The short version: I don't like it when people get mad at others who are a little more market savvy, or just have a lot of gp.

 

 

 

In case some of you don't have a background in economics:

 

[hide=The econ background, for your viewing pleasure]There is something called a supply and demand curve. In a supply curve, the price of the item dictates the amount of people who are willing to sell. For instance, at price m, there are n people willing to sell.

 

 

 

And theres also something called the demand curve. At a price m, there are o people willing to buy.

 

 

 

Uncut sapphires are a good example. When the price of uncut sapphires gets to about 480, people are like, "Hey, thats a good deal. I should train crafting now. I'll buy a bunch of uncut sapphires." People with uncut sapphires will be like, "Hey, thats not a good deal. I'm not going to sell my sapphires." The price will then go up, because theres more people willing to buy than there are to sell, a scarcity has occurred.

 

 

 

When the price of uncut sapphires get up to about 540, people are like "Hey, thats a bit expensive. I'm not going to train crafting right now, I don't need sapphires." People with sapphires are like, "Hey, thats a great price. I'm going to sell my sapphires now." Thats when a surplus has occurred.

 

 

 

Now, a group of people could buy hundreds of thousands of uncut sapphires, and the price would not be affected too greatly, because uncut sapphires are a common occurrence, and like air or fire runes, are traded enough to keep a (relatively) stable price. Its with the items that are not so common where they can "Manipulate" the price.

 

 

 

Hording in RS is much like scalping tickets, or buying a bunch of XBOX 360's or Wii's, and selling on ebay. People are willing to pay much more for an item when its scarce than what it actually might naturally occur. This will cause the price to rise, as people pay more and more for less and less. When the items finally get dumped, they'll settle down to what it naturally should be, or the market will pull the price back in.

 

 

 

The reason that nobody gets "screwed" in scalping, is that, they're willing to pay for it. Heres a quick question, how much is something worth? The answer is how much somebody is willing to pay for it. Is a coffee at starbucks worth it to you? If its not, then you won't buy it, because you're not willing to pay for it. To someone else, it might be, so they'd buy it.

 

 

 

Items in RS are much the same way, where its worth one thing to one person, and another to the next.[/hide]

 

 

 

My view: If you can't beat 'em, join them. There are plenty of ways to make gp, so even if you don't have the millions others have, you can still get there if you put in a little effort. Yes, that means you too F2P. Stop complaining already.

 

 

 

And so begins the flame:

I agree. I'm taking an Economics course right now so I'm still learning. Most of it is pretty easy to understand but some people are geniuses at this. I don't see the point in bashing someone who is intelligent enough to play the market. Come on, it's just a game.

I don't see why it's so bad, just buy when it crashes. :lol:

 

 

 

I see how it can be considered unfair though.

 

 

 

I agree that bashing them is bad. Bashing people who manipulate markets is like bashing people on Wall Street..

Good news:

 

Everything you said was 100% true, and I congratulate you for being skilled in economics and market savvy :thumbsup:

 

 

 

Bad news:

 

Everything you said is something I already knew ;)

 

 

 

Ugly news:

 

I'm not so much angry at the price manipulators (hurray for smart people \ ); it's more of a frustration of loss of control, like when you are creaming someone in a game, and all of a sudden they turn the tables on you and beat you. What REALLY gets me angry is when noobs all sell for the lowest price and then yell on the forums "the prices are bad; change them!!!" THAT'S what annoys me -.-

 

 

 

OT news:

 

The runescape economy is exactly the same as the stock market except that the stock market doesn't have price ceilings that are +/-5% (or maybe I'm wrong on that one). If these people can't predict the market, I bet they'll phale at lyfe.

True, you mention about supply and demand. However did you ever mention the elasticity of demand? For the case of saphaires, if the price rise above profit people can choose not to buy, but for people hunting boss regualry, crafting runes, pure esscene to them is like an inelastic demand. Thus, even if the price rises, they still need to buy, unless they make those item themselves.

