Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

you really have to rethink how this works , if you find that its possible to undercut arenanet!

How so?

 how has the gem the gold sellers try to undercut arenanet with got into the the game?  Someone and it doesn't matter who, has bought gems in first place for the regular price from the cash shop- There doesn't exist a gem in the game that is not bought for the regular money first. its called monopoly.

How do you even think of undercutting the regular price in that situation.

What gold sellers do to change their gold into money can never influence how gems are bought from the cash shop. The only thing affected is the ratio between gold and gems.

 

Au contraire...

Say we have three people in our scenario:

John, Mary, and Zhang-wei

John decides that he wants a sword on the AH, but doesn't have enough gold so he buys 10 gems for $10.00 and puts them on the market to sell for 100 gold.

Now, Zhang-wei can make $1 in four hours of labor at his job in China.  But it only takes him 3 hours of grinding to get 100 gold.  So Zhang-wei decides to buy John's 10 gems for 100 gold.  He then decides to put these gems up for sale on a third party site for $7.50, which is MUCH more profitable to him than his old job was.

Finally, we have Mary.  Mary wants to buy some gems so she can get a new fancy dress in the CS.  She's about to buy them from ANet when she sees Zhang-Wei's ad selling them for cheaper, so she decides to buy them from him instead.

You see in this scenario, Mary WOULD HAVE bought gems from ANet if Zhang-Wei wasn't selling them...but since he was selling them she bought them from him instead.

Yet everyone wins.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by Distaste

There will definitely be gold/gem sellers because they exist in every MMO. The only bonus here is that at the very least ArenaNet is getting a piece of the action, which means further game development. It will of course be harder for them in GW2 though as people can just buy gems and therefore gold directly from ArenaNet without any shady deals. That means the gold sellers would need to undercut ArenaNet and even then the risk of buying off of them isn't worth the few dollars savings.

Actually if a gold farmer buys gems with gold and then sells them second-hand, they are literally taking money out of ANet's pocket.

Personally, I would just buy gems from ANet if I were going to buy them.  But I can see plenty of folks wanting to save a few bucks by going to a "gem seller."

I guess the main point of this argument is that if ANet thinks this whole gem/gold trading CS thing is going to stop gold sellers...then they are wrong.  They will still be there, and probably even in more force because now they can directly save you money on cash shop items.

If a gold farmer buys gems, they paid RL cash to Arena.NET (they get the profit).  Now if they sell them second hand (Im assuming on a web site or something?) The person buying them would lose out because they would essentially be paying RL Money for GEMS - profit goes to the gold seller.  But I dont think this is a possibility. How do you get the GEMS back in the system without being flagged/hacked/etc?

If the Gold seller sells the GEMS back in the game, they can only get gold from WITHIN the system, thus no inflation (outside of what A.Net puts in).

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

you really have to rethink how this works , if you find that its possible to undercut arenanet!

How so?

 how has the gem the gold sellers try to undercut arenanet with got into the the game?  Someone and it doesn't matter who, has bought gems in first place for the regular price from the cash shop- There doesn't exist a gem in the game that is not bought for the regular money first. its called monopoly.

How do you even think of undercutting the regular price in that situation.

What gold sellers do to change their gold into money can never influence how gems are bought from the cash shop. The only thing affected is the ratio between gold and gems.

 

Au contraire...

Say we have three people in our scenario:

John, Mary, and Zhang-wei

John decides that he wants a sword on the AH, but doesn't have enough gold so he buys 10 gems for $10.00 and puts them on the market to sell for 100 gold.

Now, Zhang-wei can make $1 in four hours of labor at his job in China.  But it only takes him 3 hours of grinding to get 100 gold.  So Zhang-wei decides to buy John's 10 gems for 100 gold.  He then decides to put these gems up for sale on a third party site for $7.50, which is MUCH more profitable to him than his old job was.

Finally, we have Mary.  Mary wants to buy some gems so she can get a new fancy dress in the CS.  She's about to buy them from ANet when she sees Zhang-Wei's ad selling them for cheaper, so she decides to buy them from him instead.

You see in this scenario, Mary WOULD HAVE bought gems from ANet if Zhang-Wei wasn't selling them...but since he was selling them she bought them from him instead.

And HOW does that affeckt ArenaNet at all ?

Your exsample assumes that there would somehow be a net sale of 20 gems, when there is only a Need (mary) of 10 gems! You can't invent a need of more gems and argue that it would sell more gems.

