in. How much of each depends on how full the boxes are. Right now there’s a lot of gold in one box, but only a few gems in the other box. So in order to take out one gem you have to put in a lot of gold. But on the other hand, if you put just one gem into the box you can take out a lot of gold.

I like your response more than the previous quotes response because its a simpler analogy. But, how does buying gems with money fit into the analogy?

The response is a good analogy, but the problem is he doesn’t work for Anet. I can come up with a good analogy you could understand of how a Casino runs their cash room, but having never stepped into the room, should you believe me?

I’m not expecting a direct answer to my question from JS, but don’t take it the wrong way when I don’t quite buy the 2 boxes analogy given by someone that has no inside knowledge of how or when gems are “destroyed” or “created”…..or how the boxes are “weighted”. I know what we have been “told” but there is no oversight of how the exchange works that any of us can verify.

Brother Grimm.5176:

The response is a good analogy, but the problem is he doesn’t work for Anet. I can come up with a good analogy you could understand of how a Casino runs their cash room, but having never stepped into the room, should you believe me?

What does that have to do with it? I’m repeating things that JS has said, in terms that are easier for a particular person to understand. It happens to be the truth, whether you want it to be or not.

John Smith.4610:

juno.1840:

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

2. Roughly what percentage of the GW2 player population would fall into this “rich” category (probably tough since “smart” players would have their wealth in inflation-proof investments instead of cash in the vault — an educated percentage based upon your view of the data would be more than satisfactory)

3. How does this category of players effect the economy? (maybe a good/bad/neutral type of classification with a brief reason or two as to why)

Thanks!

These are value statements, and I don’t feel comfortable making value statements.

Okay. How much gold in bank would one need to have to be in the top 20% of active players? Top 10%?

Behellagh.1468:

John Smith.4610:

juno.1840:

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

2. Roughly what percentage of the GW2 player population would fall into this “rich” category (probably tough since “smart” players would have their wealth in inflation-proof investments instead of cash in the vault — an educated percentage based upon your view of the data would be more than satisfactory)

3. How does this category of players effect the economy? (maybe a good/bad/neutral type of classification with a brief reason or two as to why)

Thanks!

These are value statements, and I don’t feel comfortable making value statements.

Okay. How much gold in bank would one need to have to be in the top 20% of active players? Top 10%?

Actually I was most interested in question #3 which is a recurring topic in the forums (at least occasionally). The first two questions were really to put perspective on the answer for the third.

The goal was to put to bed some of opinionated discussions regarding wealth disparity in GW2 and whether or not it has an effect on the “have-nots”.

I can appreciate the lack of comfort on the value questions. Maybe a fuzzier answer on only question #3 is reasonable?

Behellagh.1468:

John Smith.4610:

juno.1840:

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

2. Roughly what percentage of the GW2 player population would fall into this “rich” category (probably tough since “smart” players would have their wealth in inflation-proof investments instead of cash in the vault — an educated percentage based upon your view of the data would be more than satisfactory)

3. How does this category of players effect the economy? (maybe a good/bad/neutral type of classification with a brief reason or two as to why)

Thanks!

These are value statements, and I don’t feel comfortable making value statements.

Okay. How much gold in bank would one need to have to be in the top 20% of active players? Top 10%?

I’m not sure that gold in the bank is meaningful either. I have 2 legendaries (I gave away the third that I made), lots of expensive skins/items (e.g. infinite light, anomaly, 4 sets of ascended armor, etc), and tradeable goods worth somewhere between 2k and 6k gold (I’m not sure exactly how much it would work out to be if I tried to sell everything, and it would depend on whether I decided to use or keep items like recipe: chaos of lyssa). But I often have only a few hundred gold in the bank at any given time … sometimes less than 100g.

I’ve changed cash into gold via gems often enough (better use of time than farming/grinding), but a lot of this is from playing or speculating (buying when prices seem too low, waiting to see if my guess was correct).

