ATTN DEVELOPERS: A few easy fixes for GTN

[Princess_Chibi]

There are a few items involving GTN which have been a problem largely since launch and I think with a few tweaks could be made better. Please consider the following.

 

RE-LISTING OF ITEMS:

There's nothing wrong with relisting a product for a lower-cost. If you go to the grocery store, you'll find a can of corn next to another, priced one cent apart (usually the local store's is cheaper) as a result of market pricing. And while this is somewhat reflected in SWTOR, it's out of control today. There is an opportunity cost to reprice a product to a lower sales point on a store shelf; that is to say the local grocery store can't easily price its corn at 99 cents and then when a competitor prices theirs at 98, the local store can then drop their own price from 99 to 97 cents. There's a cost to relabel the product, and more importantly this takes time, which is not true of GTN.

 

This same practice arbitrarily and unrealistically drives down prices (player-driven inflation) depending on the players (and remember your F2P and subscriber base mixes a variety of ages from children to adults). The above concept of price point is intro economics/accounting, not something a low-age subscriber is going to understand. The reason I mention this is a low-age subscriber has no concept of cost, time or market stability. THIS is the key reason we see behavior of cyclical 1-credit underpricing ad infinitum. Two players selling the same product, one aged 8, the other aged 25 are going to behave differently. If the price point of the item is 25,000 credits, the adult will price at that initially, the child will undercut (either by 1-credit, or alternatively by several thousand credits). And that's fair so far. The adult will then adjust price, let's assume down to 15,000, closer to the child's price. That child will now pull the product and relist for 5,000 credits.

 

This lack of economic understanding has now depreciated the worth of the product below its break-even point in selling. The child will not care, their goal was always to make some amount of credits, even if only a few. The adult however, likely pulls their product and waits for that child to go to sleep, waiting for an 8-hour window where a realistic sale point can occur (somewhere ~17-20,000 credits).

 

 

THE SOLUTION:

In the above scenario, there's nothing wrong with relisting the products or pricing, and I'd argue there's even nothing wrong with the child subscriber 1-credit undercutting the previous listing. The problem is an economic one; at no point in the repricing cycle does the product reach an axis where cutting the cost is no longer attractive to an uninformed seller. That is to say, there's no reason for the 8-year old to care what he sells the product for, so long as he sells it, and so he will ALWAYS drive the price down further, beyond the product's worth.

 

This is a problem in the form of break-even point, there are none in SWTOR, artificial or otherwise. The only deterrent to selling a product too high is it may not sell at all, there is ZERO deterrent to selling a product too low (so long as "YOU" get the sale). The solution I propose is creation of a breakeven point. Every time a product (or each unit in a stack of product) is DE-LISTED on the GTN, it should acquire a debuff. Each debuff stack, upon sale of that product reduces the amount of credits to the seller upon sale by 10% of the original GTN listing price, stacking up to 9 times in total. The debuff would have a 48 hour time period (and travels per unit in the stack to prevent abuse, such as breaking apart a stack and mixing with another).

 

This corrects the break-even problem as in the above scenario if the product was originally sold at 25,000 credits, if it sold at that point without being relisted the player gets a full 25,000 credits. When the 8-year old sub posts theirs for 24,999, if theirs sold they'd get the full cost. When the adult sub drops his price to 24,000 he takes a 1-stack of the debuff, so if he sells it at that point he gets 24,000-2,500 credits. When the 8-year old reprices to 17,000, he now takes a 1-stack for 24,999-2,499, and so on.

 

8 or 9 cycles later, continuing this repricing cycle no longer becomes profitable (24,999-2,499,-2,499-2,499 adds up). At some point, the product is only going to sell for 10% of its perceived worth to either party. They will either wait 48 hours for the debuff to clear, or they'll avoid repricing like this altogether. In either event, it causes both players to think carefully about placing an item on GTN, pricing it realistically, and it gives a 48-hour window in which to sell something for a realistic price before the product can be re-listed without penalty.

 

 

AVAILABLE TIME:

One additional factor to consider which increases the merit of the above suggestion is time. Your average adult works a minimum of 40 hours a week. Add in travel and the adult in the above scenario is not at their home computer the majority of the time, nor could they be even if they wanted to. The 8-year old in the above scenario could be spending their every waking minute logged into SWTOR. This creates an accessibility issue to the GTN market. That is to say even if GTN were to continue in its current form, the 8-year old, by virtue of having more time available can reprice products all day long, 1-credit lower than the current selling price of the adult's product. At some point, the adult has to go to work, this gives advantage to the 8-year old with more time on their hands. This creates an unrealistic market advantage (subscriber time availability to make a sale should NOT impact price point in a virtual market) in favor of the child.

 

The situation this creates is the adult posts a reasonable product for a reasonable price on GTN, then logs for 48 hours. They come back and find the product has not sold, their price was undercut 30-40 times, often by the same subscriber who has time to keep cutting the lower prices on GTN by 1-credit every 10-15 minutes during the day.

 

F2P:

The above should be pretty straightforward, but there's absolutely no benefit to F2P players to sell product on GTN for realistic costs. They can't store large quantities of credits for use in the same ways subscribers can (their credit sinks are much different). And as a result, this can have negative impact on product sales price. By definition, an F2P player has no time commitment to the game, whereas a subscriber has for the period in which they are currently subscribed. There's no loss or cost to an F2P player to continuously list something low and walk away, a subscriber has to live with their GTN price points/credit decisions for the length of their remaining subscription.

