No, this is not the collection of random morons. This is one particular specimen. He is a perfect example why all the writers of angry/"educating" letters are morons, even if the recipient of the letter is not much smarter, like mindlessly posting all glyphs at 5G, even in lack of competition.
After I've transferred to Arathor, I started selling my stockpiles. Big part of these stockpiles are flasks and frost lotuses (main material of flasks). Soon I got a letter:
After I've transferred to Arathor, I started selling my stockpiles. Big part of these stockpiles are flasks and frost lotuses (main material of flasks). Soon I got a letter:
While it's not primitively written, not littered by "lol" and "plz", it is a standard M&S letter. The very point of the letter is to control the price of a product that can be mass-produced with minimal entry cost. It's like writing a polite letter about the flat Earth.
I told him that I am not an alchemist myself, I have stockpiles from a server transfer. Actually it was true. Back then I did not have any plans, and if I don't have particular reason to lie, I use to tell the truth.
My first move was the standard anti-monopolist protocol: I offered him to sell him my stockpiles for 3-4G less than his monopolist price. I told him that I bought the flasks on the other server for these prices. It's a blatant lie, since I bought them for 20-22G. He will take these or fight.
Well, he found a third way:
I assume if you are also a pro AH trader, you are already smiling on inevitable fate of the poor loser. The guy, in his desperate attempt to control the market gave it all to me! He defeated all the campers and now willingly step aside. I mean how can one be this stupid? Of course I instantly canceled my frost lotus auctions. I have much better use to these things. I started buying lichbloom and paid my GF to respec elixir spec. This was a pretty expensive move since I had to pay her the opportunity cost of the earthsiege diamond procs after 50 transmutes/day, until I'm done with alchemy. Yet I did not risk to spam /trade for an alchemist in fear that my beloved M&S notices it.
After a week my little monopolist started to get impatient, but a couple of more lies cleared my way for some more days:
On Thursday he was pretty upset already, especially since I made a little mistake. He wanted to buy some arctic fur from me. I did not notice that he actually wants me to return his "favor" by selling the furs deeply below market price. So I offered him at 5% discount below market. I should have told I have none:
You might have guessed the point of my letter. To keep playing the idiot who don't want to fight, just have to sell his stockpiles. I don't want a price war with him as I will run out of flasks (or to be more accurate: frost lotuses) and not planning to stay on the flask market. Why fight for something I don't want to keep? So I do as he told me. Of course the same does not apply to my alt!
And the result of running free on the flask market for two weeks without fight just because someone didn't get the basic concept of competition:
Moral of the week: you can't get to agreement with the competition. If he sends your letter the Morons of the week, it's the better outcome for you. The worse is that he smiles at you, accepts your offer and stabs you in the back, like all goblins would do.
I told him that I am not an alchemist myself, I have stockpiles from a server transfer. Actually it was true. Back then I did not have any plans, and if I don't have particular reason to lie, I use to tell the truth.
My first move was the standard anti-monopolist protocol: I offered him to sell him my stockpiles for 3-4G less than his monopolist price. I told him that I bought the flasks on the other server for these prices. It's a blatant lie, since I bought them for 20-22G. He will take these or fight.
Well, he found a third way:
I assume if you are also a pro AH trader, you are already smiling on inevitable fate of the poor loser. The guy, in his desperate attempt to control the market gave it all to me! He defeated all the campers and now willingly step aside. I mean how can one be this stupid? Of course I instantly canceled my frost lotus auctions. I have much better use to these things. I started buying lichbloom and paid my GF to respec elixir spec. This was a pretty expensive move since I had to pay her the opportunity cost of the earthsiege diamond procs after 50 transmutes/day, until I'm done with alchemy. Yet I did not risk to spam /trade for an alchemist in fear that my beloved M&S notices it.
After a week my little monopolist started to get impatient, but a couple of more lies cleared my way for some more days:
On Thursday he was pretty upset already, especially since I made a little mistake. He wanted to buy some arctic fur from me. I did not notice that he actually wants me to return his "favor" by selling the furs deeply below market price. So I offered him at 5% discount below market. I should have told I have none:
You might have guessed the point of my letter. To keep playing the idiot who don't want to fight, just have to sell his stockpiles. I don't want a price war with him as I will run out of flasks (or to be more accurate: frost lotuses) and not planning to stay on the flask market. Why fight for something I don't want to keep? So I do as he told me. Of course the same does not apply to my alt!
