Hi John, I have a question about the economy!

#6 - July 17, 2014, 4:36 p.m.

Wanze.8410:

My question is:
In order to have a balanced economy, are you monitoring that ratio for all/specific items and can it hurt the economy in any way, if this ratio spikes/drops?

The short answer is yes we monitor supply.
You are correct in assuming that the TP doesn’t contain all items in the game as players tend to hang on to a large quantity of items for their personal use. It’s possible for an item to be technically oversupplied inside the game (that is that we give out more of that item than people need), but still maintain value on the TP due to willingness to sell. So the supply curve on the TP isn’t the literal supply of all items in the game, it’s really the willingness to sell curve that I’ve mentioned in other posts. Often TP prices are still a good indicator of the total supply of an item, it just isn’t conclusive.

Could it hurt the economy if something were to change and all of some item were dumped into the TP at once? Yes and no. Yes, supply shocks are bad, they’re bad for faith in stability and they’re bad balance in the game and the economy and it can be damaging. No, in the sense that our economy is massive and has a tendency to adapt very quickly to changes. This helps insulate us from any major shocks likely to happen, it’s one of the many many benefits of having a pseudo-global economy.

#8 - July 17, 2014, 5:07 p.m.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

John Smith – The Tzar of the Bazaar

You should really charge Gems for your economics lessons. I’m more than willing to pay 500 Gems per question answered.

ArenaNet is kind enough to foot this bill for everyone.

#16 - July 18, 2014, 12:38 p.m.

Zenguy.6421:

John,

Is the following a reasonable summary of the key factors driving MMO economies and their impacts on in-game markets/prices?
If not, what’s incorrect or missing? (just the key stuff)
(I know real world economies experience many of these factors. The question is whether these are the key ones for MMO economies.)

In MMOs, player rewards create ever increasing supplies of in-game currency.

• MMOs offset this by include in-game currency sinks (e.g. the 15% TP trading tax).
• Players’ expectations that they will get richer the longer they play means:
  • Currency sinks are always set at levels lower than the overall currency supply.
• The currency surplus resulting form this imbalance causes inflation.

IN MMOs, player rewards and crafting systems create ever increasing supply of in-game items.

• MMOs offset this by:
  • Limiting supply of higher value items (e.g. low drop rates for precursors)
  • Making items have limited use (e.g. account/soul bound on equip)
  • Providing mechanisms to remove items from the game (e.g. salvaging items for magic find)
• Player expectations that they will get progressively better gear the longer they play means:
  • Increasing demand for more powerful items
  • Overall, demand for lower level items is significantly lower than for end-game items
  • Mechanisms for removing items are set lower than overall item supply
• Surplus items collapse in value
• Supply constrained items increase in value

Where MMOs include open market systems, the combination of these two aspects results in:

• Ongoing inflation caused by increasing currency supply
• Prices for desirable scarce items increase far faster than overall inflation
• Prices for surplus items collapse
  • (the extent of this may be concealed by the overall inflation of prices)

There’s a lot here, but I want to present something that may make you think slightly differently about your questions. Are economies static? MMO Economies move at hyperspeed and games change very quickly. This is especially true in Guild Wars 2 when we constantly update the game adding new content and changing the game. For many of these questions there isn’t a single answer, but we move in cycles; we increase and decrease, we update and change, we add volatility and stability sometimes both. The change makes the market more interesting, more fun and allows us to keep the economy balanced.

If you like I can still answer those questions in general about working in MMO economies, or I can wait to see if you’d like to rethink the questions at all for GW2 specifically.

#17 - July 18, 2014, 12:39 p.m.

LordByron.8369:

Question:
Do you care/will do something about the fact game economy is really perceived as broken?
Or if you instead think its well perceived, why don’t you look at every single thread that had the luck to remain for few hours in general section?

There were many threads about how important economy perception is in a videogame.

If by “really perceived” you mean that you mistakenly perceive a fantastic and functioning system as broken, then no… I don’t care.

#20 - July 18, 2014, 1:36 p.m.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

John Smith.4610:

LordByron.8369:

Question:
Do you care/will do something about the fact game economy is really perceived as broken?
Or if you instead think its well perceived, why don’t you look at every single thread that had the luck to remain for few hours in general section?

There were many threads about how important economy perception is in a videogame.

If by “really perceived” you mean that you mistakenly perceive a fantastic and functioning system as broken, then no… I don’t care.

Is there ever a situation where the economy might be changed (for the worse) due to the majority perceiving a problem and thus hurting Anets bottom line?

Has there been any pressure for this to happen?

Also when will we see new legendary weapons/trinkets

When we first released we made a couple of mistakes with some low level crafting components and they were worthless way over-supplied. This made new players feel like gathering and crafting materials were worthless and changed their play patterns. We didn’t feel that was positive; I wouldn’t say it necessarily it affected our bottom line DIRECTLY, but issues like that can effect retention and that affects our bottom line.