Mary doesn't cheat ArenaNet for money in this situation because the gems she buys from the gold seller is already paid for in the cashshop!

It doesn't matter who buys the 10 gems from the cashshop - AreanNet gets the money.

Undercutting doesn't work in a monopoly!

I agree: why is this scenario a problem? Ultimately, you have to buy ArenaNet's game to do any of the above: that's one for ArenaNet. John gets the gold wants, so he walks away happy. One to hin. Zhang-wei is released from his scrummy job and gets his cash (not sure it's that easy in real life). Point to him. And Mary gets Gems, with which she can buy some cool microtransaction which will make her outfit pink with rainbows around it. Point to her.

It's a solid draw. What's the commotion?

Anyone remember international districts or the river of monk solo farm bots run by the RMT in Guild Wars 1? Literally a river of bots running out the gate at places like Bergan hotsprings or riverside. Anyone with brain could have identified and dealt with it. It was even posted on the forums. They managed to ban them once, but they came back shortly after. They cannot do anything about the bots because they are aren't trying. Just like Brian Knox didn't give a shit in Aion and decided to put a system similar to gems in Tera.

Down with cash shop in a buy to play game.

Originally posted by Zillen

I agree: why is this scenario a problem? Ultimately, you have to buy ArenaNet's game to do any of the above: that's one for ArenaNet. John gets the gold wants, so he walks away happy. One to hin. Zhang-wei is released from his scrummy job and gets his cash (not sure it's that easy in real life). Point to him. And Mary gets Gems, with which she can buy some cool microtransaction which will make her outfit pink with rainbows around it. Point to her.

It's a solid draw. What's the commotion?

 And ArenaNet gets the money from the gems bought in the cashshop, becuase that the only way gems enter the game! How they are transactioned around between players in straight or dodgy ways, does NOT influence the original purchace.

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

you really have to rethink how this works , if you find that its possible to undercut arenanet!

How so?

 how has the gem the gold sellers try to undercut arenanet with got into the the game?  Someone and it doesn't matter who, has bought gems in first place for the regular price from the cash shop- There doesn't exist a gem in the game that is not bought for the regular money first. its called monopoly.

How do you even think of undercutting the regular price in that situation.

What gold sellers do to change their gold into money can never influence how gems are bought from the cash shop. The only thing affected is the ratio between gold and gems.

 

Au contraire...

Say we have three people in our scenario:

John, Mary, and Zhang-wei

John decides that he wants a sword on the AH, but doesn't have enough gold so he buys 10 gems for $10.00 and puts them on the market to sell for 100 gold.

Now, Zhang-wei can make $1 in four hours of labor at his job in China.  But it only takes him 3 hours of grinding to get 100 gold.  So Zhang-wei decides to buy John's 10 gems for 100 gold.  He then decides to put these gems up for sale on a third party site for $7.50, which is MUCH more profitable to him than his old job was.

Finally, we have Mary.  Mary wants to buy some gems so she can get a new fancy dress in the CS.  She's about to buy them from ANet when she sees Zhang-Wei's ad selling them for cheaper, so she decides to buy them from him instead.

You see in this scenario, Mary WOULD HAVE bought gems from ANet if Zhang-Wei wasn't selling them...but since he was selling them she bought them from him instead.

And HOW does that affeckt ArenaNet at all ?

Your exsample assumes that there would somehow be a net sale of 20 gems, when there is only a Need (mary) of 10 gems! You can't invent a need of more gems and argue that it would sell more gems.

Mary doesn't cheat ArenaNet for money in this situation because the gems she buys from the gold seller is already paid for in the cashshop!

It doesn't matter who buys the 10 gems from the cashshop - AreanNet gets the money.

Undercutting doesn't work in a monopoly!

 

 

you just forgot something, no one should care if anet will make money or not if not anet or a employe from it, we as consumers shuld worry on not be ripped off, and that should be the base for all of players, I really don't know why gamers need to be diferent like this.

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Originally posted by Betakodo
Anyone remember international districts or the river of monk solo farm bots run by the RMT in Guild Wars 1? Literally a river of bots running out the gate at places like Bergan hotsprings or riverside. Anyone with brain could have identified and dealt with it. It was even posted on the forums. They managed to ban them once, but they came back shortly after. They cannot do anything about the bots because they are aren't trying. Just like Brian Knox didn't give a shit in Aion and decided to put a system similar to gems in Tera.
Down with cash shop in a buy to play game.

