Guild Wars 2

As soon as I saw how gems could be traded for in-game gold, I immediately made a connection of it being similar to how fiat currency (such as USD) and gold bullion works in real life. In-game gold has inflated quite a bit since the game has come out, being a factor of many things: availability of in-game gold now vs launch (and valve of goods on the market), usefulness of in-game gold vs money sinks, etc. Now gems are usable in the gem store but seem to go up at a steady rate due to the ability to be an investment. There is also the unknown of future items on the gem store (such as we saw during the Halloween event and the lost shore event) which seems to make the price of gems spike with the increased demand. The other big possibility is that future expansions for the game will be made available to purchase in the gem store like you can the digital deluxe upgrade. All this is why I can see the price of gems going up a bit, self correcting by coming down slightly, remaining steady for a day or two, rinse and repeat. I myself sank every bit of gold I made at launch and ended up with around 16k gems for about 50g. Even with the 30% “premium fee”, I’ve nearly tripled my gold. A crash is unlikely unless they make gems a lot easier to obtain without spending rl money.

Shahotinaro.9250:

I wouldn’t invest in gems at all unless you want a 100% success rate. The problem with that is you would be waiting awhile to get any sizeable ROI on it and it’ll be tied up for some time. Profit margins still exist on the TP you just have to look for them. In the time you would break even with the gem investment I could easily double that 50g into 100g. I know this from experience. Full T3 armor, Dusk and 100g in bank and almost another 75g in investments.

In my opinion, gems are similar to how precious metals trade for in rl. Gems carry a hefty premium (30%) between buying and selling. To make a profit on them, you need to make over 130% of your principal to just be in the black. Gems are more geared as a long term investment. I myself got into gems as soon as I could using all the gold I had in game (I hit level 80 when the market wasn’t basically at vendor prices), and have made a hefty profit even with the 30% “premium”. Now, if you want to invest in gems you have to be both rich and careful. The investment would likely be long term as it has spiked the last week, and there’s likely a correction on gem prices happening so it’d be best to hold of investing and watch the market. I think gem prices will skyrocket if Anet says you can buy their next expansion with gems (which they most likely will) as demand to buy the game “for free using my in game gold” will skyrocket. I wish I could draw you a supply/demand graph where the curves shift :P

I was thinking yesterday of the effects of the gems to gold exchange rate if a “gem sale” were to happen. Say for example I have 100 gems going for 1 gold, and Anet announces a bonus 10% gems with purchase event, or something similar. Chances are, those 100 gems will go down a decent amount and only go for 80-70 silver. It might rebound back, but the next event would just pukitten back down, maybe further than before. Does anyone else think if these kind of “sales events” were to happen, gems would become a lot less valuable? Would it effect the overall economy?