Guild Wars 2

RoyHarmon.5398:

So, what about the difference in the ratios for the two directions?

For example, if I had 84 silver, 28 copper and decided to convert those to gems, I could get 100 gems. However, if I then changed my mind and exchanged those 100 gems for gold, I would only get 60 silver, 89 copper. That’s a 38% loss. Where does that money go?

More specifically, why such a high loss, and who decides the relationship between the two rates that results in the loss?

38% seemed a bit high, so I just double checked the math, and it’s actually closer to 28%… which is consistent with a roughly 30% difference between the two rates.

Why is there such a big difference? My personal theory is that the 30% margin is there to make it harder to speculate in gems for short term profit, especially if someone was trying to use a large amount of gems/gold to “push” the rate in a desired direction with a single transaction.

alcopaul.2156:

Astraea.6075:

This solves nothing. You are basically saying that there should be more gold sinks in the game so that you can get an arbitrary amount of gold for x dollars. So players who don’t buy gold get hit with these gold sinks so that players who do buy gold get to pump money into the economy at will.

of course, the real money investor should get “advantage” over those who just invest their time to get the same stuffs. technically all items can be acquired by anyone. the advantage is that those who invest money gets them faster. and say if guild wars 2 has no real money trading, those who still invest money from gold sellers will get the items faster than normal players anyway. same kitten.

i would rather the situation be giving advantage to my real money patrons than giving advantage to exploiters/illicit gold buyers.

Except what you are proposing is to decouple the gem → gold rate from the player demand for gold → gems in order to have a steady and arbitrary rate of exchange. If this arbitrary rate is set too high, then the amount of gold leaving the economy via gold → gems will be less than the amount of gold entering the economy via gems → gold, leading to inflation as ArenaNet would be effectively “printing money” to meet the imbalance in demand and supply.

While people buying from gold sellers is undesirable on many levels, the gold they sell is already present in the economy. An argument could be made that bots associated with gold sellers are already “printing money” in order to meet supply, but that’s part of a larger discussion about the wider effect they have on the game’s economy.

John Smith.4610:

Astraea.6075:

John, thank you for confirming (at least in part) how the currency exchange works.

Another issue that is often debated is to what extent (if any) the initial exchange rates (and possibly initial supply of gold and gems) when the game launched have on the current rates. Are you able to provide any insight on this?

Virtually none at this point.

Thanks again! I’m happy to find out that the exchange functions pretty much as I expected.

alcopaul.2156:

the direct beneficiary is a.net anyway and they could implement gold sinks in game to reduce the amount of gold in the economy. or the richest players could close their eyes and spend 200g on 4000 gems if there are cool/rare/novelty items in bltc. this is easy to solve.

This solves nothing. You are basically saying that there should be more gold sinks in the game so that you can get an arbitrary amount of gold for x dollars. So players who don’t buy gold get hit with these gold sinks so that players who do buy gold get to pump money into the economy at will.

John Smith.4610:

There seems to be some confusion:
The currency exchange has a supply of Gems and Gold.

If players are converting Gold to Gems, then the Amount of Gold player will receive for their gems goes up.
If players are converting Gems to Gold, then the amount of Gems players receive for Gold goes up.

The exchange rate changes based on the scarcity of each supply. You cannot inflate it, it’s an exchange rate. As players purchase in one direction, it entices purchases in the other direction.

John, thank you for confirming (at least in part) how the currency exchange works.

Another issue that is often debated is to what extent (if any) the initial exchange rates (and possibly initial supply of gold and gems) when the game launched have on the current rates. Are you able to provide any insight on this?

alcopaul.2156:

i’m with luigio. because those gold sellers can influence the the gem to gold rates too. people buying from gold sellers can buy gems from the bltc, kittening up the conversion rate and making it kittened up for the people who want to get gold by buying gems from a.net with real cash.

If people buying gold from gold sellers are using that gold to buy gems, then that would push both the gold → gem and gem → gold exchange rates up. This would mean that people “who want to get gold by buying gems from a.net with real cash” would actually get more gold for their gems, not less.