---

Way too tunnel-visioned in your view dude. Bots won't be used if they're system is effective. If player's can simply trade forms of currency, it will drastically reduce the need on many servers. If on some servers the economy forces players to search for cheaper alternatives, then they MIGHT go to a gold farmer. Or they might just buy them from ArenaNet directly, at a price completely separate from the server economic settings.

And if players complain about the bots, I'm pretty sure that ArenaNet will look into the situation. Their microtransactions are the biggest potential source of customer controversy in their game, and THEY KNOW IT. If customers start calling it broken, they will rush to patch it up, before the situation gets worse.

/common sense

gold farmers are gonna be a huge issue in this game. This has been tried in rom and other games and gold farmers and the like become an issue as do botters. 

maybe a net can change that but so far no other game company has been able to, and in a non sub, buy to play game with a cash shop , u really are gonna have issues controlling it.

I hope gw 2 is what every gw 2 fan wants it to be, i really do, it looks like a fun game to me , i hope to try it in beta , but if not ill probably have my gf get it for my birthday, 

its just the box im out if i dont like it no biggie, Taht said the cash shop may become a huge issue with all the fanboi's and such, 

Cause from what ive seen gw 2 cash shop looks alot like runes of magic's

You also have to consider another thing, in normal games there is no real definition of intellectual property, or better, its not illegal to sell gold, they just forbid it, but they can't outright sue a company or even stop it happening.

Selling gems is messing with arena net business directly, and that can have real world serious repercussions

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

you really have to rethink how this works , if you find that its possible to undercut arenanet!

How so?

 how has the gem the gold sellers try to undercut arenanet with got into the the game?  Someone and it doesn't matter who, has bought gems in first place for the regular price from the cash shop- There doesn't exist a gem in the game that is not bought for the regular money first. its called monopoly.

How do you even think of undercutting the regular price in that situation.

What gold sellers do to change their gold into money can never influence how gems are bought from the cash shop. The only thing affected is the ratio between gold and gems.

 

Au contraire...

Say we have three people in our scenario:

John, Mary, and Zhang-wei

John decides that he wants a sword on the AH, but doesn't have enough gold so he buys 10 gems for $10.00 and puts them on the market to sell for 100 gold.

Now, Zhang-wei can make $1 in four hours of labor at his job in China.  But it only takes him 3 hours of grinding to get 100 gold.  So Zhang-wei decides to buy John's 10 gems for 100 gold.  He then decides to put these gems up for sale on a third party site for $7.50, which is MUCH more profitable to him than his old job was.

Finally, we have Mary.  Mary wants to buy some gems so she can get a new fancy dress in the CS.  She's about to buy them from ANet when she sees Zhang-Wei's ad selling them for cheaper, so she decides to buy them from him instead.

You see in this scenario, Mary WOULD HAVE bought gems from ANet if Zhang-Wei wasn't selling them...but since he was selling them she bought them from him instead.

Thing is, from Anet's point of view, it's still the same.

Assuming what I wrote on my previous post isn't how it will be and it's possible to do this, John sold the gems that Zhang-wei bought, Anet sold 10 gems. Mary is buys the gems from Zhang-Wei instead of from Anet, Anet still has sold 10 gems. However, that means that there are 10 gems less on the AH that were bought with gold. Assuming both the game and the gem trading are a huge success, and every gem is sold in the AH quickly, that means there's a Fred somewhere that wanted to buy 10 gems off the AH, but since Zhang-Wei bought them instead and sold them to Mary, he'll have no choice but to buy them from Anet, Anet sold 10 gems more. The only real way Anet loses in the end is if the gem market is a failure and people don't buy them, since every single gem sold them (regardless if it's John, Mary, Zhang-Wei or Fred buys or sells them), originally someone had to buy them from Anet.

So, the way I see it could also happen.

Scenario A: John buys 10 gems, sells them to buy sword, Mary buys 10 gems, uses them in fancy dress: total gems sold by Anet: 20.

Scenario B: John buys 10 gems and sells them to buy sword, Zhang-Wei buys them, Mary buys the gems from Zhang-Wei for real money, Fred wants to buy 10 gems but since Zhang-Wei had already bought them he has no option but to buy 10 gems from Anet: total gems sold by Anet: 20.

Goes the same way (again, depending on wether what I wrote earlier isn't how it'll be and direct gem trading is possible) as you scale it up. Any gem Zhang-Wei and his friends are selling for a discount means that someone somewhere bought the gems from Anet full price.