And the result of running free on the flask market for two weeks without fight just because someone didn't get the basic concept of competition:
Moral of the week: you can't get to agreement with the competition. If he sends your letter the Morons of the week, it's the better outcome for you. The worse is that he smiles at you, accepts your offer and stabs you in the back, like all goblins would do.
70 comments:
More like Moron of the Year.
Why don't I ever find people like this?
did your gf keep the new spec or change back, and if she did, did you pay here the cost of respecing?
Very impressive. Now I got an itch for the flask market.
Hilarious! Easily the funniest thing I've read all week.
@harusame: no, she speced back at the moment I no longer needed her services.
I paid her respec costs, opportunity costs on the lost gems and work fee. Alltogether around 4K.
The guy's not a moron at all.
When a freight train is coming through.. The smart move is to get out of the way.
What was he supposed to do? He probably figured out at "I transferred servers" and "Ghostboci" that you had huge piles of stuff to sell. i would have. Anyone with any sense would have.
You had 740 freaking lotuses! How the hell is anyone going to compete with that kind of product being dumped in their market? 740 lotuses means 1480 flasks... at 23 gold each that's 34K in gross sales.
He knows you're a glyph boy. Once you're done dumping your shit, you'll be out of his hair.
Smart move on his part.
@Iiene: I was on a low level alt, he had no clue who I am. His first letter has proven it.
Secondly: exactly because it's not my main market, he could press down the prices and then offer to buy all my flasks and lotuses on that low price. If I sell them all at 20G and he resell them on 29 that's a nice profit. I would have to accept it as I can't play the waiting game on the top of limited supplies.
Thirdly: I don't camp the AH, so he could just undercut by some coppers and sell on raiding nights, leaving me the the lazy days.
Ad four: exactly because I didn't camp the AH, third party sellers emerged and now he have to fight them off.
As a heavy flask consumer, I wish someone would start a *#&$ing war on my server over them.
The glyph market is in a terrible place on my server - still profitable, but more difficult to find profit in thanks to three or four posters who undercut several times per day all the way down to crafting price - and I'm looking at ways to diversify. I tried selling ammo on the AH, but I'm being undercut below the price of raw materials (which I can't figure a motive for) so I have to keep looking. Flasks might be an option, given the high average flask prices on my server.
Similar to Belsebub's sentiment, I wish I could find as many idiots that you do on my server.
I agree he should not have been trying to monopolize the market, but lying to someone is nothing to be proud of.
Gevlon:
Sure, at the time the first note was written, he had no idea who you were.
But at the FIRST response. A smart person could have figured it out. I would have.
Then I would have researched the competition. 740 lotuses. 980 flasks.
Sure, it's not your main market. But you have nothing else to do with the Lotuses. If I try to buy them... that just lets you know you can sell that on the market as Flasks.
"If I sell them all at 20G and he resell them on 29 that's a nice profit."
Brilliant. He makes 13 gold instead of 33, on half the flasks. And... as a bonus.. STILL has you holding flasks and lotuses.
"I would have to accept it as I can't play the waiting game on the top of limited supplies."
It appears you CAN play whatever waiting game is needed. You apparently had enough time to recruit others to switch specs to make flasks for you.
Oh. I missed this one.
"Thirdly: I don't camp the AH, so he could just undercut by some coppers and sell on raiding nights, leaving me the the lazy days."
Yeah... You don't camp the AH. You just drop the price to the noise floor and let god sort it out.
I wouldn't want to compete with you either. And in this case, he doesn't have to... after your stocks are depleted.
Interesting post, without question, and well done you taking gross advantage of the situation presented.
One thing that struck me as utterly bizarre, though, is that you said your lady transmutes to earthsiege diamonds? What is wrong with your server that it is more profitable to transmute those than to transmute epic gems? Earthsiege and skyflare diamonds sell for a paltry 20-30g on my server. EVERY color of epic gem sells for over 175g. Why is she blowing her xmute cd on cheap metas instead of the epics?
@above
There is no CD on Earthsiege Diamond transmuting.
You write:
The very point of the letter is to control the price of a product that can be mass-produced with minimal entry cost. It's like writing a polite letter about the flat Earth.
Then you explain how you controlled the market, because one other guy didn't intervene.
