Out of control crown exchange gouging destroying economy for new players.

zvavi · August 2021

This is fake news. here are some facts.
pa staff is not 3m. its price has been from 1.5m to 2m since it entered meta.
crown prices at the time were much lower than now. staff price did not change.

prove me wrong.

tmbrinks · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

...

Yet Australia's currency exchange rate is only around 33% above the dollar. While Argentina's rate maybe increased more significantly with crown price normalization, there would have to be a statistically significant percentage of the NA servers playing from Argentina to account for this massive jump, which is of course not the case. So the numbers don't add up here.

tmbrinks wrote: »

More players in the game means more gold being made. Basic economics, when you print a bunch of money, the value of it goes down, and that leads to inflation. I thought they taught this in 9th grade econ.

That only works for currency that goes back into circulation. We are talking about gold to crown exchange. When that gold is spent, it doesn't go back into the economy to cause inflation, it gets ERASED. You don't get crowns you can resell through the exchange you get gifted items that cannot be resold.

Unfortunately they don't cover such nuanced scenarios in 9th grade econ.

gold isn't erased in a crown to gold transaction... it's still very much in the game. Guild store transactions at least take some out. But trading things in game... nothing is gone. I give you 3 million gold for a crow banker... that person now has the 3 million gold.

the comment was about how people can make gold easily. I literally can print several hundred thousand gold (that appears out of thin air) each day doing writs, the CP changes increased that. You don't think that causes inflation?

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

tmbrinks wrote: »

gold isn't erased in a crown to gold transaction... it's still very much in the game. Guild store transactions at least take some out. But trading things in game... nothing is gone. I give you 3 million gold for a crow banker... that person now has the 3 million gold.

You quoted me before I edited. I mistyped. It gets shifted not erased. But since you don't get crowns from the exchange and instead only items which cannot be resold, that gold being shifted doesn't in itself contribute to inflation. It is just being shifted around.

tmbrinks wrote: »

I literally can print several hundred thousand gold (that appears out of thin air) each day doing writs, the CP changes increased that. You don't think that causes inflation?

Not during the time frame of two months that the exchange rate has been jacked up, no. I do crafting on 18 characters daily as well. I've been doing it for years. It isn't like suddenly a whole mass of people started doing crafting writs in the last two months. So this can't explain the multiplication of the exchange rate over that period.

And even if there were a massive influx of new players in this time as you previously suggested (which all evidence points to the opposite), they will not have had time to level up 18 characters to do crafting writs on, or be farming cp160 gear in that time, enough to statistically offset total game gold by a proportional amount able to explain the multiplying exchange rate either.

In the absence of these hypothetical scenarios actually adding up to the difference, the only logical conclusion is price gouging by monopoly exchange sites.

tmbrinks · August 2021

We all agree there should be an in-game way of safely exchanging crowns. No disagreement there.

I disagree with you blanketly calling the people who run the crown exchanges as greedy, "price-gouging", monopoly, and whatever other adjectives you've come up.

You very clearly have your mind made up and will not listen to any other sort of counter-evidence from any source (even though I'm not the only one saying it here).

Have a good night, it accomplishes nothing to continue this.

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

tmbrinks wrote: »

You very clearly have your mind made up and will not listen to any other sort of counter-evidence from any source.

Not true. I simply haven't seen any evidence that stands up to counter analysis to explain the jump in price over the time period in question. To quote the X-Files, "Why are [snip] not dissuaded by all the evidence to the contrary?"

"Because, all the evidence to the contrary is not entirely dissuasive."

EDIT: I am glad we can at least agree there should be an in-game way of safely exchanging crowns. If nothing else at least that much has come of this. Perhaps that consensus will finally spur ZOS to implement such a system in-game, doing away with honor system scamming, and effectively eliminating the price fixing problem as "official" crown exchanges are rendered obsolete.

Also for the record, when I talk about "scamming" I am referring to people who offer to trade crowns for gold, take the gold, then log out without gifting the item (or rarely the other way around). Since ZOS only restores your gold the 1st time it happens, there is a huge problem with people being scammed this way.

JJOtterBear · August 2021

I completely agree with the OP. ZOS should set a standard conversion rate, and implement an in game exchange NPC where people can go exchange their crowns for gold, or even vice versa without having to rely on an honor system populated by scammers and greedy players.

if people want to still trade amongst themselves, they may do that. but there needs to be a stable, reliable and safe way to do this so that a few groups of players do not get to unilaterally decide how this part of the in game economy works.

