Inflation -(Argue Amongst Yourselves, Now. ;) )

[[RunningWolf]]

diet otaku

so, in short, yes, it is fair that new users will never get to own 2003 items and some 2004 items. that's what happens when you join a website that offers limited-edition items 2 years after it started. you miss out on some stuff. boo hoo hoo cry me a ******** river. i missed out on a halo, a panda hat, ports, and a devil tail. am i bawling my eyeballs out about how unfair it is? no. that's life. you win some, you lose some. it's just downright unreasonable to attempt to keep items that are LIMITED IN QUANTITY available indefinitely for all future users.

Not disputing whether people will get an item or not, I'm disputing the use of a system of sorts vs. the chaos of no system.

As for the part I just put in bold, I agree completely and always have. And yes I have seen people want them available to everyone and so forth. The one point about trade and limited quality that you don't seem to have gotten out in the way you have typed that is, if they want to sell it, it is available. If they want to sell it then they must be competitive. Being competitive means lowering prices, or at least if they do go up, do not be idiotically high. The vast majority of users cannot buy high prices, and if you want to sell something, and you are a smart trader you will appeal to the greatest sized market you can and still make some money. I for one would not waste 4 month's waiting for someone to buy something at an insane multi million price. Fortunately this is just a game, if it wasn't then the vast majority of those who had such prices would have gone bankrupt for not making sales.

However another fact to consider that is relevant to the game world, if your competitive and know what you are doing, you could buy selling items cheaper than the ridiculous make several times as much by the time someone sells something at that high price. Time is money.

[[RunningWolf]]

Maggie Hemingway

[RunningWolf]

The 'ideas' of mine have less to do with the staff then you'd imagine. Its process is automated after the initial creation of an item. Meaning, that the system situation is what determines the ultimate result. Yes your supply and demand plays a part there.

To try and get you to see where I'm coming from on this, I'll just point out that I am looking for a 'happy medium' a go between, between users and the system. Something that the users can have rain on; Just not get utterly silly about it.

You want an automated system?
One that automatically detects supply and demand, and adjusts the prices?

That sounds like a whole lot of work to end up with the same damned thing. Hell, it would probably automatically raise the prices of items that are rare but no one really wants, if the ratio is even part of the factors.

New letters would be worth nothing, leaving the people that "buy" them with no good reason to do so. A growing population with less people donating. Even if a lower limit is set, items that are selling like hotcakes would not be properly reflected, since there would be so many on the market.

Unless, of course, you mean for the activity of the items on the market to be the main factor, meaning the price of the new donation items would raise far more dramatically than it already does, and would take longer to die down after the initial rush. Of course, the value of the older items would plummet into nothing, since they aren't traded often, and the system wouldn't really encourage anyone to sell at all.

Automating a system that the admins have no real problems with as it is seems like a major waste of time. Time they could spend on planned features.

I mean there are many factors to an economy. Problem is only a few and often only one seems to be focused on. That will cause 'failure' of any economy. We need to look at more factors than just supply and demand, inflation, market activity and user feasibility. And instead of looking at them as individual economies, take a look at the truth, that they are all part of the one economy. No one of them causes the economy to run.

If you have an economy, then that is a feature. If it is a feature, by your words it deserves their time and effort to make it 'better'. I am not saying make it all nice and peachy, just make it more of a system and hopefully people will come to understand it better. There will still be some things out of reach. There will still be people complaining - but in theory there would be less, in the presence of a system there would hopefully be a 'sense of security'. Most are used to being in a world were no one person was the market. There are systems everywhere and you can ask yourself why is that?

If people really want to set there pipe dream high prices so badly then you can keep the Gaian 'underground'. Even pit the usage of the system versus, 'underground' against each other. It would be an interesting experiment.

[Jansports]

Wolf Lycanthe

Taeryyn

As much as inflation sucks, it is the fault of Gaian users. And in reality, the only reason prices are the way they are is because people have that much gold and will pay that much for their desired items.
Honestly, people b***h and complain, but then they sell their items at the going rate, and continue to buy overpriced items. confused
Sell your items for lower prices. Refuse to pay the high prices.