I don’t really see any gain for adding another type of auction house to the game. If it’s a viable alternative for trading between players, then it dilutes one of the strengths of the global TP by shrinking the overall size of the market.

Grumpy.8365:

So, my proposal is actually very simple. Add more stuff to the gem store. A lot more, and make some of them really expensive, for the sake of making the value of gems equivalent to gold, or at least close to. Then more people will convert their gold to gems, then gem to gold prices will also increase naturally. Eventually, the difference between the gold sellers and the TP will decrease and motive to buy from them will decrease. Wasn’t that the very purpose of allowing real money transactions in the first place?

So very much this… By improving the desirability of items in the gem store, ArenaNet increases the demand for gems for both direct sales and gold → gem transfers. This leads to a higher gem → gold exchange rate, which benefits those players who are willing to use legitimate means to buy gold.

We saw some of this in action with the halloween offerings and the corresponding jump in the gem → gold exchange rate. It just needs to be an ongoing process.

I can’t find the reference, but I believe the area will upscale low-level players to level 80.

Colonel Kernel.7506:

Astraea.6075:

ArenaNet makes their money from the sale of gems, so if they were controlling the rate of the gem -> gold exchange, it would be in their favour to keep the rate as low as possible in order to increase the number of gems required to get the desired amount of gold. Therefore, the rising price trend of gems -> gold shows that ArenaNet are not controlling the exchange rate (or at least, not for their own benefit).

It is in ANet’s interest to keep the amount of Gold required to purchase Gems as high as possible, not the other way around. If it is more favorable for the player to exchange Gold for Gems they will do so. ANet gets nothing from that transaction. If it is less profitable for the player to exchange Gold for Gems than cash for Gems then the player will pay cash. This is the only way ANet profits.

Players buying (in RL money) Gems to exchange for Gold doesn’t bring more gold into the in game economy, it takes it out of the hands of other players. IOW it has a minimal impact (the service fee) on how much Gold is in the game.

Unless ANet is “printing” Gold when a player exchanges Gems for it and then removing an equivalent amount when a different player exchanges their Gold for Gems. Which is what I suspect is happening on both ends of any trade.

Oops, a bit of a brainfart on my part… assuming gold is not being created out of thin air when someone exchanges gems for gold (and similarly when gold is exchanged for gems), then ArenaNet benefits from as high a rate as possible. This is because a high gem → gold rate should increase the demand for gems for real money from those who want to trade them for gold.

In that case, the gem price should reach some kind of equilibrium near the price where the number of gems being exchanged for gold is roughly equal to the number of gems demanded by people willing to trade gold at that price point. This equilibrium will shift as ArenaNet makes changes to the gem store, and this will be an upwards shift if those changes make gems more attractive to players who want to trade gems for gold.

From the way I see it, there is no way that ANet is legit about their “supply and demand setting the price”. The price trend shows that price of gems rises every single day of the week. It is impossible for price to rise when there is no one to buy them. Unless of course the price is set based on the amount of gem being sold, in which case the ridiculous spread makes sure that no one can sell their gems anyway.

A better answer to this poster than what I said originally is to point to http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem and note that gem prices have in fact stopped rising, and have been pretty stable for the past week.

UrieltheFlameofGod.8643:

It’s pretty ridiculous to suggest that micro-manipulation is not occurring. It’s the only way to make any money in this game.

I can make profits by placing buy orders at above the current buy rate and reselling at below the current sell rate. How am I manipulating the market?

There may be some incidents where a segment of the market is being manipulated by an individual or a group, but the global nature of the TP means that these incidents are short term in duration and the market corrects itself pretty quickly.

Darx.9842:

I’m not sure what everyones definition of market manipulation is, but this happened last week.

I was watching abyss dyes the average price around 3.5g. I was refreshing about every 10 seconds, the quantity available was about 200. Then I refreshed, and the quantity was down to 100 in an instant. Over the next five minutes 100 dyes were listed at varying prices around 5g

I know it was just 1 guy because abyss dyes only come in about 10 an hour max and usually sell at that same rate. I’m sure this guy cleaned up, because it was an odd day when abyss dye was 3.5g when it’s usually 6.