#DownWithTheTCE #EatTheTCE

VaranisArano · August 2021

JJOtterBear wrote: »

I completely agree with the OP. ZOS should set a standard conversion rate, and implement an in game exchange NPC where people can go exchange their crowns for gold, or even vice versa without having to rely on an honor system populated by scammers and greedy players.

if people want to still trade amongst themselves, they may do that. but there needs to be a stable, reliable and safe way to do this so that a few groups of players do not get to decide how this part of the in game economy works.

The supply and of crowns isn't stable. It rises and falls with sales and as desirable items come on the market.

Your last sentence amounts to saying that the players with Crowns shouldn't get to decide at what price to trade their Crowns with other players.

If you really want ZOS to set a standard conversion rate, have you considered that this almost certainly means eliminating Crown sales? Otherwise, Crown sales would discount the standard value.

And have you considered that by allowing players to create gold out of thin air and then exchange it directly for Crown Currency, which is normally only acquired for cash, ZOS is losing money? Even with gold for gifts, ZOS always gets the cash that was used to purchase the Crowns. In the event that they do so, ZOS will still want players to purchase Crowns, which likely means decreasing the ways for players to generate gold out of thin air.

I'd be careful what you wish for.

ZOS can design a safe trade interface for gold/gifts without a standard conversion rate or allowing direct gold for crowns exchange.

Chips_Ahoy · August 2021

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Lady_Lindel · August 2021

Current price on TCE is 700, down from 750. When I first bought crowns they were 250. The actual Zos price is 169.35. Take a house like Water's Edge you can buy it for 1,050,000 gold or 6,200 crowns, which equates to 169.35. So for me the choice is simply to stop buying from traders till they drop.

Kiralyn2000 · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

You quoted me before I edited. I mistyped. It gets shifted not erased. But since you don't get crowns from the exchange and instead only items which cannot be resold, that gold being shifted doesn't in itself contribute to inflation. It is just being shifted around.

... if the gold is 'shifted' from Player Joe, to Player Bob? That gold is still in the game. Bob can still spend it on other things. It's still part of the total gold volume in the game, and therefore still contributing to inflation.

If it were removed from the game, then it would no longer be contributing to inflation. But it's not. It's just 'shifted around'.

Whether Bob is getting 3mil gold from Joe, for actual Crowns, or just a Crown Store Item, or a stack of gold tempers from the Guild trader, Bob still ends up with 3mil gold, which is still floating around in the economy.

In trading my gold for your gifted Crown Store Item, the only thing removed from the game is the Crowns, not the gold.

starkerealm · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

We can talk about addressing the greed of monopoly crown sellers ruining the economy as a secondary priority.

What monopoly?

I mean, seriously, what monopoly do you perceive here?

The crown sellers don't have a monopoly. If anyone else wants to sell crowns, they can just hop in and buy crowns. They can charge whatever they want. If their price is too high, they'll wander zone to zone crying out their prices and being mocked. If their price is below what people are willing to pay, the offer will be snapped up on the spot.

The only monopoly is ZOS. If you want to buy crowns with cash, they are (effectively) your only option. Crown sellers (at least smart ones) will adjust their prices based on what they can get per crown. That's not a monopoly. It's impossible to become a monopoly, because they have no control over RMT Crown purchases.

If you're upset with the going rates, that's fine, but that's not a monopoly.

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

starkerealm wrote: »

What monopoly?

By failing to create a secure crown exchange in-game and leaving this current half finished system in place where people have to risk being scammed by an "honor system," ZOS has effectively created a de facto monopoly scenario for the crown exchange sites, because they are the only perceived "safe" option available.

Further, well known members of the ZOS community management team have publicly endorsed these exchanges, which makes them appear more "official" in people's minds, even though they aren't really ZOS employees running them.

Scamming outside of exchanges is on the rise, made worse by the ZOS policy that they will only restore gold scammed from crown exchange on the first occurrence. This leaves people who have been scammed in a position where they either keep throwing time and gold at shady trades or just go with the monopoly.

All these factors create a scenario where the only "safe" option is these crown exchange sites. That being the case they can effectively charge whatever they want and people will pay it, since the only alternative is to risk getting scammed again and get no help from ZOS.

If ZOS would just implement a safe exchange officially through the game this price ratcheting would end virtually overnight. I would put real money on that.

Ken_Koerperich · August 2021

Everything is out of control IMO.

Way to many "long time" multitoon players making gold hand over fist keep driving prices up so others, ie. single toon, new players can't afford to buy anything.

I'm looking at 8 Tempering Alloys, 16 Rosins, 48 Dreugh Wax costs.....

