What will happened to the Economy now? that Crown Gifting is stopped ?

boi_anachronism_

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Dude, gold in ESO has been undergoing hyper-inflation for like 3-4 years now. At this point, a player obtaining gold primarily from drops (read any new player) basically can never buy anything. Until they gain access to assets that have value such as motifs or top level mats and then also gain membership in a trade guild, the economy is just effectively closed to them. It's as steep barrier to entry. Gold is now worth somewhere between 1/10th and 1/20th of what it was in the 5 or so years before that in terms of purchasing power parity within the game. Dreague wax for instance has gone from ~2k to ~40k.

The economy died long ago and I don't think crowns had anything to do with it. Perhaps, for a few new players crown sales through the "gifting" system acted like dollerization in a hyper inflating bannanna republic but that is more sophisticated than I think most of the casual players who would have benefited from it were so I don't think many used it in that way. I don't think there will be much effect on the economy from crown gifting elimination.

Mm your talking about pc only. Thats not even close to how it is on console. Markets on ps/na were quite stable. Gold mats like wax were sitting at roughly 2.5k, chromium around 65k with roe being the one thats sort of outlandish (for us) at around 18k. Crowns were bought by pretty average mid game players on ps, it was not limited to folks sitting on hundreds of millions of gold. I mean personally, i got plenty to subsidize my end game raiding for the next year with what in my bank and we arent talking 8 figures. Got no reason to worry about making more now. Just glad i got my banker and merchant when i did.

notyuu

It depends on exsactly one thing, will people go to gold seller sites to get their coin?
If yes then exepect hyper inflation combined with reduced trader stockas goo ds become a thousand times more valuable than coin
If no then expect a slow but steady deflation in trader stock prices and wealth hording to get worse as people fight over the oh so precious gold

Taraezor

As a super casual who cannot afford anything really...

I've played out, over and over, all the likely scenarios of a player doing dodgy card chargebacks etc when they are gifting crowns. Whether those gifts were for Trial carries or whatever.

In all cases I cannot fathom that the dodgy player would attempt the Crown shenanigans. At stake is an account banning.

Is ZOS not able to ban the players (for lack of concrete proof) but ZOS can see an overall increase in chargebacks?

In another game, I routinely do genuine gifting. In ESO, as none of my children play it, I cannot.

I feel that a blanket ban is an easy [snip] fix.

If I'm overlooking the obvious then please DM me. I can't get my crown, erm head, around any of this.

[edited for bashing]

Snamyap

Zyva wrote: »

I have zero interest in trading anymore. I have enough gold to last me years now that there is nothing to spend it on, enough mats in the crafting bag to never touch another writ or survey.

That's the real issue imho. I never engaged in the crown gifting thing. I'm not into housing in general. I have around 10 million gold and nothing to spend it on. Which also means I have no motivation to do any game activities that would generate gold. So my play sessions are pretty short these days. This focus on the crown store is killing the game, for me.

CrashTest

Inflation if players stay because there's now a massive amount of gold in the game with nowhere to get deleted.

Deflation if players leave because there's now no one to buy anything.

Before anyone says buying crowns isn't a gold sink, yes it is and here's how.

The majority of players who bought crowns with gold used guild traders to earn gold. When they did that, 4.5% of their gold earnings were deleted from the game or 1% of listing prices if their listings didn't sell.

For every 1 million gold in sales, 45,000 gold is deleted from the game forever. For every 1 million in listings that don't sell, 10,000 gold is deleted from the game forever. So sale or no sale, gold gets permanently removed from the game just by using the guild trader system.

One top tier seller on PCNA removes millions from the game through guild trader selling every week and the trading guild bidding system alone deletes hundreds of millions of gold from the game weekly.