Behellagh.1468:

Okay. How much gold in bank would one need to have to be in the top 20% of active players? Top 10%?

Someone did a reddit straw poll on that a long time ago. Been looking for the post can not find it. The largest perentage of players who post on reddit had 500-1000gold. With a handful of players having +10k gold.

John Smith.4610:

juno.1840:

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

These are value statements, and I don’t feel comfortable making value statements.

To be fair, you DID say that your stats would tell you if our momma loved us enough, so…

That being said, numerous psychological studies have demonstrated that personal sense of wealth is largely a state of mind after needs are met, so if you feel poor, it’s probably because you open up the trading post and see legendaries selling for what is likely 20 times the gold you’ve ever had at once. Doesn’t mean you are not wealthy, nor does it mean that the person selling the legendary has a leg up, per se. Most of what you need to excel in this game is easily affordable with a few days worth of play, the insanely expensive stuff is almost entirely optional.

In this sense, Guild Wars 2 does not track real life, and yay for that!

linuxotaku.4731:

Behellagh.1468:

John Smith.4610:

juno.1840:

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

2. Roughly what percentage of the GW2 player population would fall into this “rich” category (probably tough since “smart” players would have their wealth in inflation-proof investments instead of cash in the vault — an educated percentage based upon your view of the data would be more than satisfactory)

3. How does this category of players effect the economy? (maybe a good/bad/neutral type of classification with a brief reason or two as to why)

Thanks!

These are value statements, and I don’t feel comfortable making value statements.

Okay. How much gold in bank would one need to have to be in the top 20% of active players? Top 10%?

I’m not sure that gold in the bank is meaningful either. I have 2 legendaries (I gave away the third that I made), lots of expensive skins/items (e.g. infinite light, anomaly, 4 sets of ascended armor, etc), and tradeable goods worth somewhere between 2k and 6k gold (I’m not sure exactly how much it would work out to be if I tried to sell everything, and it would depend on whether I decided to use or keep items like recipe: chaos of lyssa). But I often have only a few hundred gold in the bank at any given time … sometimes less than 100g.

I’ve changed cash into gold via gems often enough (better use of time than farming/grinding), but a lot of this is from playing or speculating (buying when prices seem too low, waiting to see if my guess was correct).

To the player looking to craft a legendary and thinks the precursor prices are outrageous is looking at the gold in his bank, not their net worth in items and mats. They may be saving those mats for a legendary or ascended so liquidating those is out of the question.

It’s always been my contention that the price of precursors track with those who can afford it “out of the pocket” without first liquidating their assets, the top X%. The line that defines that X% is always moving, always increasing and precursors are tracking along with it. And legendary prices track with precursor prices.

Behellagh.1468:

linuxotaku.4731:

Behellagh.1468:

John Smith.4610:

juno.1840:

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

2. Roughly what percentage of the GW2 player population would fall into this “rich” category (probably tough since “smart” players would have their wealth in inflation-proof investments instead of cash in the vault — an educated percentage based upon your view of the data would be more than satisfactory)

3. How does this category of players effect the economy? (maybe a good/bad/neutral type of classification with a brief reason or two as to why)

Thanks!

These are value statements, and I don’t feel comfortable making value statements.

Okay. How much gold in bank would one need to have to be in the top 20% of active players? Top 10%?

I’m not sure that gold in the bank is meaningful either. I have 2 legendaries (I gave away the third that I made), lots of expensive skins/items (e.g. infinite light, anomaly, 4 sets of ascended armor, etc), and tradeable goods worth somewhere between 2k and 6k gold (I’m not sure exactly how much it would work out to be if I tried to sell everything, and it would depend on whether I decided to use or keep items like recipe: chaos of lyssa). But I often have only a few hundred gold in the bank at any given time … sometimes less than 100g.

I’ve changed cash into gold via gems often enough (better use of time than farming/grinding), but a lot of this is from playing or speculating (buying when prices seem too low, waiting to see if my guess was correct).

