Runescape vs real life economy

[Lode]

In real life economy, the more you buy of the same item, the cheaper it becomes, for example if a company buys a lot of 1000 tshirts it's cheaper per tshirt than when you buy one tshirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But in runescape, it's exactly the opposite: the more of the same item you sell, the higher you can make the price per item (law runes being an exception because some people desparately need a single one to teleport).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I'm wondering, how comes this? Why is this the exact opposite as in real life in RS?

[frogspoons]

because as there is less of the item is around-demand for it goes up- thus inflating the price. (this is for shops)

 

 

 

when people trade in bulk they get paid more because of the convinience they have given-saving the person from going round buying 1 or 2 laws many times instead of 2000. :)

[RincewindSW]

 

 

 

when people trade in bulk they get paid more because of the convinience they have given-saving the person from going round buying 1 or 2 laws many times instead of 2000. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is true, but shops obviously work in the same way as real life, when you have about 5K of willows in a shop they are only about 12gp each.

[Lode]

I'm not talking about RS shops here, I'm talking about RS players vs. shops in real life...

[maximus]

there was a topic about this abour a year ago...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

its because rs is a game... :D

[maximus]

and stores in real life have compitition whiel us rs players just sell the item... :P

[vmser]

In real life, there's mass production and relatively small amounts being bought at once.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In RS, people want to skip the time-taking part of getting resources in small amounts..

 

 

 

Large demands, but limited offers... So paying a bit more, but waste less time to get them, could even out, but be less boring. And there's enough gp around to make it possible...

[jak722]

The inflation rate is soo high, you can bounce on it... :?

[katsuro0]

its because rs is a game

[Duke_Freedom]

Like vmser already said - (mass) production isn't the problem in real life: the supply side of the market isn't the problem.

 

 

 

In your example, the company that makes the t-shirts can make another 1000 t-shirts in no time, so if someone wants to buy 1000 t-shirts of them (which saves them a lot time, compared to when they would have to sell the t-shirts one by one), they are willing to sell for a little lower price / t-shirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rs is different because with almost all materials the rule goes the other way around - everyone wants the materials: the demand side of the market isn't the problem.

 

 

 

This makes for the fact that bulk materials always go for a higher price / product.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Still, there are markets in rs that do show the 'normal' type of market. Weapons and armour are cheaper in bulk amount. These items are more comparable with real life products too: you only need one of them, just like you only need one car, etc.

 

 

 

Same goes for rare items generally, although they may go for higher price in bulk sometimes, depending on the current market sentiment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now there's still one question left: "why do people pay so much for bulk materials; or in other words: why do they pay so much to gain experience, while they will never make back all that money with the skill.?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In real life people pay for education (comparable to investing in skills in rs) too. However, in real life people generally do that to earn more money later on. Thus, in real life, the real reason why people pay for education is to gain more money in the end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In rs people pay for skills for the heck of getting their skills up. Getting 99 prayer has cost 400 - 500mil for a long time (it's probably a bit cheaper today, but the exact amount doesn't really matter). They'll never make all that money back with such a high skill in prayer. However, they don't mind: in rs people don't invest in skills to gain more gp later on; no they invest in skills to have higher skills.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thus the difference between rs and rl: rs is skill-orientated, rl is cash-orientated.

[katsuro0]

Now there's still one question left: "why do people pay so much for bulk materials; or in other words: why do they pay so much to gain experience, while they will never make back all that money with the skill.?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

because thats what the game is meant for, to become one of the best. its an achievement. Gp was only put into the economy to help you play the game the way its meant to be played. Having 100mil doesnt show anything. It only shows that u sit and merchant all day. Of course there are exceptions like that guy who earned a bil from slayer, but 99% of the time, the mighty rich just merchant of stake all day. Play the game the way its supposed to be played! Maybe then the increasing prices in rares would drop.