Could you elaborate on that?
@Nils: who told you I controlled the market? I was just selling flasks.
Most probably this guy had some long price war a month ago, driving away all competition except random sellers. I saw 2 pages of random sales, altogether like 200 flasks. On a raid day, even on a non-progressed server the demand is much higher. I simply listed 100-200 flasks on medium price, ignoring others. Most of them sold. Now the guy have came back and lists such amount above medium price, knowing that the market suck up the randoms and eventually his will sell.
@Anonymous: there is no CD on earthsiege, she can transmute any. The CD goes for epic of course.
@Nils: who told you I controlled the market? I was just selling flasks.
@Gevlon:
Well, I quote your article:
And the result of owning the flask market for two weeks without fight just because someone didn't get the basic concept of competition:
...
I agree with that one who wrote that to be a lier is not something to be proud of.
why would that guy want to compete with you? you sell whatever you want, then you go, then the market is for him again. no point in selling his flask for 1g profit for whole weeks if he can get rid off you in 10 days. maybe he gets less profit that way, but also has no headache. he probably thought, "look at that moron, come on, sell your fucking flasks and go out of here noob". the mistake was to tell you that he will give you the market, not to give you the market itself. and you got 7k profit - 4k that you paid to your GF = 3k profit.... Wow!!! i'm amazed! 3ks... i think i wouldn´t be a lier for 3k profit. GL
Dear Goblin, I humbly suggest you look up the very complicated words "ethics" and "morale" in a dictionary.
While things like this do not bother me ingame, they do bother me IRL, because lowlifes like that destroy existences.
Well, morality. Which is a spelling mistake that could be fixed with a dictionary as well, admittedly.
Can you admit your error, too?
I really enjoy reading Morons of the week :D fun read!
If you drive him out using superior buying power, manufacturing techniques or market research, kudos to you.
If you get the upper hand by lying, it does not make you a good marketeer, it makes you a liar. Abusing people's good faith (whether an excess of naivety or not) takes no skill whatsoever, any idiot willing to lie could do it.
I see only one Moron of the Week here. And I don't mean anything to do with my opinion of your actions, but for your post which basically pretends to make you look good by doing something that takes absolutely no expertise. Well, sir, I read the opposite.
I am curious about your opinion on Ponzi schemes. Because at least that takes a *skilled* liar to pull out.
@Nils: text fixed, I used the term "own" in the wrong way it's often used on the internet "I owned all the noobs on the BG".
@Anonymous: the mentioned 7K profit came from the flask PROCS. There are the other flasks too. On the top of that I got this flasks on the other server so I had to sell them. So add the opportunity cost of all the flasks rotting in my bank.
@People with "ethics": you will love tomorrow's post.
Laughing at the ethics posts :) I mean, we are on the same blog right?
"The goblins don't believe in the existence of moral. According to them, there is no right and wrong, just effective and stupid. "
Well the idea of Oligopoly is always more interesting than the idea of monopoly. Maybe a possible cooperation with him could yield you more profits on the long term. I would be very curious to see what would have happened to a server's economy if a guild would decide that it's goal should be to total control server's market. More people is always better than one.
Lol love how people think its a great idea to make gold off idiots but oh no you can't actually lie to them. :O
I lie on a daily basis on my server to get cheap raw epic gems as 'my main needs them so i can get into a better guild'- i couldnt care less boost my profit from 20g a gem to 100g.
Its a game and if people are stupid enough to believe it - their loss.
Whatever "goblin" excuse you might bring here, what you did is no different from the crafter running away with the mats you gave him; or even socially engineering someone's password and robbing their account. I always pictured you as a clever business man, not a thief and liar.
In real economics you can very well have agreements with your competition - it is so efficient in fact that you tend to get government crackdowns on price agreements. The only reason such agreements don't work as well in MMOs is anonymity - giving proof to John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory once more.
However stupid your "ooponent" in this case might have been to trust you - exploiting it and even being proud of it is just terrible.
@scrusi: It is *not* efficient in the real world economy when competitors make agreements amongst themselves about prices. The only possible reason they would have to do that is to maintain higher prices than would otherwise exist without the agreement.
That is why the government intervenes to stop them.. it's bad for the consumer when competitors form cartels to maintain high prices.