Way over the top pricing.....

No, I don't waste my tiny bit of time playing sitting and doing writs on one character, actually, I hate writs. Unless you got the stuff on hand, you spend your time running around fetching it all.

So where does that leave us? Out in the cold praying for the prices to drop.

As I said earlier, gold....lmfao! Been playing over 40 days now, and I finally reached 130k gold.

Still need to upgrade bag, mount, bank, and gear.....Were do you start when it all is so overpriced???

Something has to give guys/gals.....

Market is saturated with thousands of items, all at the same price, and if you're extremely lucky, you MAY stumble on that "cheap" item(s).....Very rarely.

So what's a new/casual supposed to do.....

And Crowns for gold, you see so many scammers trying to make offers for pennies on the dollar....Just this AM, some dude/dudette wanting 5k crowns for only 150k.....Damn near knocked me out of my chair with that low-ball offer....

But, I don't see the market changing much either, since players think what they have is "gold" and worth a mint every time they put it up for sale.

ZOS needs to just make an Auction House, that can be accessed from one point, and allow players to actually SHOP around. Then people would stop gouging, as they would see "average" prices and not keep inflating every thing. Would also make buying so much easier as you could see whole server of "sales" and take the best prices....

JMO...again, something has to give, because I'm not rich, and my list is upwards 1.3 m gold needed, just for my single toons gear....I can't afford that.....

starkerealm · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

What monopoly?

By failing to create a secure crown exchange in-game and leaving this current half finished system in place where people have to risk being scammed by an "honor system," ZOS has effectively created a de facto monopoly scenario for the crown exchange sites, because they are the only perceived "safe" option available.

That's not what a monopoly is.

A monopoly is when a single party controls the supply of something into the market. "All those people I don't like," is not a single party. It is a collection of individuals. It is multiple parties.

When you have multiple parties conspiring to manipulate market prices by controlling the supply, that is not a monopoly, that is a cartel. This is different.

Further, we don't have a cartel, because there is no supply exclusivity. If you decided tomorrow that you wanted to start selling crowns, no Crownseller could stop you. No Crownseller could pressure you to change your prices.

It's not a cartel because they have no control over the supply of Crowns in the market.

It's not a monopoly because there isn't a single entity controlling who can buy crowns.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Further, well known members of the ZOS community management team have publicly endorsed these exchanges, which makes them appear more "official" in people's minds, even though they aren't really ZOS employees running them.

<Citation Needed>

Now, I know Gina is in the Tamriel Crown Exchange Discord, however, she has never endorsed it. She is there specifically to monitor activity and relay that to the moderation team as needed.

The irony is, you're right, it does make that Discord a safer place to exchange Crowns. Not because it's has been, "endorsed," but because the comments on that Discord are available to in game moderation.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Scamming outside of exchanges is on the rise...

Again... <Citation Needed>

You do not have access to the data that would allow you to definitively make this statement.

You don't know how many Crowns were gifted in the last 24h. You don't know how many of those were made under the broken promise of a gold payment.

Similarly, you do not know how much gold changed hands, much less how many of those transactions were fraudulent.

You don't know that this is true.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

...made worse by the ZOS policy that they will only restore gold scammed from crown exchange on the first occurrence. This leaves people who have been scammed in a position where they either keep throwing time and gold at shady trades or just go with the monopoly.

Or... wait for it.

No, I said wait for it.

It's possible that the intention of Crown Store gifting is to give items to your friends. Not, sell crowns. Now, if you choose to sell crowns you are using the system in a way that is not intended, and the Moderation team will only bail you out once. On the promise that you'd learn your lesson and not do it again. Though, they'll still ban the scammers if you report them.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

All these factors create a scenario where the only "safe" option is these crown exchange sites.

That is still unsafe.

The only way you can, "safely," buy and sell Crowns is with your friends and people you know and trust. It was never supposed to be a new market place, and the people who engage in this behavior have walked into a gray market without any protections. And, they've been warned.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

That being the case they can effectively charge whatever they want and people will pay it, since the only alternative is to risk getting scammed again and get no help from ZOS.

You have several entirely legitimate choices. Only trade with people you know, never put more gold on the line than you're willing to lose, and treat this as a high risk transaction.

Or, you know, just buy your crowns yourself. That is still the safest option.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

If ZOS would just implement a safe exchange officially through the game this price ratcheting would end virtually overnight. I would put real money on that.

