Firstly, are prices rising mainly because of people buying low and selling high? Honestly, it is NOT the main reason but it IS a reason. Let me say, Gaia users have been doing
investment ever since and it has never affected prices drastically. Prices would rise naturally in a steady rate (or not rise at all) because items become rarer over a long period of time (in economics, supply falls, thus increasing its price) due to it not being available in the store or items being "lost" in inactive accounts. Thus, people can buy items for a low price and wait for a few months, and sell it for a higher price.
But, wait....what if some greedy clever trickster tries to buy all of the supply available on the market and then tries to sell them all again for an even higher price the following days? It seems that users don't have the choice but to buy at that price....but, WRONG. Sellers will quickly realize that people generally do NOT have the money or are not willing to buy an item that was
artificially inflated (meaning, an item whose price dramatically increases without its worth really increasing). Thus, usually, they would try to get back their money by selling at the price they bought it or at least a price that was close to it.
However, notice that it is way easier now for people to suddenly buy things even if people
artificially inflated them. Why? Because people have tons and tons of coins.The main culprit? The sudden influx of gold through easy means of acquirement such as items like Make it Rain. Since users have so much coins, demand goes up for items and people keep spending and spending and therefore increasing the price for almost
EVERYTHING in such a short period of time, something you call
hyperinflation. Thus, this gives a good market for those clever tricksters who want to artificially increase prices.
Naturally, to combat inflation, Gaia has
gold sinks to take away the excess money of the Gaian economy. They have Gaia gold shops, the 2% transaction tax, prices for name change, etc, etc. This is what Gaia has been doing in the past years and has really helped the economy be stable despite numerous gold generators (ways to make money) such as coins from making posts, commenting, playing games, etc.
However, for the past months, I honestly think Gaia has let all of this stability go and REALLY knows it is inflating prices in exchange for real cash for the business Gaia really is.
Right before this crisis Gaia offered cheap gold generators that allowed users to win incredible amounts of money for in-world cash. This, in my opinion, triggered this crisis and set prices skyrocketing.
However, the real question is,
is Gaia doing anything about it?
Just a day ago and right in the middle of this crisis, Gaia has made this announcement:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/community-announcements/win-oodles-of-gold-with-make-it-hurricane/t.91465281/
Instead of trying to address this inflation problem, Gaia is making it worse by offering a 30% discount for gold generators which means that even more and more gold is going in the Gaian economy.
And, I know the Gaia staff aren't stupid to not know the negative effects of these gold generators. They know in the back of their minds that this would happen. However, why would they still continue with this?
Easy, people would be lured into buying these gold generators because they are so cheap and because of this, Gaia would earn a ton of cash.
It's a win-win situation for
some users and Gaia.
But, it's not going to be good for many newbie users who wish to rely on the natural means of earning gold (commenting, posting, etc) in order to get a decent amount of coins. Of course though, there are some new newbies who can choose to buy gcash to get gold generators.
However, in the end, it's many hardworking Gaia users (many are veterans) who are the true victims of this crisis. You see, for example, I had a Gaia friend who had 10 mil and items worth 2 mil around 8 months ago. He earned this money of course through many means, through artwork, etc. He logged out and just got back in again. Now, his items are priced at 500 mil (virtually the real value of items are worth 2.5x more than they were counting inflation) but his 10 mil won't really buy him that much anymore (hard work for nothing). Of course, he could always buy a gold generator too! (which would of course still lead to even more inflation)
And, it can also be not good for all of us in the end. I mean, do you really want prices gaining or losing 30% of their value the next day?
Really, what can we do to stop this? People have been suggesting to start buying shop items using coins. Of course, that would just be a grain of sand on the beach. There's really nothing you can do about it and just hope Gaia would stop with these schemes and listen to the majority of its users.
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