 

 

 

In the case, where Perfect Competition (D=MR=AR) and Oligopoly (Kinked Demand Curve) collude together to form a cartel. They will form one big monopoly. The monopoly would than have the power to influence prices and price discriminate. Face it, in the case of runescape a monopoly would always earn a supernormal profit and the prices of items will rises and this would affect the person who want to buy it.

 

 

 

Also, in the case of price manupulators (monopoly), they already did exploit consumers and charge premium prices for the products. This will threaten consumer welfare especially if the product is a necessity. Also the high amount of profits and power that a monopoly possesses may result in unequal distribution of wealth in the economy. This will lead to the wideninng of the income gap.

 

[Economics is not just about supply and demand].

 

 

 

 

There is something called a supply and demand curve. In a supply curve, the price of the item dictates the amount of people who are willing to sell. For instance, at price m, there are n people willing to sell.

 

 

If the invisible hand of demand and supply does work, account for the Great Depression than?

 

 

Keynes's ideas influenced Franklin D. Roosevelt's view that insufficient buying-power caused the Depression. During his presidency, Roosevelt adopted some aspects of Keynesian economics, especially after 1937, when, in the depths of the Depression, the United States suffered from recession yet again following fiscal contraction. Something similar to Keynesian expansionary policies had been applied earlier by both social-democratic Sweden, and Nazi Germany[citation needed]. But to many the true success of Keynesian policy can be seen at the onset of World War II, which provided a kick to the world economy, removed uncertainty, and forced the rebuilding of destroyed capital. Keynesian ideas became almost official in social-democratic Europe after the war and in the U.S. in the 1960s.

 

 

 

Keynes's theory suggested that active government policy could be effective in managing the economy. Rather than seeing unbalanced government budgets as wrong, Keynes advocated what has been called countercyclical fiscal policies, that is policies which acted against the tide of the business cycle: deficit spending when a nation's economy suffers from recession or when recovery is long-delayed and unemployment is persistently highand the suppression of inflation in boom times by either increasing taxes or cutting back on government outlays. He argued that governments (Jagex) should solve problems in the short run rather than waiting for market forces to do it in the long run, because "in the long run, we are all dead."

 

 

source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics#.22Multiplier_effect.22_and_interest_rates

 

 

 

 

Hording in RS is much like scalping tickets, or buying a bunch of XBOX 360's or Wii's, and selling on ebay. People are willing to pay much more for an item when its scarce than what it actually might naturally occur. This will cause the price to rise, as people pay more and more for less and less. When the items finally get dumped, they'll settle down to what it naturally should be, or the market will pull the price back in.

 

 

But

 

 

Many governments have condemned the practice of hoard-ingparticularly when it comes to essential commodities like food. Anti-hoarding laws have been fairly common in recent times

 

 

Source: http://209.85.175.104/search?q=cache:WO ... ient=opera

 

 

 

If you have study circular flow of income, hoarding is also bad and goverment (Jagex) should intervene. Beside hoarding already accours, when players save their money and not spending it, which affects the multiplier.

 

 

 

 

My view: If you can't beat 'em, join them.

 

 

 

Remember Economics, Remember Opportunity Cost, Remember Barriers of Entry.

 

 

 

Also, due to price manipulators this will result in poor Pareto efficiency. Pareto efficiency, or Pareto optimality, is an important concept in economics with broad applications in game theory, engineering and the social sciences. The term is named after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist who used the concept in his studies of economic efficiency and income distribution. In this case, in order for Welfare Economics and Social Welfare to maximise, a situation is optimal only if no individuals can be made better off without making someone else worse off.

 

 

 

Economics is not just about supply, demand, basic concepts (Scarcity and etc), price floor, price ceiling and etc. IF you want to drag in the whole Economics term, please too mention about stufts such as Social Welfare in Economics, Monopoly Management. Supply and demand is mostly for Micro Economic.