You'd lose real money. There's a minor price bump because of the risks involved in trading, but it's not as significant as you think.

starkerealm · August 2021

Ken_Koerperich wrote: »

And Crowns for gold, you see so many scammers trying to make offers for pennies on the dollar....Just this AM, some dude/dudette wanting 5k crowns for only 150k.....Damn near knocked me out of my chair with that low-ball offer....

*Snorts*

God, that's such a garbage offer.

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

starkerealm wrote: »

That's not what a monopoly is.

A monopoly is when a single party controls the supply of something into the market.

I think it is more complex than that. I think you have to consider HOW they maintain control. The factors I describe create a PERCEPTUAL monopoly. When people perceive their only options are "get scammed" or "pay the ridiculous price," they will pay the price.

I honestly think this is just semantics.

starkerealm wrote: »

<Citation Needed>

Now, I know Gina is in the Tamriel Crown Exchange Discord, however, she has never endorsed it. She is there specifically to monitor activity and relay that to the moderation team as needed.

I would argue that official company presence on a non-affiliated site equates to defacto endorsement. It certainly creates the PERCEPTION of endorsement, which is ultimately more important to market trends.

starkerealm wrote: »

Again... <Citation Needed>

You do not have access to the data that would allow you to definitively make this statement.

You don't know how many Crowns were gifted in the last 24h. You don't know how many of those were made under the broken promise of a gold payment.

No, you are right. I don't know how many people are being scammed. All I have is subjective on this point. For example, I have purchased crown crates with gold more than a dozen times over the years without ever being scammed. Usually about two 15 crate packs per quarter. This last quarter, I have been scammed more times than not.

Also I don't know if this is a new policy, but I was informed by ZOS that they would refund my scammed gold ONCE. They explicitly stated their policy was that after the first refund, they would no longer provide any support for people getting scammed by crown exchangers. Which to my thinking creates an incentive for people to buy throw-away accounts for $9 bucks and scam as many people as possible before they finally get banned (which doesn't happen overnight BTW).

I also have anecdotal data from guild members and friends noting a similar trend. But I agree while this is highly suspicious, only ZOS knows for absolute certain whether it is mere coincidence it happens to correlate with 200-300% increase in "official" crown exchange prices.

starkerealm wrote: »

It's possible that the intention of Crown Store gifting is to give items to your friends. Not, sell crowns.

It doesn't matter if their intention was to look cool on Instagram. The fact they are facilitating a half-baked system of real money exchange with people getting scammed, and providing only first-incident support is a HUGE problem.

They need to follow through and create a safe and secure in-game option to facilitate these trades, or remove them. Period.

starkerealm wrote: »

You'd lose real money.

Totally disagree. Players doing the exchange would still set the price. All the game would do is ensure both parties had committed their half of the trade before facilitating the exchange so that logout scamming was impossible.

It would eliminate the "convenience fee" and render crown exchanges obsolete, and the consumer would only benefit, because instead of a scenario of "pay whatever ridiculous price or get scammed," people could trade with anyone at any price and know they would NEVER get scammed.

It would let people shop around. There would be COMPETITION. This can only be a positive thing for the customer.

Conduit0 · August 2021

The lack of Crown sales has greatly affected prices, ZOS used to have 3 to 4 Crown sales every year, now it's 1 or maybe 2 a year and the discount is smaller than it used to be.

So you have inflation decreasing the value of gold combined with lack of Crown sales resulting in fewer Crowns being purchased. So it makes sense that Crown prices are going up.

Disturbed_One · August 2021

Was talking with a friend of mine in game and the topic of crowns came up... I was talking about this thread, and she said she used to broker at TCE back a few years ago. I asked about some of the comments/accusations/etc. in here (they aren't on the forums)

Long story short.

Brokers could make a few hundred thousand gold a week (she said it's probably more now with the higher rates), but would spend hours setting up sales, filling out the paperwork, facilitating the trades (she said she made a lot more just playing the game, and she stopped doing the brokering when it felt like a job to her)

Rates were set by supply and demand. Management was loathe to increase rates and only did so when they didn't have enough sellers to fill the sales. So they'd raise prices to entice more sellers to come on board (or buy more crowns to get the higher exchange rate) and to slow down sales.

Said they looked forward to the crown sales as that meant they'd have some breathing room and could drop prices.

I'm sure I'm missing some others points she made... but I didn't get the impression that they were greedy/monopolistic/etc., just trying their best to provide a service to the community. She said staff was proud that there hasn't been any scams at TCE (and even if there was, they had insurance gold to reimburse the buyer)

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

Conduit0 wrote: »

The lack of Crown sales has greatly affected prices, ZOS used to have 3 to 4 Crown sales every year, now it's 1 or maybe 2 a year and the discount is smaller than it used to be.