I really dislike the idea of the admins stepping in and setting a limit on how much you can sell your items for. I just do not think that's the right way to handle the situation.

I didn't say admins.

I said mods and users would work together to set the prices, and prevent insane inflation.

No one will willingly lower pricess, unless a sweeping change occurs to force them to.

In order for this to happen, someone needs to stand up and produce an idea.

Step one is complete.

Now?

It's up to the rest of you.

so you think everyone is entitlled to the same items? News Flash: There are nearing 2 million current users, and 63 Halos.

Inflation happens as more users become a part of gaia. They sure arent giving away more gold per post or poll so whats up wheres the money come from? well it all starts with non donators wanting donation items. Someone has lets say 10 sealed letters to sell. for 6K a pop and hes still kinda new so hes had his eyes on a Ninja Headband for a while now he can get it. He buys it for 43K Having to out bid other peoples offers to do so. Whod he buy from? Johnny Items Shop XXXX whatever. Johnnys been on for abouta year now. Hes a smart guy has items stored away as they go up in value and now hes makign sales for some profits. He sells some headbands Anklets pendants Slippers and even an Emo bag or wallet. Finally he has enough gold to fund his SCARF QUEST. There are even less scarves then 04 items so they are on the rise in price, over 500K he grudgingly buys one off the vend because finding a clear deal is tough in exchange these days. he Bought from Sally. Sally worked up to haveing a few scarves and wallets and such on her way for a Dtail. After 'whoreing' a Sash for a bit she has a respectable offer on a Tail. Clark has a tail he quested for it, emptying his ivnentory to do so. Hes not so happy so He decides to sell. Sally has an offer of a Sash some scarves and some Pure(!) What a deal! He takes the offer and runs. Saddly for Sally item prices fluxuate in the next few months and now Clark has enough to offer at Minis.

And so on and so forth. You get the point. its a hierarchy a food chain if you will of peopel spending money. Those who hold the rarer items are more on top. What about those people who worked for months on end for their Devil Tail, are you going to tell them all that means nothing and hand tails out to everyone who joins!?

Put simply There are more users then items meaning only a sportion of users will have said item, the highest bidder wins, thats how we works.

Any attempts by Admins Mods Users Ect. will only result in the greedy taking advantage.

If you are so Anti Inflation I'll pay you 500K for that Dtail you have on. Will you accept?

[Zahir]

Wolf Lycanthe

Taeryyn

As much as inflation sucks, it is the fault of Gaian users. And in reality, the only reason prices are the way they are is because people have that much gold and will pay that much for their desired items.
Honestly, people b***h and complain, but then they sell their items at the going rate, and continue to buy overpriced items. confused
Sell your items for lower prices. Refuse to pay the high prices.

I really dislike the idea of the admins stepping in and setting a limit on how much you can sell your items for. I just do not think that's the right way to handle the situation.

I didn't say admins.

I said mods and users would work together to set the prices, and prevent insane inflation.

Wait wait wait. Are these the same mods who you spend big chunks of this thread decrying as being power-hungry, arrogant, abusive and corrupt? surprised

[Gelmax]

Quote:

i wonder how many times it will have to be said? if a halo is selling for fifty million gold, that's because somewhere out there, someone is PAYING fifty million gold for it. if you say "okay, halos are worth a mil and that's it, no more," what happens when no one is willing to sell their halos for a mil anymore, and there are 50,000 people each willing to buy a halo for a mil? no supply, excessive demand, prices rise.

Halos aren't a good example for ANYTHING, simply because they no longer have any price. They're not sold staight out, they have no autobuys; Halos are sold only through auctions, because their staggering worth and rarity means no seller in their right mind would put a price on it.

Quote:

They are all part of the one community. It is all Gaia, you can have just a few vets or you can be the largest community around. Last I heard Gaia was going for the largest, not the most literate or conforming to like structure of the peoples attitudes.

