It's certainly possible with addons like Master Merchant which track sales to give estimated prices, but since MM only uses your own guilds to determine prices the impact would be limited. (Although still greater than with one store for everyone which would make addons like that unnecessary because there would always be current sales to show the current price instead of having to remember old data - then selling to yourself wouldn't achieve anything except wasting your time and money.)

But I think price fixing is more common. A lot of trade guilds have strict minimums for many items, especially those in high demand and will pressure all members not to sell for less than that (or even kick them out the guild, if they don't change it). I know some guilds will coordinate to make sure their minimum prices match, especially if they're in the same location.

Of course there will always be 'casual' trade guilds whose members don't know or care what the 'approved' price is and just want a quick sale so they'll undercut everyone else, and with Tamriel Trade Centre those are easier to find even if they're in strange locations. But I'm not sure what percentage of players actually use it or even know about it. It wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of people who don't know they have any choice except to go to the traders in towns and accept whatever price they're asking. (And even more who simply don't buy from other players at all because the guild trader system is complicated and the traders in towns often only have a relatively limited selection because they're under so much pressure to make as much gold as possible they can't afford to sell anything except high-end items even though there might be more demand for cheaper stuff.)

The price manipulating has already occurred. That's why everyone prices their stuff based on the major city guild trader prices. Thank you MM and TTC.

If an item is common, then its cheap, if its rare, then is expensive.

Yes. It is possible to manipulate the price... but they cant manipulate the drop ratio.

Even if they do it, price would go back to normal overtime by its own

JPS wrote: »

New ESO collectable in the making: Tin Foil Hat

The wearer of this hat will be immune to all conspiracy theories.

How much? lol! I need ten of 'em!

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The price manipulating has already occurred. That's why everyone prices their stuff based on the major city guild trader prices. Thank you MM and TTC.

You don't think major cities are the aim for most traders because of the flow of people there?
The only reason to ever go into a trading guild in a major city is to manipulate prices?

And in the end, the price is only as high as someone is willing to pay for that specific item. Can't just put out a arbitrary number and say. "Yo, now you buy this at 20k a piece"

beadabow wrote: »

JPS wrote: »

New ESO collectable in the making: Tin Foil Hat

The wearer of this hat will be immune to all conspiracy theories.

How much? lol! I need ten of 'em!

So you can go and fix the price? No way


I've seen prices for the same item at the same trader vastly different at times, but that might just be someone trying their luck by asking a stupidly high price for something, or hoping that their's will sell high when it's the only one left.

I tend to shop at guild traders like I do IRL. I shop around and if I find a price I'm alright with I'll buy, if not I'll go farm myself if I can or do without.

JPS wrote: »

New ESO collectable in the making: Tin Foil Hat

The wearer of this hat will be immune to all conspiracy theories.

Fun fact. a collage did a test on those.

They found Aluminum foil actually amplifies the known (US) government radio waves in the Lower 48.

Yes, people try to fool the addons by selling an item to a friend, or even their own alt account for an inflated price. Problem is, this falls apart with just a modicum of critical thinking.

A glance at the sales history provided by these same addons shows out of the 20 sales, the price was around X Gold. However one outlier sale was like 10 times that price so the reported average sale price goes up. But, it does not change the history. The Outlier factor in Master Merchant is skewed way to high.

Then, someone just has to look at the listings and they will see a bunch of items listed at the lower prices. Guess which ones sell?

So, if you blindly follow the addon reported average you will either pay too much for something, or you will list it too high. Instead, learn the market using all sources of information available to you. Then you will pay a fair market price and you will list at a price that will move the item.

This type of price inflation attempts occur just after festival events that saturate the market driving prices into the basement on things like Motifs and Recipes.

Take away is this: list any recipes and motifs early in the event and be prepared to relist 30 days later at a lower price. And, if your shopping, due so in the latter days of the event or soon after for the best bargains.

Darkenarlol wrote: »

i've just remembered a poor guy who tried to monopolize

a specific item trading (trinimac motif chests) a few years ago


he bought everything from all kiosks with average price 20-40k

and set his brand-new 100 k reseller prices in his guilds kiosks...

i've sold 6 or 7 chest motifs to that poor wannabe capitalist for 89k

in 2 days ( again, server's average was ~30+ for that item)


of course market manipulation is a thing but it requires a huge

investment of time and money


it is much easier in games with global ah and addons that allow

you to scan all deals in real time, i know it because i did it myself

with success (i've monopolized whole specific market resource

segment of whole server for about a year in other game)

Doing it like that is also not the best way tbh. The best way to do it is to raise the price higher within the accepted range that buyers are already purchasing in.

Last year I went through every single trader in game over the course of a day and bought every single Necro fire/shock stave that was priced under 25K. Resold the poor trait staves at 40K and the decent trait staves at 60K. I spent maybe 2M buying items and made many more millions on the resale. Mostly because players in the smaller trading guilds are pricing things incredibly low. Like 10K for a BiS traited stave at the time.

A lot of players who attempt to do this try to jack up the prices and usually list the items too high.

Milo wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

The price manipulating has already occurred. That's why everyone prices their stuff based on the major city guild trader prices. Thank you MM and TTC.

You don't think major cities are the aim for most traders because of the flow of people there?
The only reason to ever go into a trading guild in a major city is to manipulate prices?

And in the end, the price is only as high as someone is willing to pay for that specific item. Can't just put out a arbitrary number and say. "Yo, now you buy this at 20k a piece"

Main city traders base their prices off of MM and TTC. Outside traders base their prices off of MM and TTC.