I don't agree with you in terms of Economics which you explained it out as it does not have depth nor the implications in the long run. If you ask why people get mad at price manipulators. Why not ask yourself: "Should I not get mad, when people earn money at the expense of myself?"

I'm afraid I don't believe in price manipulating, at least not on the scale that is currently believed. The RS market has been rising and falling long before the GE, with most item sin a steady decline. Recent game changing updates have only exacerbated the problem - of course the announcement of anywhere PVP worlds and (possibly) new, super powered armor would cause items to change in price.

I don't agree with you in terms of Economics which you explained it out as it does not have depth nor the implications in the long run. If you ask why people get mad at price manipulators. Why not ask yourself: "Should I not get mad, when people earn money at the expense of myself?"

 

Umm, that's what the economy is all about basically...

 

For every $500 that you spend, somewhere, some one/people is/are making $500.

 

Having a monopoly over things such as food, water, energy, GASOLINE, etc is not right if you over price things. At this point even if people would rather not spend the money are forced to spend it in order to survive.

 

 

 

The economy is BASED on people losing and gaining. Without that aspect the economy would be stagnant. A stagnant economy means that it is basically impossible to sell/buy items, which is even worse than a bad economy.

 

Umm, that's what the economy is all about basically...

 

For every $500 that you spend, somewhere, some one/people is/are making $500.

 

 

However, there are many type of economic system, free market, command economy or even those of are welfare state. I'm merely discussion that people DOES HAVE have a reason to be get mad, since some of them are affected.

 

 

 

Plus by using the expenditure functions, income can't really pass between players that well as there is alot of hoarding/savings.

 

 

 

Based on your idea, it can't really happen in the whole market as there would be some part of the money loss through Deadweightloss. As so far, what I observed people have more mariginal cost than marginal benefits in some of the items and the other way round in some of the commodities.

 

 

 

 

Having a monopoly over things such as food, water, energy, GASOLINE, etc is not right if you over price things. At this point even if people would rather not spend the money are forced to spend it in order to survive.

 

 

Take the case of OPEC. The monopoly would never over-charge. As unlike most player, the monopoly firm is a 'price maker'. It can choose what price to charge. Neverthless, it is still constraint by it;s demand curve. A rise in price will reduce the quantity demanded, thus it will not over-charge.

 

 

 

 

The economy is BASED on people losing and gaining. Without that aspect the economy would be stagnant. A stagnant economy means that it is basically impossible to sell/buy items, which is even worse than a bad economy.

 

 

 

So you are saying the buyer either make a loss or the consumer make a loss? If you are saying flow of income, I've already mention it. But in some cases, both parties will make a gain. For instance in a product there are 3 levels of product. And each level will give benefits to a consumer. It really depends whether the price is worth it or not.

 

 

 

For clarification, I agree that in some cases monetary gain and loss is unavoidable. But my basic idea is whether should we increase the loss and gain between player or whether we should not. It is still best not to make a huge difference between the consumer/buyer and producer/seller surplus.

Maybe to you price manipulation isn't bad, but to me it is. Consider the people who are most hurt be this: the inexperienced and those who don't have deep wallets. The people who are most affected by these updates tend to be newer or poorer players, those who don't have much power in the market. So, when manipulators make them lose 100s of thousands of gp, though that may not seem that much to you, it is a devastating blow to them.

i dont care what they do but when a clan or group do it on a certain item i need aka whip to get my 90 defence it pisses me off because i have to pay a mass' amount on rsof and buy junk with it. =\

It wasn't my intention to get this in depth, however I will try to counter a few points.

 

 

 

they still need to buy, unless they make those item themselves.

 

How many items in Runescape are luxury items, and how many are necessities?

 

Most, if not all items in Runescape are luxury items.

 

 

 

If the invisible hand of demand and supply does work, account for the Great Depression than?

 

I would like to see you do the same. Thing is, no one will ever know exactly what caused it, as there are too many variables involved, including things that Runescape lacks - namely taxes, incomes, corporations, etc.