Now I don’t really see a problem with this. He saw low prices and took advantage of it. Is this what people consider manipulation?

I wouldn’t expect Anet to see things like this, because it can happen so fast. But it’s laughable that they deny it happens.

This isn’t market manipulation. You yourself said that the average price of abyss dye was usually 6g. This person saw an opportunity to buy low and sell high, but even then, he did so within the existing margins in that market, by listing them at below the usual average price.

NameStlr.6971:

During the Halloween event i decided to purchase a few superior runes of the mad king for my thief. After farming for the golkittenpt and eye on the prices and i saw what i think is market manipulation. The price would be around 1g10s for a while and then all of a sudden 6 would be put up for sale at 1g [purchase price lingered around 86s during this whole time]. Then offers would drop below 1g10 and all of a sudden there would be a mass purchase by 1 guy (around 16) at 90s which would quickly be fulled as people sold in fear of the price drop and then the price would normalize to around 1g10s and the process would start again.

This could be a case of manipulation, but it seems to be a lot of effort for a small amount of profit. Buying at 90s and selling at 1g 10s means a profit of 4s 50c silver per unit. If he listed 6 units at 1g to trigger the panic, he spent an additional 60s in fees to buy and sell 16 units for a total profit of 12s (16 × 4.5 less 60).

The OP didn’t state the exact amount of capital they had to start with… the 1.5g was what I started with. I was still levelling at the time, but even the small profits I was making were useful for paying for things such as the trait books.

Psientist.6437:

The 30% gap in the BLTPs buy and sell orders for gems is a forced gap that, if we as Tyrians traded ourselves would reduce to as close to zero as possible. Making speculation almost impossible.

The algorithm told us what to expect from high gem demand events like holidays. Any Tyrian could defame their citizenship by following the pattern. The current mechanic will continually consume the demand for gem store exclusive items with Tyrian gold.

And the market has told us what to expect with speculation in commodities prior to the release of holiday content. In the case of gems, it would be a much larger certainty that there will be increased demand for them during the holiday event, so I would expect the speculative frenzy to be very intense.

Psientist.6437:

What is the difference between the cash I spend on gems with the intention of buying a bank upgrade and the cash I spend on gems with the intention of buying Tyrian gold?

In both cases, ArenaNet profits at the point where you buy the gems. If you spend the gems on a bank upgrade (or anything else in the store), those gems are consumed to “pay for” the service or goods you bought. Think of gems as a currency backed by ArenaNet, they are a “promise” to supply goods/services via the in-game store.

If you exchange the gems for gold, that gold is supplied by players who want to buy gems to spend in the gem store. The 30% difference in the two rates discourages people from buying gems just to hold onto them for reselling at a later date, so we can assume that most of the gems bought with gold will be eventually spent in the store. From ArenaNet’s perspective, someone paid real money for gems and someone spent those gems on goods and services in their store, it’s just not necessarily the same individual.

The main point I’ve been arguing is that ArenaNet’s revenues are wholly dependent on people buying gems that will be spent in the gem store. This means that while the gem exchange provides a real money → gold mechanism, it only does so when people want gems for the goods and services ArenaNet provides, because if people with gold don’t want gems, gem sellers will not get a very good return for their cash. Consequently, ArenaNet will sell less gems overall.

ArenaNet is therefore incentivised to produce offerings in the gem store that people want to buy with both real money and gold.

Psientist.6437:

If I may Astrea? Do you think Arenanet has unresolved ethical questions to answer about its entry in the RMT of Tyrian gold?

I think ArenaNet are behaving quite ethically with respect to how RMT of Tyrian gold works. I believe that the system they have implemented means that they do not directly benefit from the gem → gold transactions, and in addition, players selling gold using this system gain in-game benefits that aren’t necessities to play the game.

ArenaNet’s revenue is based on the gem store, so while people may buy gems with the intention of converting them to gold, ArenaNet really only “profits” when those gems are spent in their store. The system rewards ArenaNet for offering items in the store that people want to buy (for either real money or the equivalent gold) not on how many people want to spend real money on acquiring gold.