The best results *for the consumer* arise when competitors work their hardest to beat each other. Gevlon made a killing with flasks because his competitor was too stupid to, you know, compete. He was so dumb, in fact, that he tried to rip off the consumer by holding off from selling his flasks until Gevlon had sold all of his... he deserved to be lied to for trying to cheat all the flask consumers on the server!
Vlad please don't feed the trolls.
I wonder why all these people are reading a Goblin site if they hate goblins... I dont come here to read up on how to be polite I come here for ideas that lead to making gold.
Plus, it was just a little lie /wink, he did say he transferred and just had to sell his stock, maybe he was hoping to sell 14k flasks in a shorter time.
If you are on an RP server that wouldn't be lying if your "character" thought what you were typing.
Here's de t'ing: If de fella's dumb enough ta trust some random guy, den gettin' lied ta is de least a' his worries. He pulled a dumb move ta begin wit'! "Why sure, ya kin have me market instead a' me buyin' out all ya shit!"
Bad, bad, bad idea. If ya gonna do dat, don't whine when ya get ripped off.
Anon makes a good point. The poor guy Gevlon exploited was only holding off selling his flasks because he wants to control the market with no competitors, set prices artificially high and rip off consumers.
Gevlon is... Gevlon, and he knows that the only measure of worth in WoW business is PROFIT. He doesn't break any of the laws/rules of the game, he exploits the mistakes of M&S to extract the maximum profit.
RL would be a different matter of course, and I think it's telling that Gevlon isn't a RL business success.
as i have said before, not to agree with the OP doesn´t imply to be a troll. i think nobody likes the asslicking. so, not only gevlon but every writer, would like to read not only asslickers but also people that doesn´t think the way they do.
i don´t have read tomorrow's post about ethic. but i think this is the sickness of the human being, to think that there is only one kind of ethic. and to think that ethic is that useless thing that tells you not to fuck before getting married. In XVIII-XIX century, the greatest thinkers tought us to destroy the religious morality we had. they also claimed a new self-morality built by everyone by himself. it seems, we quickly learnt to destroy but 200 years later we still haven´t learnt to create. we only create shit and more shit, shit everywhere. the self-ethic we are created is more selfish-ethic than other thing, the human being is not ready to walk alone. you are not prepared!.
I have to agree with the Anon who points out that Gevlon is guilty of lying to... a person who has no problems attempting to collude in order to manipulate a market and then resorts to threats and angry demands when he feels that another trader isn't doing as he orders.
The other trader wasn't stepping aside in order to be nice, he was stepping aside because he wants to maintain artificially high market prices that allow him to make more money. I can't get broken up over the idea that someone lied to that person in order to make some extra gold off of his stupidity.
@Ethics people: Learn to real world - despite what your employers might have told you, there's no such thing as infinite competition. Scarcity is a fact of life.
@Gevlon: Fastest gold cap ever?
Well played, Gevlon. And people complaining about the lieing... yeah, it's a game people. And the most cut-thoat aspect of the game is the AH, as you are doing "PvP" against your own faction.
Kudos for lying to the price-fixer - and double kudos for taking "his" gold.
I normally do not believe in lying or backstabbing, but people who try to fix prices on the AH are engaging in their own type of dishonesty and mistreatment of their customers under the guise of competition on the auction house. It is nice to see you treat them lousy when they treat all their customers lousy. What goes around, comes around.
Treating people how they treat others is not un-ethical, the seller wants to rip people off as prev anon stated, Gevlon lying to steal some buisness and sell more flasks for a fair price only helps the commuinity. Greater good imo.
Is stealing from a theif so wrong? I could understand if he was stealing mats from trades without making the goods but this is in a completely different context.
My opinion is, he was treating people the way they want to be treated, as they treat others of course.
I'm a strong believer in ethics, but there's nothing unethical about lying to other business people.
Businesses aren't about truth, they don't make truth, their purpose is to make money. When dealing with a business, the most ethical thing you can expect is 'nothing illegal'. Beyond that, it's fair game.
This is the quintessential Goblin post.
People that are trying to get Gev to understand Kohlberg, don't. That's not what he's about.
People that try to defend Gev's tactics as ethical: don't. You're stupid. And off point.
hahaha brilliant story, well done.
You've gotten the gold cap like 5 times now and i can't get a stupid chopper. I should try harder lawl.
I find it difficult to believe that all the "you're a liar" posters have never told a lie in-game.
