AH gold buy-out by Nef: why this is dangerous

Now, phew! I got the wall of text up with inital thoughts. And I hope no one is selling their gold on the AH, tho I know some people (lol i know who you are, some of you anyway) will do so to grab profits. I'm not even ingame atm, and I'm not gonna do anything for a bit myself.

I've played a LOT of games online. I'm OLD. Old as dirt and twice as gritty. I was around for keypunch, magnetic tape reels, batch updates, IVAC, Pong, Sinclair, and ummm, Fortran IV was the hot new accounting language. I worked for Big Blue when women couldn't wear slacks (did they REALLY change that?!?!?) and Bill Gates thought my boyfriend's dad was a "cool guy". Look it up, it's in his book :P Anyway, this ain't my first rodeo. I still log into the BIG mmorpg once in a while. I left it due to guild leader burnout. Wrangling 400 people for a few years becomes like a job, and I already have a challenging one that actually pays my bills, tyvm. I've played a lot of betas, new games, small games, adult games, kiddie games, cash shop games, free games, subscription games. I tell you this to show why I think we are in a precarious situation.

Actual real life companies make these virtual worlds to house games and make real life money. It's a business. duh. How do they make money? Sometimes it's advertisers that pay to place logos or products ingame or on websites with high traffic. It can be thru subscription sales, or cash shop/boutique sales directly. It can be from gathering saleable information on their clients which they turn over to other comapnies that pay for and use or sell such information. It can be from real life (non-virtual) merchandising or merchandising agreements and sales. Several other ways actually. But PWI makes most of it's revenues from website adverts and from cash shop sales. A fair bit is probably from the currency exchange rates, but that a WHOLE different economy. Another time, if anyone is actually interested.

If the player base for PWI falls below a certain threshhold, they WILL pull the plug. Make no mistake. This is just sound business practice. It isn't maliciousness or a lack of caring for YOU, their valued client. They got bills to pay and mouths to feed, just like everyone else. Heck, they got shareholders, or w/e they have in China. They didn't creat our precious little "perfect" virtual world for grins, nor out of the goodness, that I'm sure lies deep within, their hearts. It's here to make a profit, sweet peeps. And as soon as it ceases to do so, WWIIIIIPPE.

Ok, just a few minutes ago I was going about my regular busines and saw the AH gold market going freaking nuts. All the gold on offer was being bought up. I mean ALL the gold on offer. For a few minutes there was no gold on offer in the AH but 2 @ 600K each. Seriously. I thought I was suffering from a malfunction. I couldn't believe this was correct. That's why I have no screenie of it. I was still trying to wrap my mind around it.

OK, so it is real. I watch, and my mind goes like a bolt to this: THE BIG TW faction is buying all the gold on AH. No, I have no proof. But it would make total sense and be a brilliant move. Except for one thing. No one will be able to function for a great while in an economy where gold is worth over 600K. Eventually, perhaps, but not for a VERY long time. A slow increase in prices is expected. It can be dealt with. But a sudden inflation of this magnitude is almost a guarantee of crashing the game economy.

I can only think >un-named faction< wants to FORCE the game to end with them holding all the lands? I dunno. I personaly don't give a rat's hair for factions and TW and so on. I like gaming casual and fun, and I like having my pixel dollies looking good in cute outfits on nice mounts. Sue me. That's how I roll. Anyway, so they inflate the gold prices (and subsequently everything else ingame) to gear up for the next big series of offenses. Meanwhile they try to starve out all competition. Nice thinking, and I'd think about doing the same if I was in their place.

Now to the part people will accuse me of being an alarmist about. The game folding. Here's why I worry about it becoming a distinct possibility: most people already ingame will find the going very tough for a while. Even some well-established faction-hugging players. Some will leave. NEW players will find they can't get going at all. If players don't have much invested, and then find they can't get what they want at least some of the time, they move on. There ARE other games out there. More come out all the time, especially around the winter holidays. Less new people and more established ones leaving means less revenue for the company. Culling the revenue losses and the non-revenue producers is what companies do to stay viable. It's just good business practice. The Chinese are very VERY good at business decisions.