Now that ZOS has removed the gold sink for these players, there's going to be billions of gold just sitting in game and more accumulating through normal gameplay from all players. Also, many of the players who earned gold to buy crowns are mat and rare item farmers, so when they stop playing then the supply will drop on those items which means prices will go up on those items and more inflation for those who still want to play.

darvaria

Well when the Federal Reserve (US) decreases the supply of money in the US economy, it brings about either deflation (Falling prices) or disinflation (reduced inflation). This almost always brings up unemployment. My Mom was on a dissertation committee that studied MMO economies and it found that game economies experience similar curves as stable world economies. This study only compared it to the US economy.

The unemployment mostly equated to player inactivity. Almost guaranteed, guild prices will go down, thus lowering the ability to pay above a certain price for guild traders. One of most traded items are upgrades for gear. You should see reduced prices for tempers, rosins, wax & chromium plating. And probably reduced prices for crafting motif's. Crown housing furnishing will all take a hit. A lot of crafters did 6 or 7 writ''s a day, to earn gold to buy housing items. They traded their gold to crown buyers. I just can't see that segment of the market spending RL $$$ to buy items.

I think ZOS isn't taking into account, the amount of pride some players have in actually making that gold to get the crown items. I know players that could afford to buy crowns, but NEVER do. And then there are players like myself (they don't "work" in a game under any circumstance.

Good point is that the Game Gold Value will remain stable and should increase as prices fall. Hang on to your gold and wait for the items you want to drop in value. As for players that won't buy crowns, just accept you can live without crown store. That player base is pretty staunch in their refusal to buy crowns. And this won't change many.

I can't wait to see the economy in 2 weeks. I'm over my loss of gold/crown gifting. I don't have to play this game and am far from addicted, as I take up to a year off. My mom is referring this as a case study for that doctoral student (who now has his PhD) and he is eagerly waiting to evaluate the effects.

SeaGtGruff

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

Dude, gold in ESO has been undergoing hyper-inflation for like 3-4 years now. At this point, a player obtaining gold primarily from drops (read any new player) basically can never buy anything. Until they gain access to assets that have value such as motifs or top level mats and then also gain membership in a trade guild, the economy is just effectively closed to them. It's as steep barrier to entry. Gold is now worth somewhere between 1/10th and 1/20th of what it was in the 5 or so years before that in terms of purchasing power parity within the game. Dreague wax for instance has gone from ~2k to ~40k.

The economy died long ago and I don't think crowns had anything to do with it. Perhaps, for a few new players crown sales through the "gifting" system acted like dollerization in a hyper inflating bannanna republic but that is more sophisticated than I think most of the casual players who would have benefited from it were so I don't think many used it in that way. I don't think there will be much effect on the economy from crown gifting elimination.

Crown Store gifting was introduced by Update 18. That's the update when the Summerset chapter was released. Let's see:

This year-- Necrom was released.
1 year ago-- High Isle was released.
2 years ago-- Blackwood was released.
3 years ago-- Graymoor was released.
4 years ago-- Elsweyr was released.
5 years ago-- Summerset was released, along with Update 18 and the introduction of Crown Store gifting.

So the rampant inflation that's been plaguing the economy and getting worse and worse for the last several years didn't start until after Crown Store gifting was introduced.

By the way, I'm not trying to imply that Crown Store gifting is a bad idea. I enjoyed occasionally gifting things to other players.

And I'm more inclined to think that the inflation has been driven more by the introduction of set collections, which coincided with the release of Markarth about 3 years ago, and some players' desire to recreate gear sets for their characters when there are balancing changes and the META chasers work out some new METAs for players to copy.

But if a lot of players were using Crown Store gifting as a reason to generate more gold for themselves, it must have some degree of impact on the economy. And it does sound like the inflation may have started before "the sticker book" was added to the game.

kargen27

CrashTest wrote: »

Inflation if players stay because there's now a massive amount of gold in the game with nowhere to get deleted.

Deflation if players leave because there's now no one to buy anything.

Before anyone says buying crowns isn't a gold sink, yes it is and here's how.

