Why does PA spend time on Sythe?

In another thread, I was asked a pretty pointed question, which I felt deserved it's own thread. I've been active here on Sythe for several years now, and I remember when I first arrived, many had quite a sour taste of PA. I listened. Took the feedback, turned it into action, and essentially fixed quite a few things at PA with the help of honest (and thank goodness, respectful, feedback).

The question is, if PA is so large, why do we even spend time here. It's a good question, and here is the quote, and my response:

(no, definitely not rich)

It boils down to two things, opportunity & vision.

Opportunity
If PA were a genuinely bad product, with no unique selling points, or value added propositions, I would have left about 4 years ago (I've been at PA 7 yrs now). But PA, is a good product, and it has gotten supremely better over this last year (more info on 2014's metrics early next week). So, I stay, because it is something that I can stand behind, and believe in it's ability to achieve critical mass (this is the opportunity).

Vision
Secondly, PA not only operates as a business, but also has a unique philosophy behind it, in that not only are we here to secure trades (this is our strategy), we have to consider "Why does PA even exist?". Good companies satisfy a need. Companies of success AND impact have a vision to change the status quo (I'm thinking of Apple as an example.)

True success for a player to player trading market, will only come by bringing about change in the perception of the industry by advocating SAFE trade, and bringing the masses in line with this philosophy. This removes the stigma of a "black market, where shady back alley deals take place, and people get scammed". We want to make player secondary markets legitimate. This brings me to the primary reason, why I post here: because Sythe has many users who follow suite with this vision.

Working together towards a common vision
There are a ton of users here who are tired of an industry rife with fraud, they are tired of game publishers unfairly removing the right to secondary markets, and they are tired of professional hackers/scammers being found among the ranks. They want safe trade. They want the ability to ascribe value to their gameplay. Buyers and sellers alike want to be connected with each other in an environment that transparently keeps both parties as safe as possible.This is something I can get behind, and that's why I'm here.

Like-minded people, binding together to achieve a bigger goal. Divided, I don't think we could accomplish very much, but if PA engaged with it's audience and was an active supporter of people/communities who support safe trade, I believe far more can be accomplished, and that is why I exert time and energy to be able to support and engage with you guys.

 

An interesting read and a very interesting subject you brought up which I thought rightly so:

Will only come by bringing about change in the perception of the industry by advocating SAFE trade, and bringing the masses in line with this philosophy.


My question to you is: Do you believe that that is a realistic goal?

I'm speaking primarily runescape based of course but it seems to me no-where in your post did you specfically state "runescape" you used wording such as "this industry"

Which begs the question, what industry are your discussing, Are you discussing the broad virtual gaming market or the narrow runescape market?

My question is not one to be on sarcastic on, but I am rather curious to see your opinon so my entire question to you is:

Do you truly beleive PA can bring stability/ A new "Perception" to this "Industry"?

Because I have not heard u specify yet Im going to assume you mean the virtual game industry, just not runescape.

I simply question how far your vision extends, Your talking about modifying a Industry so vast and so large that it would be almost inconceivable to change the perception on every virtual market, every game, It's almost such a far fetched fantasy that it seems to be unreachable in today's day and age.

How far do you intend to take PA? Do you really think you can change the face or perception of an entire industry with 1 site? Do you plan to expand/ and or have partners? What is your future vision for PA? Based on your writings here it sounds like you simply intend to try to change the perception of the gaming industry but is that in reality, possible?





I look forward to your response.

 

Interesting. However with you saying you aren't rich, I highly doubt that.

 

Could be he invested a lot of money in infrastructure, and building the site's reputation to set up for becoming more profitable.

 

First of all, let's clear some things up.

To say OP is the "owner" of PlayerAuctions is pretty naive. This website is not a one man show, it has shareholders. While OP is obviously upper-level management at PA, that does not mean he is the sole owner of the company. He likely holds equity in PA, even if only through his compensation, but the odds that PlayerAuctions is 100% owned by a single person seems outlandish.

Obviously the job in upper-level management at PlayerAuctions would pay well, but to say that OP is being paid millions of dollars is a stretch. As for being active on Sythe, why not? Sythe is one of the most active virtual goods trading forums on the web. Basically every user on Sythe is a potential customer for PlayerAuctions.

 

Shareholders? I wanna get in on that action!

 

Research is the answer.

http://www.sythe.org/market-discussion/1797850-marketsize-runescape-low-high-volume-rs-sellers.html

 

You're questions very much deserve a novel-length answer, but I will try my best to be brief so as not to murder anyone with a wall of text

Industry: I mean, the secondary market for gaming virtual assets (or as others would say RMT/RWT). This includes the RS market.

Do I think this is achievable: Some days I do. Some days, I do not. When PA was re-launched in 2008 with upgraded tech, risk management, professional staff, etc, there was a huge splash in the media. We were covered by CNN, New York Times, Ars Tecnica, etc. etc. Everyone expected, PA to become something huge. The reality however was shocking (at that time. In hindsight, I can see why the marketing campaign may not have worked). PA restarted in 2008 with a trickle of orders.

The question for all of us was: If buyers have 100% security on PA, and sellers are protected from fraud, then why isn't there a mass migration? If buyers can get better deals by buying directly from other players/producers on PA than the b2c (business to consumer) distributors, then why not come to PA? If sellers can get more profit by not needing to maintain their own sites, CS, deal with fraud, and can set their own profit margins, why not come to PA?