So you have inflation decreasing the value of gold combined with lack of Crown sales resulting in fewer Crowns being purchased. So it makes sense that Crown prices are going up.

This still doesn't explain the sudden radical jump from ~400:1 to over 700:1 over the past two months alone.

Disturbed_One wrote: »

Was talking with a friend of mine in game and the topic of crowns came up... I was talking about this thread, and she said she used to broker at TCE back a few years ago. I asked about some of the comments/accusations/etc. in here (they aren't on the forums)...

It isn't that these "official" exchange sites don't provide a service to the community. The problem is ZOS not having a safe and secure way to exchange crowns in-game, leaving it up to the honor system, and thus manufacturing a need for such sites, which would not exist if this system was better implemented.

The scenario of "pay whatever the crown exchanges charge or get scammed" is 100% a result of ZOS not doing this.

However, if these exchanges were really in it to help the community, they would set a hard cap for exchange rates and simply create a first-come-first-serve queue for people wanting to buy crowns, if the supply of crowns was really so low at that rate. Their willingness to leap from 400:1 to over 700:1 does not seem like they are trying to do any favors for the community, regardless of anyone's attempted rationalization.

If they were, and played hard ball with the crown hoarders, the would eventually come down to earth and sell at a reasonable rate, when they realized the alternative was to not sell them at all. If anything it gives the appearance of the exchanges capitulating to the crown-holding price manipulators, if not being the outright manipulators themselves.

I have heard a lot of attempts to explain this away as being just "supply and demand" and other things, but none of these explanations can account for such a radical leap in such a short period of time.

If these go-to sites were to hold their ground and set a hard cap at a rational level new players could actually ever hope to participate in, then these holdouts would not be hoarding crowns waiting for a higher price to sell them at.

If you really want to split hairs that the exchanges aren't price fixing for their own benefit, then I guess you could say they are being manipulated by people holding the crown supply, who are refusing to sell crowns unless the "official" exchange everyone goes to dramatically increases pricing.

Either way it is greed driving this exponential short term leap, not the price of cabbage in Tijuana or anything else.

And regardless of who is ultimately responsible, it would ALL be solved if ZOS would just finish the system they started.

luen79rwb17_ESO · August 2021

Prices have gone up for other goods not related to crown store too, like gold matts for example. This leads me to believe the issue is gold per se. When there's too much currency in the hands of people, prices will tend to go up.

Disturbed_One · August 2021

It isn't that these "official" exchange sites don't provide a service to the community. The problem is ZOS not having a safe and secure way to exchange crowns in-game, leaving it up to the honor system, and thus manufacturing a need for such sites, which would not exist if this system was better implemented.

The scenario of "pay whatever the crown exchanges charge or get scammed" is 100% a result of ZOS not doing this.

However, if these exchanges were really in it to help the community, they would set a hard cap for exchange rates and simply create a first-come-first-serve queue for people wanting to buy crowns, if the supply of crowns was really so low at that rate. Their willingness to leap from 400:1 to over 700:1 does not seem like they are trying to do any favors for the community, regardless of anyone's attempted rationalization.

If they were, and played hard ball with the crown hoarders, the would eventually come down to earth and sell at a reasonable rate, when they realized the alternative was to not sell them at all. If anything it gives the appearance of the exchanges capitulating to the crown-holding price manipulators, if not being the outright manipulators themselves.

I have heard a lot of attempts to explain this away as being just "supply and demand" and other things, but none of these explanations can account for such a radical leap in such a short period of time.

If these go-to sites were to hold their ground and set a hard cap at a rational level new players could actually ever hope to participate in, then these holdouts would not be hoarding crowns waiting for a higher price to sell them at.

If you really want to split hairs that the exchanges aren't price fixing for their own benefit, then I guess you could say they are being manipulated by people holding the crown supply, who are refusing to sell crowns unless the "official" exchange everyone goes to dramatically increases pricing.

Either way it is greed driving this exponential short term leap, not the price of cabbage in Tijuana or anything else.

And regardless of who is ultimately responsible, it would ALL be solved if ZOS would just finish the system they started.

[snip] You're advocating for a group of people to strong arm individuals into only accepting a lower price for their crowns? That's really your stance?

"I know you paid real money for these crowns, but you can only get 300:1 on the exchange... never mind that gold is worth a lot less, the $150 you just spent on crowns wont even be able to gold out your gear..."