Do you know what a community is? There is NO community whatsoever in the Marketplace because there is no COMMUNICATION whatsoever in the Marketplace. Likewise, both Exchange and Chatterbox are virtually devoid of community, simply because the number of buying/selling/spam threads VASTLY outnumber the established shop and chat threads, and also because idle chatter is not encouraged in the Exchange - people are expected to carry out business there. And, yes, Gaia is not really a single unified community, much like how a school is not a single unified community - there are dozens of groupings, whether coincidental, social, or hierarchal, which divide and seperate students and limit their communications. Likewise, for example, O/M Guilds is a small and tightly-knit community where everyone (who's been there long enough) knows everyone and certain groups of guilds stick to certain interactions, while Chatterbox is generally a confused and divided mess with communities built around specific threads or thread groups as opposed to a forum-wide fluent community.

Quote:

There are games that can tell you more about trade than you are making apparant. I'll give you an example from Ascaron, PatritionIII or Port Royal, a trading simulation set in medieval times on the basis of a gold economy complete with taxes, inflation and Supply and Demand.

Pig iron is highly valued, and beer is not. If you focus solely on supply and demand alone, then that would suggest that when a town ran out of beer - but had a very high load of pig iron; The beer would be more valuable, because there was no supply. However that is not so - no matter how little beer there was, even if never delivered in a long time, it's price would never exceed pig irons. Why, because pig iron always holds a higher value than beer, and is more valuable to a community.

The example you're citing is much different from Gaia for several reasons. Most of all, it's not free trade in the same way that Gaia has. Prices are regulated by various factors, including the fact that beer is quite simply not as useful as pig iron, and pig iron costs more for the store owner to import in the first place, and the fact that if people don't like the one store owner's prices they can get beer from somewhere else and sell it themselves. It needs to be understood that in many ways, Gaia does not behave like a real economy. In Gaia, every item is useless, the supply on limited items is usually controlled pretty well, there's no minimum OR maximum pricecaps, and people make enough money that they can usually continue to afford vastly increased prices even if they do whine more about it.

Quote:

If they want to sell it then they must be competitive.

Not if everyone else is smart/stupid enough (it varies) to raise their prices too. Besides, something a lot of people have missed here: many sales on Gaia are done through auctions, therefore if someone decides they want a lot of letters quick and have the gold to blow on making sure they win auctions quickly and decisively, prices will go up.

Quote:

I for one would not waste 4 month's waiting for someone to buy something at an insane multi million price.

Fortunately, many people already have millions upon millions of gold. Halo buyers, in fact, happen more often than Halo sellers.

Quote:

If you have an economy, then that is a feature. If it is a feature, by your words it deserves their time and effort to make it 'better'.

Gaia has PMs and allows RP request threads. Cybersex can be done over PMs and is often facilitated through RP requests (especially slave RPs), does this mean that cybersex is a Gaia feature and that Gaia should put in the time and effort to make it 'better'?

Zahir: 1
Wolf: minus ninety million

xd

Gaia is not a real economy; the circumstances which serve to keep prices within reasonable amounts in real life do NOT exist, and the 'systems' which serve to regulate SOME economies would be unfeasible or ridiculous when applies do Gaia.

Just as population growth, which is limited by living space and food supplies as well as natural happenings in real life, continues unstopped and unabated on Gaia, the economy is similarly left truly unchecked - moreso than in real life, even in the freest of economies, simply because donation letters and the items inside are different in their very nature than just about anything that CAN be sold. The only things in real life that you can really attempt to make a parallel to Gaian items with are trading cards.

[Anlina]

You keep saying that supply and demand are not the only factors that contribute to the value of an item yet ever example you give demonstrates that these are the only two fatcors that contribute. In your pig iron & beer example, beer never goes high in price because there is little to no demand for it. Supply doesn't matter if there is no demand. It's supply and demand not just supply.