The majority of players who bought crowns with gold used guild traders to earn gold. When they did that, 4.5% of their gold earnings were deleted from the game or 1% of listing prices if their listings didn't sell.

For every 1 million gold in sales, 45,000 gold is deleted from the game forever. For every 1 million in listings that don't sell, 10,000 gold is deleted from the game forever. So sale or no sale, gold gets permanently removed from the game just by using the guild trader system.

One top tier seller on PCNA removes millions from the game through guild trader selling every week and the trading guild bidding system alone deletes hundreds of millions of gold from the game weekly.

Now that ZOS has removed the gold sink for these players, there's going to be billions of gold just sitting in game and more accumulating through normal gameplay from all players. Also, many of the players who earned gold to buy crowns are mat and rare item farmers, so when they stop playing then the supply will drop on those items which means prices will go up on those items and more inflation for those who still want to play.

All that happens no matter what is purchased. Trading gold for crown items redistributes the gold. That is it. Everything you mentioned takes place before the crown item for gold exchange.

disintegr8

ESO have never been able to stop the bot farmers and I think they only exist because there's a market for gold, possibly to then use the gold to buy crowns. We've all seen the bots farming and we've all seen the gold sellers' posts in zone chat. I'm backing ZOS in anything they try that might stop them.

I'd say that if they can find a way to counter the bots and gold trading, gifting will come back. I will admit that I'd never sell my crowns for the ridiculously low prices that I've seen them traded for in the past, but that's just me.

chessalavakia_ESO

Taraezor wrote: »

As a super casual who cannot afford anything really...

I've played out, over and over, all the likely scenarios of a player doing dodgy card chargebacks etc when they are gifting crowns. Whether those gifts were for Trial carries or whatever.

In all cases I cannot fathom that the dodgy player would attempt the Crown shenanigans. At stake is an account banning.

Is ZOS not able to ban the players (for lack of concrete proof) but ZOS can see an overall increase in chargebacks?

In another game, I routinely do genuine gifting. In ESO, as none of my children play it, I cannot.

I feel that a blanket ban is an easy [snip] fix.

If I'm overlooking the obvious then please DM me. I can't get my crown, erm head, around any of this.

[edited for bashing]

From July 20th to July 27th Elder Scrolls Online was free on the Epic Game Store.

As a result, individuals and organizations could get one or more additional free accounts.

I believe ZOS blocks gifting Crowns until 30 days after a purchase which could have just recently ended for many of the free accounts.

If ZOS has enough people/groups that are all attempting to exploit it at the same time it can be a hassle to deal with. Some of the parties may not be afraid of being banned. Some parties will attempt to avoid getting banned by muddying the waters and making other parties look guilty leaving a mess.

Trundik

disintegr8 wrote: »

ESO have never been able to stop the bot farmers and I think they only exist because there's a market for gold, possibly to then use the gold to buy crowns. We've all seen the bots farming and we've all seen the gold sellers' posts in zone chat. I'm backing ZOS in anything they try that might stop them.

I'd say that if they can find a way to counter the bots and gold trading, gifting will come back. I will admit that I'd never sell my crowns for the ridiculously low prices that I've seen them traded for in the past, but that's just me.

Ehem..I doubt that bots are related to this decision. And ZOS won't stop them, relax. I believe bots used by guilds to generate gold for guild trader bids. There is simply no reason to buy everything in crown store with such amount of money and most expnsive thing where you can imagine to spend gold - guild traders in best spot and this actually give you kind of wheel of gold, bc you need to sell mats quick. Noone will buy your resources in Rivenspire. So to make money flow you will sink gold into good trader.

Zodiarkslayer

I've said it time and again: Giving any player the ability to change real life currency into ingame gold is creating the fixed point needed to leverage any ingame market.

That leverage is gone now.
This is a good thing.