I should mention that there is an indirect benefit from the gem → gold exchange for ArenaNet, which is a result of the 30% margin between the two exchange rates. The benefit of this is that it acts as another means of removing gold from the economy thereby helping to reduce in-game inflation.

Snoring Sleepwalker.9073:

Something that hasn’t been publicly recommended as a good idem to manipulate. Because if it becomes a public recommendation, the flood of people trying to manipulate it makes it unprofitable to manipulate.

Given the size of the market, manipulation can never work in the long term. I suspect that most people playing the TP are working within existing buy/sell margins rather than trying to manipulate the overall price.

I started playing the TP with only 1g 58s to my name… I’m still a small player compared to some, but it’s proving to be a nice way to supplement the income I’m making from actually playing the game.

There are a number of ways you can do this, but it can depend on how much risk you’re willing to take. I’ll cover the lower risk method that I’ve been employing.

I look for items with a decent gap between the buy and sell listings. I tend to aim for a gap of about 33% (that is, the sell price is 33% higher than the buy price). Ideally, there should also be a decent volume of trades taking place (but that can be harder to determine).

Once I find an item, I put in a buy order slightly above the current highest buy order. As soon as this buy order starts being filled, I relist the items slightly below the lowest sell listing (usually, sometimes at the lowest price, or if there is a small listing that is severely undercutting the next lowest price, I will list it just below the next lowest price).

It is important to not invest everything in one item, and that you remember to cancel your unfilled buy orders before you log out, as sometimes the market can change abruptly. By choosing items with such a large difference, I have room to take down items that aren’t selling and relist them at a slightly lower price and still make a profit after fees.

Psientist.6437:

Look more closely. At the…is there a word for the very first plot point?..very first plot point is the BLTP’s (and it really is their fault I think and not Arenanet’s) SETTING value for Tyrian gold. The proceedong squiggle is driven by something to do with us and I am certain it does include how many gems we want and how many gem’s BLTP has. Maybe some how many gems we may want some how much total Tyrian gold is there some are we ethical hopefully

Sadly, the gem price data from gw2spidy doesn’t go all the way back to launch, but yes, ArenaNet did set an initial price point for the gem exchange at launch. They probably also initially seeded it with both gems and gold to allow transactions to occur as soon as the game launched.

Without knowing how the exchange rate algorithm works (even if only in general terms), we can’t be sure what influence that initial rate or seeding has on how the current rates are determined. I do think there could be more transparency in this area, even if it’s just a high level overview of how the algorithm works.

Ohoni.6057:

Maybe so, but this is not working how I’d like it to. For this to be right they’d need to choose one or more of the following:
A: make gold far more common.
B: make gems far cheaper to buy with gold.
C: make keys cost way fewer gems.
D: Make the contents of the chest guaranteed to be worth far more than they currently are, like at least one non-consumable goodie.
F: Make chests far less common, so that you rarely find more chest than you do keys.
G: Make a permanent recipe similar to the Mad King’s Chest that allows you to combine four chests into one “super chest” that has a much higher rate of quality drops and a much lower rate of consumables.

In terms of the chest keys, the best answer is probably C (possibly with some combination of D & G), but A & B would be bad for the economy as a whole IMO.

With B, there are two competing tensions. Players selling gems they bought with real money want more gold for their gems (especially in comparison to the black market rate), while those buying gems with gold want cheaper gems.

Dominae.3146

I don’t see how someone buying the game, then getting a Legendary & level 80 exotics “instantly” has any affect what so ever on your play experience.

Since the precursors, and the mats to make Legendary weapons are basically created out of “thin air” by the game over time … it isn’t like that one Legendary owned by some person with extra disposable income is taking it away from someone else. They’re rare because they take a lot of time to get (or money to get) not because they’re actually limited in quantity of production.

Let’s try this to illustrate the point. Player A is trying to get a precursor for their legendary. He hasn’t had much luck with getting it from the mystic forge, so he decides to start saving up gold to buy it from the TP. Player B spends real money and gets enough gold to buy a precursor from the TP. If enough people follow Player B’s example, then the price of precursors rises, meaning Player A has to save even more gold before he can afford to buy it.

Psientist.6437:

Your position that prices are SET by supply and demand can not be defended. Are you sure you want to?