Who cares how many of an item there are on the site? Hard numbers don't matter, ratios do. If you have 10 people wanting to sell an item and only five people who want to buy it, then supply exceeds demand and sellers lower their prices to convince buyers to buy from them.

If you have five items and 10 people clamoring to buy them, sellers don't need to be competitive, they have a larger market than they can supply, so they can choose to sell to the person with the highest offer.

You make it sound as though people with rare, desirable items need to be competitive in order to convince someone to buy from them - which is totally untrue in Gaia's enconmy. If I was selling DJ headphones (to select an item that is slightly more realistic than a halo) I bet I would get multiple offers within an hour of posting my sale, and probably be able to find the best offer on the site within a day or two. It's not like I would sitting around for four months, desperate to sell with no potential buyers.

[diet otaku]

Anlina S.

You keep saying that supply and demand are not the only factors that contribute to the value of an item yet ever example you give demonstrates that these are the only two fatcors that contribute. In your pig iron & beer example, beer never goes high in price because there is little to no demand for it. Supply doesn't matter if there is no demand. It's supply and demand not just supply.

Who cares how many of an item there are on the site? Hard numbers don't matter, ratios do. If you have 10 people wanting to sell an item and only five people who want to buy it, then supply exceeds demand and sellers lower their prices to convince buyers to buy from them.

If you have five items and 10 people clamoring to buy them, sellers don't need to be competitive, they have a larger market than they can supply, so they can choose to sell to the person with the highest offer.

You make it sound as though people with rare, desirable items need to be competitive in order to convince someone to buy from them - which is totally untrue in Gaia's enconmy. If I was selling DJ headphones (to select an item that is slightly more realistic than a halo) I bet I would get multiple offers within an hour of posting my sale, and probably be able to find the best offer on the site within a day or two. It's not like I would sitting around for four months, desperate to sell with no potential buyers.

dammit, you stole my reply. XD

[Silver Archangel]

Zahir

Wolf Lycanthe

Taeryyn

As much as inflation sucks, it is the fault of Gaian users. And in reality, the only reason prices are the way they are is because people have that much gold and will pay that much for their desired items.
Honestly, people b***h and complain, but then they sell their items at the going rate, and continue to buy overpriced items. confused
Sell your items for lower prices. Refuse to pay the high prices.

I really dislike the idea of the admins stepping in and setting a limit on how much you can sell your items for. I just do not think that's the right way to handle the situation.

I didn't say admins.

I said mods and users would work together to set the prices, and prevent insane inflation.

Wait wait wait. Are these the same mods who you spend big chunks of this thread decrying as being power-hungry, arrogant, abusive and corrupt? surprised

would you be offended if I said I loved you? whee

[General Aragorn Pheonox]

Aragorn's new point of view on this:
We're dealing with a bunch of twelve year olds here....Normal stuff does not apply...

[Xoss]

well i just signed on, i'm extreamly new, and i'm finding it extreamly hard to make mony... i can't even afford the most basic pair of shoes... i understand that high end items should cost alot of money, but basic foot wrappings cost almost double what your starting funds are... it seems the only way to make money is to be a post whore... if there are any other ways, please some one pm me!!!

[[RunningWolf]]

Anlina S.

You keep saying that supply and demand are not the only factors that contribute to the value of an item yet ever example you give demonstrates that these are the only two fatcors that contribute. In your pig iron & beer example, beer never goes high in price because there is little to no demand for it. Supply doesn't matter if there is no demand. It's supply and demand not just supply.

Who cares how many of an item there are on the site? Hard numbers don't matter, ratios do. If you have 10 people wanting to sell an item and only five people who want to buy it, then supply exceeds demand and sellers lower their prices to convince buyers to buy from them.

If you have five items and 10 people clamoring to buy them, sellers don't need to be competitive, they have a larger market than they can supply, so they can choose to sell to the person with the highest offer.