I'm sorry, I cant fathom DEMANDING that people take less for the thing they paid REAL MONEY for as being a reasonable suggestion. Irreconcilable difference there. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Moonsorrow · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

*snip*

I think you are missing the most important point. No one is saying that new players can't make gold like old players did. What I am saying, if you really think about it a minute, is that if the cost of things you want to BUY with gold has gone up 300%, but the TIME it takes to make that gold is the same, then the new player obviously has it 300% WORSE than the old player when they do those same things.

I don't know how much more clear I can be.

Also, leaving a real money transaction up to the "honor system" in an interface you facilitate while only providing services to redress grievances of people scammed by said system ONCE is a recipe for disaster.

There NEEDS to be a secure mediated exchange controlled through the game interface to prevent scamming FIRST.

We can talk about addressing the greed of monopoly crown sellers ruining the economy as a secondary priority.

I think you have missed the point, the new player you talk about.. just makes more gold currently with the same effort since, for example if they fish for Perfect Roes, or farm any raw materials those sell for a lot more than they used to, let's say that 300% more to make it clear for you, so they then use that gold to buy what they needed themselves. So everything is the same as before.

Of course if someone is only questing and that is their main source of income.. then they do not even really need rare drops that are expensive. Overland quester has no need for Powerful Assault Ice Staff. That content is doable in the gear that drops from the quests themselves.

And if new players want to get Crown Store stuff, hey there is always the *gasp* way of purchasing with their own money if the ratio other people are willing to trade does not seem good to them. I mean can go farm gold and earn it or buy Crowns yourself.

Asking for ZOS the thing you ask is like you wanting to force other to buy with real money while you throw a few pennies of in game gold at them for their service. How about you sell me Crowns with 1:1 ratio yourself since you don't want people to be able to decide what their real money is worth? I am sure that sounds fine for you?

starkerealm · August 2021

Disturbed_One wrote: »

[snip] You're advocating for a group of people to strong arm individuals into only accepting a lower price for their crowns? That's really your stance?

"I know you paid real money for these crowns, but you can only get 300:1 on the exchange... never mind that gold is worth a lot less, the $150 you just spent on crowns wont even be able to gold out your gear..."

I'm sorry, I cant fathom DEMANDING that people take less for the thing they paid REAL MONEY for as being a reasonable suggestion. Irreconcilable difference there. [snip]

Oh, I can absolutely fathom that demand. It leads back to a word that's been used repeatedly in this thread, "greed." It's the naked avarice to say, "you're charging too much; you should be forced to sell to me at the prices I dictate."

[edited to remove quote]

starkerealm · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

That's not what a monopoly is.

A monopoly is when a single party controls the supply of something into the market.

I think it is more complex than that. I think you have to consider HOW they maintain control. The factors I describe create a PERCEPTUAL monopoly. When people perceive their only options are "get scammed" or "pay the ridiculous price," they will pay the price.

I honestly think this is just semantics.

No, it's not.

You can't have it both ways. You cannot simultaneously have a monopoly, but also people outside the monopoly exploiting it's hypothetical existence.

"Perceptual monopolies," aren't really a thing. In fact, if you Google, "Perceptual monopoly," this thread is one of the only results. (And the others have to do with spin control, and geology, so, not relevant to this discussion.)

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

<Citation Needed>

Now, I know Gina is in the Tamriel Crown Exchange Discord, however, she has never endorsed it. She is there specifically to monitor activity and relay that to the moderation team as needed.

I would argue that official company presence on a non-affiliated site equates to defacto endorsement.

You could argue it, but you'd still be wrong.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

It certainly creates the PERCEPTION of endorsement, which is ultimately more important to market trends.

So, does ZOS endorse Twitter?

Gina has always been very clear that her presence on TCE was an administrative decision, not an endorsement. Attempting to argue otherwise is intellectually disingenuous.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Again... <Citation Needed>

You do not have access to the data that would allow you to definitively make this statement.

You don't know how many Crowns were gifted in the last 24h. You don't know how many of those were made under the broken promise of a gold payment.

No, you are right. I don't know how many people are being scammed. All I have is subjective on this point. For example, I have purchased crown crates with gold more than a dozen times over the years without ever being scammed. Usually about two 15 crate packs per quarter. This last quarter, I have been scammed more times than not.

Also I don't know if this is a new policy, but I was informed by ZOS that they would refund my scammed gold ONCE. They explicitly stated their policy was that after the first refund, they would no longer provide any support for people getting scammed by crown exchangers. Which to my thinking creates an incentive for people to buy throw-away accounts for $9 bucks and scam as many people as possible before they finally get banned (which doesn't happen overnight BTW).