Seriously, you've actually told people what you look like, where you live, what your real name is?
Lying is business isn't called lying. It's called Marketing =)
Flasks are very competitive on my server. Basically close to break even if you don't have elixir mastery.
2 points.
1. Lying about your gender to get ahead in came is frowned upon. Lying about the quantity of product you have in your possession is OK?
2. You payed your GIRLFRIEND to respec. It seems that I'm more social, then I have realized becasue I cannot see myself charging my significant other. In game or out of it.
Moron as he was to make this agreement, his position as "owner" of the flask market is obviously very valuable, as you demonstrated. If he was making that kind of gold before you got there, and will make it again now that you are done, perhaps his attempt to create a monopoly was successful enough to be worth it. Hard to know.
OTOH, hard to imagine him getting that angry if he's making gold hand over fist.
When someone is doing business in a way that messes up a market I control, I might try a proposition (generally to buy all your shit now for a price at which I can make some profit, and hopefully give you enough that it isn't worth your time fighting my undercuts for a bigger share), with my fallback being your suggestion 2 (drive the price down, then buy it up off the ah at the lower price).
If you accept my proposition, you get a better price, blizz eats no gold from fees and unsold deposits and we all do less work, which is why i bother to make it if someone is a determined interloper. I thy aren't particularly determined then they probably sell out, or I buy them up to relist without my even noticing them.
Why wouldn't you pay your girlfriend to respec? You are asking her to give up a moneymaking operation to help you out. My wife will craft stuff for me for free and I for her, but that is just time. In general I don't begrudge her my time unless I have something fairly important going on, and I expect the same.
If I do something that directly costs me gold (like buy something on the auction house for her when getting to one is inconvenient or send her something from my stash when the ah is empty), she pays me, and I do the same for her.
2. You payed your GIRLFRIEND to respec. It seems that I'm more social, then I have realized becasue I cannot see myself charging my significant other. In game or out of it.
About this, it is my opinion that you ought to at the very least pay for the respecing costs of the toon of your significant other. They'll probably do it for free, but really, what kind of person are you to ask your significant other to do a favor for free that you could easily pay the costs of?
Secondly, Gevlon being Gevlon, he doesn't just pay for the respecing costs, he also pays for the opportunity costs, too. Just what'd I'd expect of Gevlon.
@Anon: 1. Lying about your gender to get ahead in came is frowned upon. Lying about the quantity of product you have in your possession is OK?
I could be wrong, but I don't believe he ever said how much stuff he had left, just gave estimates on how long it would take to sell.
More importantly, welcome to the business world.
Wow, my how this topic has brought out the heated opinions. "Ethics" in business dealings getting confused with the game. Had to write about this myself.
http://gtfootf.blogspot.com/
Is it viable to try to get into the flask market without an herb farmer? It seems as though if i rely on the ah for mats i will be make very little profit at times less than 5 gold a flask.
I am confused why you didn`t collude.
Someone posted some nonsense about things being best for the consumer when there`s a lot of competition. That`s true, but that`s a scenario that Gevlon DESPERATELY wants to avoid. It`s called perfect competition, and the first rule of perfect competition is that in the long run, there are no profits. (many sellers, many buyers, buyers don`t differentiate products, i.e. a flask made by gevlon is no different that a flask made by random M&S #3457)
Gevlon`s attempt here seems to be to push the market toward a more perfect state and create downward pressure on pricing just so he can offload,which is really only a viable tactic when you have w things: scale and demand. If he did that with say, 2 stacks of lotus, people would just be calling him a random M&S seller, and not the god of all goblins.
The smart thing to do would have been to collude with him, as WoW doesn`t have any anti-collusion police. He could`ve netted higher profits in the long run by not flooding the market and creating the downward pressure on price, and if I`m correct, Gevlon isn`t in any rush to make more gold. So playing the `waiting game` with the flasks would`ve been the more profitable thing to do. Especially if this guy had already gone through the trouble of warring it out with other flask vendors to eliminate the competition for Gevlon.
Sorry Gevlon, but in this case, at least economically, you made the wrong move. Actually, I`m not sorry at all. You could`ve made more and didn`t.. bad goblin, bad.