You make it sound as though people with rare, desirable items need to be competitive in order to convince someone to buy from them - which is totally untrue in Gaia's enconmy. If I was selling DJ headphones (to select an item that is slightly more realistic than a halo) I bet I would get multiple offers within an hour of posting my sale, and probably be able to find the best offer on the site within a day or two. It's not like I would sitting around for four months, desperate to sell with no potential buyers.

Wow, a mod. xd

I would like to point out that beer is a very often used commodity that has a HIGH consumption rate. IE: high demand. I also said that there was no supply. That means that demand was high, supply was not existent and the price was still low. Does that clarify?

The reason the price was still low is because the items had relative value to each other, buy terms of function. The function of an item has a bearing on its value by usefulness and its source.

Edit:

Anlina S.

Who cares how many of an item there are on the site? Hard numbers don't matter, ratios do. If you have 10 people wanting to sell an item and only five people who want to buy it, then supply exceeds demand and sellers lower their prices to convince buyers to buy from them.

If you have five items and 10 people clamoring to buy them, sellers don't need to be competitive, they have a larger market than they can supply, so they can choose to sell to the person with the highest offer.

I hear you. 3nodding In fact *thinks* I am sure I tried arguing something similar in the past. Trying to get the point across to people bent on thinking that if only a few can afford it then demand is still low. Another point on demand is that demand is determined over sections of time it isn't all right this minute, but it isn't by next month either. And yes your other points do make sense, but not everyone is 'scam able' as it were. The vast majority wouldn't get into it. And no I'm not saying that everyone should either, I'm just looking for things to stop people complaining. If it is just some guy on the other side of the world setting whatever damned price they want, and there is no alternative way to get it - it ticks people off with the decrease in 'morals' that such places experience. (How many times have you heard people complain about everyone's greed?) My underlining point is that if you put some sort of system based input to work on, then perhaps people will like it a bit more.

Even if it is just 'financial reports' that people can access and read from an easy location. That would be an improvement, if demand could be assessed and viewed. Or even some information of gaia's inflation.

Just something, to get the place a little 'nicer' is the aim, do you really want to continuously see more and more threads on this? If it keeps cropping up, then you can be assured that people find something wrong with it.

I just want a happy medium, with a challenge, but acceptable.

[[RunningWolf]]

General Aragorn Pheonox

Aragorn's new point of view on this:
We're dealing with a bunch of twelve year olds here....Normal stuff does not apply...

I'd prefer those 'twelve year olds' to learn something. In fact I am in the process of learning myself. The only way to do so is by questioning and discussing, I'm not saying that I'm right or wrong. Nor anyone else here - I'm just saying that we are discussing this, in the pursuit of better knowledge.

[diet otaku]

[RunningWolf]

Anlina S.

You keep saying that supply and demand are not the only factors that contribute to the value of an item yet ever example you give demonstrates that these are the only two fatcors that contribute. In your pig iron & beer example, beer never goes high in price because there is little to no demand for it. Supply doesn't matter if there is no demand. It's supply and demand not just supply.

Who cares how many of an item there are on the site? Hard numbers don't matter, ratios do. If you have 10 people wanting to sell an item and only five people who want to buy it, then supply exceeds demand and sellers lower their prices to convince buyers to buy from them.

If you have five items and 10 people clamoring to buy them, sellers don't need to be competitive, they have a larger market than they can supply, so they can choose to sell to the person with the highest offer.

You make it sound as though people with rare, desirable items need to be competitive in order to convince someone to buy from them - which is totally untrue in Gaia's enconmy. If I was selling DJ headphones (to select an item that is slightly more realistic than a halo) I bet I would get multiple offers within an hour of posting my sale, and probably be able to find the best offer on the site within a day or two. It's not like I would sitting around for four months, desperate to sell with no potential buyers.

Wow, a mod. xd

I would like to point out that beer is a very often used commodity that has a HIGH consumption rate. IE: high demand. I also said that there was no supply. That means that demand was high, supply was not existent and the price was still low. Does that clarify?