 

ALTERNATIVE (GTN MOBILE APP):

As has been floated many times, creation of a mobile GTN application accessible on android and IOS phones would help this. It would give the adult the ability to interact with GTN while away from their home computer, so at least then they could be competitive with the 8-year old adjusting their price every 10 minutes. This doesn't solve the issue, but at least increases their chances of making a reasonable (profitable) sale.

 

AVERAGE GTN PRICE:

While I'm on the subject, the suggested price on GTN is never close to what the products are worth in time, resources and availability within the game. This is why a stick of Doonium sells to a vendor for 495 credits (Ebon Hawk) right now but the market average is ~24,000 per unit. I'd recommend a change to the "default list price" or suggested retail price on the GTN to be the average sales price of the product, data already stored on SWTOR I'm sure. This would inform the player what the current "realistic" price is for a given product. There's nothing quite so funny as dropping a full 99 stack of product onto GTN that sells for 24,000/unit but watch GTN try to list the entire stack for 3,000 credits total. That makes no sense and is generally unhelpful to the subscriber.

 

GTN DATA REPORTING:

And my last point on the SWTOR economic system. An API, webpage or other resource should be created that allows subscribers to perform pricing analysis on GTN data for their server. There are a number of projects people are trying to put together, or Excel spreadsheets, but no one has true economic data on the GTN within SWTOR. This should allow minimum prices to be calculated and a more realistic economic experience to be built. It would allow everyone to know what each others' products are selling for, how frequently, minimum pricing, max pricing, and a host of other uses.

 

MAX PRICING:

Set a GTN price cap of ~150,000,000. There's a lost of trash posted on GTN of 1 unit at 1-Billion credits. Any analysis of your player base will show you probably don't have more than 1-2 players with such an amount of credits. These players post the listing hoping to trip across a credit buyer who mis-clicks on their item and magically drops 1-Billion credits into their account. There's no product in the game that actually sells (or could sell) for such an amount because nearly none of the player base has such an amount of available cash flow. And I'd argue that any player with 1-Billion credits should be looked at very closely for purchasing credits with real money.

 

FULL DISCLOSURE:

In the interests of due-diligence and full disclosure, the above ideas WILL have their naysayers; particularly F2P low-costing and 1-credit undercutting players. The pricing controls I propose above will effectively put them out of business, but if not, it'll at least severely limit their options. They'll have to begin making sales on the premise of what they're selling, and not whether they can "outgame" based on amount of time they have to babysit the GTN search and check for relisted prices.

 

The Dev team will upset a minority of players in making the above changes should you choose to. But the closer the GTN gets to real market economics, the healthier the game's economy will be.

 

 

 

For your consideration.

 

--Princess Chibi

[Djiini]

I started by hitting Ctrl + F and searching for 'scam', and it didn't pick anything up. So that's a good start.

 

But...

[SelinaH]

The Dev team will upset a minority of players in making the above changes should you choose to. But the closer the GTN gets to real market economics, the healthier the game's economy will be.

Your ostensible solutions artificially limit the contribution of supply and demand. How is that "healthier" or closer to real market economics?

[FerkWork]

No thanks. System is fine.

[Princess_Chibi]

Your ostensible solutions artificially limit the contribution of supply and demand. How is that "healthier" or closer to real market economics?

 

I anticipated that argument, and my response is that supply and demand are only self-sustaining provided that a break-even point exist in the manufacturing process. At some point, supply either becomes too costly to meet demand, or demand can't be met due to shortage in supply.

 

SWTOR experiences neither of these conditions (outside of high end cartel super rare items). 99% of items in-game any given player can supply, and as such there is almost always a demand. The problem is the equilibrium between them is never stable because outliers (those who price products far below or far above break-even of supply-demand) are continuous. The solutions I propose force the outliers to begin operating within the median min/max of supply and demand, artificially creating equilibrium, not limiting contribution. The same quantities of product still exist within supply and demand.

 

In my example, the can of corn the local grocer sells doesn't change prices as you're standing there looking at it on the shelf. In SWTOR, it does. It wouldn't, if there was a reason for that pricing to remain stable (a cost to repricing said product).

Edited March 21, 2015 by Princess_Chibi

[Draqsko]

If the undercutting bothers you, buy them out and relist at your price.

 

The only type of improvement for the GTN that I'd like to see is:

 

1) Actual bidding, with a buy out price if someone wants it now. A lot of games have a system like this.

 

2) Searchable recent sales history across the server, with an item mouseover showing the last month's average sale price and vendor price. Tera has this on their trade broker and I absolutely love it both as a buyer and a seller, and I wish every game did it.

[Draqsko]

MAX PRICING:

Set a GTN price cap of ~150,000,000. There's a lost of trash posted on GTN of 1 unit at 1-Billion credits. Any analysis of your player base will show you probably don't have more than 1-2 players with such an amount of credits. These players post the listing hoping to trip across a credit buyer who mis-clicks on their item and magically drops 1-Billion credits into their account. There's no product in the game that actually sells (or could sell) for such an amount because nearly none of the player base has such an amount of available cash flow. And I'd argue that any player with 1-Billion credits should be looked at very closely for purchasing credits with real money.

