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The Grey Market of STO
drakethewhite
Member Posts: 1,240 Arc User
So, watching the T6 Connie prices going up instead of coming down (or so it seems by just watching in ESD chat, which admittedly isn't very conclusive), I start to wonder.
Why is there a 750 million EC cap on the Exchange? This basically forces (not just allows, but forces) the existence of a grey market where the sellers don't face clearly visible price pressure from other sellers. Thus the cap benefits the elite trader players at the cost of the common player base.
Now I understand, there is a type of hard core player who loves to deal in trading- some may never even play a single mission unless they have to in order to get to the trading area/exchange. I've even done of bit of that myself in EVE online. Of course there, it was an open market without a cap- and the Grey Market was the home of scammers. Here, it's where the market will take things when they are worth more than the cap.
So it must be a desired outcome. It keeps the hardcore traders who love this sort of thing in their seats playing, and that's perhaps worth more to the Designers than the common player base benefiting from the price pressures of open bidding from the exchange?
Or am I missing the point completely (I won't be surprise or insulted if that's the case)?
Oh and just to be upfront- I won my Connie in the R&D Lottery so this is really just curiosity asking the question.
Why is there a 750 million EC cap on the Exchange? This basically forces (not just allows, but forces) the existence of a grey market where the sellers don't face clearly visible price pressure from other sellers. Thus the cap benefits the elite trader players at the cost of the common player base.
Now I understand, there is a type of hard core player who loves to deal in trading- some may never even play a single mission unless they have to in order to get to the trading area/exchange. I've even done of bit of that myself in EVE online. Of course there, it was an open market without a cap- and the Grey Market was the home of scammers. Here, it's where the market will take things when they are worth more than the cap.
So it must be a desired outcome. It keeps the hardcore traders who love this sort of thing in their seats playing, and that's perhaps worth more to the Designers than the common player base benefiting from the price pressures of open bidding from the exchange?
Or am I missing the point completely (I won't be surprise or insulted if that's the case)?
Oh and just to be upfront- I won my Connie in the R&D Lottery so this is really just curiosity asking the question.
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I haven't used them myself (I'm not in the market for a Connie) but I don't see the trade channels as a grey market since the origin and quality of the goods is not suspect and trading is a supported feature of the game. Gold farmers are the black market, trading channels are white market.
Price pressure does exist there. Once you have an invite to the channels, all of the people holding a Connie or Annorax or whatever are competing for your 750+ million EC. If one says 950 million, someone else can jump in for 940 million to get the sale.
They could raise the EC Cap, too, I suppose. But I would expect this to enable more inflation.
The grey market ultimately isn't all that gray. It's just not on the Exchange. But Player-to-Player trade has been in the game from the start. And it's reasonably "safe", too.
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
yes you are missing the point completely. consider this: if the ship was on the exchange for a set price, then anyone with half a brain would realize all they had to do was buy/sell master keys or r&D packs until they had enough EC to buy the ship on the exchange. but cryptic wants people to gamble, not buy things for set prices. so by having an exchange cap, it means super rare things never show up on the exchange. and since your common player isn't a member of the elite trading channels, they think their only way to get these ships is to keep buying keys or packs until they get it. so an exchange cap actually encourages gambling and makes cryptic more money. get it now?
The problem is that the game lacks sufficient EC sinks.
On topic...
The grey market as an "elite" thing is somewhat applicable. I only recently found out about the trade channel myself, after playing since beta. I don't know why I didn't think that it existed, but if I hadn't randomly seen someone talking about it in zone chat I don't think I would have known where to look.
Wrong, Cryptic does not care, the limit in the Exchange is a safeward to avoid hitting the cap in your ec. They dont mind if you sell your ship, use it or discard it, its irrelevant, because people still buy keys and ships with real money and thats what as a corporation, they want, and is quite valid.
The only reason people sell in the trade channel is simple: greed. Honestly, if i had that ship, i'll sell it in the Exchange, cause i dont care for it, and dont suffer from greed, so 750 million is quite enough for me, even less, but i want to buy some other ships, and unlike me, people selling them will want as much as they can ask for.
I disagree, the trade channels aren't a standard feature and one needs an invite. Nor does it allow the 'posting' of prices- just immediate reaction to what is being offered so the effective use of the market is limited to those able and willing to spend extended time there.