To the player looking to craft a legendary and thinks the precursor prices are outrageous is looking at the gold in his bank, not their net worth in items and mats. They may be saving those mats for a legendary or ascended so liquidating those is out of the question.

It’s always been my contention that the price of precursors track with those who can afford it “out of the pocket” without first liquidating their assets, the top X%. The line that defines that X% is always moving, always increasing and precursors are tracking along with it. And legendary prices track with precursor prices.

That’s something that I think would be addressed with the answer to my question #3. Maybe I should have left the first two questions off (the value ones). I’ve reworded the request in one of my previous posts:

juno.1840:

Actually I was most interested in question #3 which is a recurring topic in the forums (at least occasionally). The first two questions were really to put perspective on the answer for the third.

The goal was to put to bed some of opinionated discussions regarding wealth disparity in GW2 and whether or not it has an effect on the “have-nots”.

I can appreciate the lack of comfort on the value questions. Maybe a fuzzier answer on only question #3 is reasonable?

Of course John may have meant “value questions” as in a statement of beliefs rather than fact. In that case, I think it means the question of wealth is something not visible and therefore not a concern?

Behellagh.1468:

linuxotaku.4731:

Behellagh.1468:

John Smith.4610:

juno.1840:

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

2. Roughly what percentage of the GW2 player population would fall into this “rich” category (probably tough since “smart” players would have their wealth in inflation-proof investments instead of cash in the vault — an educated percentage based upon your view of the data would be more than satisfactory)

3. How does this category of players effect the economy? (maybe a good/bad/neutral type of classification with a brief reason or two as to why)

Thanks!

These are value statements, and I don’t feel comfortable making value statements.

Okay. How much gold in bank would one need to have to be in the top 20% of active players? Top 10%?

I’m not sure that gold in the bank is meaningful either. I have 2 legendaries (I gave away the third that I made), lots of expensive skins/items (e.g. infinite light, anomaly, 4 sets of ascended armor, etc), and tradeable goods worth somewhere between 2k and 6k gold (I’m not sure exactly how much it would work out to be if I tried to sell everything, and it would depend on whether I decided to use or keep items like recipe: chaos of lyssa). But I often have only a few hundred gold in the bank at any given time … sometimes less than 100g.

I’ve changed cash into gold via gems often enough (better use of time than farming/grinding), but a lot of this is from playing or speculating (buying when prices seem too low, waiting to see if my guess was correct).

To the player looking to craft a legendary and thinks the precursor prices are outrageous is looking at the gold in his bank, not their net worth in items and mats. They may be saving those mats for a legendary or ascended so liquidating those is out of the question.

If your primary goal is a legendary, I think it’s reasonable that you be willing to liquidate anything not related to that legendary before asserting that you can’t afford the precursor. You might be surprised by how much you can get selling things … this is how GW2’s loot system is designed: it’s sometimes hard to farm for just the thing you want, but if you play normally you’ll get loot that someone wants and which you can sell on the trading post. If you don’t take advantage of the tools provided by game mechanics, then yes — it will be harder.

My rough estimate wouldn’t be changed much by excluding T6 mats and item required for legendaries/exotic skins I’m interested in (ghost peppers, various lodestones, silver doubloons, etc) — the sorts of things I was thinking about:

• black lion chest skins I haven’t decided if I want to use or sell
• stacks of identified (and a few stacks of unidentified) dyes; a handful of exclusive dyes
• BotFW back items I might still want
• event-specific recipe and item drops (power knight cores, toxic recipes, etc)
• stacks and stacks of materials I’m holding in case ascended jeweler ever becomes a thing

Behellagh.1468:

It’s always been my contention that the price of precursors track with those who can afford it “out of the pocket” without first liquidating their assets, the top X%. The line that defines that X% is always moving, always increasing and precursors are tracking along with it. And legendary prices track with precursor prices.

This is an assertion without data, and I’ve known people who saved up money (including one who did lots of CoF P1 runs to purchase Dusk) … I think supply and demand is a much better explanation than impulse purchases by people who have that much money saved up.