Gold can be farmed, gems can't, so while there will be gold farming, probably gold farming bots, and anti gold farming measures as there are in every single other MMO out there, gems can't be farmed, the only way you could increase their supply is if the economy in the world were to turn around really good giving lots of people extra spending money.

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Originally posted by L0C0Man

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Originally posted by Creslin321

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Originally posted by jondifool

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Originally posted by Creslin321

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Originally posted by jondifool

you really have to rethink how this works , if you find that its possible to undercut arenanet!

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How so?

---

 how has the gem the gold sellers try to undercut arenanet with got into the the game?  Someone and it doesn't matter who, has bought gems in first place for the regular price from the cash shop- There doesn't exist a gem in the game that is not bought for the regular money first. its called monopoly.
How do you even think of undercutting the regular price in that situation.
What gold sellers do to change their gold into money can never influence how gems are bought from the cash shop. The only thing affected is the ratio between gold and gems.
 

---

Au contraire...
Say we have three people in our scenario:
John, Mary, and Zhang-wei
John decides that he wants a sword on the AH, but doesn't have enough gold so he buys 10 gems for $10.00 and puts them on the market to sell for 100 gold.
Now, Zhang-wei can make $1 in four hours of labor at his job in China.  But it only takes him 3 hours of grinding to get 100 gold.  So Zhang-wei decides to buy John's 10 gems for 100 gold.  He then decides to put these gems up for sale on a third party site for $7.50, which is MUCH more profitable to him than his old job was.
Finally, we have Mary.  Mary wants to buy some gems so she can get a new fancy dress in the CS.  She's about to buy them from ANet when she sees Zhang-Wei's ad selling them for cheaper, so she decides to buy them from him instead.
You see in this scenario, Mary WOULD HAVE bought gems from ANet if Zhang-Wei wasn't selling them...but since he was selling them she bought them from him instead.

---

Thing is, from Anet's point of view, it's still the same.
Assuming what I wrote on my previous post isn't how it will be and it's possible to do this, John sold the gems that Zhang-wei bought, Anet sold 10 gems. Mary is buys the gems from Zhang-Wei instead of from Anet, Anet still has sold 10 gems. However, that means that there are 10 gems less on the AH that were bought with gold. Assuming both the game and the gem trading are a huge success, and every gem is sold in the AH quickly, that means there's a Fred somewhere that wanted to buy 10 gems off the AH, but since Zhang-Wei bought them instead and sold them to Mary, he'll have no choice but to buy them from Anet, Anet sold 10 gems more. The only real way Anet loses in the end is if the gem market is a failure and people don't buy them, since every single gem sold them (regardless if it's John, Mary, Zhang-Wei or Fred buys or sells them), originally someone had to buy them from Anet.
So, the way I see it could also happen.
Scenario A: John buys 10 gems, sells them to buy sword, Mary buys 10 gems, uses them in fancy dress: total gems sold by Anet: 20.
Scenario B: John buys 10 gems and sells them to buy sword, Zhang-Wei buys them, Mary buys the gems from Zhang-Wei for real money, Fred wants to buy 10 gems but since Zhang-Wei had already bought them he has no option but to buy 10 gems from Anet: total gems sold by Anet: 20.
Goes the same way (again, depending on wether what I wrote earlier isn't how it'll be and direct gem trading is possible) as you scale it up. Any gem Zhang-Wei and his friends are selling for a discount means that someone somewhere bought the gems from Anet full price.
Gold can be farmed, gems can't, so while there will be gold farming, probably gold farming bots, and anti gold farming measures as there are in every single other MMO out there, gems can't be farmed, the only way you could increase their supply is if the economy in the world were to turn around really good giving lots of people extra spending money.

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-EDITED- Nvm

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by Zillen

I agree: why is this scenario a problem? Ultimately, you have to buy ArenaNet's game to do any of the above: that's one for ArenaNet. John gets the gold wants, so he walks away happy. One to hin. Zhang-wei is released from his scrummy job and gets his cash (not sure it's that easy in real life). Point to him. And Mary gets Gems, with which she can buy some cool microtransaction which will make her outfit pink with rainbows around it. Point to her.

It's a solid draw. What's the commotion?

 And ArenaNet gets the money from the gems bought in the cashshop, becuase that the only way gems enter the game! How they are transactioned around between players in straight or dodgy ways, does NOT influence the original purchace.