 

You have no idea why people do that do you?

 

Did you ever bother to look at the names of the sellers? Ya know stuff like Sortotherway, Sizehash, Wrongway, Doinitwrong, etc.

 

Yeah that's why they put it up for a billion credits, because most people won't have a billion credits so that price will always be red on the GTN. However lots of people have millions of credits, and some inattentive people accidently buy stuff that's posted on the GTN intentionally marked up thousands of times its true value to take advantage of it being hard to distinguish between a comma and period on the GTN. Google swtor GTN scam if you don't believe me.

[SelinaH]

99% of items in-game any given player can supply, and as such there is almost always a demand.

A consistent level of demand exists because any player can theoretically make his/her own items? Clearly I'm misinterpreting your statement here, because what it says to me makes no sense.

The problem is the equilibrium between them is never stable because outliers (those who price products far below or far above break-even of supply-demand) are continuous. The solutions I propose force the outliers to begin operating within the median min/max of supply and demand, artificially creating equilibrium, not limiting contribution. The same quantities of product still exist within supply and demand.

Undervalued items will be purchased and resold at a higher price point. Overvalued items will remain on the shelf until the price decreases. I don't see an issue with how it works, nor do I see the necessity for an "artificially created" equilibrium.

 

From the OP (emphases mine):

The problem is an economic one; at no point in the repricing cycle does the product reach an axis where cutting the cost is no longer attractive to an uninformed seller. That is to say, there's no reason for the 8-year old to care what he sells the product for, so long as he sells it, and so he will ALWAYS drive the price down further, beyond the product's worth.

 

This is a problem in the form of break-even point, there are none in SWTOR, artificial or otherwise. The only deterrent to selling a product too high is it may not sell at all, there is ZERO deterrent to selling a product too low (so long as "YOU" get the sale).

8 or 9 cycles later, continuing this repricing cycle no longer becomes profitable (24,999-2,499,-2,499-2,499 adds up). At some point, the product is only going to sell for 10% of its perceived worth to either party.

If there really is no break-even point or reason for your hypothetical 8-year-old to care about maximizing profit, your "debuff" isn't going to deter him/her, either. The only way to prevent his/her dumping the item would be to enforce price floors for every item on the GTN -- or to block him/her from posting the item at all, by making the listing fee cost-prohibitive.

Edited March 21, 2015 by SelinaH

[Princess_Chibi]

If there really is no break-even point or reason for your hypothetical 8-year-old to care about maximizing profit, your "debuff" isn't going to deter him/her, either. The only way to prevent his/her dumping the item would be to enforce price floors for every item on the GTN -- or to block him/her from posting the item at all, by making the listing fee cost-prohibitive.

 

This is the key point. The debuff generates a price floor based on the original point of sale for the item. If said 8-year old sets value of the item originally at 25,000 credits, their price floor is net zero, so 10 stacks. The very price they set their product at becomes the exponent that deters them from repeatedly relisting price. At 9 stacks, their price floor is 10% of original cost (2,500 credits, they in effect cheated themselves out of 22,500 by repricing).

Edited March 21, 2015 by Princess_Chibi

[Princess_Chibi]

If the undercutting bothers you, buy them out and relist at your price.

 

The only type of improvement for the GTN that I'd like to see is:

 

1) Actual bidding, with a buy out price if someone wants it now. A lot of games have a system like this.

 

2) Searchable recent sales history across the server, with an item mouseover showing the last month's average sale price and vendor price. Tera has this on their trade broker and I absolutely love it both as a buyer and a seller, and I wish every game did it.

 

If this was one or two players, it would be possible to do so. But undercutting in this fashion is now the practice, not the exception to the rule. A behavior across a large majority (necessitated by poor behavior of a minority population) can be corrected. But you can't make GTN a monopoly as few players generate enough credits to control or in themselves set market pricing for any given commodity.

 

In other words, like lemmings, bad behavior causes more. In order for people who understand GTN to make a sale, they have to resort to the same tactics as those who don't understand the SWTOR economy and just want a quick buck. This is why prices vary so wildly hour to hour (a stick of doonium can sell for 50 credits one hour and 24,000 the next).

 

Back to my original analogy, you don't go to the grocery store and see a can of corn selling for $24,000 and another for $0.99. There is an acceptable range, a point at which making that can of corn has a cost and to price any higher (or lower) means you take a loss. That floor might be $0.50 a can; but on GTN, you can get all the way down to $0.01 a can, because there's a demographic of player that doesn't understand economic concepts. In real world, this self-corrects. If your minimum price per unit is $0.50 (that's the BARE minimum it costs you to make and sell a can of corn), then you can't, physically cannot sell below that price. You wouldn't be able to make the product if you tried to sell for $0.49 or below, so you wouldn't have product to put on the shelf.

 

Setting a floor price does the same thing. At some point, it actually hurts you to relist prices every 10 minutes. You then actually have to consider a cost to every item you list. It requires players with bad economics begin thinking more, or incur a financial penalty.

Edited March 21, 2015 by Princess_Chibi

[AndasKastor]

Why on earth would anyone be interested in price controls? It is a video game. If people are not willing to pay what you think you should get... guess what? You are overpriced.