 

 

 

 

Many governments have condemned the practice of hoard-ingparticularly when it comes to essential commodities like food. Anti-hoarding laws have been fairly common in recent times

 

 

Remind me, which items in Runescape were essential? Like, your avatar would not survive if it didn't get every day, etc. Nothing, really.

 

 

 

which affects the multiplier.

 

The multiplier? As in theres a marginal propensity to spend, or a marginal propensity to save? Or the fact that gp in runescape is created, but (in effect) never destroyed? (With the exception of bans.)

 

 

 

Remember Economics, Remember Opportunity Cost, Remember Barriers of Entry.

 

Last thing - the items that price manipulators use already cost millions. Its just doesn't make sense for them to be limited to items where they can only sell so much in so little time, without making a large profit. To the average joe in Runescape, a Santa Hat or a DFS or a P-Hat or anything is out of reach anyway, and even still until they get the minimum stat required to wield it. By the time they get there, they should already have their own ways to make money.

 

If the invisible hand of demand and supply does work, account for the Great Depression than?

 

I would like to see you do the same. Thing is, no one will ever know exactly what caused it, as there are too many variables involved, including things that Runescape lacks - namely taxes, incomes, corporations, etc.

 

 

Actually, that is relatively simple to layout the reasons why:

 

1)high debt (over-credit card usage)

 

2)fear

 

3)post war "highs"

 

 

 

in that order:

 

1)For every 1$ of debt that someone owes, they have effectively put in 1$ into the system. Let's say that I owe 5,000$ and there is 10,000$ in the system. Inflation will count for my debt even though it technically does not exist.

 

2)Fear is a humongous factor in the market. If everyone is to scared to buy an item for fear of losing money (or to bank money in the Great Depression's case), then there is little if no demand which makes prices plummet. A lot of people use circular logic. In doing so they put the price drop in an endless cycle. "Hey, I was right to be scared! The prices fell!!"

 

3)After WWI many people got "high" by having some sense of "Celebration" of victory. They bought with credit as well. The prices went up because of higher demand. More production (higher supply) started to meet the demand. However, the demand fell, but there was still more supply than demand. Because the corporates had bought the supplies and stocks with credit (this was a big trend at the time), they tried to sell the stocks to make a profit. Ironically, those who bought the stocks ALSO bought the stocks on credit when they had run out of money. This points back to my first point where so much debt caused an enormous amount of inflation.

 

 

 

That basically sums it up, but there are probably a few more factors. I'm pretty sure than I outlined the most active factors though. :

 

How many items in Runescape are luxury items, and how many are necessities?

 

Most, if not all items in Runescape are luxury items.

 

 

 

For a person doing gwd what is a necessities to him? For a person doing barrows what is a necessities to him? For a person doing a simple firemaking what is a neccessities to him? In this case, I did not use Income Elasticity of Demand in my arguments, but more towards the implications when a group of players collude together and Price Elasticty and Cross Elasticity of Demand.

 

 

 

 

I would like to see you do the same. Thing is, no one will ever know exactly what caused it, as there are too many variables involved, including things that Runescape lacks - namely taxes, incomes, corporations, etc.

 

 

 

Yep, I totally agree with you with this statement. We too can't really just use supply and demand to justify for the price manipulators action, there are also many other variable invovled and etc. Runescape is classify under "Game Economy" and it too have other factors not just supply and demand.

 

 

 

 

Remind me, which items in Runescape were essential? Like, your avatar would not survive if it didn't get every day, etc. Nothing, really.

 

 

 

People play RS to enjoy, not to log in to find that the item essential for them to enjoy the game has been hoarded and they need to spend extra time to end the extra amount of money. A quote another author:

 

 

The people who are most affected by these updates tend to be newer or poorer players, those who don't have much power in the market. So, when manipulators make them lose 100s of thousands of gp, though that may not seem that much to you, it is a devastating blow to them.

 

 

 

About the point I get from Google, as much as you mention that Hoarding is good, but we still cannot denie the fact it is still a negative externalities.