 

You're right that every single gem spent in the cash shop, ANet was paid for at some point.  And I think I was probably confused when I said that gold/gem sellers would hurt ANet with their activities, they probably won't.  But they WILL hurt the in-game economy and especially the gold/gem exchange rate.

This will happen because they will create an artificially high demand for gems, and pump the economy full of gold.  This will cause inflation to go really high and make it so normal players are hard pressed to buy gems with gold.  Heck, this may wind up being good for ANet in the end, because those players might just break down and buy gems with cash.  But I think it won't be good for the players.

Originally posted by alkarionlog

Originally posted by jondifool

And HOW does that affeckt ArenaNet at all ?

Your exsample assumes that there would somehow be a net sale of 20 gems, when there is only a Need (mary) of 10 gems! You can't invent a need of more gems and argue that it would sell more gems.

Mary doesn't cheat ArenaNet for money in this situation because the gems she buys from the gold seller is already paid for in the cashshop!

It doesn't matter who buys the 10 gems from the cashshop - AreanNet gets the money.

Undercutting doesn't work in a monopoly!

 

 

you just forgot something, no one should care if anet will make money or not if not anet or a employe from it, we as consumers shuld worry on not be ripped off, and that should be the base for all of players, I really don't know why gamers need to be diferent like this.

 hmm what does that have to do with this topic? this is a topic about if its possible to undercut ArenaNet

If gems only give you materialistic stuff that makes you LOOK better then no it will not be an issue. There is no gameplay advantage just because someone is wearing a nicer LOOKING skirt than you. If they selll armor,potions and weapons in the shop that give you an advantage over others then yes it is an issue.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by Zillen

I agree: why is this scenario a problem? Ultimately, you have to buy ArenaNet's game to do any of the above: that's one for ArenaNet. John gets the gold wants, so he walks away happy. One to hin. Zhang-wei is released from his scrummy job and gets his cash (not sure it's that easy in real life). Point to him. And Mary gets Gems, with which she can buy some cool microtransaction which will make her outfit pink with rainbows around it. Point to her.

It's a solid draw. What's the commotion?

 And ArenaNet gets the money from the gems bought in the cashshop, becuase that the only way gems enter the game! How they are transactioned around between players in straight or dodgy ways, does NOT influence the original purchace.

 

You're right that every single gem spent in the cash shop, ANet was paid for at some point.  And I think I was probably confused when I said that gold/gem sellers would hurt ANet with their activities, they probably won't.  But they WILL hurt the in-game economy and especially the gold/gem exchange rate.

This will happen because they will create an artificially high demand for gems, and pump the economy full of gold.  This will cause inflation to go really high and make it so normal players are hard pressed to buy gems with gold.  Heck, this may wind up being good for ANet in the end, because those players might just break down and buy gems with cash.  But I think it won't be good for the players.

It is good for the players.   The alternative is to offer vanity items that can ONLY be bought with cash from the cash shop, which is what GW1 had.   All the costumes they added later were cash shop only and could not be traded, and they looked way more awesome than the current gear in game.

At least with this method you could eventually get enough gold to buy a set of cash shop vanity items.   

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by Zillen

I agree: why is this scenario a problem? Ultimately, you have to buy ArenaNet's game to do any of the above: that's one for ArenaNet. John gets the gold wants, so he walks away happy. One to hin. Zhang-wei is released from his scrummy job and gets his cash (not sure it's that easy in real life). Point to him. And Mary gets Gems, with which she can buy some cool microtransaction which will make her outfit pink with rainbows around it. Point to her.

It's a solid draw. What's the commotion?

 And ArenaNet gets the money from the gems bought in the cashshop, becuase that the only way gems enter the game! How they are transactioned around between players in straight or dodgy ways, does NOT influence the original purchace.

 

You're right that every single gem spent in the cash shop, ANet was paid for at some point.  And I think I was probably confused when I said that gold/gem sellers would hurt ANet with their activities, they probably won't.  But they WILL hurt the in-game economy and especially the gold/gem exchange rate.

This will happen because they will create an artificially high demand for gems, and pump the economy full of gold.  This will cause inflation to go really high and make it so normal players are hard pressed to buy gems with gold.  Heck, this may wind up being good for ANet in the end, because those players might just break down and buy gems with cash.  But I think it won't be good for the players.

And that's part of Anet's job, I guess, we'll see how good they are at it. Every single MMO out there if it's succesful has to deal with botters, gold farmers, and gold trading, which needs to be countered by the company. Can't say how good Anet's team is at that (they have said in twitter that they'll have security measures in place to prevent it), we'll see as the game goes on. All I can say in their favor that I haven't seen a single gold spam in GW1, but it isn't as populated now as it was on its prime, so maybe that's why.