[SelinaH]

This is the key point. The debuff generates a price floor based on the original point of sale for the item. If said 8-year old sets value of the item originally at 25,000 credits, their price floor is net zero, so 10 stacks. The very price they set their product at becomes the exponent that deters them from repeatedly relisting price. At 9 stacks, their price floor is 10% of original cost (2,500 credits, they in effect cheated themselves out of 22,500 by repricing).

You and I have different definitions of "price floor." What you're suggesting doesn't limit the seller to a set listing price; all it does is reduce the profit from the sale -- potentially by a significant margin. However, if the seller already doesn't care about profit, the mechanism won't be a sufficient deterrent. In fact, your clueless 8-year-old may not even notice the debuff being applied.

 

Which brings up an interesting point: In your scenario, what happens if the seller continues to list the item after the product reaches 100% debuff?

[Ratajack]

There are a few items involving GTN which have been a problem largely since launch and I think with a few tweaks could be made better. Please consider the following.

 

RE-LISTING OF ITEMS:

There's nothing wrong with relisting a product for a lower-cost. If you go to the grocery store, you'll find a can of corn next to another, priced one cent apart (usually the local store's is cheaper) as a result of market pricing. And while this is somewhat reflected in SWTOR, it's out of control today. There is an opportunity cost to reprice a product to a lower sales point on a store shelf; that is to say the local grocery store can't easily price its corn at 99 cents and then when a competitor prices theirs at 98, the local store can then drop their own price from 99 to 97 cents. There's a cost to relabel the product, and more importantly this takes time, which is not true of GTN.

 

This same practice arbitrarily and unrealistically drives down prices (player-driven inflation) depending on the players (and remember your F2P and subscriber base mixes a variety of ages from children to adults). The above concept of price point is intro economics/accounting, not something a low-age subscriber is going to understand. The reason I mention this is a low-age subscriber has no concept of cost, time or market stability. THIS is the key reason we see behavior of cyclical 1-credit underpricing ad infinitum. Two players selling the same product, one aged 8, the other aged 25 are going to behave differently. If the price point of the item is 25,000 credits, the adult will price at that initially, the child will undercut (either by 1-credit, or alternatively by several thousand credits). And that's fair so far. The adult will then adjust price, let's assume down to 15,000, closer to the child's price. That child will now pull the product and relist for 5,000 credits.

 

This lack of economic understanding has now depreciated the worth of the product below its break-even point in selling. The child will not care, their goal was always to make some amount of credits, even if only a few. The adult however, likely pulls their product and waits for that child to go to sleep, waiting for an 8-hour window where a realistic sale point can occur (somewhere ~17-20,000 credits).

 

 

THE SOLUTION:

In the above scenario, there's nothing wrong with relisting the products or pricing, and I'd argue there's even nothing wrong with the child subscriber 1-credit undercutting the previous listing. The problem is an economic one; at no point in the repricing cycle does the product reach an axis where cutting the cost is no longer attractive to an uninformed seller. That is to say, there's no reason for the 8-year old to care what he sells the product for, so long as he sells it, and so he will ALWAYS drive the price down further, beyond the product's worth.

 

This is a problem in the form of break-even point, there are none in SWTOR, artificial or otherwise. The only deterrent to selling a product too high is it may not sell at all, there is ZERO deterrent to selling a product too low (so long as "YOU" get the sale). The solution I propose is creation of a breakeven point. Every time a product (or each unit in a stack of product) is DE-LISTED on the GTN, it should acquire a debuff. Each debuff stack, upon sale of that product reduces the amount of credits to the seller upon sale by 10% of the original GTN listing price, stacking up to 9 times in total. The debuff would have a 48 hour time period (and travels per unit in the stack to prevent abuse, such as breaking apart a stack and mixing with another).

 

This corrects the break-even problem as in the above scenario if the product was originally sold at 25,000 credits, if it sold at that point without being relisted the player gets a full 25,000 credits. When the 8-year old sub posts theirs for 24,999, if theirs sold they'd get the full cost. When the adult sub drops his price to 24,000 he takes a 1-stack of the debuff, so if he sells it at that point he gets 24,000-2,500 credits. When the 8-year old reprices to 17,000, he now takes a 1-stack for 24,999-2,499, and so on.

 

8 or 9 cycles later, continuing this repricing cycle no longer becomes profitable (24,999-2,499,-2,499-2,499 adds up). At some point, the product is only going to sell for 10% of its perceived worth to either party. They will either wait 48 hours for the debuff to clear, or they'll avoid repricing like this altogether. In either event, it causes both players to think carefully about placing an item on GTN, pricing it realistically, and it gives a 48-hour window in which to sell something for a realistic price before the product can be re-listed without penalty.

 

 

AVAILABLE TIME:

One additional factor to consider which increases the merit of the above suggestion is time. Your average adult works a minimum of 40 hours a week. Add in travel and the adult in the above scenario is not at their home computer the majority of the time, nor could they be even if they wanted to. The 8-year old in the above scenario could be spending their every waking minute logged into SWTOR. This creates an accessibility issue to the GTN market. That is to say even if GTN were to continue in its current form, the 8-year old, by virtue of having more time available can reprice products all day long, 1-credit lower than the current selling price of the adult's product. At some point, the adult has to go to work, this gives advantage to the 8-year old with more time on their hands. This creates an unrealistic market advantage (subscriber time availability to make a sale should NOT impact price point in a virtual market) in favor of the child.