Look at http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem

This looks like supply and demand to me, especially when you look at what happened to the rate when the new halloween offerings went live in the gems store. If the change in rates illustrated in the charts isn’t driven by supply and demand, then what is the cause?

arabeth.2361:

Black market gold sales are a really interesting conundrum.

On one hand, they have come to the conclusion that people are going to buy gold for this game, period. Nothing they can do will stop this. So, from that perspective, it makes sense to give up fighting it directly and provide a legitimate way for players to buy gold (fighting it indirectly).

On the other hand, that makes buying gold a revenue stream. And without a monthly fee, it is the primary revenue stream in GW2. This means you actually need players to buy gold. So, you tune the game to subtly drive players to want more gold (extremely high gold sinks, obvious quality-of-life improvements like large bank space, etc.).

However, because players are driven to buy gold, you are also increasing the allure of the black market again. And because the black market gold is “free,” the legit market will never be able to beat its prices. And so the temptation to use the black market remains, even though part of the original point of the gold-selling system was to combat it.

Now, I don’t own a multi-national, billion-dollar company and I don’t know all they know. But clearly, they have decided that the temptation to use the black market as driven by extremely tightly-tuned gold sinks in-game – plus the revenue it generates – is worth more than fighting the temptation to use the black market without heavy tuning or revenue streams. My ultimate question is: are people more or less tempted to use the black market in a game like GW2 vs. a game without a legitimate gold selling mechanic? Did they make the problem worse, but they’re also using it as revenue so that’s ok? Or does it actually help cut down on people’s use of the black market, and the revenue is a bonus?

ArenaNet’s revenue comes from the sale of gems, not from the conversion of gems into gold. The gold you get when you sell your gems is supplied by other players who want those gems, so ArenaNet only indirectly benefits from these transactions.

Yes, there are gold sinks in game, but most MMO games have gold sinks as a way of keeping in-game inflation in check regardless of whether they have legitimate means of buying gold or not. I do not think the GW2 economy is tuned so tightly that players need to buy gold just to keep playing.

Ahdeeyah.1342:

When I pull up the currency exchange tab it says the average price for 100 gems is 57 silver. Then, when I click on trade gold for gems it switches to 100 gems for 77 silver.

There are two rates, with about 30% difference between them. It costs more gold to buy gems than you will receive if you sold the equivalent number of gems.

Well I’ve bought gems with gold, and will probably do so again soon. I’m also not averse to spending real money on gems, but that’s more likely to be on permanent things like extra character slots or storage space.

A lot may also depend on how much gold players can generate as the game matures, if gold becomes more easily obtainable, then rises in the equivalent gold value of gem store offerings may not deter players from trading gold for gems.

There was a surge in gem demand with the release of the Halloween offerings, but no real corresponding bust (more of a slow decline). I’m no economist, but I think busts could really only happen if gems were commodities in and of themselves. Because gems are destroyed when they are spent in the store, and because the margin between the two rates discourages speculation, it may be harder for the market to become too unbalanced.

On the brighter side, it now becomes more profitable to farm those T6 mats…

Poor Leno.3582:

no, but i believe that the price of these goods/services should be a constant set price in terms of both dollars and gold coins. adding gems into the equation seems to only create inefficiencies.
I’m with the same belief as scree.2061 in his earlier post on this page. Although, I would go as far to say that there should be a P2P exchange in-game for USD/gold coins using a form of paypal. Arenanet could impose a small tax on all transactions, but it is important that the market sets the price, and not an algorithm designed to control the rate at which the exchange changes

I can see your point about inefficiencies, but I think that the gem → gold system mostly requires ArenaNet to make the offerings in the gem store as attractive as possible without going down the “pay-to-win” route. I’m not personally in favour of an exchange where players can obtain real money from earning in-game gold, but I do like being able to trade gold for items that would otherwise cost me real money.

A P2P gem exchange that operates similarly to the TP would be more transparent, but again, the market would still be dependent on the overall desirability of gems, so I wouldn’t necessarily expect the exchange rate to start matching the rate offered by gold sellers.