The only precursor that I purchased off the TP (Howl), I did after liquidating much of my storage — not so much for the precursor as for all the other things involved in crafting the Howler. Of course, this is anecdotal … but I’m not sure where you’d come up with this argument, as it doesn’t make sense — those with lots of money in their bank:

(1) didn’t get there by spending it on impulse, so they’re not buying precursors just because the money is sitting in their bank
(2) represent a smaller and smaller precentage of the market if you think the % cut-off is increasing
(3) will eventually have most of the skins they want
(4) as others have pointed out, increasing the prices for precursors makes it profitable to gamble in the mystic forge for them — providing supply; you don’t make money by buying and relisting (i.e. trying to increase the price) unless demand is inelastic (doesn’t appear to be true) or remains above supply (in that case you’re just anticipating where the market was going anyway)

juno.1840:

Behellagh.1468:

John Smith.4610:

juno.1840:

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

2. Roughly what percentage of the GW2 player population would fall into this “rich” category (probably tough since “smart” players would have their wealth in inflation-proof investments instead of cash in the vault — an educated percentage based upon your view of the data would be more than satisfactory)

3. How does this category of players effect the economy? (maybe a good/bad/neutral type of classification with a brief reason or two as to why)

Thanks!

These are value statements, and I don’t feel comfortable making value statements.

Okay. How much gold in bank would one need to have to be in the top 20% of active players? Top 10%?

Actually I was most interested in question #3 which is a recurring topic in the forums (at least occasionally). The first two questions were really to put perspective on the answer for the third.

The goal was to put to bed some of opinionated discussions regarding wealth disparity in GW2 and whether or not it has an effect on the “have-nots”.

I can appreciate the lack of comfort on the value questions. Maybe a fuzzier answer on only question #3 is reasonable?

His answer was a polite way of saying “I can’t talk about that.”

Answering any of the three requires the responder to define a “rich” player. Imagine I have less than 1g “cash” in the bank. But:

I bought $100 worth of gems, but didn’t exchange them for gold. Am I rich?

I bought collection expanders and have every slot filled to its maximum, from copper ore to charged lodestones. Am I rich?

I have an inventory stuffed with rare items that are unbound and sellable on the TP. Am I rich?

I sell or vendor everything I own and all my toons are barehanded and standing around in their underwear. But I have a lot of gold now. Am I rich?

The issue is too subjective and too hard to pin down. And ultimately irrelevant because having a lot of coin means nothing if you just stand around chatting with guildies all day. Those working towards a goal will eventually trade away most of their wealth towards that goal, buying mats to craft ascended gear with, buying a precursor or finished Legendary from the TP, or whatever. And those who have the goal of simply amassing as much coin as possible will eventually run out of things to do with it.

The answer to all three questions: it doesn’t matter. A thousand players with 10g each have more effect on the game than one player with 10,000g.

tolunart.2095:

The answer to all three questions: it doesn’t matter. A thousand players with 10g each have more effect on the game than one player with 10,000g.

Uhmm no……too vague to be an answer

It is much easier for one mind to decide to do something than it is for 1000.

John Smith.4610:

juno.1840:

QUESTIONS

1. What gold threshold would you use to classify a GW2 player as “rich” (yeah I know this is subjective, but let’s use the RL equivalent of multi-millionaires — my guess would be 6000g-ish, enough to buy a couple legendaries off the TP)

2. Roughly what percentage of the GW2 player population would fall into this “rich” category (probably tough since “smart” players would have their wealth in inflation-proof investments instead of cash in the vault — an educated percentage based upon your view of the data would be more than satisfactory)

3. How does this category of players effect the economy? (maybe a good/bad/neutral type of classification with a brief reason or two as to why)

Thanks!

These are value statements, and I don’t feel comfortable making value statements.