Now I got a lot of PMs ingame asking questions and not understanding the ramifications of ANYONE (even if it wasn't >un-named< faction) buying out the AH gold market. I'll try to make the following explanation as simple as I can. I'm NOT the sharpest tool in the shed, but I can understand some things well enough to explain them to someone else. I seldom post on forums. I am not the greatest typist in the world. I'm trying to hurry up here. Please cut me a lil slack, k? I'm going to try to post this a bit at a time, to keep from losing it, and ALL of you

OK, when people buy gold (zhen) to sell on the AH for a profit, they usually start with some "seed money" and watch the market for a bit. They know what stuff costs ingame, and in the boutique. They compare it and arrive at what price they want to try to get for their zhen gold. They put in on the AH gold market at that price, maybe a lil higher if they see things trending up, or if they think a good demand will be created for zhen gold by something like a boutique sale. I think that is simple enough for most folks to understand. Some folks do this with just the occassional "extra" zhen gold they have left over after buying a specific item in the boutique. They aren't really serious investors, they just want to use up their gold and get a decent amount of ingame currency. Both of these groups tend to be the bulk of AH gold market participants. EXCEPT for when BIG factions enter the picture. Things then very quickly change a great deal.

When you have BIG factions with a lot of ingame coin and zhen gold as well, you got a whole different ballgame. First off, they have enough ingame and boutique currency to skew the market. They can actually influence prices in any direction they want. They can do this in several way, the one that is less noticeable is what I call the "breadcrumb" approach. Slowly trickle in funds to (lets say they want tprices to go slowly down) and price the zhen gold in smallish batches at a bit lower than current lowest price on offer. And add a few more a little bit lower than that. then a couple at less than that price. so on. like a trail of breadcumbs. You see?

Second. they have entirely different motives from both the casual and the serious zhen gold investors. They aren't REALLY in it to make money, either ingame or out. They have a totaly different agenda, and it may or may not include you and I.

Now let's say you are a big faction and a big battle is coming up soon. Your opponent is a large faction, but you know they have had some issues with gear lately. Maybe they hurriedly leveld up a bunch of lower levels. They need to outfit these new high levels. There is a big sale currently going on that helps them gear their folks up. You both get ingame coin for holding territory. It makes sense that's one thing you'd use it on, right? POOF, you buy up all the zhen gold you can to starve them out of it. You aren't doing this as an investment (well, not in the purest sense of it here). It's an act of war. A good ,ove for you. Bad for your opponent. And it hurts everyone else too.

The average non-TW player can't buy any gold to take advantage of the current sales in the boutique, unless they can whip out a credit card. Some people CAN use a credit card, but don't due to security fears, personal ethos, or other considerations. If they can't buy zhen gold with ingame currency, they don't buy. If they can't buy what they need/want with ingame currency, they have to make a decision. Stay or quit?

Everytime a real life person is confronted with that decision, it is demoralizing. It makes the decision trend towards "quit" much easier, the more you have to look at it. It makes people feel like there is no purpose to staying. How long can people hold out? I don't know. But I do know every person behind the keys that has to face that crossroads decision costs the entire game, not just this server. Every time it happens makes us all "weaker" in a way.

I made a post regarding the Sanctuary zhen gold market buy-out today. It's under General Discussions up there ^^^^^. You may want to look at it before you place any zhen gold for sale on Sanctuary AH. Good luck cash shop peeps

I posted regarding this in the General Discussion forum. Ya'll might want to look at it before you sell any of your zhen on AH. Or not. I'm interested in your thoughts. Good luck to us all on dear old Sanctuary!

looks like all my threads have been patially merged and some moved, but the wrong ones moved. anyway, this all happened within minutes, nay! within seconds. all obviously if not the same buyer, it was a coordinated effort.

and btw, i fixed the post to remove the faction name and reposted as i was instructed.