The valid point you have there is regarding market saturation. If OOO produces tons of black hats the price drops and they do lose out. But you have to admit if one person sells a black hat and then buys wings with the earnings... OOO loses out if they can just sell both items to start with. Now don't get me wrong... the idea of have collectible first run items is kinda neat. On the other hand most games just give away the ability to customize your player. So I'm a little jaded by the whole things as well

Yeah I'm not trying to start a flame war here. The one thing that I hope is that OOO actually can make enough money off this accessory and costume stuff to pay game devs to actually put more content in the game. As a long time player I'm getting bored... and a black hat isn't going to fix that :(

Before the featured auction, I saw several black sets go for 80k ce. After the featured auction, people are struggling to sell for 60k ce. What needs to be understood is that every person who buys a set for 80k ce instead of 60k ce is giving 20k ce MORE into the wallets of Three Rings.

Umm, I'm not sure you understand how this economy works. Flawedknight has the basic premise correct.
OOO makes absolutely nothing from a player-to player transaction. OOO also makes nothing from a player's auction sale nor a featured auction sale. HOWEVER! What happens with the AH sales (but not the player-to-player sales) is that the supply of crowns decrease. This in turn makes CE more valuable, relatively, so there is an indirect influence on the dollar amount that players spend on CE.

Realize that, for player-to-player trades, nothing enters or leaves the economy. So this effect I described in the previous paragraph doesn't exist. Sure, it's possible that someone buys CE to pay for their new rose regalia piece from the seller, however, with no sinks of any kind taking place, his CE purchase simply lowers the value of CE for everyone else, reducing the demand for CE for everyone else, thus it's a wash with no realized profit for OOO (in the long term). Since the rest of your argument follows from this premise, it's all invalid.

What I described is a bit of a simplification, obviously. You might need a degree in Economics to understand fully what is going on here (not really).

derp

Very few things I agree with you, but this is one.

+1 support

it isn't the wings or regalia you're worried about, is it Chris?

Rommil posted a thread about putting Groundbreaker up on featured, and Rommil has some sort of weird 6th sense with this sort of thing.

I say put em all up. My T1 loadouts need some more junk.

+! Shinyguyinarmor

/shrug

i was going to stack a bunch of words together, but instead an emote will suffice.

Two people who have left for reasons such as this who alone spent over $5000 on the game

o_O

I hope everyone who spends that much quits the game before spending that much. Game addiction, especially with all the gambling elements in Spiral Knights, is no laughing matter. Anyone who thinks they might need help is welcome to send me a mail.

I wanted to type out something similar to what Pawn said in his last paragraph. Good thing he beat me to it. :P

EDIT: first post and wow, do not like this forum interface.

There is a substantial flaw in Chris's reasoning: that one player sells an item to another player for 80kce instead of 60kce doesn't necessarily mean that OOO has sold 20k more CE. This would only be a valid conclusion if the CE used in this particular transaction were the only CE in the market. However, that condition obviously does not obtain.

An increase in the market price of rare items can be expected to increase profits for OOO if buyers are buying CE from OOO to purchase those rare items--and if the sellers don't refrain from purchasing CE they'd otherwise have purchased as a result of getting that extra CE.

What OOO wants is for people to purchase CE from them--and the movements of CE between players doesn't affect this in a manner as clear-cut as the one Chris suggests. Ultimately, if OOO wants to increase profits by way of the old Rose Regalia items, they'd be best served by optimizing the market-value of Rose Regalia such that the total amount of CE people are buying from them in order to purchase Rose items from other players is maximized. This means that the price needs to be high enough that the average potential buyer will have trouble scrounging up enough CE without purchasing some for cash, but low enough that there are a significant number of average buyers.

In addition, since most people who buy Rose items from other players in order to wear them, OOO has to keep introducing this type of item into the game if they want to keep making money from their sale--after all, they'll just run out, sooner or later, but their price won't rise, realistically, beyond a certain point. Similarly, new players continue to join, so the rarity of such items (on a per-capita basis) can easily be maintained while continuing to introduce more of them to the market.

In fact, OOO will make the most money from Rose items if they continue to occasionally release them as featured auctions. This is required in order to keep Rose items on the market and keep them at the optimal value (whatever that value is).