Zaxares.5419:

All anecdotes so far seem to indicate that most players don’t particularly value gems in and of themselves, since most of the stuff you get from the BLTC isn’t that popular. The true allure of gems lies in its ability to be converted for in-game currency, and it seems to be at the root of many “complaints” that the price for gems is too high, because what these players are really buying when they buy gems is in-game gold, and rightly or wrongly, they keep comparing the gem prices of the BLTC to the prices of the gold sellers.

I can’t speak for most players, but http://www.gw2spidy.com/gem indicates that there are a number of people with gold who desire gems. The rate appears to have plateaued for most of the past week, so the amount of gems that people want to trade for gold is roughly in equilibrium with the amount of gold people want to spend on gems. Upcoming changes to the gem store offerings will likely shift this equilibrium as the release of new offerings for Halloween did.

Poor Leno.3582:

the dollar/gem is what is controlled. 1.25USD/100gems. The revenues from people buying the services offered by the gem store should be based upon the number of sales of services, not gems. just get rid of gems. its pointless. if something costs 200 gems on the store, it will always cost $2.5o. There’s no cost to Anet of proving these services, so the price is only based upon demand. Therefore, there is no reason to change the price other than shifts in demand, any case, it is up to Anet on what price it is.

Just to clarify, are you proposing that these services/goods can only bought with real money?

Xocolatl.6890:

From the way I see it, there is no way that ANet is legit about their “supply and demand setting the price”. The price trend shows that price of gems rises every single day of the week. It is impossible for price to rise when there is no one to buy them. Unless of course the price is set based on the amount of gem being sold, in which case the ridiculous spread makes sure that no one can sell their gems anyway.

ArenaNet makes their money from the sale of gems, so if they were controlling the rate of the gem -> gold exchange, it would be in their favour to keep the rate as low as possible in order to increase the number of gems required to get the desired amount of gold. Therefore, the rising price trend of gems → gold shows that ArenaNet are not controlling the exchange rate (or at least, not for their own benefit).

Poor Leno.3582:

The two markets are linked, though. If Anet were to double the price of buying gems with USD, more people would buy gems with gold coins instead, which would increase the price of gems. Having gems, to me, seems to be irrelevant in the entire system. Why not just have a USD/euro/Bpound value to all items purchasable by gems? In this way, Anet would not be generating currency through players buying gems for gold coins and the DWL associated with the enforced difference between buy/sell prices of gems would be avoided entirely.

Yep, the two markets are linked, but the main point is that (in the current system) the desirability of gems (whether purchased with gold or real money) is on of the drivers of the exchange rate.

What would players be exchanging their gold for if there was a system in place that did not use gems? Real money? Or some kind of ANet Dollars that can only be spent in the ANet store? Real money could throw up some legal/tax implications for ArenaNet, but these are perhaps solvable. ANet Dollars would, in practice, be no different from gems and wouldn’t really do much for changing how the rate works.

The other problem with precursors (or similar) being non-tradeable is the RNG factor. If I’m lucky enough to get one from a chest, but it doesn’t happen to be one I could use on that character, then it may as well not have dropped for me. That could possibly be mitigated by it being account-bound, but only if I’m interested in levelling a character that would use the finished item.

@Drunken Mad King

As I understand it then, your solution is for ArenaNet to implement an economy that effectively has no trade in “luxury” items. (i.e. rare or hard to obtain items cannot be traded or sold).

While this might be effective in stopping the demand for gold from gold sellers, it would probably be bad for game as whole.

Poor Leno.3582:

I agree with Colonel Kernerl, market forces must determine the price or individuals will be extremely incentivized to go elsewhere to buy game currency. Using the in-game exchange, players are spending 400% more to obtain the same amount of currency than that of the second equilibrium price observed in black market exchanges. This is due not only to the algorithm being used to control prices fluctuations, but it is also due to the large size of the tax on the one-way exchange.

While I agree with your premise that market forces must determine the price, I disagree with the causal factors you listed for the difference in rates between the BLTC exchange and the black market exchanges.

