Respectfully, I'm not sure I fully understand the reply? Are you suggesting that reducing the resale value in the form of platinum of the Krono, will make it more attractive to the buyer looking to sell the Krono because more people with less coin will be able to afford it? Krono is at a fixed cost to the buyer spending real life money. If their buying it with the intention of reselling it for gaining legitimate platinum in the game, lowering that resale value will not make it more attractive. If Daybreak puts everything within reach of the average player by restricting the resale value of Krono and artificially reducing the costs of items that players sell on the broker (components and SLR); then why buy Krono for sale on the broker? Case in point: How many players, especially those with long standing accounts that have full potions and veteran experience bonuses do you feel are buying experience potions from the store? I know I have not bought for years now since I can easily level up any character quickly, especially with my play style and the use of potions. Make something easy to obtain and the need for outside assistance is diminished, if not removed. You're looking for a solution: That benefits DBG because they get the set fee(s) for the Krono. A solution that benefits the F2P crowd that is looking to not spend money on the Krono and wants it affordable to them regardless of their in game income. A solution that rides totally on the back of the person spending the real life money on Krono to benefit their game. A solution that cuts the platinum value of the components and SLR items that other players are earning putting the time in to obtain in the game. A solution that prevents a re-seller (in game) that sees a bargain offered by one player, who then "invests" in that item to resell at current market value. I know when I sell on the broker and see a drastic undercut to the current value, I swipe it up in order to make a profit on both their wares and mine. It's nothing new in the game when playing the market. It's a game, not real life and players here want to be the king of the mountain in many cases. Some have lofty goals of being able to play well enough to earn the coin to be in that top percentage that has purchasing power in the game or simply be able to use their time to pay for their subscription.
Honestly I don't even know why are we having this conversation. People who buy Krono for real money have the right to sell it for whatever they feel. Prices rise but we also make more plats that we used to, so this even things out. Ohh how rich I felt when I managed to save 500p in early RoK days
Griff, my only point all along has been that I honestly believe that SoE was hoping to generate MORE income by selling Krono, and making it available to players who did not already have subs (via players who sold it rather than speculating the market). Having them priced out of range of most players just doesn't help the bottom line, you of all people should understand that. Krono have turned into what appears to be an addictive gambling game of a small group buying them from each other and raising the price with each cycle. If the danged things don't get USED no one will be buying more for $$, because the supply ingame won't drop. OK a few players probably will just to toss another bone into that interesting swirl of greed, but it's going to implode like the housing debt bubble did in the US. It isn't sustainable. Edit: "It's a game, not real life". When you start mixing RL$$ being sold on the broker it gets a bit fuzzy on where that line is. Never forget that.
They lose nothing by having it priced out of range in the game for a percentage of players. Since the actual real money is gained selling it to the player who buy it speculating on a large gain. They only lose if they regulate the Krono for Coin transactions making it unattractive to the buyer of Krono from DBG. Players can only price things as high as the market will support. I see things auctioned in the game all the time that I can't possibly afford, yet someone else can. The concept of Krono is simple: The company observed that some players have more money than ability/time and were willing to go to 3rd party sites risking all to gain in game coin. They want a piece of that. Rather than sell coin and be told that's "Play to Win"; allow players to buy an item that they can sell in game to someone who has the coin and wants the Krono. Smart players don't wish to visit 3rd party RMT sites for coin. Not only does it hurt the game, it risks their account as well as financial integrity (ripped off). If they have enough real life money to be tempted by a 3rd party site selling coin, then they might have enough money to purchase Krono to legitimately sell for coin. It's a match up! Players with excess in game coin would like someone else, with excess real life cash to pay for their subscription, in return for some platinum. Company gets a Krono subscription. Player 1 gets in game subscription for their efforts in the game. Player 2 gets platinum generated by a player in the game legitimately for the Krono sale. It's that simple, really. It was not designed for a free way for everyone to play the game. It was designed to be attractive to a select group of players with the platinum/cash to barter a deal sanctioned by the company. The housing crisis was facilitated by people being granted purchasing power for things that they could not afford that the financial institutions knew would result in bad loans in many cases. It's exactly what you are suggesting here. Make the Krono available to everyone by controlling the price and those who can afford to buy the Krono for resale from DBG will have no incentive to do so. The price will drop, the Krono will be bought up, the sales will stop, the supply will dry up.
Now I'm feeling like Meatloaf's backup singer STOP RIGHT THERE. DBG has no control over the price, agreed, they can watch it spin out of control yes, but you can bet they are losing income while it does so. Krono was a gamble, if it's not making them much profit then they may take it away as too costly to support. Think of the slashed customer service department and look at Daybreak's web site. They have hedged their bets...krono isn't a permanent feature of the game yet. Same lingo as the day it was introduced: 11. Is this a permanent part of the game? Not yet. Initially, we will release Krono as a trial program. We will watch to see how they are embraced and used. If the trial is successful, we will continue the program and roll them out to new games. I'm a bit afraid that we'll get a nice thing taken away again...just because we couldn't play nice with it. Edit: The US housing crisis was more a case of the banks convincing people who didn't know any better to take loans that they could not support. Well that's what I read anyway...Don't live there, so no first hand experience, and yeah reading doesn't always fill in the details well.