I never expected this to happen, because this system created inflated demand for crowns and was actually beneficial for ZOS. I do not know how high their estimated damage in revenue is, but it must be substantial to warrant such a drastic and very sudden move.

And please grasp the gravity of the irony attached: End game traders (so called whales) leaving the game is going to be the biggest gold sink by far. 😳
I mean we are talking about guys that are sitting at the gold cap....

manukartofanu

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

I've said it time and again: Giving any player the ability to change real life currency into ingame gold is creating the fixed point needed to leverage any ingame market.

That leverage is gone now.
This is a good thing.

I never expected this to happen, because this system created inflated demand for crowns and was actually beneficial for ZOS. I do not know how high their estimated damage in revenue is, but it must be substantial to warrant such a drastic and very sudden move.

And please grasp the gravity of the irony attached: End game traders (so called whales) leaving the game is going to be the biggest gold sink by far. 😳
I mean we are talking about guys that are sitting at the gold cap....

No, it isn't. Gold is still convertable as it was before. You buy gold for real money on an other service, and then use current ingame trading system to get your gold. Crown selling isn't the same. They shut down crown selling, not gold selling.

lostineternity

manukartofanu wrote: »

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

I've said it time and again: Giving any player the ability to change real life currency into ingame gold is creating the fixed point needed to leverage any ingame market.

That leverage is gone now.
This is a good thing.

I never expected this to happen, because this system created inflated demand for crowns and was actually beneficial for ZOS. I do not know how high their estimated damage in revenue is, but it must be substantial to warrant such a drastic and very sudden move.

And please grasp the gravity of the irony attached: End game traders (so called whales) leaving the game is going to be the biggest gold sink by far. 😳
I mean we are talking about guys that are sitting at the gold cap....

No, it isn't. Gold is still convertable as it was before. You buy gold for real money on an other service, and then use current ingame trading system to get your gold. Crown selling isn't the same. They shut down crown selling, not gold selling.

Yes, you can buy gold on other services. But why would you do this? Ingame currency is worthless. You can't buy anything good with gold. I'm in eso housing guy and if I'm not mistaken we have around 40+ crown exclusive houses and everyone of them is unique and significantly better that houses you buy with gold. I'm not even talking about fancy cosmetics and mounts.
And with this greedy monetization I can't afford any of this items, especially 14k crowns houses.
Ratio between amount of things you can earn in game and buy with crowns is not even funny anymore.
That's why i suggested ZoS an official ability to buy crown items with gold without any mediators (of course not everything maybe not new but old stuff). This might help to revive in game trading scene and create a real gold sink from the game (not like now when all gold gathers in hands of scammers)

code65536

Jaimeh wrote: »

If dedicated writ spammers stop infusing the market with upgrade mats, their price will likely increase.

No, quite the opposite. Prices will decrease.

Writ spammers are a driver of inflation, and you can see this in the hyper-inflation on PC where addons trivialize writs, whereas consoles don't see this.

Why is writ-spam an inflation driver? Yes, writs generate gold mats, but they also generate gold. When you spend those gold mats on an upgrade, they forever disappear from the game. But when you spend that gold to buy a motif in a guild trader, that gold remains in the game and is just transferred to another player.

So writs generate gold and mats, but the former just recirculates when used, while the latter disappears when used, and over time, this means an ever-increasing ratio of gold to mats.

If writ-spammers who were writ-spamming to "buy" crowns stop that writ-spam, then this will cool down the inflation problem.

colossalvoids

For sure trading guilds would suffer to the point now, especially from players on a verge of quitting the game that traded basically to up their CS purchases to have some worth of their account for the future when they've might get back to the game or get rid of account by... Some means, ahem.

freespirit

Don't know about anyone else but I have only traded in crowns twice both times was to buy a furniture pack, I was the person paying the gold.

I don't see this "pause" changing the way I play hardly at all, I will still need to do daily writs, I will still need to actively trade, I will still need to earn gold.....