The reason the price was still low is because the items had relative value to each other, buy terms of function. The function of an item has a bearing on its value by usefulness and its source.

so, let me get this straight. in this game you're referring to, people chug beer by the gallons for ubercheap. and when there is no beer to be had, people don't start clamoring for beer wherever they can get it at whatever price they can get it? cause, call me crazy, but whenever a store near me runs out of something, that seems to be when everyone wants it MOST. and if this was the kind of society where walmart could say "we're almost out of dr. pepper, so now it's $10 a can", they almost certainly would.

or hell, look at milk. milk is a GREAT real life example of supply and demand. milk is something that EVERYONE needs, and is generally consumed in high quantities. when milk supply is low, prices go up. because prices go up, people cut back on their milk consumption. because demand drops, prices drop. and round and round we go.

but the difference between milk and limited items on gaia is that we can't just make more panda hats or NM minis, like cows can make more milk. at a certain point, everyone who is willing to sell their DJs for 5 mil will sell them for that much. then what happens? there are still people who want DJs for 5 mil, but no one left willing to sell them for that much. so the people who have them say "will you pay MORE than 5 mil?" and the buyers say "YESPLZ" and thus, prices go up.

[[RunningWolf]]

Gelmax

Do you know what a community is? There is NO community whatsoever in the Marketplace because there is no COMMUNICATION whatsoever in the Marketplace. Likewise, both Exchange and Chatterbox are virtually devoid of community, simply because the number of buying/selling/spam threads VASTLY outnumber the established shop and chat threads, and also because idle chatter is not encouraged in the Exchange - people are expected to carry out business there. And, yes, Gaia is not really a single unified community, much like how a school is not a single unified community - there are dozens of groupings, whether coincidental, social, or hierarchal, which divide and seperate students and limit their communications. Likewise, for example, O/M Guilds is a small and tightly-knit community where everyone (who's been there long enough) knows everyone and certain groups of guilds stick to certain interactions, while Chatterbox is generally a confused and divided mess with communities built around specific threads or thread groups as opposed to a forum-wide fluent community.

Yes I know what a community is, and you haven't quite said much that changes my view on the fact that Gaia is a community. Keep trying, you might succeed. The reason so far is that, as you put it, a grouping. A grouping is not a community - it is a small group within a community. You say that a school is not a single unified community - I beg to differ, however I thought I said that Gaia was a community, I don't recall saying that the one Gaia community as I put it was all like minded and singularly unified. However, back to the whole school thing, they all congregate at the same location, governed by the school rules. They agree to them and set out making friends. They form their groups and chat away, but also go to class with persons outside of their 'close' groups. They participate in activities outside of their close groups and so forth. When referred to, the entire group of people are known by the school community that they belong to - whether they want to be or not, they are apart of the same community, all of them. The school is the community and those within it, not the 'sub-socials'.

Gelmax

The example you're citing is much different from Gaia for several reasons. Most of all, it's not free trade in the same way that Gaia has. Prices are regulated by various factors, including the fact that beer is quite simply not as useful as pig iron, and pig iron costs more for the store owner to import in the first place, and the fact that if people don't like the one store owner's prices they can get beer from somewhere else and sell it themselves. It needs to be understood that in many ways, Gaia does not behave like a real economy. In Gaia, every item is useless, the supply on limited items is usually controlled pretty well, there's no minimum OR maximum pricecaps, and people make enough money that they can usually continue to afford vastly increased prices even if they do whine more about it.

Of cause they are different. Do you understand principles of concept? stressed They don't have to be alike them selves, its the concepts that are being discussed.

While the main focus on those games are indeed market controlled trade - the multiplayer elements have free trade in them which is much like what we have here. I will also tell you that the reason the people that made those games have made money out of it, is because it has rule sets that are followed. People don't trust each other, they trust something more concrete, and are often happier dealing with a system they can understand instead of being paranoid of getting 'scammed' sky high.