Here is a thought...

If you look at arenanet's current practices re: gold sellers and gold buyers... Gold sellers get banned... Gold buyers get cleaned out(ALL of their cash, anything they bought, etc). That is a large part of why the gold market is drying up in GW(and the gold selling sites have disclaimers saying that you might lose it all and they aren't responsible).

How many people would buy 10 gems for $7.50 at the risk of losing everything on their char, vs. 10 gems for $10 from the official store?

We should make that a poll, I would like to see the numbers....

Originally posted by EvilestTwin

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by Zillen

I agree: why is this scenario a problem? Ultimately, you have to buy ArenaNet's game to do any of the above: that's one for ArenaNet. John gets the gold wants, so he walks away happy. One to hin. Zhang-wei is released from his scrummy job and gets his cash (not sure it's that easy in real life). Point to him. And Mary gets Gems, with which she can buy some cool microtransaction which will make her outfit pink with rainbows around it. Point to her.

It's a solid draw. What's the commotion?

 And ArenaNet gets the money from the gems bought in the cashshop, becuase that the only way gems enter the game! How they are transactioned around between players in straight or dodgy ways, does NOT influence the original purchace.

 

You're right that every single gem spent in the cash shop, ANet was paid for at some point.  And I think I was probably confused when I said that gold/gem sellers would hurt ANet with their activities, they probably won't.  But they WILL hurt the in-game economy and especially the gold/gem exchange rate.

This will happen because they will create an artificially high demand for gems, and pump the economy full of gold.  This will cause inflation to go really high and make it so normal players are hard pressed to buy gems with gold.  Heck, this may wind up being good for ANet in the end, because those players might just break down and buy gems with cash.  But I think it won't be good for the players.

It is good for the players.   The alternative is to offer vanity items that can ONLY be bought with cash from the cash shop, which is what GW1 had.   All the costumes they added later were cash shop only and could not be traded, and they looked way more awesome than the current gear in game.

At least with this method you could eventually get enough gold to buy a set of cash shop vanity items.   

Right, that's fine.  It wouldn't be a problem at all if you could just buy CS items directly from ANet with gold.  But the fact that you trade gold for gems (real money) is where the problem starts.

What I'm saying is that gold farmers can try to make a profit by buying gems from players with gold, and then selling the gems back to players for less money than ANet is selling them.  While this doesn't really hurt ANet's CS business, it DOES create an artificially high supply of gold and high demand for gems...this will cause each gem to cost "more" gold.

And this may mean that players that actually want to buy gems with gold will have to grind more.

Originally posted by L0C0Man

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by jondifool

Originally posted by Zillen

I agree: why is this scenario a problem? Ultimately, you have to buy ArenaNet's game to do any of the above: that's one for ArenaNet. John gets the gold wants, so he walks away happy. One to hin. Zhang-wei is released from his scrummy job and gets his cash (not sure it's that easy in real life). Point to him. And Mary gets Gems, with which she can buy some cool microtransaction which will make her outfit pink with rainbows around it. Point to her.

It's a solid draw. What's the commotion?

 And ArenaNet gets the money from the gems bought in the cashshop, becuase that the only way gems enter the game! How they are transactioned around between players in straight or dodgy ways, does NOT influence the original purchace.

 

You're right that every single gem spent in the cash shop, ANet was paid for at some point.  And I think I was probably confused when I said that gold/gem sellers would hurt ANet with their activities, they probably won't.  But they WILL hurt the in-game economy and especially the gold/gem exchange rate.

This will happen because they will create an artificially high demand for gems, and pump the economy full of gold.  This will cause inflation to go really high and make it so normal players are hard pressed to buy gems with gold.  Heck, this may wind up being good for ANet in the end, because those players might just break down and buy gems with cash.  But I think it won't be good for the players.

And that's part of Anet's job, I guess, we'll see how good they are at it. Every single MMO out there if it's succesful has to deal with botters, gold farmers, and gold trading, which needs to be countered by the company. Can't say how good Anet's team is at that (they have said in twitter that they'll have security measures in place to prevent it), we'll see as the game goes on. All I can say in their favor that I haven't seen a single gold spam in GW1, but it isn't as populated now as it was on its prime, so maybe that's why.

No, its because they are positively draconian in dealing with it...

It is refreshing.