If MM and TTC say that something should be a certain price, then people will charge that amount. If a bunch of stuff sells at a very low or very high price, then MM and TTC prices become skewed.

...and that becomes the new price that everyone charges. How is this such a hard concept for people to grasp?

MM and TTC turned the system into a decentralized Global Auction House. These addons are the mechanism for manipulation.

I belong(ed) to a number of big trading guilds, and as I stated in my OP, I have NO EVIDENCE of these practices going on- this includes the guilds I am a member of. If deliberate price manipulation is happening, it is not "guild wide." At least not in the guilds I have had the privilege of membership.

beadabow wrote: »

@VaranisArano Agree, markets will naturally correct over time, and efforts to artificially raise, lower prices are probably herculean and not worth the return-on-the-investment (in time and game gold) for would be price manipulators. The only way such an endeavor would be worthwhile is if an actual organization were making real world money through the selling of items in-game to other players. Then, you might see a large group of people investing time and game gold into increasing demand for certain items, then offering them up for sale on the internet or something. Totally against ESO's TOS though, and they also run the risk of getting perma-banned for engaging in these practices. That would cut into their profit margins considerably, since they would have to keep buying new copies of the game to continue their operation. But there are a lot of bots running around, so (places tinfoil hat over head) you be the judge. LOL!

If I were a member of one of these clandestine organizations, I would certainly want to see posts like these get debunked.

Hah, thanks for the laugh!


I did get the tongue-in-cheek bit, but I figured I'd elaborate a bit more because economic theory is fun, and well, there are a number of unironic conspiracy theorists when it comes to ESO's economy.

In reality, the effects of bots are pretty easy to spot because they too are subject to economic forces. Bots are efficient at gathering certain items that can be gained on a set rotation: animal parts, hides, stationary nodes. Moreover, the very efficiency of bots at generating supply tends to reduce prices of those items because bots can charge lower prices than players and still have their "effort" be worth it.

In certain cases, bots can effectively price real players who farm out of the market. For example, its hardly worth it for a real PC Player to farm for clean pelts because the much more efficient bot farmers can charge a much lower price and still be profitable. I sell a lot of mats, so when I track mat prices, its not hard to pick out likely bots, especially looking at the type of mats we can see bots farming in game.

If all bots were permanently removed (please, pretty please, ZOS), the net result would be a supply drop of mats...leading to a price increase. We see this sentiment fairly often in threads complaining about high mat prices - a number of (short-sighted, IMO) buyers are happy to have bots around because the increased supply drives prices down. I mostly farm mats for my gold, so I'd love it if ZOS got rid of my TOS-breaking competition!

Your suggestion points out the existence of a different sort of bot: bots that can buy and resell from guild traders (most bot accounts that sell, remember, do so to undercut actual players which is very easy to spot in guild store searches). Those bots, and addons that allow for automated buying/selling are something you see in games with a global auction house. Its not something you see with any prevalence in ESO, largely due to the fragmented nature of ESO's trading system. When you have to travel from trader to trader, there's no way to control a large, fragmented supply of commonly available items over a long period of time in an efficient manner. There's no "trickle down" effect from a few players or a few guilds that can artificially raise the price across the whole market unless the market can bear it, in which case, its not artificial. Which is why ESO's market manipulation tend to be rare, limited to certain rarer items, and short-term. ESO lends itself to short-term capitalization on demand spikes that support the artificial price raises. It doesn't lend itself to monopolies over common goods or to sustained artificial price increases beyond what demand will bear.

Again, contrast that to examples of the relatively inelastic demand for a common good like Cornflower - endgame PVEers are going to buy their spellpower pots even as farmers increase the price. There's no cabal of price fixers needed there because demand is inelastic, supply is fairly consistent, and so the price can keep climbing. I can steadily increase my cornflower prices, and as long as I'm selling, I can keep raising my prices - no conspiracy needed. The same thing happened before with Columbine. Inelastic demand, consistent supply, prices kept rising...and then fell when ZOS introduced additional supply from Imperial City alchemy boxes.


There were a couple of good points brought up by others as well.

Nestor gave more specifics to what I was talking about in my Example 1b. I call this "selling high to impatient people." Prices are always very high at the beginning of events due to high demand and low supply, and then reverse towards the end of the event. So the beginnings of events are always great for market manipulators before the bottom drops out of the market.

redlink1979 brings up the excellent point of gold-laundering. I've been an officer of a trading guild and we busted and banned couple of people for that. With the ability to track sales on PC, its pretty easy to see when there's a major outlier sale that's far in advance of the item's value. We found that sort of thing is usually gold laundering rather than an attempt at market manipulation.

Finally, having been in several trade guilds, I concur with your observation that there's no organized price fixing going on in guilds. Heck, as an officer we had a hard enough time making sure most players made their weekly sales/raffle ticket. And most telling of all, this hits the same flaw as most conspiracies - How do you keep it a secret when 500 or more players are involved?

The term "market/price manipulation" is also a bit misleading.

That there is a general price range determined by supply and demand, that some people buy items below that range and re-sell them at average price, that sellers try to sell their goods at the highest price to still find buyers, that prices slowly (for a video game economy: astonishingly slowly) rise due to inflation - that's not price manipulation, that is capitalism.

Or in other words, there is a difference between shady practices, and the workings of a market economy (even if it's a simulated one).

@VaranisArano made a lot of excellent points. I'd add that the markets for a lot of items are thin and inelastic.

I sell most things at higher prices than MM and TTC suggest other people do. They sell anyway -- perhaps unless one other seller shows up with a lower price on the same guild trader I'm using, or in some cases at any other trader in the same town.