In my view, the main factor for this discrepancy is the fact that the BLTC rate is driven by the supply of and demand for gems. On the other hand, the black market rate is being driven purely by supply of and demand for gold. The gem → gold rate will change as the desirability of gems changes, whereas the black market rates will vary based on other factors (supply, competition, demand). The two markets are not equivalent.

Drunken Mad King.8193

Lets talk about how the company’s handling of things actually contribute to Gold Sellers

What has ArenaNet done that requires you to spend a lot of gold in order to progress in the game? Legendaries/precursors are optional, and give you no in-game benefit compared to exotics. Halloween skins are nice, but again, are not required.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s no advantage to be gained from buying gold beyond cosmetics. “Paying to win” was something the player base was concerned about before the game launched, and ArenaNet have delivered a game where economic advantage does not (generally) corellate into an in-game advantage.

exum.3746:

this isnt multiple of one item. this is thousands of dollars worth of in game item being sold.

I don’t mean to dismiss your concern entirely, and I do think that the existence of this person is a very worrying sign of how much influence gold sellers have in the economy, but again, this isn’t market manipulation.

If the market had changed so that the only way to get a precursor/legendary was to buy it from a site like this, then a case could be made for manipulation.

Psientist.6437:

Hello and thank you for not ignoring this so close to the end of your day. You do not need to argue but mustn’t you discuss this. You are a Goldseller.

As far as I’m aware, ArenaNet are not selling gold but are enabling the exchange of gems for gold between players. It may be a fine distinction as they are the sole vendor of gems which are purchased with real money, but ultimately their profits come from these gems being spent in the gem store.

So, bringing this back on-topic, it benefits ArenaNet to have as many items in the gem store that people are willing to spend gems on (whether purchased with money or gold) as possible, but this needs to be balanced with the general desire of most players for them not sell “pay-to-win” items.

At this stage, there does generally seem to be more demand for gold -> gems than supply of gems -> gold, hence the upward rise of the gem/gold exchange rate. While the rate is not yet near that offered by goldsellers, it is moving closer to that as time goes on. (Bear in mind however, that as the rate moves higher some items in the gem store may become less desirable to those who are spending gold to acquire gems, so we may reach an equilibrium point that is still short of current goldseller rates).

I believe ArenaNet are already planning on adding more items to the gem store, which will hopefully help with keeping the gem -> gold exchange rate increasing as the game matures.

GregT.4702

I keep seeing John making the assumption that “gold sellers = thieves”, and it’s offending my intelligence every time. It’s no more valid than “person who sells things = thieves”.

Clearly some gold sellers are selling gold stolen from player accounts. Clearly some are not, and are selling gold from combinations of botting and efficient farming. The first class are engaging in criminal activity. The second are merely doing something Anet wishes they wouldn’t.

You can make the argument that it’s hard to buy from a gold seller without accidentally dealing with one of the thieves. You can make the argument that buying from gold sellers creates a market that encourages the thieves (but I don’t think that’s a particularly valid argument).

But please stop saying that all gold sellers are inherently thieves. You’re smarter than that, John, and I’d appreciate if you’d assume that we are too.

Even in the case where botting accounts used by gold sellers are not stolen directly from players, they are often paid for using stolen credit card numbers. The majority of gold sellers are indeed thieves of one form or other.

exum.3746:

there is very strong market manipulation. this one guy has over 100 precursors and legendaries all for sale for real money. dont even know how this is possible

Not clicking that link… but I’ll take your word that this guy is advertising these items as you stated. However, this isn’t technically the sort of market manipulation as is being discussed in this thread, instead it seems to me that this is more closely related to the goldseller problem.

Without knowing exactly how he obtained the items he is selling, we can only speculate as to what means he employed. What he doesn’t appear to be doing however is buying up all available precursors on the TP and relisting them with a huge markup. If he bought those items on the TP, then yes, he’s adding to the demand (and reducing the supply) that is behind the rise in price of precursors, but he is not actually directly controlling the price of precursors on the TP.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

Not particularly.

Anet is a perfectly competitive market structure. There’s no barriers to entry or exit from any market. So if a couple people happened to try and corner a market other people who spotted the venture to be profitable would shift their resources to that market. Prices would fall and normalize themselves to what the supply and demand curves.