 

The situation this creates is the adult posts a reasonable product for a reasonable price on GTN, then logs for 48 hours. They come back and find the product has not sold, their price was undercut 30-40 times, often by the same subscriber who has time to keep cutting the lower prices on GTN by 1-credit every 10-15 minutes during the day.

 

F2P:

The above should be pretty straightforward, but there's absolutely no benefit to F2P players to sell product on GTN for realistic costs. They can't store large quantities of credits for use in the same ways subscribers can (their credit sinks are much different). And as a result, this can have negative impact on product sales price. By definition, an F2P player has no time commitment to the game, whereas a subscriber has for the period in which they are currently subscribed. There's no loss or cost to an F2P player to continuously list something low and walk away, a subscriber has to live with their GTN price points/credit decisions for the length of their remaining subscription.

 

ALTERNATIVE (GTN MOBILE APP):

As has been floated many times, creation of a mobile GTN application accessible on android and IOS phones would help this. It would give the adult the ability to interact with GTN while away from their home computer, so at least then they could be competitive with the 8-year old adjusting their price every 10 minutes. This doesn't solve the issue, but at least increases their chances of making a reasonable (profitable) sale.

 

AVERAGE GTN PRICE:

While I'm on the subject, the suggested price on GTN is never close to what the products are worth in time, resources and availability within the game. This is why a stick of Doonium sells to a vendor for 495 credits (Ebon Hawk) right now but the market average is ~24,000 per unit. I'd recommend a change to the "default list price" or suggested retail price on the GTN to be the average sales price of the product, data already stored on SWTOR I'm sure. This would inform the player what the current "realistic" price is for a given product. There's nothing quite so funny as dropping a full 99 stack of product onto GTN that sells for 24,000/unit but watch GTN try to list the entire stack for 3,000 credits total. That makes no sense and is generally unhelpful to the subscriber.

 

GTN DATA REPORTING:

And my last point on the SWTOR economic system. An API, webpage or other resource should be created that allows subscribers to perform pricing analysis on GTN data for their server. There are a number of projects people are trying to put together, or Excel spreadsheets, but no one has true economic data on the GTN within SWTOR. This should allow minimum prices to be calculated and a more realistic economic experience to be built. It would allow everyone to know what each others' products are selling for, how frequently, minimum pricing, max pricing, and a host of other uses.

 

MAX PRICING:

Set a GTN price cap of ~150,000,000. There's a lost of trash posted on GTN of 1 unit at 1-Billion credits. Any analysis of your player base will show you probably don't have more than 1-2 players with such an amount of credits. These players post the listing hoping to trip across a credit buyer who mis-clicks on their item and magically drops 1-Billion credits into their account. There's no product in the game that actually sells (or could sell) for such an amount because nearly none of the player base has such an amount of available cash flow. And I'd argue that any player with 1-Billion credits should be looked at very closely for purchasing credits with real money.

 

FULL DISCLOSURE:

In the interests of due-diligence and full disclosure, the above ideas WILL have their naysayers; particularly F2P low-costing and 1-credit undercutting players. The pricing controls I propose above will effectively put them out of business, but if not, it'll at least severely limit their options. They'll have to begin making sales on the premise of what they're selling, and not whether they can "outgame" based on amount of time they have to babysit the GTN search and check for relisted prices.

 

The Dev team will upset a minority of players in making the above changes should you choose to. But the closer the GTN gets to real market economics, the healthier the game's economy will be.

 

 

 

For your consideration.

 

--Princess Chibi

 

Large post that seems to translate into "I can't gouge people because other players keep undercutting me. Make them stop."

 

I think the system works just fine. Somebody undercuts you, you can undercut them. If you think that undercutting will cut into your gouging too much, then you are free to wait until the going price meets your approval.

[Princess_Chibi]

You and I have different definitions of "price floor." What you're suggesting doesn't limit the seller to a set listing price; all it does is reduce the profit from the sale -- potentially by a significant margin. However, if the seller already doesn't care about profit, the mechanism won't be a sufficient deterrent. In fact, your clueless 8-year-old may not even notice the debuff being applied.

 

Which brings up an interesting point: In your scenario, what happens if the seller continues to list the item after the product reaches 100% debuff?

 

That one can go two ways depending on BW's preference. If they went the harsh method, the debuff could continue to run and a bad sale and selling habits could actually cost the seller money (if you price below your break-even and continue to pump out product at that cost point, you go out of business due to lack of funds).

 

Or, they could set a minimum point (0-10% of original cost) at which point you stop bleeding credits. At that point, the profitability is almost nothing (this is the deterrent), but it never puts the player in a negative situation.

 

Even an 8-year old will understand the concept of selling something and getting nothing for it. They have problems with the calculations (or don't even make an attempt at them). But giving something away for free, that they'll understand, and most won't do.

[Princess_Chibi]

Large post that seems to translate into "I can't gouge people because other players keep undercutting me. Make them stop."

 

I think the system works just fine. Somebody undercuts you, you can undercut them. If you think that undercutting will cut into your gouging too much, then you are free to wait until the going price meets your approval.