 

 

 

 

The multiplier? As in theres a marginal propensity to spend, or a marginal propensity to save? Or the fact that gp in runescape is created, but (in effect) never destroyed? (With the exception of bans.)

 

 

 

Yep, you mention about hoarding, I just point out it already happen.

 

 

 

 

Last thing - the items that price manipulators use already cost millions. Its just doesn't make sense for them to be limited to items where they can only sell so much in so little time, without making a large profit. To the average joe in Runescape, a Santa Hat or a DFS or a P-Hat or anything is out of reach anyway, and even still until they get the minimum stat required to wield it. By the time they get there, they should already have their own ways to make money.

 

 

 

 

My view: If you can't beat 'em, join them. There are plenty of ways to make gp, so even if you don't have the millions others have, you can still get there if you put in a little effort.

 

 

 

 

Look at the bold words.

 

 

 

 

Actually, that is relatively simple to layout the reasons why:

 

1)high debt (over-credit card usage)

 

2)fear

 

3)post war "highs"

 

 

 

in that order:

 

1)For every 1$ of debt that someone owes, they have effectively put in 1$ into the system. Let's say that I owe 5,000$ and there is 10,000$ in the system. Inflation will count for my debt even though it technically does not exist.

 

2)Fear is a humongous factor in the market. If everyone is to scared to buy an item for fear of losing money (or to bank money in the Great Depression's case), then there is little if no demand which makes prices plummet. A lot of people use circular logic. In doing so they put the price drop in an endless cycle. "Hey, I was right to be scared! The prices fell!!"

 

3)After WWI many people got "high" by having some sense of "Celebration" of victory. They bought with credit as well. The prices went up because of higher demand. More production (higher supply) started to meet the demand. However, the demand fell, but there was still more supply than demand. Because the corporates had bought the supplies and stocks with credit (this was a big trend at the time), they tried to sell the stocks to make a profit. Ironically, those who bought the stocks ALSO bought the stocks on credit when they had run out of money. This points back to my first point where so much debt caused an enormous amount of inflation.

 

 

 

That basically sums it up, but there are probably a few more factors. I'm pretty sure than I outlined the most active factors though.

 

 

 

Thanks, for giving some facts and useful stufts on the great depression. Well back on the topic, it already shows that Supply and Demand alone can't justify that people should not get mad at price manipulators as there are many reasons they should be. It is parrallel to your post as there are many points and reasons for a thing.

 

 

 

But what solve this? Do they depend on the supply and demand or did they use keynesian economics?

I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your replies, however may I remind you that this is the rant forum... And that you've lost the basic point of my rant: people who think like you annoy me. I understand that you disagree, but lets agree to disagree, and let this thread, which was put in the rants forum, remain a rant, and not a debate.

EDITED

 

 

 

Hmm, I just delete another of "my long eassay against your argument". Well, since you have in-directly requested me to cease-fire, than I will do that in the spirit of the game/forums.

 

 

 

Btw, Ranters Section can be serious, alot of my post in the Jagex, runescape forums are very serious and lengthy as usual :thumbsup: . Anyway to sum up my post, I disagree with your economics view that price manipulator is justify in Economics and regarding whether people should get mad on price manipulators or not, I'm indifferent.

 

 

 

Ps: You certainly aren't the first nor the last to say that my post are annoying to be reply/rebut.

well, i would like to add my opinion, so please dont flame and say gtfo. thankyou

 

 

 

price manipulation is basically creating false demand for an item so that loads of people buy it, then sell it at a higher price, which would be fair enough. except that when people want to buy good armour, or weapons or potions, they cant because the item is bought out, meaning some people lose their enjoyment from the game.

 

 

 

also there are a lot of solo merchers who make money without the use of many people to push an items value up.