So, Chris's conclusion is false, thanks to his flawed reasoning. It does not help OOO to stop releasing Rose Regalia items as Featured Auctions. In fact, if they want to use Rose Regalia items as a mechanism for generating profit, they should do the math and figure out the rate at which Rose items should be introduced into the market in order to maintain a steady rate of transactions at or around that optimized price--and it is absolutely clear that this rate should not be zero.

That said, I think that OOO is not particularly interested in using the original Rose Regalia items as a vehicle for continued profits. I think they got what they wanted out of them and likely want to keep them as something particularly rare and special, and I think that's a laudable goal. It's clearly not ideal for their bottom line, but I would appreciate it if they kept my White Rose set quite rare.

That said, it really doesn't bother me if they show up occasionally as featured auctions. One or two extra hats a month is only going to have a marginal impact on how special my costume is to me.

In fact, the only reason I can think of to care about this issue at all is if you are one of those players who have lots of Rose gear stockpiled for sale and you don't want to see the value of your investments drop. There really aren't any other valid concerns to be voiced on the matter.

These items are not reusable once bound. So, there is going to be a diminishing supply available. While I understand that this could drive up the price for the few unbound that remain, it will eventually lead to a loss of content for the game.

Also, I've seen some of the prices that featured auctions have gone for. If some of those were paid for by CE purchases converted to crowns, then it seems like OOO has the right idea of how to run it.

That being said, I can also understand that it can be very frustrating to not be able to properly plan your investments. I wonder what would happen if they made it possible to unbind costume items. Then the limited supply could stay in circulation instead of having the supply diminish every time somebody equips one of the promotional items.

I'm sure the MBA(s) at Three Rings who are paid to make these decisions are all having a good laugh at the fact that a handful of armchair economists with blatant conflicts of interest are lecturing them on how to run their business.

Not too interested on the topic itself, but I was under the impression that Laverna didn't quit but was banned from the game. That being said, I have to say I'm probably content with the market whichever way it goes. I'm not keen on the technical terms for much of it and I won't pretend that I do, but in the end isn't it just knowing when to buy, when to sell and ultimately when to invest in the next big thing before everyone else bandwagons on it?

I suppose after reading the thread though, it also comes down to keeping the "limited edition" items true to their name (i.e. limited) and not providing opportunity for less-influential players to get their hands on such things. Which to an extent I agree with, but I also disagree. In the case of Rose Regalia, I'd have to argue that they should be fair game if only because there's already two rose regalia sets that are regularly seen on the auction house. However, for those that have been a part of promotional releases, such as the first and second generation regalia sets, the only way I could see them being in the AH without impacting the economy is if they were bid-only items.

Chris did have a good point with this method decreasing the market value for the ones that are currently available, but realistically the value wouldn't fluctuate as much as was implied. The only difference is that with bid-only items on the auction house, prices will fluctuate depending directly on the demand of the item in particular. If the item is exceedingly rare or desirable, then regardless of what it is chances are you will see an increase in price. Also, if done on a limited basis and in limited quantities, the basic principles of supply and demand would apply (note: I did say basics, since that's all I'm really concerned with at the moment) simply because the amount being introduced into the market is small enough to upset the balance that exists unless it becomes a frequent thing. Please note, when I say "limited basis" and "limited quantities", I mean there should only be one rose regalia set up for auction every few weeks as a featured auction. I'll say that having too much of this would eventually ruin the current costume market for rose sets. But even then, it would take multiple times of this happening for it to become an issue, because most Rose Regalia transactions in general end up with the item being worn, and thus "destroyed", or otherwise a non-factor within the current SK economy since costumes cannot be unbound. So in that regard, introducing more into the system is also a way to keep the economy balanced in a way that doesn't favor one side or the other.

That being said, I will agree and say that promotional items that were NOT put up for sale, namely the Groundbreaker sets, should never be put up for auction to begin with. As far as I know, those items were never meant for resale under any circumstances, and doing so with Groundbreaker would do two pretty interesting things. One, it would completely devalue the ones that are currently in possession of the players, and two, while devaluing the items, it would also set a baseline for future sets to be priced by, thus essentially putting a price on the "beta" experience, for lack of a better way of putting it.