Ah, did not know that. That explains much.
It would also seem to force barter more than purchase at the extrems, hence why I see WTS with the asking price being in Keys and the like.
Sure sign of a broken economy btw. And at this point, I doubt there's anything the designers can do to fix it.
Yup, its operated by users, and users will ask for as much as they can.. sad but true, as i said, if i had one, i'll happily put it on the Exchange.. but i dont
True there isn't really anything in the game that would require you to get massive amounts of EC, so its mostly useless.
Trading is a standard feature, chat channels are are standard feature. Combining the two is common for many MMOs. That and the fact that doing so does not violate the EULA / TOS makes it white market to me.
Not offering instant gratification does not make it grey market.
Without clear visibility to all interested parties, it's grey.
We're not going to agree on this. The differences between those trade channels and the Exchange is just too stark.
And mind, I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying that it's a result of how STO was designed and that it has an impact.
At least it's not hidden pricing, since if you do join and stay in the channel you can watch listings over time. It requires more work than watching the exchange, but you need to watch the exchange over time too if you want the best price -- the Tarantula I got from the exchange last week bounced up and down from 120 - 200+ million EC over a few days.
As far as being a "grey market", already been said. Cryptic designed the game to have private chat channels, Cryptic designed the game to have player-player trades, and the trading channels are utilizing functions that Cryptic put into the game.
The exchange is kinda like a Government (ie Cryptic) run consignment shop, with a limit on the maximum size transaction they will handle. The trade channel is the coffee shop next door where people go to buy/sell items that are above the consignment shops maximum transaction limit. The government provides a total free market economy. Sellers can ask any amount they so desire for anything they want to sell and buyers can pay however high an amount they are willing to pay (and capable of, of course). Nothing illegal, immoral, wrong, or even grey about it.
The only limits to the free market economy is that no one character can have more than 1B EC. Even that does not actually put a limit on the economy as a seller could easily ask for 1B EC, plus X number of master keys or other commodity.
And players with the 10m cap are presumably still allowed to sell items for 10m. Or 750m for that matter. Excuses, excuses.
One might say if you sell something without making sure you have room for the income, you deserve to lose the money. On the other hand, the game could simply forbid players from selling items if they don't have room for the sale price, just like it forbids them from buying if they don't have room for the item.
And yes, they absolutely should raise the EC cap, too. The very existence of items whose value exceeds the cap proves it necessary. The cap does not reduce inflation, it just causes the trade to shift to a less limited currency...in STO that's keys.
There's nothing grey or elitist about open channels.
When I opened the ship the announcement went system wide. I was immediately PM'd by a dozen plus people who offered to buy it. You can do that too.
The real concern is that the R&D pack has essentially destroyed the lobi market, probably for a solid year.
Understand something here, I don't care. I don't want to buy anything there, so they don't matter to me.
All that matters is that it's un-posted transactions where the pricing is set by a subgroup of the player base and thus is higher than it would be normally. That's its a required evil due to STO's design justifies it- but doesn't make it something I want to take part in.
My character Tsin'xing
To be honest, I was saying it as a half-joke, knowing that it wouldnt make sense for Cryptic to deafeat thier own purposes.
That and to say "quatloo"
Quatloo!!! Quatloo!!!
The EC cap is already pointless as people can and do buy master keys (and use alts) to store their wealth. It's only there to justify the Exchange Cap, and that's only there to split the market into public and grey.
Doing so does slow inflation a bit by limiting overpriced items to the extreme cases, and is the designers only tool for doing so.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_market
It's a parallel market offering goods LEGALLY that are not yet available or are over priced in the general market. Considering the number of keys you need to sell to get the EC to buy a 900 mil EC ship isn't a sufficient amount of keys to garuntee winning a ship, trade channels definitely fit the latter requirement.
You already can, on the Grey Market.
Seems above the going price for now. But I'm at the point where I expect it to rise, not fall unless they run the promotion again in the future.
The exchange cap is only there to prevent/slow inflation for common and slightly uncommon items not worth the extra effort to sell on the Grey. It allows anything rare enough to exceeds that do whatever the player subgroup who play the Grey Market moves it to do.