If you have herbalism, you will waste your time picking flowers. Better to find good deals on the AH and trade channel, and make a relationship with someone who can provide you the herbs, rather than spend countless hours farming herbs. I make most of my money on a scribe/enchanter, who never picks flowers to make ink and never goes to dungeons to disenchant things for shards.
If you value your time low enough, by all means, pick up herbalism and help the goblins out :)
I only ask because prices for frost lotus are so high on my server. I am jc/enchanting and am considering getting an alchemist so i can get into the flask market. Anyways thanks for your reply chris
"I am confused why you didn`t collude."
When you think about it, they did collude. Not in the normal fashion where they agree to charge a set price and continue to sell their wares. But they reached an agreement that would avoid a price war. Gevlon had the freedom to set prices the same as the other person until his stock was sold out, at which point the other guy would step in and resume listing his items at his usual prices.
They therefore agreed to cooperate in setting prices to avoid competition. It's unusual that the other guy so quickly accommodated a new seller and took him at his word, and that was a weird way to set up the agreement. But that does appear to be collusion.
@Tonus: you`re right, I jumped the gun and didn`t read the whole post to see that gevlon pretty much ran unimpeded, and thus profited greatly. I`d imagine that the old seller is making a metric shit ton of gold now that gevlon`s out of the way and he`s back to running the show with inflated prices. If that`s the case, he doesn`t seem like much of a moron to me. He successfully avoided a price war and maximized the profits gained from his resources. Maybe we should put this guy in charge of the fed.
@Anon: Someone posted some nonsense about things being best for the consumer when there's a lot of competition. That`s true, but ...
So which is it, true or nonsense?
The 'someone' was speaking to the people who were whining about Gevlon being dishonest. He was pointing out that the flask guy who gave up the market for Gevlon started the unethical behaviour by trying to get Gevlon to agree to a market manipulation strategy which rips off the consumers.. yet everyone was worried about whether Gevlon's behaviour was ethical.. and they were giving the flask moron a free pass on his unethical behaviour.
Finally, it's abundantly clear that collusion was *not* the best strategy for Gevlon. Time is money. It is far better for Gevlon to sell his stuff reasonably quickly so that his capital is freed up for other uses. You need to read up some more on opportunity cost.
All righty then!
It's a new day! At this moment, it's 5:40 am in Budapest or wherever in Hungary Gevlon lives. It's 11:40 pm in Virginia (US) where I am.
In 1 hour 2o minutes (7 am Gevlon time) whatever script he has set up will post the next blog... and I quote: "@People with "ethics": you will love tomorrow's post."
I can't wait! This will be great!
Back to today's post.
I stand by my initial analysis:
"The guy's not a moron at all.
When a freight train is coming through.. The smart move is to get out of the way."
Gevlon then asserted that there was no way some pitiable scrub could ascertain his identity so easily:
"@Iiene: I was on a low level alt, he had no clue who I am. His first letter has proven it."
Ah contraire, mon frere! Sure, his FIRST letter was clueless, but the SECOND you responded he knew. He somehow knew you had a lot of Arctic Fur. Hmm. How? You gave it away! You told him you were transferring servers... My initial response to that would have been "OH Hell" as I would have figured it out by then.
At this point he is faced with a cargo container of FREE goods ready to be dumped on his market. Free because they have already been paid for, have no long term strategy, and have nowhere to go but directly into his market.
You simply cannot compete with that. You gotta just get off the tracks.
He can't 'buy your stock' because you'll just screw him... selling more stock at the same time.
He can't compete with you because you have a huge pile of free stuff to sell.
My analysis stands: "The guy's not a moron at all.
When a freight train is coming through.. The smart move is to get out of the way."
He got out of the way... you shot your wad... he went back to business as usual.
Ok! 44 minuted to new post. Let's see what you have in store for the Ethically challenged!
... I have 40 minutes. I'll be right back, gunna make some pop corn.
Lol at all the people whining about you lying. Hell, he let you lie. It's his own fault. You sold stuff, made a profit woo! What's so bad? He's the one who opened the door for you.
Good job, greedygoblin :) maybe you should start teaching us abit more on scamming
gj gevlon very smart ...loved to read :)
@anonymous
the implication that gevlon`s method of dumping at a lower price is good for Gevlon AND the consumer is nonsense, the implication that it`s good for the consumer is true.