Okay then, how about this then? What’s the average and standard deviation of player wealth in the game?

linuxotaku.4731:

If your primary goal is a legendary, I think it’s reasonable that you be willing to liquidate anything not related to that legendary before asserting that you can’t afford the precursor. You might be surprised by how much you can get selling things … this is how GW2’s loot system is designed: it’s sometimes hard to farm for just the thing you want, but if you play normally you’ll get loot that someone wants and which you can sell on the trading post. If you don’t take advantage of the tools provided by game mechanics, then yes — it will be harder.

Absolutely this. The vast, vast majority of the wealth players acquire from playing the game is in the drops, not in raw gold – somewhere between 80% and 90% of a typical player’s income is in items, not in gold.

If you’re salvaging everything and depositing materials to the bank you’re only seeing a small percentage of your real income. Go through and price it out, if you’ve been playing for a while and don’t sell that stuff off regularly you might be shocked at how much money is sitting there.

Behellagh.1468:

It’s always been my contention that the price of precursors track with those who can afford it “out of the pocket” without first liquidating their assets, the top X%. The line that defines that X% is always moving, always increasing and precursors are tracking along with it. And legendary prices track with precursor prices.

Keep in mind that between September 2013 and March 2014 the price of precursors barely budged. Underneath the noise of daily fluctuations was a trend that was essentially flat.

I’m pretty sure that players were accumulating wealth throughout those months, and something akin to the 1% wealth threshold shot up significantly, but you wouldn’t have known it from the price of precursors.

What you’re talking about, liquidity constraints, absolutely matters in new economies where items are worth way more than anyone is able to pay, simply because no one has accumulated enough money yet. But that doesn’t describe the player base now, and precursor prices haven’t been pushing up against liquidity constraints – they’re reflecting real values now.

@Ensign

Because there was no pressure to force the price up toward it’s maximum support level. That’s the problem with limited supply. First just because you have a lot of money, doesn’t mean you will intentionally overpay. I want one, there are “plenty” available at 600g. Players posting new supply would look at the current prices and choose to match, undercut or sell to high bidder much more often than price it higher than the low sell and hope for a supply shortage.

So what happens is the supply rate gets disrupted (or a major spike in demand), supply drops and now you do have some left at higher prices that may have always been there. High bids chase the low sell price and as long as market supply remains low, low enough that when the low sell is sold it’s not replaced with one at a similar price, the sell prices continue to rise, chased by the high bid.

Then we have the case of the market running dry and a first seller asks for the moon. Nobody it dumb enough to pay him the moon but as new supply get posted, the price drifts back down until the players start buying at the rate they are now arriving onto the market so the market supply stabilizes for now. So now the price is at the optimal maximum amount and the buyers are now only in the very wealthy bracket.

So the pool of potential buyers keep shrinking as the price is rising until the buyer pool equals the number being supplied to the market. If the rate of supply increases noticeably, prices will start to drop and the buyer pool would start to expand once again which means more players with less money.

The lowest listing of items you put on the TP only takes into account the last 100 items when calculating the total amount listed. Will this be changed or can it be changed?

Behellagh.1468:

Because there was no pressure to force the price up toward it’s maximum support level.

You’re absolutely thinking about how prices move around the right way. I was perhaps trying to make too fine a point.

What you’re describing is how markets move around without liquidity constraints. That is, the prices are being set when the market makers have a lot more wealth than what they are willing to pay; they could pay more, but choose not to because they don’t value the item any more highly. When that’s the case, prices will tend to reflect fundamental market values.

What you mentioned before was people essentially bidding at the edge of their ability to pay; they may value the item more than that, but they just don’t have the funds available to bid higher so they bid everything. When those guys are just a handful of players taking a more or less well established market price it’s not a big effect, but when there’s a serious shortage of currency and those players are the market makers things behave quite a bit differently.

Basically, when bids of ‘everything’ are the high bids consistently it’s a signal that an item is really underpriced; its fair market value without liquidity constraints would be much higher, but no one can actually put that amount of money together so the high bids come in well below its real value.