 

 

 

i would also like to take this quote from the jagex site:

 

The prices items sell at are therefore not set by Jagex but by the players themselves! We are keen to keep a player-driven economy, so the prices are worked out using the supply and demand rules above. We will only intervene as a last resort, and only if we think price manipulation is going on, although the system has lots of safeguards to prevent that.

 

 

 

basically jagex owning themselves (again), by saying that it doesnt happen and that they are safeguarding it, when they clearly arent because it is happening right now, with one of the many cc's i know probably being nooby again and buying out something like uncut sapphires or something.

 

 

 

im not against people making money from merchanting, but some people use the items, which price manipulators use, in their everyday rs life. this includes such items as bandos/armadyl armour, bgs, sara brews, whips, furys, prayer potions, super restore potions, zamorak/saradomin cloaks, etc.

 

 

 

the price manipulators, are creating false demand, which can be proved, because;

 

when an item is bought out, when it reaches the 'dump' value, many people will 'dump' their stock of an item, but when people start to realise what happens, the item will take about 3 days to sell even at lowest (this is after the first 3-4 hours after the first 'dumpers' started 'dumping their stock), because no one wants it anymore.

 

 

 

Remember Economics, Remember Opportunity Cost, Remember Barriers of Entry.

 

 

 

Also, due to price manipulators this will result in poor Pareto efficiency. Pareto efficiency, or Pareto optimality, is an important concept in economics with broad applications in game theory, engineering and the social sciences. The term is named after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist who used the concept in his studies of economic efficiency and income distribution. In this case, in order for Welfare Economics and Social Welfare to maximise, a situation is optimal only if no individuals can be made better off without making someone else worse off.

 

 

 

Economics is not just about supply, demand, basic concepts (Scarcity and etc), price floor, price ceiling and etc. IF you want to drag in the whole Economics term, please too mention about stufts such as Social Welfare in Economics, Monopoly Management. Supply and demand is mostly for Micro Economic.

 

 

 

i also found out about this during business studies, not economics.

 

 

 

jagex say they have a similar type of anti hoarding system in place, which is clearly false, otherwise this wouldnt be happening.

 

 

 

oh and to quote from my source on the runescape site:

 

http://www.runescape.com/kbase/viewarti ... 559#prices

 

 

 

click on the faq section and look at the last couple of paragraphs.

 

 

 

I agree that bashing them is bad. Bashing people who manipulate markets is like bashing people on Wall Street..

 

no its not (as in its not like bashing people on wall street, not that bashing them is a good thing =S), in real life, it is very hard to manipulate the value of stock, because unless you own something such as an oil field in the north sea, then you arent going to have much affect on the global market. on wall street, prices are also not manipulated.

 

 

 

but to conclude, it isnt really ok to bash anyone over the internet and here is a pic to prove it: (warning some may find the following image to be offensive)[hide=][/hide]

Price manipulation is a good thing. It's the people who cannot take the extra 3 minutes of research that lose, and the ones that will (naturally) be angry at the others

good thing? if it was a good thing, then jagex wouldnt want to stop it.

I agree. I'm taking an Economics course right now so I'm still learning. Most of it is pretty easy to understand but some people are geniuses at this. I don't see the point in bashing someone who is intelligent enough to play the market. Come on, it's just a game.

 

 

 

Buying out everything in a market, waiting for a price hike and then dumping them to make a profit after the hike does not take intelligence -.-...

 

 

 

This way of price manipulation will go on for years, as thats the way the market in Runescape works - demand is ALWAYS there.

 

 

 

Think about it, if you own 15 houses in a street with 16 house, price will dramatically increase as the demand is there but supply is no = excess demand and little supply = price hikes... They then flood the market with items which were saturated and the price plumets - excess supply and little demand = price fall...

 

 

 

Its the most basic of economics...

 

 

 

I have no problem with these people, but its a bloody game - keep it that way.

I actually like them a lot. The prices for fish keep going up(especially raw lobsters) allowing for people like me, who fish for money, to make a quicker buck.

My suggestion, if you support the work of price manipulators, you should forward your claim directly to Jagex.