Gold Worth versus Item Rarity - An Inflation Discussion.

[Bigby_Wolfson]

I see a lot of threads lately droning on about how gold is worthless now in comparison to high price items.
But people are failing to see that there are two sides to the proverbial coin.
On one side you have the amount of gold in the system.
On the other you have the drop rate of rare items.
Now I would like us all to look back, way back, all the way back to 2009.
In 2009 we had the first ever SUPER PRIZE!
And with it came 2 Exclusive Rare Items.

Now while these two items have incredibly different prices, they had one thing in common.
Their drop rate.
Don't believe me? Well let me show you a thing.

(The image links to the journal entry in question.)
But what does this show us?
Simple. While a lot, and I mean A LOT, or users want to bash the staff for bringing all that gold into the Gaian Economy the fact is we as the userbase decide what we want to charge and spend on items.

So Discuss:
Which is worse? Gold's worth decreasing or User's Artificially inflating items?
Do you ever buy the last of a listed item just to relist at a higher price?
Do you think they should increase the tax on the marketplace to cut inflation?
Do you sell directly to keep your gold for yourself?

[satansrose]

Which is worse? Gold's worth decreasing or User's Artificially inflating items? AI'ing.
Do you ever buy the last of a listed item just to relist at a higher price? Nope, never had enough gold for that.
Do you think they should increase the tax on the marketplace to cut inflation? No way, if they did I'd just switch to exchange. I'm not impatient.
Do you sell directly to keep your gold for yourself? Yes.

[Tigrosharu]

Which is worse? Gold's worth decreasing or User's Artificially inflating items?
Both combined are pretty damn horrible, with gold worth decreasing and users inflating prices due to demand on certain items some of my wishlist items may be eternally out of reach.
On the upside, most of the items on it are falling like a rock due to people wanting more and more "new wings and new white frilly items".
My point is combined they make a pretty scary combination.
Do you ever buy the last of a listed item just to relist at a higher price? No, I buy items because I want them.
Do you think they should increase the tax on the marketplace to cut inflation?
Nope, it will just increase the divide between rich and poor on Gaia; just like real life.
Do you sell directly to keep your gold for yourself?
I have no gold, I have a shopping problem.

[hornworts]

Just because users control prices doesn't mean that gold is still becoming worthless and thus driving up said prices. Granted, users are buying said gold to raise said prices, but the original source is still Gaia selling the gold. So, I guess gold's worth decreasing, since without gold period it's pretty much p2p.

They better do something to cut inflation, and they better make it something that will keep people interested. 50k gold shop doesn't cut it.

Also, she used a possessive apostrophe in a plural not indicating possession in that journal entry. INFURIATING

[Soulfulness]

uh, well, I bought the last listing of my ivory flourish wings yesterday before a couple other users listed. I never re-listed though.

Honestly? I feel as if a lot of users don't care for any possible 'profit', because Flynn's bodily parts dashed any hopes of being able to somewhat predict the MP and it's trends (in my case, anyways). I think we should all just forget about it and wait until their supposed gold sink makes its appearance and then wonder what the hell we're gonna do if it doesn't work.

[Einrick]

I take it none of you were around in 2004 with the whole Pengy/Seal Slippers thing? gonk

Well, to get everyone up to date, March 2004 saw a donation item (Monthly Collectable now) with Fuzzy Penguin Slippers and Baby Seal Slippers. These were ridiculously popular, and pretty much everyone wanted them. Everyone. There were reports of people giving hundreds of dollars to Gaia for massive numbers of donation letters, putting them on the marketplace... and there still being a rabid demand, either from hoarders buying them all up or from hundreds of members getting theirs but still more people wanting them.

By contrast, the next two months' donation items were the Hammi/Bammi Hat and Bear/Monkey Pajamas - very unpopular items that didn't retain much worth.

So yes, this is just history repeating itself. Rarity plays a big role in pricing, making it much harder to find an item and much easier for a person to attempt to AI it. (Hunting down SDPlus Barrett has shown me just how annoying.) However, user interest in an item plays in how much it is actually bought. There are tons of items throughout the marketplace which are great, but don't cost much simply because most people aren't interested in them. [See: nearly anything green.]

[Slick Southpaw]

Einrick

However, user interest in an item plays in how much it is actually bought. There are tons of items throughout the marketplace which are great, but don't cost much simply because most people aren't interested in them. [See: nearly anything green.]

Cannot agree enough with this! There's a reason why my worth went up only marginally. emotion_dealwithit

This also explains why there's so many re-releases of kawaii femme items. Demand warrants it. emo