This matters because the highest of high end items in a game economy will often suffer from this problem for a long, long time. When the trading post first went live a few days after launch, precursors were readily available on the TP for around 20 gold. Is that because that is all people valued them at? Of course not. Clearly they were worth more than a couple days of farming even back then. But that’s all people could scrape together, so the high bids were ‘3 days of power farming’; the next day they were ‘4 days of slightly less efficient power farming’, then ‘5 days of even less efficient farming’, etc, etc.

They were consistently underpriced for months until a decent chunk of the player base got rich enough to buy them outright without blinking. Combined with people figuring out the forge prices on precursors finally started to stabilize at something resembling a liquid market price.

Point being that free markets won’t always price things fairly when there are liquidity constraints, and you can’t trust a rise in the price of very high end items to reflect inflation or anything else of the like; there’s a stronger force at work there.

tolunart.2095:

Brother Grimm.5176:

The response is a good analogy, but the problem is he doesn’t work for Anet. I can come up with a good analogy you could understand of how a Casino runs their cash room, but having never stepped into the room, should you believe me?

What does that have to do with it? I’m repeating things that JS has said, in terms that are easier for a particular person to understand. It happens to be the truth, whether you want it to be or not.

I wouldn’t call what you did “repeating” and what JS said was much more “vague”. He has never made a direct statement (I may have missed it), regarding how when and where gems are created or destroyed and certainly has never said, “and these are the ONLY times this is done.”

Your acceptance of the “truth” in a system you have no method to verify or even query properly is kind of cute…. I’m not saying he’s lying, I’m saying he is intentionally not showing us the full deck of cards (and why would he?).

Whatever, JS is by far the most open and plain-spoken of the devs and does not engage in “marketing speak” and buzzwords when discussing the game. I am repeating my understanding of what he has said, and I have seen no evidence that he is hiding anything.

I don’t always wear a hat, but when I do, it’s not made of tinfoil.

Came across this the other day and thought was interesting enough to share with John Smith.
http://www.gizmag.com/iss-nasa-cold-atom-lab/30729/

Questions

1, How would the economy react to an orders of magnitude increase in Precursors without a corresponding increase in other resources required to craft a Legendary weapon?

2, John Smith does not have a title under his name. That is a forum system anomaly. How prevalent is that anomaly?

3, Would John Smith accept a nickname instead of a title and would John Smith be open to suggestions?

4, Players will always want the RMT algorithm described and an analogy for the RMT algorithm’s role within the Tyrian economic ecosystem would help. However, analogies are orders of magnitude removed from the real thing. In this case, that error is also an advantage since it protects Arenanet et al and all Tyrians from unscrupulous modifilers.
John Smith!? The closest enough analog I can come up with is based on cellular biology with the RMT algorithm controlling water moving through the cell wall. The reserves would function as organelles . Worth pursuing or too close for comfort?

edited for Why do I feel compelled to learn Python?

Ensign.2189:

Behellagh.1468:

Because there was no pressure to force the price up toward it’s maximum support level.

collapse

Ensign, I reread your response several times. It tasted great. I hope you respond in kind more often. I have never received or pursued institutionalized training in economics and your post has a tone I can not replicate.

So I was thinking about the introduction of precurser crafting. I know that John Smith cannot answer specificially concerning such things, but my main concern would be a price shock if/when an annoucnement is made. I would think that even an announcement of such a thing would cause MANY people to rush out and buy up as much T6, Lodestones and whatever else may be thought to be used in such a venture.

My question is would the economy be able to handle such a thing? Would prices climb dramatically for a short period and then stablize? or just spiral upwards out of control? Are these things even considered when discussing the possibily of precurser crafting?

I understand that some of these may not even be able to be discussed in depth, but I am just curious as to how the economy would react to something like this. Thanks!

(a) Does anyone read the “what we would like in the gemstore thread” and take the suggestions into account?

(b) Has anyone ever given you an award for good communication, ie, giving straight answers or, if you don’t have a straight answer, admitting it and explaining why?