Why?? I love housing and it's expensive, even just using furniture available in the game via crafting, antiquities, achievement vendors or any other means it is not cheap!

I have all the gold purchasable houses but I by no means have all of the available furnishing plans!

I still need to earn gold and lots of it, so for me the pause will not alter very much at all!

Jaimeh

code65536 wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

If dedicated writ spammers stop infusing the market with upgrade mats, their price will likely increase.

No, quite the opposite. Prices will decrease.

Writ spammers are a driver of inflation, and you can see this in the hyper-inflation on PC where addons trivialize writs, whereas consoles don't see this.

Why is writ-spam an inflation driver? Yes, writs generate gold mats, but they also generate gold. When you spend those gold mats on an upgrade, they forever disappear from the game. But when you spend that gold to buy a motif in a guild trader, that gold remains in the game and is just transferred to another player.

So writs generate gold and mats, but the former just recirculates when used, while the latter disappears when used, and over time, this means an ever-increasing ratio of gold to mats.

If writ-spammers who were writ-spamming to "buy" crowns stop that writ-spam, then this will cool down the inflation problem.

Yes, I agree that less gold will bring down inflation and decrease prices over time, but I don't think it's going to happen fast, and I still think gold materials will remain high, not only because of the dedicated writ spammers abstaining, but also because players will likely be reluctant to sell their gold mats if they suspect prices lowering and will hang on them. That's all to say if ZOS takes a long time to reinstate gifting, they might find a solution before we see the effects on the economy.

manukartofanu

lostineternity wrote: »

Yes, you can buy gold on other services. But why would you do this? Ingame currency is worthless. You can't buy anything good with gold. I'm in eso housing guy and if I'm not mistaken we have around 40+ crown exclusive houses and everyone of them is unique and significantly better that houses you buy with gold. I'm not even talking about fancy cosmetics and mounts.
And with this greedy monetization I can't afford any of this items, especially 14k crowns houses.
Ratio between amount of things you can earn in game and buy with crowns is not even funny anymore.
That's why i suggested ZoS an official ability to buy crown items with gold without any mediators (of course not everything maybe not new but old stuff). This might help to revive in game trading scene and create a real gold sink from the game (not like now when all gold gathers in hands of scammers)

Why would someone buy gold to convert it for crowns ingame if he has money to buy crowns for real money in the store? Gold is still a value, because not all people want to spend hours in game just to farm gold instead of enjoying the game.

Daoin

actually as someone mentioned in another post people can respect there own crown purchases more knowing other players are not getting those items for free, also alot can feel more relaxed knowing there is one less way our real friends along with new players can be ripped off. i mean it can take a player been here a while less than a day to earn enough to buy 10k crowns from a new player for instance. some people may be led to believe spending 60 pounds on another player that virtually has to do nothing for the gold but i have never been one. as for what it will do for the games economy...hopefully nothing but good..also if the company does lose revenue due to the decision..then somebody sat in one of the right seats of the board made a good decision for the general health of the games playerbase

DinoZavr

what is definitely affected are expensive spendings:
1) Guild Traders bids. It is not a secret some Guilds had to sell Crowns to get gold to keep the premium trader spot (and at PC EU bids for them premium spots may exceed 100M a week nowadays)
2) Carries - veterans have less incentive to do carries, otherwise than to pay for theirs Guild Traders. They get tons of gold how they can spend it?
3) Real-money trade bots activity increased, as now new players who want all the shinies immediately can not sell theirs Crowns (also making ESO free at Epic invoked a creation of many thousands of "expendable" accounts for this TOS-breaking activities)
though i am not an economist and virtual economies are, indeed, complex: suppy/demand, sinks/faucets, gold making, a lot of ingame currencies, limited time offers, etc etc..
Probably ZOS could hire an educated economist and cybersecurity frauds expert to improve the countermeasures and optimize the game against frauds.