[Duke_Freedom]

because thats what the game is meant for, to become one of the best. its an achievement. Gp was only put into the economy to help you play the game the way its meant to be played.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since when is there a "you must play the game like this" rule with mmorpgs? The idea is that you can play any way you want... That most people play one way, doesn't mean it's *wrong* to play differently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Besides, you say the game is about becomming one of the best - isn't becomming the richest practically the same concept? Just because we have no written highscores for that, doesn't mean we can't compete on that, does it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having 100mil doesnt show anything. It only shows that u sit and merchant all day. Of course there are exceptions like that guy who earned a bil from slayer, but 99% of the time, the mighty rich just merchant of stake all day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Having 99 in any skills shows nothing, besides that you pointlessly clicked somewhere for hours and hours. :roll: Let's not start a "this is pointless, no that is pointless" discussion, as the end conclusion will be that the whole game is pointless anyway. As 100% of the time, the high leveled players just spend a lot of hours getting those skills ;).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe then the increasing prices in rares would drop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Opposite to common believe: merchants are not the cause of the price increases of rares. The underlying economical concept of the 'rares' forces them to always go up in price over time.

[catchandeat]

Agreed. Rares don't go up in price because of merchants, on the contrary, if you are willing to pay 15 mil for a purple phat, that is a choice you make, that's not the merchant's choice. There are the rare exceptions when merchants overprice rares, they don't often go very fast but those are only rare exceptions. Since these artifacts are considered 'rare', more people want them, the increased amount of scapers, the more people who want the rare, and the more people are willing to pay for them. Merchants only follow the trend, for it is infact people who actually desire to have rares for themselves that raise the price. Katsuro get your facts straight plz?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merchanting is boring, (atleast to me) but it does involve actually using ur brain other than just sitting at your chair and clicking on a bunch of monsters forever. For some people, merchanting is more of a challenge than just mindless clicking :wink:

[katsuro0]

i was owned there, but I still believe that the "true" point to a game is to beat it. And beating this game means getting all 99 stats. Money helps you to do that.

[katsuro0]

o, and btw duke, merchants do cause rares to increase.

 

 

 

just yesterday i saw a lvl 3 bot going around convincing every1 that santas are worth 2.1 mil at least. This is probably a guy with a main who has hoards of santas. People actually started to sell for 2.1 mil and wouldnt go lower. So merchants do effect the price of rares in some ways

[catchandeat]

the price of a rare throughout rs isnt going to change becoz a 10 year old with an autotype is spamming rs giving away fake info. If they actually listen to a lvl 3 for advice on how expensive a santa is, shows they dont deserve to have a santa lol. And as far as the 'true' point of the game goes, there is none. If somebody got 99 in all skills, still doesnt mean they've finished the game because that's not even close to all the achievements you can accomplish. Think money, kills, total xp, skill xp, the list goes on... Best pker, staker, rcer, herblorist, smither, mage, ranger, first 99 slayer (h), on and on.... So all of these aren't goals in the game? The whole game is a journey to be the best, its not about the goal, its about the journey that counts. The game is the journey, the goal is only an incentive for you to go through with the journey.

[Escape5]

In real life economy, the more you buy of the same item, the cheaper it becomes, for example if a company buys a lot of 1000 tshirts it's cheaper per tshirt than when you buy one tshirt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But in runescape, it's exactly the opposite: the more of the same item you sell, the higher you can make the price per item (law runes being an exception because some people desparately need a single one to teleport).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I'm wondering, how comes this? Why is this the exact opposite as in real life in RS?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You want to know why, because this GAME is overrun by greed, ruthlessness, rudness and so much more. Basically, people are just plain rude and ignorant on this game. All people want is to have the most money and highest skills and they will do anything just to be the best. What they dont realize is there will always be someone better. Before RS2, I would say everything was good, but the RS2 added in so much stuff, people got greedy and... noobish. (Im not talking about everyone, but A LOT of people)

[somefruity]

[snippet]Like vmser already said - (mass) production isn't the problem in real life: the supply side of the market isn't the problem.

 

 

 

In your example, the company that makes the t-shirts can make another 1000 t-shirts in no time, so if someone wants to buy 1000 t-shirts of them (which saves them a lot time, compared to when they would have to sell the t-shirts one by one), they are willing to sell for a little lower price / t-shirt.

 

 

 

[/snippet]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your post was pretty much right on the money (no pun intended). I am rather surprised, I might add.