Wow, I thought I'd seen people blame everybody they can possibly think of (other than the simple fact that demand has stayed the same or gone up while supply hasn't) for the rise in Krono pricing, but now to say DBG is buying the Kronos to drive the price up, wow. The only thing crazier than this idea is the guy who thinks that 'Maybe it's Krono dupers' - at least your idea is just crazy but technically logically, the 'maybe it's krono dupers' guy seemed to completely not understand how things work (eg if you could dupe Kronos that would be an increase in supply and the price would drop like a rock, if you got something for free you're not going to let somebody else undercut you and take a sale you might have had). If they wanted to goose Krono sales it'd be far easier to actually program up a way to convert Krono's into Daybreak Cash than it would be to program up a way to have Kronos randomly get 'bought' in a way that players wouldn't figure out the pattern.
Actually Charlice has been implying that a lot. Mostly in the plat spammer threads...she really really hates the plat spammers, and apparently the only reason for them not having been squished yet is they're in kahooots with DBG.
Just to toss in the approach a competitor to Daybreak has taken with an item equivalent to krono, here a link: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/18141101/introducing-the-wow-token-3-2-2015 Note the "Players will be able to purchase a WoW Token through the in-game Shop for real money, and then sell it on the Auction House for gold at the current market price. When a player buys a WoW Token from the Auction House for gold, the Token becomes Soulbound, and the player can then redeem it for 30 days of game time." part. They nipped the flipping before it even had a chance to get started. Edit: Wonder if that was because they had seen the results in other games? Will never know I suppose.
From a pure financial point of view this would be a solid move by DBG if it were true, but then we know the new owners aren't just about viewing things from that aspect right?
<cough> Um you do know that DBG staff is so well versed in subterfuge and illegalities like that that Smed would have probably already have proudly twitted the association by now?
After reading over that page, I had a great laugh, at how bad it is. People who buy WoW tokens (with real $$$) do not get to choose how much it lists for on the Auction House. They get told how much they will get, when ever the token happens to sell, that they can go and eat a bag of <something unpleasant> if they don't like it, and there is no refunds on token purchases. <sarcasm> Talk about impressive incentive for people to buy WoW tokens from the Blizzard RMT_Store!!! </sarcasm>. Blizzard may get away with such a draconian communist style approach to WoW Tokens because that game actually gets a meaningful supply of new players. But dayum, talk about turkey slapping the very notion of free trade...
They get to choose the upper end of the price, not the lower...consumers choose the upper, much like here. The key is...once traded it CANNOT BE FLIPPED FOR PROFIT. Edit: I must admit I was disappointed by that, thought I could snag a couple of them and toss them to my 2 dormant WoW accounts and pull a few hundred gold off them. Nope. Actually maybe, haven't even logged in since that went live so maybe possibly it's common to a battle.net account? Have to develop enough interest to check some time.
Q: How much gold will I receive when I sell a WoW Token? A: The gold value of a Token will be determined dynamically based on supply and demand. When you put a Token up for sale, you’ll be quoted the amount of gold you’ll receive upon a successful sale. If you then decide to place the Token up for sale, that amount is locked in, and the gold will be sent to your mailbox after another player purchases your Token. That Q&A referenced no choice on part of the person who buys the token from the Blizzard store. It said they are quoted an amount, not a range, and it made no mention of choosing a price from a range. Additionally, the other Q&As I read over made the option of a range selection seem illogical. So unless you can refer me to a part that specifies the person who buys the token from the Blizzard store gets more choice beyond "Accept this value or go eat glue", my point stands.
As I said, I haven't logged in to check but I bet you that what you just quoted knowing the players in WoW....is not exactly descriptive of what is happening. Dang, now you're making me want to download the game again just to go check what IS going on. Fine ambassador of EQ2 YOU are...oh wait... Edit: I'll let you know what I find if I don't get sucked back in there...again.
I do own one of these, too: http://www.wowhead.com/news=245776/10th-anniversary-gift-orc-statue-photographs-eligibility-criteria Not kidding, that game is just as good as this one, I kinda alternate between. Its' chat channels are WAY more toxic though. Perspective is valuable. Seeing what has been done...doesn't mean it can be done. Ideas are never wasted, though.
People are acting like mudflation is a new thing. It's not. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudflation) However, what is new, is that the plat spammers are able to spam all day uncensored now and it seemed to start when DBG took over. The source of your problem is not legit players reselling/merchanting; It's the spammers + dupers. Quit pointing the sword at your fellow legit players being merchants and point it at the actual cheaters...
At the end of the day though - you're paying real money for a Krono or WoW token. You're then selling it because you want pp/gold. If one company is telling you 'you can price it as high as you want' and the other is saying 'we have price caps, you can't go above this amount' which one are you more likely to buy things in? Are you going to buy in the one that gives you more for your money, or the one that gives you less for your money? Then, when less people buy them on WoW you're either going to have to have Blizzard start selling them directly for currency (increase supply, but no income for Blizzard that way), raise the price cap constantly to entice more people to buy them in order to sell (in which case you're right back to this thread where people would complain the cap went up, except in this case they'd REALLY blame Blizzard when Blizzard officially raises the cap constantly) - if you did neither you'd end up with a market that has a price cap, but almost no tokens up for sale. Sure, you happen to see one up and you happen to be the lucky one to see it first you get a great deal, but 99% of the time you might search and see 0 for sale (since they would sell out the moment they got put up if the cap is low and not constantly increasing at the same rate as the monetary supply.)
On the subject of krono cost, according to the ****ing spam on AB, kronos now cost 14$. I wonder what happens when it eventually costs more to buy it from them than to buy it from Daybreak P.S. It's not fair that we can only /report them every 5 minutes, when the spam sometimes comes faster than that. Fortunately we can "report spam" as often as we want, apparently.