Server-based economies would also bring incentives for people who would go out and farm which particular commodity happens to be profitable….

The two biggest issues with gamewide economies is:

A) Botting. And their ability to shift monetary units around from server-to-server. Which makes their business more profitable.

B) Deflation. The more supply of a commodity, the cheaper it will become. This disincentivizes normal players….

With respect to cornering the market, what you say may be true for most commodities, but if you consider the case of harder to obtain items such as precursors or even halloween skins, then it would be significantly easier for individuals to control the supply of these items in a server-based economy.

A) while botters/gold sellers are more easily able to shift gold from server-to-server, having a server based TP wouldn’t really hinder them too much. In other games I’ve played with server based economies, botters/gold sellers just make sure they have a presence on every server.

B) Yes, a game-wide economy means that there is more supply of commodities, but it also means there is a corollary increase in the demand for those commodities.

So it seems that I might be able to be around for the starting and phase 2 “events” due to the fact that my timezone is currently 13 hours ahead of GMT, but I’m going to miss out on the final once only event chain.

As long as the first two I can be online for aren’t just cinematic cut-scenes, I may be able to live with this. I hope however that ANet thinks about ways of doing this type of thing that allows for greater participation while retaining the “world story” narrative benefits that one-off events can bring.

Minion of Vey.4398:

Just a side note to all people that see dollar signs. “Buy high, sell higher” has a horrid way of backfiring in this game.

^ very much this.

Also with over a month before Wintersday, you will be holding this stock for a while… good luck with your gambling

I got rid of all my candy corn (and even the other halloween crafting materials)… the market looked to be oversaturated and I couldn’t justify the storage space required.

Also, while the skins may not return with next year’s event, I suspect candy corn will return.

@Minion of Vey: I don’t disagree.

I probably should have put some emphasis in the line “the more money you are able to invest” to reflect the fact that even with my (relatively) small amount of funds I’m not able to put all my capital to work sometimes (usually due to lack of time as I mostly play the TP when I’m getting ready for work in the mornings…)

Echo.7634:

I think that people are grossly overestimating the number of people that have 10g, 100g, or even 1000g.

10g is easily achievable. My main character is only level 75 and has just over 8g funds (and this is after buying 700 gems with gold last week for one of the halloween costumes). Admittedly, I’m expecting to have things I want to spend some of this on once I reach level 80, but I’m also confident that I will be easily able to make more.

With 100g or 1000g, I have no idea how many players may be able to boast those sorts of balances, but from my experience with playing the market, the more money you are able to invest into it, the more money you are able to make from it. If I’m making 15% profit (after fees) from each transaction, and if I keep reinvesting those profits it doesn’t take long till my funds far exceed my original starting capital.

Edit: typo and filter

@ Azthioth: Patch notes were available within minutes of the patch going live… I don’t see the problem here.

NoOneShotU.3479:

I like one persons suggestion to remove the ability to see the depth of the market. Then prices would move toward their real value.

I know its a strategy but I can’t stand people who put sell orders for 100 items at 25% less just to try to force people to sell cheaper or sell to a buy order.

I don’t think this would solve the problem however, and may in fact make it worse. If I can’t see how many items are listed at the lowest price or whether there is a significant gap between this price and the next lowest price, I’m likely to assume the worst and sell my items for less. In effect, your suggestion would mean people could use smaller item stacks to try to get their desired result.

I don’t think that this is really any evidence of market manipulation by one person/cartel. I think it’s the aggregate effect of several individuals deciding that there was an opportunity for profit now that supply of these items would dry up.

Samuirai.4561:

Could you please describe why the spread would happen, so we can discuss about that?

In general, a lot of people who flip stuff on the market place their buy orders at a higher bid price than the current buy price in order to get their goods in a timely fashion. They also tend to place their sell listings at a point lower than the current sell price so that their goods sell faster.

If you restrict the ability of players to buy and sell within the current buy and sell price margins, then the spread will take longer to narrow. In addition, players wanting to flip stuff will have to look at buying lower and selling higher in order to mitigate the increased risk they face from market movements during the time in which they hold goods that they are restricted from selling.