I`d agree with your point if and only if 2 scenarios were true. 1, gevlon`s operations were affected immediately by his lack of liquidity (ironically, this is what you call opportunity cost, a phrase that gets rehashed by gevlon fanboys to no end here). But the fact is that Gevlon has accrued such scale and is bringing over enough gold that the excess gold he`d make by selling at a slightly lower price is simply a sunk cost, because he doesn`t need the capital immediately.
Your argument is like saying financial institutions should only hold cash, even if they have to sell assets at a loss because liquidity is the most important thing, even if that liquid cash is just going to sit in a non-interest bearing account. Time is indeed money, friend. And in this case, time is more money. If I need to study opportunity cost, perhaps you need to take a glimpse at the definitions of scale, liquidity, and time value of money (and why it doesn`t apply in WoW)
yes! we need more posts tagged "scams" teach us please
@anonymous: the implication that gevlon`s method of dumping at a lower price is good for Gevlon AND the consumer is nonsense, the implication that it`s good for the consumer is true.
I'll grant that your point about Gevlon's liquidity situation is a good one, but it still seems to me that collusion was not the best strategy for Gevlon. He may have been able to get slightly higher prices by colluding, but he would have lost out big on volume for two reasons: 1. Some flask sales would have gone to his competitor and 2. Fewer flasks overall would sell at the higher price (some customers would choose to go without, or find some other way to get the flask, if they considered the price to be too high.)
Also, I think that acting in the best interests of the consumer *is* in Gevlon's long term self interest. If consumers can get their flasks cheaper, they will have more money left over to spend in other areas of the economy (like glyphs.)
If I understand what you are saying correctly, then you think that Gevlon's strategy of selling Glyphs in high volume at low prices is mistaken? Instead of posting screenshots of morons asking him to collude with them in the glyph industry he should actually accept their offer?
Wow, it's rare that I defend Gev, but do you think people in the real world esp business are hampered by ethics or morality? Of course not! How else could you explain this huge economy collapse without factoring a huge amount of greed and moraly shady behavior.
Anyway that's a digression. Good for Gev, now that M&S knows to never trust your competition. (Why would you trust the guy who's trying to take your stuff?)
Great post! This post was pure evil and that screenshot at the end was so fitting it was truly epic tbh. 1 of my fav posts of all time altho, me being me, i'd feel sorry for the fecker.
I'm actively heading for the gold cap atm and at times i am too kind, but at the end of the day i'd rather have a relatively honest business running, as i would irl, than just go for the gold trying to squeeze out very single penny from people.
What i like is the fact that i can incorporate my own ideology into other peoples way of handling their business. And that’s what makes AHing even more fun to me, cause i learn a lot in process about how others do it and what values i really have. At the end of the day i’m just perfecting my own way of handling AH with some of the most important things i’ve learned being planning, flexibility and patience.
There are times when i use aggressive methods, but i usually use different pricing methods in waves. If i’ve been putting up high prices for a while on one banker i’ll lower prices on another. I do believe in karma haha. This post truly defines a Goblin.
Keep on writing, Gev.
He is not a moron at all.
A monopoly situation is always the best moneymaking strategy, that's why it is illegal in most markets.
The second best situation is duopole/cartel with price fixing. That's why it is illegal in the real world.
So yes, Greedy goblin would have made tons of money more by agreeing to market sharing and artificially keeping the prices high.
I now it's been a while- but I'd just like to mention that I too don't think the gentleman was a moron. See, if this was a market of, say armor (a market that keeps moving as people level, but is fairly stable: a piece of armor only needs to be bought once before the next purchase is something better) then the gentleman's choice was stupid. But, as the market is consumables- you may have people buying a ton of flasks tonight, but they'll be back next week the same as before to buy more.
You can't call his actions stupid. Dishonest as well as the Goblin's? Yes. But his actions were in his own interest. They weren't the best possible actions, but he wasn't seeking to be malicious. He wanted to maximize the profit for supply. If he has 100 flasks, it's safer for him to wait rather than to war, undercut, and force the Goblin out. The Goblin has a limited supply, or fairly limited. 100 flasks for 30g in a week and a half = 3000 gold in a week and a half. 100 flasks for 15g now = 1500 gold now.
The only 'cost' that the 'moron' had incurred was holding the flasks and inventory space. However, if one has a well-functioning banking system (ad infinitum mailing loop or guild banks or whatever, as any good marketeer would), they easily surpass this.
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