... I have really worked you up over this haven't I? eek

Another thing I have been noticing is that your replies are relying on things happening. That is dangerous in any economy, never assume that someone will supply, after all - how can they get something from somewhere else if it isn't going to be there. ( the underlined bit. )

Those games I mentioned, were supplying goods to an entire towns supply. Not individual stores, if there wasn't any beer - there was no beer to sell. The goods were to be transported by merchants, the supply was in two stages... but explaining the details further will distract from the concepts relevant. ( think of us as the merchants )

The important part is the part I just bolded. Which is rather funny, (no offence.) Not everyone is a reseller - and they are the only ones making enough to keep up with themselves. A big issue of inflation is income. Gaia's income to the 'masses' does not go with the inflation which is an economic flaw isn't it? People 'work' as it were, and as time goes by - request a pay rise. The rise in cash flow causes the inflation on market prices as the gold value drops. And the cycle keeps going, but here on Gaia the income increase is missing. The prices are going up and a large portion of the users are getting nothing to compete. In short, instead of having an economic system, that for the most part takes care of itself, but could bottom out or even get stronger - we have a giant mess. 3nodding That is part of the reason why people have complained so much. Prices have gone up, and not many get their share of the economy. It just looks to me that even with this 'simple' system there is a big gap.

Gelmax

Fortunately, many people already have millions upon millions of gold. Halo buyers, in fact, happen more often than Halo sellers.

There was another person here that mentioned there were nearly 2 million accounts on Gaia. As far as that point, that figure means extremely little. Why? Here's why - some people have over 100 accounts that belong to them - that's right over 100 mules. That means there is one user to those 100 accounts. Those 100 avis that are taking up needless space are really just one. Don't ever trust the account figure itself - only its content. Further more many of those 2 mill accounts have been long forgotten, not used. Therefore not acquiring any more gold, and cannot afford such items.

Now as for Gelmax's statement, define 'many people'. A few that can buy does not make a large demand. That many people better be the majority of Gaia, before you make a statement like that.


Now sorry if I am bothering you guys, but seeing as whenever someone complains about the system - most of them are rather new, they just seem to get jumped on. I feel kinda sorry for them and so just trying to argue as best as I can in their stead. ( Have you ever noticed them last more than 5 minutes eek ). Besides, I find this an interesting topic.
The only way to improve is to question. If you believe it is completely fine, it will never get better.

[[RunningWolf]]

diet otaku

so, let me get this straight. in this game you're referring to, people chug beer by the gallons for ubercheap. and when there is no beer to be had, people don't start clamoring for beer wherever they can get it at whatever price they can get it? cause, call me crazy, but whenever a store near me runs out of something, that seems to be when everyone wants it MOST. and if this was the kind of society where walmart could say "we're almost out of dr. pepper, so now it's $10 a can", they almost certainly would.

or hell, look at milk. milk is a GREAT real life example of supply and demand. milk is something that EVERYONE needs, and is generally consumed in high quantities. when milk supply is low, prices go up. because prices go up, people cut back on their milk consumption. because demand drops, prices drop. and round and round we go.

but the difference between milk and limited items on gaia is that we can't just make more panda hats or NM minis, like cows can make more milk. at a certain point, everyone who is willing to sell their DJs for 5 mil will sell them for that much. then what happens? there are still people who want DJs for 5 mil, but no one left willing to sell them for that much. so the people who have them say "will you pay MORE than 5 mil?" and the buyers say "YESPLZ" and thus, prices go up.

lol the extremes are funny xd
Yes they want beer, but the towns people couldn't afford boats to get them. Those games have you as the merchant or supplier if you will (seller). The towns rely on you to get the goods for them.
The relevant parts are:
Yes the price of beer went up, they wanted to encourage you to get it. But the price did not ever exceed other items of higher value that were even in incredible supply. The whole point is that supply and demand are not the only things that justify a price whether the trade is free or not.

Suppose that the cigs were a limited to just one, would you pay 5mill gg for it? or get a better item that is not 5mill. Personally even if there was only one cig - I could never appreciate a 5mill price.