When this comes to mind, this is when I sometimes wonder if PA can really "make it".

On the other hand, we've been running now for 7 years after the re-launch. What started as a trickle, has ended up with PA being in the top 3 with trading volume. The business has seen a 30% compound aggregated growth rate yearly.

When so many other communities, sites, businesses were started and failed, PA has A) persisted and B) grown. I'm not just talking about Chinese b2c sites, but also Western trading platforms which started simply (Sparter, 4virtuals) or even had major investment (LiveGamer, PlaySpan, both of which ultimately changed their business model and no longer focus on gaming secondary markets).

I've seen many come and go. And while, it has not always been good times/growth with PA, the macro picture seems positive. And being at the helm of the business since late 2013, I've been able to drive and see the impact of the changes we've made over this last year (we experienced our largest growth year to date, and broke nearly all previous PA records).

When this comes to mind, then yes, I remain hopeful, and think that it can be achievable.

As it is, PA has brought stability to several areas. To go into this in detail though would really make this a long post. The industry is also changing, and the taboo of gaming markets seems to be dissipating. Everyone can see how monumental a move it was for Blizzard to support RMT with Diablo 3. This begs the question... if Game publishers support their own real money trading platform, then what use is there for PA? The question lies in economics. After D3's RMAH launched, the D3 market on PA was still viable, the primary reason being: between PA's 10% fees and Blizzard/PayPal's 30% fees, people still ended up trading on PA to save.

The vision extends to critical mass, where buyers and sellers all know that PA is *the* place to complete trades for peace of mind, and for the value returned. Places like Sythe will likely flourish when that happens since PA doesn't have the "communal element" which forum communities have, so working together with communities and establishing partnerships to support and keep them safe is on my agenda. In PA's early days, there was a different mindset with management, in that their idea of success was to compete with/starve out forum communities, but that is not a sentiment I share. Being a gamer myself, I see community as being something inseparable for gamers in general (even though ironically, I usually end up playing alone in the MMO's I frolic around in:embar: )

Well, that was pretty long. Apologies ;-)

You are both correct.

PA is part of the B&M Holdings corporate entity (a private equity business with large institutional shareholders), which also owns two other c2c markets in Asia, two game portals, and a game publishing division. With this in mind, people may now be able to understand the implication of when I mentioned previously that when PA re-launched in 2008, it was to a trickle of orders. It may be worth considering, that the only reason why PA is still around, is due to the financial backing of a large company. They can take losses, provided the entity they are supporting shows continued development, growth, and future potential/opportunity.

This is how it works in a private equity.

And yes, nearly the entirety of PA's gross profit is poured back into infrastructure and support. Many people can (and have) set up marketplace platforms for virtual currencies. But none of them (Except for two, which no longer operate in this space), have the same kind of developed infrastructure and technology that PA has for virtual trading.

 

So you guys at PA have time to make post and reply to people on sythe, but you can reply to a long-time customer's email and make a refund?

The fucks wrong with you idiots

 

Working together towards a common vision
There are a ton of users here who are tired of an industry rife with fraud, they are tired of game publishers unfairly removing the right to secondary markets, and they are tired of professional hackers/scammers being found among the ranks. They want safe trade. They want the ability to ascribe value to their gameplay. Buyers and sellers alike want to be connected with each other in an environment that transparently keeps both parties as safe as possible.This is something I can get behind, and that's why I'm here.


What a joke. Im Laughing. You people are professional scammers. there are heaps of post on complaints board and other websites - even here on sythe, that you scumbags have scammed people, ignored them, refused refunds, refused to follow through on you "insurance" which people pay extra for.
What a big bag of shit all of you are

 

Instead of flaming you can ask patiently about your status, with PA. Post screenies of your situation. If you want them to help you, then you would have to be on the same page as they are. Just a word of advise

 

Pretty decent advice. Plenty of people can vouch for my willingness to help, even without the use of expletives.

As mentioned in his other thread, there may be a better way to promote visibility on Sythe and let people know that I'm here to help. I was going to be writing a guide later and see if it's something the community finds helpful, and would like stickied. Goodness knows I don't try to hide from helping people out.

 

I think if you were genuine in wanting help, you'd instead say:

"Hey man, here is my order ID #xxxx. I haven't received a response from your customer support in awhile and it's starting to concern me"

and my response would be:

"Thanks for that info, it's exactly what I need. When I get into the office on Monday, I'll look into it for you, and email you back that afternoon to give an update. You can also reach me here directly incase you have screenshots, or chat transcripts you want to share: [email protected]".

Save the flaming for later if in the rare occurrence I am not able to follow-through. Until then, give me something I can work with, plenty of people here will vouch for me, and for PA's general direction of improving. You're issue just as well may help me to find something else in our processes which can be improved

 

the guy who scammed me just messaged me telling me to smell his farts.
I have anger issues and sorry for that message, but I am so fed up with this whole thing.
If you can read my emails, you will see pictures. I can send more to you on hotmail, or here.

 

I am sorry for belliegerent messages, but in this part of the world, I could say whatever the hell I want to you technically, and you still can't refuse to help me and steal my money. no matter what.

 

So aside from everything, (PA), c2c exists; however, if you're going to compete be sure you can handle failure.

 

Bit harsh but he likes feedback.

 

Those would count as assets and would still have an equivalent in cash