 

It's a large post that discusses financial condition of the SWTOR GTN marketplace. A lot of thought went into it, your counter-point is weak and poorly considered. I'm calling for a stable and closer to consistent marketplace, something more realistic. Dumbing down that thought into price gouging, which is only one of several topics I discussed, is an issue in your understanding, it is not reflective of my post.

 

Re-read my original post, and try again.

Edited March 21, 2015 by Princess_Chibi

[Ratajack]

It's a large post that discusses financial condition of the SWTOR GTN marketplace. A lot of thought went into it, your counter-point is weak and poorly considered. I'm calling for a stable and closer to consistent marketplace, something more realistic. Dumbing down that thought into price gouging, which is only one of several topics I discussed, is an issue in your understanding, it is not reflective of my post.

 

Re-read my original post, and try again.

 

I did re-read the original post and it still sounds like you are just complaining about being undercut and want BW to make the "big, bad GTN bullies" or the "stupid, little GTN kids" stop undercutting you.

 

The GTN is fine. People can post items for whatever price they choose, even if that price is below your "gouge threshold".

Edited March 21, 2015 by Ratajack

[Princess_Chibi]

I did re-read the original post and it still sounds like you are just complaining about being undercut and want BW to make the "big, bad GTN bullies" or the "stupid, little GTN kids" stop undercutting you.

 

The GTN is fine. People can post items for whatever price they choose, even if that price is below your "gouge threshold".

 

You've provided no evidence for your conclusion that "the GTN is fine" . Your counterargument is still poorly posed and presents a straw-man fallacy. Given the complexity of any financial system, let alone a virtual economy, two sentences shows a lack of tangible consideration given to the points I've raised.

 

In short, you find the GTN is working as you feel it should be working, and you've presented no evidence to support an argument for or against that stance. You haven't attempted to address my points (for or against them) using any kind of logic, and you've made no case on why things should remain the same. You're not even in the discussion at this point. You're just nay-saying for its own sake.

 

I can debate the merits of why this is/isn't a good idea based on facts and hypothesis with a willing person. I can't logically convince someone ignorant to the information, who wishes to remain so, of the benefits.

 

This is an internet forum, but in this particular post, you're expected to think and present a logical constructive argument. As you seem to be placing no effort into doing so, I'm now done with you.

[Jrr_hypernova]

this topic=face palm

[Ratajack]

You've provided no evidence for your conclusion that "the GTN is fine" . Your counterargument is still poorly posed and presents a straw-man fallacy. Given the complexity of any financial system, let alone a virtual economy, two sentences shows a lack of tangible consideration given to the points I've raised.

 

In short, you find the GTN is working as you feel it should be working, and you've presented no evidence to support an argument for or against that stance. You haven't attempted to address my points (for or against them) using any kind of logic, and you've made no case on why things should remain the same. You're not even in the discussion at this point. You're just nay-saying for its own sake.

 

I can debate the merits of why this is/isn't a good idea based on facts and hypothesis with a willing person. I can't logically convince someone ignorant to the information, who wishes to remain so, of the benefits.

 

This is an internet forum, but in this particular post, you're expected to think and present a logical constructive argument. As you seem to be placing no effort into doing so, I'm now done with you.

 

I'm not the one asking BW to change the GTN system to suit me. The onus of proof that the GTN system is fine as it is, is not on me. It is incumbent on YOU to prove that there needs to be a change to the GTN, and "I can't gouge other players because people keep undercutting me. Make them stop, BW" is not proof of a needed change, IMO.

 

Let's hear an argument for these "proposed changes" of yours that does not boil down to "I can't gouge the other players because people keep undercutting me. Make them stop, BW".

 

I'll be waiting.

[psandak]

You've provided no evidence for your conclusion that "the GTN is fine" .

 

How about this: The GTN is SELF-BALANCING.

 

Every item I sell, and I sell a LOT of different items, has a typical price range. That price range is self-regulating because:

 

• When sellers try to push the upper limits when supply is low, fewer buyers buy. Sellers doing this then (hopefully) slowly decrease their price until they find the upper limits where a majority of buyers WILL buy.
   
  
• When the value is low, sellers either back out of that market for a while thereby decreasing supply, or those sellers will buy the low value items and re-post at the mid to high point range instead.
  

 

In addition, it is only the sellers who are not diversified that are adversely impacted by low value. Because I have so many items I can sell, I do not care if a plurality of them are not worth selling because a majority of them still are.

 

I think ratajack is right, but for a different reason. I think you were in on the front end of a lot of the grade 11 items and making a fortune because supply was relatively low due to lack of suppliers. Now with more competition, the value on many items has dipped below your threshold (but are still quite profitable) and you are upset. Well, here's a dose of reality...those prices were NOT going to last forever. If you really thought that they would...you are deluding yourself.

 

Lastly, I again agree with ratajack in that it is up to you to prove that your idea is valid and valuable because you are the one trying to upset the balance.

Edited March 21, 2015 by psandak

[Princess_Chibi]

How about this: The GTN is SELF-BALANCING.

 

Every item I sell, and I sell a LOT of different items, has a typical price range. That price range is self-regulating because:

 

• When sellers try to push the upper limits when supply is low, fewer buyers buy. Sellers doing this then (hopefully) slowly decrease their price until they find the upper limits where a majority of buyers WILL buy.
   