[Utopianflame]

 

 

 

Opposite to common believe: merchants are not the only cause of the price increases of rares. The underlying economical concept of the 'rares' forces them to always go up in price over time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think is a better wording. Yes the prices of rares DO go up naturally over time as a counter balance to inflation AND as a result of the increasing player base and hence increasing economy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However I am disinclined to believe that the current price rate increase (if you listen to the official forums at least (not a wonderful idea IMO)) of 1mil per phat every 2 or 3 days is due to a relative change in supply and demand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Instead the rampant greed and impatience of some (quite alot) of todays 'mercheants' and there circular and faux trading, combined with the belief that on local scale of time that prices can NEVER go down increases the impetus of the market to rise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a final note price manipulation, rigging and fixing is by and large illegal in the real world and merely frowned upon in runescape

[badrobinhood]

I think I'll go back on topic here:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The reason that prices increase in bulk is without a doubt (was said before but people ignored it) the lack of an ability to mass produce items. Just because you have 2k yew logs, doesnt mean you got them any faster than if you had gotten just 1k yew logs( Aside from the increase in levels which is very minimal). Now add to this the fact that people are willing to spend a bit more for an item if they dont have to go searching for an hour, and you have increased item price in bulk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We know that is true because why else would forum prices be higher, other than for the sake of conveinince(sp?). Time is very much a commodity for some people, so paying more for others time is well worth it.

[Xaga]

That's pretty much it. When people play this game and are willing to spend big bucks for anything, its only to save time. In the real world, people don't pay money to save time, they pay money in order to survive and get what they want. They dont pay a bonus for time. However, going with the factory example, it really is the same as real life. The factory is paying its buyer for saving the factory time. The buyer doesn't need to pay the factory because there will always be enough people to sell to the buyer. In RS, the buyer pays extra because there is a much more limited supply which takes more time to obtain. Mass production allows people to make many things in a short time for little money, there is no mass production in RS. If it was possible to continually chop trees with auto banking, then mass amounts of the item would go down. Also, another thing is storage, in RS, storage is free, in real life, it cost money to store, so many places wait for work until they have buyers or else sell off excess stock. RS doesn't have the problm of paying for storage space.

[bantam222]

well one thing in RL you only need a few t-shirts or whatever the item but stares make it so they can supply bulk

[Duke_Freedom]

I think is a better wording. Yes the prices of rares DO go up naturally over time as a counter balance to inflation AND as a result of the increasing player base and hence increasing economy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merchants - we should actually speak of investors here - buy up rares, which obviously contributes to (faster) price rises of rares. Still - they only invest because the concept of rares is that they will go up, and that concept is caused by the normal players, not by the investors themself; thus the investors are not the real cause of the price rises if you analyse it closely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

combined with the belief that on local scale of time that prices can NEVER go down increases the impetus of the market to rise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prices of rares can quite easily drop. It happens whenever all investor type of merchants loose faith in the prices / when the concept of the rares changes. If Jagex ever introduces such a money drain that more money is drained then the money that enters the economy, then the rares might see a large drop again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In fact, we have seen a small depression of 3 months a year ago; the party hat prices halved then.

[amid]

I think we got right anologue between RL and RS considering raw materials prices 8) .

 

 

 

What reason for buyer who buys large bulk of raw materials ? Right, to get 500k xp (for instance) in skill. How we can call bulk of raw materials then ? I think its a "complete product" 8)

 

 

 

Then amount of raw materials for 50k xp will be called "part" of "complete product". And merchant who "assembling" "complete product" of "parts" will be "assembler", like worker who assembles cars.

 

 

 

This way its understandable why bulk of raw materials costs much more then small amounts of materials (considering per one item of cause). Cause buyers always want to get "car" instead of one "part" :wink:

[Duke_Freedom]

Heh, although I like your reasoning behind that, amid, I don't think you can really compare apples with pears just like that :P.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The raw materials are identical: 10 times an amount of 50K xp = 500K xp.

 

 

 

While ten times an engine still ain't a car - the parts of a car aren't identical. There is a little difference between that. ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Doesn't mean your observation was very wrong though. In the end, the key concept behind merchanting is that it's a service which saves time for other people - and your example pointed that out well.