My ebil, manipulative, marketeering ways

So I have to come clean. I talk about how I don't think people are manipulating prices on the market and how I think most of the pricing "problems" people see are just due to the high levels of inf in the game and the ease with which inf and items can be generated now. However, tonight, while taking a break from trying to crash the price on an uncommon salvage that just has enough use to have a hardy buy-and-sell population, I decided to see what I could do to mess around with the price of knockback protection IOs - at least, at one specific level. I used a rich character so if I miscalculated I could afford my manipulation.

I logged in to one of my very-rarely used but rather loved tankers, and noticed she had a huge amount of market space dedicated to buying and selling KB protection IOs. 2 years ago, she got filthy rich off that, and I just never left the niche. So tonight, I decided to get in and just pound on level 30 Karma KB protection IOs. I had a huge inventory of these from lots of ultra-lowball bids left for super-extended time periods. So tonight, I sold off more than a quarter of her holdings.

By doing this, I managed to completely fill all outstanding bids. I even put a few extra up so I could buy them on another alt and make a pretty screenshot. All that said, I come before you all, humbly begging for mercy and forgiveness for my ebil, manipulative, hyper-somethingflation causing, dastardly marketeering ways:

(let me know if the image doesn't show up right, please)

Can you all forgive me for being so immoral and hurting so many? I kind of feel guilty for potentially hurting others.

RagManX

You are the reason my peacebringer's karma -kb aren't selling. :P

Everyone knows you can mess with the price on a small set of items for a short period of time. But unless there's some "natural" reason for a change in the market, it can't be sustained for long.

In the case of the Karma: -KB IO level 30, there are several reasons why demand for it is kind of mushier than it used to be. Supply is going to be fairly high because lots of people are running AE farms and using tickets to buy Bronze rolls. In addition, demand is down from what it used to be because of the BotZ: -KB IO being slottable in powers such as Flight, which allows people to slot LotG: +recharge in Combat Jumping or Hover, which is one of the favorite places to put the Karma: -KB.

People who are willing to spend lots of money in a big hurry are therefore less likely to want the Karma.

Sometimes market prices hover at an "unnatural" level for a long time because people are just used to paying/selling at that price. If that's the case a manipulator may provide the market the kick in the pants to get the item selling at the level it should be, proving a "new normal." But if the underlying market reasons don't support that price, it won't last long.

Note that I'm not saying that the market is rational. The pricing/demand for many things on the market don't make real sense, but such is true in the real world as well. Economics and market theory depend as much on human greed and frailty than they do on mathematics. But the real world still depends on real limits (such as the finite amount of funds people have), whereas in the game it's possible to earn much more and not have to deal with constraints like having to pay rent and buy food.

You... dastard!

(runs off to see how many of those I had for sale)

Shame on all of you for jumping into that niche now. I've actually watched it for a while, and there have been few bids - often single-digits. Now there are over 100. With my remaining stock, I was unable to floor the price and satisfy all demand again this morning. But I'm building up stock again so I can steal munniez from the poor again in the future. No longer will the casual player purple their warshade incarnate to the detriment of the farmer and hardcore players who can't afford SOs!

RagManX

You are a monster!

Now, what's this about something you did in the marketplace?

I'm trying to sell one of those!

Actually I think I just listed something else instead. I can sell the KB IO later, heh. But I remember seeing that and thinking, "Huh?" and placing the IO back in my tray.

You do realize two can play this game, yes?

Thanks! I regularly buy these for my toons, unless I buy Steadfast Protection.

Hey, why don't you make Oblit quads at level 30 cheap? That would really help a bunch of my toons!

Lol, I was going to put some low bids on these, but there's 125 bids out now. I'm hardly the only one who decided to buy.

Tell us what you're driving down next!

Was working on unquenched flames, but I appear to have irritated people in trying to quietly do that, as outstanding bids have more than tripled since I started and supply is up less than double. My attempts to quietly interfere have made poor casual purple warshades up their bids from 50K to 300K to buy-it-na0!

Not sure what to hit next, but found about 3 billion I forgot I had while I was using some rarely used alts yesterday and today. That means I have a little extra to funzies with. Probably look for something with double-digit millions pricing and see if I can get it to single-digit millions.

RagManX

kb protection sucks

Why don't the Market Manipulators and AE Farmers get together and clear out the Alchemical Silver backlog. If you do that, *then* you can boast you can manipulate the market.

You mean backlog of bids, or backlog of supply?

Are you talking "buy the most expensive alchemical silvers" or "satisfy even the cheapest bids"?

And thus the reason that some people want better ways of obtaining items. The market is too easily manipulated by people. I've been saying it for months, only to have people act ignorant and call me a liar and say that the market can't be messed with. And that someone can't make the prices go up and down because it's all supply and demand. BS. Time to eat that crow. Oh yea, i guess the market really wasn't messed with (by only 1 person at that)and i imagined this post. lmao.

eryq... You don't get it.

Of COURSE people can, in the short term, flood the market with an item or buy a ton of them up.

That doesn't mean that the prices in the general market are the result of such manipulation, or that it could be sustained. In particular, it absolutely doesn't mean that you could profit from doing it for any length of time.

Please think this through. The ability of a single person to drop the price for an item to effectively zero temporarily means what about the ability of players to set arbitrarily high prices? It means that said ability does not and cannot exist, because anyone can just come along and floor that price.

Okay, quick history lesson.

Humans did not always live in cities.

When we lived in jungles, big animals ate us.

Because of this, humans have a 40k year history of learning to run away from something that MIGHT be a panther, because of the following chart:

Run away, panther: Maybe live
Run away, no panther: Live
Don't run away, no panther: Live
Don't run away, panther: Die

What this means is that, if you're human, you will jump at shadows. You will perceive life and intent where there is only coincidence.

This includes the surreal paranoia about the market we keep hearing.