That's not a new policy. That's been their position since Crown gifting was first instituted. You got your warning, and at that point you knew you needed to be more cautious about who you traded with.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

I also have anecdotal data from guild members and friends noting a similar trend. But I agree while this is highly suspicious, only ZOS knows for absolute certain whether it is mere coincidence it happens to correlate with 200-300% increase in "official" crown exchange prices.

starkerealm wrote: »

It's possible that the intention of Crown Store gifting is to give items to your friends. Not, sell crowns.

It doesn't matter if their intention was to look cool on Instagram. The fact they are facilitating a half-baked system of real money exchange with people getting scammed, and providing only first-incident support is a HUGE problem.

They need to follow through and create a safe and secure in-game option to facilitate these trades, or remove them. Period.

No, they don't. They don't need to do anything. The system works as intended. Misusing crown gifting as a gray market way to buy crowns was not intended, and is not supported or protected. They have put very clear caveat emptor warning on the whole thing.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

You'd lose real money.

Totally disagree. Players doing the exchange would still set the price. All the game would do is ensure both parties had committed their half of the trade before facilitating the exchange so that logout scamming was impossible.

It would eliminate the "convenience fee" and render crown exchanges obsolete, and the consumer would only benefit, because instead of a scenario of "pay whatever ridiculous price or get scammed," people could trade with anyone at any price and know they would NEVER get scammed.

It would let people shop around. There would be COMPETITION. This can only be a positive thing for the customer.

The problem is, you're only thinking about one customer: yourself. The person selling you crowns is also a customer. They purchased those crowns with their own money, and they have an incentive to get the most value for that investment. You're also failing to recognize the pattern inherent to guild traders versus zone chat sales. Most of the people successfully advertising in zone chat are dramatically cheaper than what you'd find in a guild trader. This is because that Zone Chat trader will (usually) want to close a deal as quickly as possible, while listing something and forgetting it can see much higher prices successfully sell. They have no time pressure and can wait for someone to accept their terms.

Beyond that, a secure trading venue for crowns would increase the demand for them even further. You're thinking about the current environment where concerns about being scammed are a very real disincentive for converting gold into Crowns. Take that away and it's incongruous to think you wouldn't see more players looking to convert their gold into, "free," money.

There's also a bigger problem, and while it's something I wouldn't expect ZOS to do, it is a very real risk. Being able to directly, and fluidly, convert between RMT currency (Crowns) and grind currencies (gold), erodes any argument about pay to win. "It's not pay to win, because you don't need to pay, you can just grind up the gold." I have seen far too many MMOs use this specific out, with a transfer option between their RMT and in game currency to deflect against any P2W arguments. I've seen fans defend some pretty egregious pay to win schemes with that exact defense. Here's the problem, with every P2W system, the publisher gets paid by somone. Not necessarily the person coughing up the cash, but someone out there financially rewarded the developers for making their game worse.

Kalik_Gold · August 2021

After listening to a big MMO streamer bash his game of choice for allowing a token to be bought in game that could be sold, and gold etc in that popular game.

Even though I myself use this service and pay gold for crown store items, It is a pay to win system, for the crown sellers.

It should be adjusted and if we bought directly from Zos it would remove gold from the game as a gold sink, and stop the crown sellers from basically buying gold in game to do what they like with it. Buy PvE runs and titles, buy the best BoE gear or furniture. Pay to win…(if win is basically do endgame activities)

Other game same issues

NupidStoob · August 2021

As long as there are people willing to pay the high prices people will sell for those. Absolute basics of economics.

The real issue is the inflation and everyone having too much gold. ZoS keeps adding more ways to generate gold out of nothing and are not adding more goldsinks. First we had daily rewards pumping hundreds of millions if not billions into the economy, then CP 2.0 which added more gold from quest rewards and various ways to reduce cost and now endeavors which mostly require zero effort and trickle a lot of gold into the economy. On top of that we are overloaded with events that often also add ways to generate gold. I don't want to know how much gold was generated during the Elsweyr celebration from treasures.

Contrary to that the only real big goldsink are traders for tradeguilds. Houses and furnishing are probably also factors, but they are kind of finite. Apart from that what really costs gold that you can feel and isn't bought from other players?

On PC EU this is a way bigger problem already than on PC NA, but with the trend OP is describing it will become a problem there too. One thing to not forget with all these ways for inflation is that it's also easier than ever to get huge amounts of gold even as new player.