Like I said, Chris made valid points on almost all the things he mentioned, but I feel like there should be a bit more leeway in his suggested restrictions on what should and should not be auctioned to begin with. Some items would be okay on the AH as long as there wasn't a buy-it-now price for them, and also if they were put up so infrequently that it would be unreliable to rely on the AH to get it later. Then there's items that just shouldn't be up there, like things akin to Groundbreaker sets.

^^^ I think that's an armchair ERGOnomist :D

Chris... you made a youtube video playing "Sexy and I know it" to you showing off your collection of rose regalia hats. I'm sorry, but your argument about you not being in this for profit is invalid. Sure, you don't have first gen rose hats, but second gen rose hats have the exact same financial situation... if OOO comes on here, and posts 'It is confirmed! We will never again sell/give out these items!' then you'll make several tens of thousands of ce. :l

This bears a slight resemblance to renpartycat's post, one of the few that sounded like it made sense at the time. Or it could just be me

I think what people are trying to say is, that it does not create new ce in the market. It only circulates ce currently in the market. Take yourself for example, Chris. When you see something you want on the market, something that costs 60k ce, do you go out and buy that 60k? No, you already have that money.

I think a majority of the players who use ce, don't buy as they need, but more often obtain from other people selling said ce.

If we do go by what you are sayin Chris, a market that moves 50k ce a day, and has a total of 100k ce in players pocket, is more profit than a market that moves 25k ce, but has a total of 200k ce in the economy. Sk makes more money off the 2nd scenario, as there is more ce.

But that somebody will already have the ce. That ce was not bought as a response to your need for the item. Sk has already made money from that person.

Its like saying instead of paying 1cr, I payed 2cr. Thus, 1cr was created. Not true. It had already existed, prior to the want/need of such an item.

My edit to your edit:

I recall ren's thread now. He said that with the sonic set addition, ce prices will rise. Bear with me, I know it is not relevant to your op. He said that as people trade for sonic sets and the price of them gets higher, ce will somehow become more expensive as people trade ce for them from other players. Something like increasing demand is increasing value of ce

Most of the response, barring trolls, was that the ce did not disappear, and thus does not create a ce sink as the trade was purely player to players. As it does not disappear, neither does it appear. Circulating ce does not create ce. It only moves ce around. Granted, all ce must be purchased. But it is already purchased and stockpiled. Your proposition only increases ce movement.

A good thing, yes. But as more ce is moved about in the market, from another player's stockpiled store of ce, you actually increase the amount of ce accessible for other players. And thus, it is entirely plausible that the demand for ce goes down, and p2p will buy more ce with crowns, instead of cash.

One last thing. Saying you have deep economic proof with facts not understandable by the general public makes you sound like one of those doomsday prophets. Like that one radio christian guy, saying the world was to end in may, then october, then november, or whatever. He made his calculations from obscure pieces ofthe bible, incorporating deep and wise sayings from God. Something that we have no knowledge of, and thus cannot argue beyong "you're wrong". Either you put up said facts, or we will argue it like it is a theory, and present our reasons why.

I am quite confused. Less ce in the market equates to less demand and thus lower prices? I'll admit I didn't understand that post at all.

If you havn't yet, may I point your attention to the edit I made in my previous post.

it would still smell like Chris.

However, my point is that by increasing price of valuable goods, you are simply promoting more circulation of currency.

You have 10 ce in circulation, but 50ce in the pockets of all players combined. By increasing price, you don't necessarily increase creation on ce. You merely circulated more ce. So from 10ce, to 30ce. The overall ce created cannot be calculated from this.

After all, what a company wants to know is how to make more money. Not necessarily increase profit margins, but just to keep on making money. The product they sold, ce, is already sold. That ce does not make them more money, even if it is used in a player to player trade for something that is increasing in value.

Well now, I haven't read ALL the comments above, tl;dr, y'know?

But I'm just gonna have to agree with some of the people above.

What's wrong with releasing the rose sets over and over again?

People should be able to collect them all! It's just pixles after all.