  
• When the value is low, sellers either back out of that market for a while thereby decreasing supply, or those sellers will buy the low value items and re-post at the mid to high point range instead.
  

 

In addition, it is only the sellers who are not diversified that are adversely impacted by low value. Because I have so many items I can sell, I do not care if a plurality of them are not worth selling because a majority of them still are.

 

I think ratajack is right, but for a different reason. I think you were in on the front end of a lot of the grade 11 items and making a fortune because supply was relatively low due to lack of suppliers. Now with more competition, the value on many items has dipped below your threshold (but are still quite profitable) and you are upset. Well, here's a dose of reality...those prices were NOT going to last forever. If you really thought that they would...you are deluding yourself.

 

Lastly, I again agree with ratajack in that it is up to you to prove that your idea is valid and valuable because you are the one trying to upset the balance.

 

I won't be addressing any of ratajack's point from here in. I have yet to see a constructive post from him, in short because in a level debate there is no incumbent. You can propose a change to a system in a vacuum just as easily as one that takes into consideration environmental factors such as that the existing GTN is in place. What I've done is extract the current situation and excised driving factors for the current market in order to discuss them. Implementing the changes I propose doesn't immediately modify the market, it modifies the behavior of the participants in the market, and the market by proxy.

 

Now in addressing your question, it's not specifically grade 11 materials that this argument applies to, and I'd caution to be careful about making assumptions of products I do or don't sell. I'm quite diversified myself, I used grade 11 materials in my examples above as the majority of the GTN market is not diversified; those are examples they will be able to relate to (the material will therefore make sense to a broader audience).

 

[*]When sellers try to push the upper limits when supply is low, fewer buyers buy. Sellers doing this then (hopefully) slowly decrease their price until they find the upper limits where a majority of buyers WILL buy.

 

True. I've made no argument above that states the system doesn't autocorrect when a commodity is disproportionately overpriced. That function of correction does operate as one would expect, if you overprice, and the demand isn't there, the commodity isn't purchased.

 

[*]When the value is low, sellers either back out of that market for a while thereby decreasing supply, or those sellers will buy the low value items and re-post at the mid to high point range instead.

 

This is where I would argue your conclusion is incorrect. A number of buyers when commodities are undervalued will buy them and repost for increases. But there is a continuous supply of undervalued product as a result of the repricing cycle I reference above. As a result, the price is only continuously driven downward within a set period of time. Now keep in mind, nowhere above did I state that sales price should be abnormally profitable. The desired gain here is in market stability, not commodity profitability in itself. That is to say there needs to be a mathematic means to calculate worth of a product that is something more than arbitrary, and something less than unreasonable.

 

I would argue ~70% of the player base operates within a min/max range on the GTN that could be described as average when placing their initial prices. It's the other 30% that then enter the market, and over/underprice which the other 70% has to adjust for. The market's equilibrium therefore was disrupted by a minority.

 

Here's the thing about sales, they're sustainable indefinitely if there is no cost of production. That is to say if every minute a hen lays an egg, I can then sell that egg. So long as the hen never dies, and so long as eggs continue to be produced, I will never be in the negative. There will always be something to sell, whether I sell that egg for $40,000, or $0.01. The argument being made is that if I choose to sell that egg for $40,000, and someone else sells it for $35,000, there should be a cost to lower the price, since the supply is endless (in a game with infinite resources) and over an extended period, so is demand. The market needs a stabilizing force for each sale; otherwise it's not pricing that drives a sale (you don't lose the sale because you got underpriced), it's time spent repricing the product ad infinitum.

 

From your earlier point, there will always be that "next thing" in an MMO that has an exceptional price point. But the market shouldn't swing as wildly as it does from 25,000 for a piece of doonium to 50 depending on the hour. That's not supply/demand working itself out, that's outliers (both high and low) artificially driving inflation on a per unit basis.

Edited March 21, 2015 by Princess_Chibi

[psandak]

This is where I would argue your conclusion is incorrect. A number of buyers when commodities are undervalued will buy them and repost for increases. But there is a continuous supply of undervalued product as a result of the repricing cycle I reference above. As a result, the price is only continuously driven downward within a set period of time. Now keep in mind, nowhere above did I state that sales price should be abnormally profitable. The desired gain here is in market stability, not commodity profitability in itself. That is to say there needs to be a mathematic means to calculate worth of a product that is something more than arbitrary, and something less than unreasonable.

 

I disagree, I call those sellers my wholesalers. In cases such as the one you describe, I simply stop producing my own and buy and resell the undervalued items. It happens all the time. I live by a motto (credit to DarthTHC) "make credits not stuff." I do not care if I make item X or if someone else does. So long as I make a sale at a value I can live with.

 

I would argue ~70% of the player base operates within a min/max range on the GTN that could be described as average when placing their initial prices. It's the other 30% that then enter the market, and over/underprice which the other 70% has to adjust for. The market's equilibrium therefore was disrupted by a minority.

 

As a seller, overpricing does not bother me. If someone buys up all the product and posts at a very high price, IMO that is an opportunity to push the upper limit of the range. Sometimes it works sometimes not. As to underpricing, one of two things happens: the overwhelming majority of the time, the underpriced product goes away quickly and pricing returns to normal; the rest of the time a new minimum value in set. But this is not as big a deal as you make it out to be either. All that you need to overcome it is patience. Patience to post at a price YOU can live with and knowing it will sell eventually. I do this ALL THE TIME. Read the last segment of my "crew skill money making" link in my sig.