Coatmagic · August 2021

This one too saved the DLC homes for last and now looking like they won't be getting collected 8*(

adriant1978 · August 2021

I do wish there was an official mechanism for selling crowns. I refuse to get involved in something which can leave me without my Crowns and no obligation on the buyer to actually send me any gold.

I can understand why ZOS doesn't want to get involved in manipulating exchange rates though. Does anyone here play Star Trek Online? The endless rows about the Dilithium to Zen exchange (Dilithium being the in-game currency and Zen being the equivalent of Crowns) over there make it obvious to me that this is not something developers can just fix by fiat. This is probably why ZOS is staying away from making Crown selling official and instead just looking the other way while we abuse their "gifting" system.

starkerealm · August 2021

adriant1978 wrote: »

I can understand why ZOS doesn't want to get involved in manipulating exchange rates though. Does anyone here play Star Trek Online?

*Raises hand*

Though, technically, past tense. I think the last time I actually played was seven or eight years ago.

And, yeah, I took a potshot at Cryptic in an earlier post. God that system was an exploitative mess. It's not the only time I've seen that become an issue. FunCom's Secret World eventually developed a similar problem, where the RMT was used in the auction house to move gear around, and the gear system was incredibly grindy (chewing up existing items at a horrifying rate.) So, that was a game where leveling up was (effectively) monetized. Though I guess, STO did that with T6 ships.

So, yeah, while I agree, it'd be cool to have an option to just buy and sell crowns through a kiosk, "commodities exchange," I've also seen what those can do to games, and ironically, it's one of the cases where an inferior experience discouraging players from engaging in a behavior can actually be more healthy for the game's economy.

kargen27 · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

tmbrinks wrote: »

gold isn't erased in a crown to gold transaction... it's still very much in the game. Guild store transactions at least take some out. But trading things in game... nothing is gone. I give you 3 million gold for a crow banker... that person now has the 3 million gold.

You quoted me before I edited. I mistyped. It gets shifted not erased. But since you don't get crowns from the exchange and instead only items which cannot be resold, that gold being shifted doesn't in itself contribute to inflation. It is just being shifted around.

tmbrinks wrote: »

I literally can print several hundred thousand gold (that appears out of thin air) each day doing writs, the CP changes increased that. You don't think that causes inflation?

Not during the time frame of two months that the exchange rate has been jacked up, no. I do crafting on 18 characters daily as well. I've been doing it for years. It isn't like suddenly a whole mass of people started doing crafting writs in the last two months. So this can't explain the multiplication of the exchange rate over that period.

And even if there were a massive influx of new players in this time as you previously suggested (which all evidence points to the opposite), they will not have had time to level up 18 characters to do crafting writs on, or be farming cp160 gear in that time, enough to statistically offset total game gold by a proportional amount able to explain the multiplying exchange rate either.

In the absence of these hypothetical scenarios actually adding up to the difference, the only logical conclusion is price gouging by monopoly exchange sites.

How much gold is in game doesn't matter at all. What matters is the amount of crowns available to sell and the amount of players willing to buy them. Sites selling crown have run out of people with crowns to sell. So many people wanted to purchase homes through the gift exchange that they had to set up a raffle the winners being the ones that could purchase a home. I know many many people that have tried purchasing homes through the crowns for gold exchange and have not been able to do so simply because nobody was selling that many crowns. Not even on the sites on Discord. Houses available to gift put a huge amount of stress on the number of crowns available compared to demand.
When changes were made so players could no longer use a work around to get cheap crowns that slowed the supply creating even more stress on the system. Someone mentioned that there couldn't be enough people in Venezuela playing the game and buying crowns to make a difference. That is probably true. The problem was people living in the US were able to play the system so they were purchasing crowns at the same exchange rate that was given to players living in Venezuela. So ZoS changed how crowns are sold around the globe. Sucks for the players that actually live in those countries but that was the solution.
People are still waiting to get a chance to buy homes through the crown exchange. Other events in game have also resulted in a higher demand for crowns. Less supply and much more demand. Of course prices will rise. There are a multitude of players sitting on tens of millions of gold in the game with nothing really to spend it on except crown store items. Market fluctuations, new players, higher prices in game, none of those have an affect on these players and their ability to buy crowns. The only thing preventing them from spending millions and millions is the lack of available crowns.

That is why prices are higher.

If crown rates were 800:1 I have enough gold to purchase three of the crown exclusive large manors and I am a small fish in the traders pond. I don't even make top fifty in the one trade guild I still am a member of and it is not one of the top tier trade guilds.