Well, there goes the Economy.Follow

Check this link.

http://www.waterthread.org/news/107474916112769.html

IGE just bought out Yantis for a rumored sum of over 10 million bucks. Now, I don't begrudge the guy for his money. Obviously Sony doesn't care one way or another, so why should I. Frankly, it sounds like a reasonable price when you consider the obvious profits to be made. Howwever, the only thing we had going for us was the fact that there were two competing companies trying to manipulate the EQ market, so they often cancelled each other out. Now you may as well set your goals on no drop items or figure on paying IGE for the dropped ones.

Since IGE has complete control over the plat and items for sale market, expect bazaar prices to soar. Why? Well their business model relies upon people being so frustrated that they go to them to buy plat to get the items they want. The best way to frustrate people is to make the bazaar prices so high they can't buy anything through normal means. Since they now control an enormous amount of EQ's currency, they can manupulate the prices in the bazaar simply through buying anything that goes on sale at a low price and making sure those items are only sold at a premium.

Not convinced? Do some math. If you know item X is only created once a day, is in high demand, and normally sells for 10,000 pp, you can easily manipulate its prices if you have a couple billion plat. Just buy every item X that comes on sale for 10,000 pp and put them back up for 30,000. As they drop, those who get them will either sell them to you for 10,000 or realize the price has gone up. Keep buying them up to 30,000 yourself. It will take a lot of pp, but eventually those item X's will all sell for 30,000 each. You can now sell all the ones you bought at a profit (for either cash or pp) and you can profit more by selling people the 30,000 pp for cash that they need to buy that item, since most people will not be able to raise that amount of pp any other way.

Remember, they don't care if they make a pp based profit off those items, though that is nice. Their main goal is to drive the price up so that they can sell more pp for cash. It is not a game for them. It is a business. They do not play for fun. They play for profit. Pure capitalism means that whatever they can do to increase their profit, they will do, even if that decreases our fun.

The irony is that IGE is probably making more money off of EQ than Sony is at this point. And yet Sony sits and does nothing.

Just refuse to participate, and pass the word - the games are more FUN when you actually play them instead of (here's what you're acutally doing when you buy plat) PAYING SOMEONE ELSE TO PLAY FOR YOU!

That's just plain ridiculous!
IMHO

I saw it on the internet. it must be true!

Okay, assuming that the OP is correct and the EQ economy is going to hell in a handbasket, what do you think Sony should do, exactly?

Or, put another way, how would you fix this problem?

This would only effect those who choose to pay RL $$ for plat and items.

You want uber item X? Either pay the high dollar or go camp it yourself.

Its simple really.

The record industry never had any qualms about going after people downloading music files. If a judge had told then to go f*ck themselves then they would be in the same situation that this poster (that Xythex is quoting) says Sony fears. That risk never stopped them. And they are not going after just one company, they went after thousands of little people. A much harder task than what Sony is up against. I don't think that Sony is scared of opening this Pandora's box.

Why is Sony not doing anything? Who's knows. They may be, just because we haven't seen it doesn't mean it not happening. But be sure of this, Sony is looking after it's own best interest.

Well this might actualy 'help' the economy.

Now that Yantis and IGE joined forces they will no longer be in a price war as before. This means plat prices go up. This means plat value goes up.

This is good.

File charges against IGE and PlayerAuctions for violation/assistance in violation of the SOE EULA.

Hey Emprye...

How come you never post in OOT anymore?

/taps foot

cuz you guys are meanies over there! j/p...not much time lately cuz people been breaking into my car and i haven't had much online time. i'll come back when i get bored with work again >)

its cool tarv..i agree with you. i wish people would just enjoy doing "whatever" in game more...including myself. it would eliminate over half the problems we all complain about. "Life is simple, its the people that make it complicated."

This is gonna sound like i'm saying join a guild and beg,but i'm not. I recently joined a guild (Dragon warriors of feydwar) and they are the nicest people ever, if you join a guild that isnt dumbasses you wont need to buy pp,they will help you camp uber item x that your want. My friend recently hit 65 and him and a 65 shaman and my guild got my a SotBS and it is awesome, all i'm really saying is all the pp companies or whatever buying each other out doesnt matter, its a game and whatever is happening outside the game shouldnt be posted here,it should be posted in the OOT forum thats why it is here. STOP WORRYING ABOUT PP. LEVEL UP AND FARM AND JOIN A GOOD LEVEL 40+ GUILD.

8~D

Re: Reference to music industry.

Plat and item selling is NOT losing Sony money like it did the music industry. Matter of fact it may be making them money as people who dont understand how to play the game can twink out and thus stay alive, thusly they keep their subscriptions w/Sony(would you subscribe if you died all the time?). Yea I know this is a somewhat broad statement to say about plat/items buyers, but SURELY some of them this would apply to(remembers in HORROR the lvl 40 SK in ldon group who didnt know how to do ANYTHING).
My point being the music industry had much to lose with file sharing, were Sony has nothing to lose with plat/item selling....Think about it...chew it up...spit it out.

1 way to fix this is i herd a roumer from a firend who doesn't even play eq, he checks post to se what game will be bast to play by year end. we played Asheron's call for many years. i came here to eq for quest and tradeskills. not that tadeskills are fun any more loosing money and all. any ways the roumer was sony might be planing on selling pre-made characters at verious levels, and equiping them, plus selling platinum them selves.
is sony started doing that then everyone else trying to make a profit by killing the economy in our game will have a huge compition on there hands...
although if sony did this it could start to kill the game as we know it now. but if their smart, they would do this but only on 1 or 2 new servers, and not alow transfers. ...
not sure, an idea. if anyone else has hard of this romour or know a post URL for it please post it hear. i've been trying to find it.