 

....The argument being made is that if I choose to sell that egg for $40,000, and someone else sells it for $35,000, there should be a cost to lower the price, since the supply is endless (in a game with infinite resources) and over an extended period, so is demand. The market needs a stabilizing force for each sale; otherwise it's not pricing that drives a sale (you don't lose the sale because you got underpriced), it's time spent repricing the product ad infinitum.

 

No there shouldn't. It just dawned on me what the issue is: the GTN (and other MMO Marketplaces) is not a set of competing grocery stores, it is the commodities market in the NYSE. Pricing and sell points are purely related to how desperate sellers want to sell and/or how desperate buyers want to buy. Furthermore, there is no "over time" to consider; it is all about the moment in time. At any given moment in time, sellers have product on the GTN and buyers want to buy. The question in that moment becomes are those buyers willing to pay the prices posted? If the buyers chooses not to buy in hopes of an eventual lower price...that's a risk. For all that buyer knows, demand is particularly high or supply is particularly low at the moment and prices will only go up.

 

From your earlier point, there will always be that "next thing" in an MMO that has an exceptional price point. But the market shouldn't swing as wildly as it does from 25,000 for a piece of doonium to 50 depending on the hour. That's not supply/demand working itself out, that's outliers (both high and low) artificially driving inflation on a per unit basis.

 

Why not? Those wild swings you speak of come from buyers not sellers. Whether those buyers try to resell is irrelevant. Someone (or a number of someones) believed that certain items were worth buying. In that moment, supply is now reduced. The next set of buyers now have a choice to make: continue buying and drive the value up further, or hold off in the hopes value drops.

[XiamaraSimi]

Large post that seems to translate into "I can't gouge people because other players keep undercutting me. Make them stop."

 

I think the system works just fine. Somebody undercuts you, you can undercut them. If you think that undercutting will cut into your gouging too much, then you are free to wait until the going price meets your approval.

 

Yeah this us how i see it.

 

"People are undercutting me, make it so they cant."

 

GTN pvp is srs bzns!

[Mavolio]

It just dawned on me what the issue is: the GTN (and other MMO Marketplaces) is not a set of competing grocery stores, it is the commodities market in the NYSE. Pricing and sell points are purely related to how desperate sellers want to sell and/or how desperate buyers want to buy. Furthermore, there is no "over time" to consider; it is all about the moment in time. At any given moment in time, sellers have product on the GTN and buyers want to buy. The question in that moment becomes are those buyers willing to pay the prices posted? If the buyers chooses not to buy in hopes of an eventual lower price...that's a risk. For all that buyer knows, demand is particularly high or supply is particularly low at the moment and prices will only go up.

 

Quote: Originally Posted by Princess_Chibi View Post

From your earlier point, there will always be that "next thing" in an MMO that has an exceptional price point. But the market shouldn't swing as wildly as it does from 25,000 for a piece of doonium to 50 depending on the hour. That's not supply/demand working itself out, that's outliers (both high and low) artificially driving inflation on a per unit basis.

 

 

 

Why not? Those wild swings you speak of come from buyers not sellers. Whether those buyers try to resell is irrelevant. Someone (or a number of someones) believed that certain items were worth buying. In that moment, supply is now reduced. The next set of buyers now have a choice to make: continue buying and drive the value up further, or hold off in the hopes value drops.

(and others that actually [understand] get it .)

Now if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to log in, buyout some under-cutters, pull some of my products off the Network, and restack my supply into groupings that is demanded by my consumers and relist at median prices.

 

“Of valid economics pre-dating the Power Age (steam and electricity), there remains not a vestige. Of valid economics pre-dating the intensive and extensive use of electricity there will soon exist only rags and tatters. We still have to thank Adam Smith for insisting 'Consumption is the sole end and purpose of production'; but the old form of the law of demand and supply is outmoded, since supply has become practically inexhaustible.”

― Harriet Boyd Hawes, Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes

Edited March 22, 2015 by Mavolio

[Ghisallo]

Just two issues with the OP... The grocery store issue really doesn't apply anymore. Store takes a single plastic label (which can be printed right there) and slaps it on the shelf...types in the computer to change the price related to the SKU...done. Really no different. Also you aren't even talking about a brick and mortar store here. The GTN is Amazon or another online retailer with the added bit that you can see all of your competitors in realtime. As such as some else said there is the element of say commodities or even foreign exchange trading. Billions are made and lost everyday by playing the constant fluctuations in these markets. You also miss that in the end it is the buyer who controls things as much as the seller. You entire basis seems to be "I think that was a fair price and someone undercut me." Sorry but that is the nature of a free market. So if someone wants to play the GTN like a mini-game so be it. I don't myself but who I am to say someone can't wheel and deal like Daddy Warbucks?

 

F2p is my other issue. The whole point of the restrictions there is because Bioware does NOT want people to play for free. The whole point of f2p is to hook you into one of the various micron transaction schemes or to get you to subscribe. The limitations, including the GTN, are there to incentivize this. If a player is playing 100% for free and leaves, Bioware doesn't care that much because Bioware is a subsidiary of a for profit company.

Edited March 22, 2015 by Ghisallo