Virtual Economics

To all of you buyers and sellers out there of RSGP, LoL boosting, WoW gold, etc., or even just a MMO with inter-player trade:
Assuming you don't have professional economists hired to project figures for you and your company, how much thought do you put into economics from a businessman's perspective on a daily basis?

As a LoL booster, I refuse to set prices on boosts because values fluctuate depending on a massive number of variables, and I always try to keep my rates cheaper than everyone else's. But when I used to play RuneScape all the time, I'd extensively research purchases and sales to determine when I'd get the best deal. Wait til after Christmas to get a Santa after the yearly crash? Yep. EoC coming out soon and I've got gold to sell? Make sure prices aren't already dropping hard based on the huge negative response to EoC, then offload right away. Bingo.


I'm really curious about what sort of responses I'll get on this one.

 

i don't think market actors care nearly that much about trends. mmorpgs historically end up as freefalling economies with nothing to limit capital introduction. the price has no sustainability and will inevitably become worthless tender. you have to be pants on head retarded or truly believe in the longevity of rsgp to spend money or effort to map out that sort of behavior.

i understand that you want to save a couple million every now and then on items because of season appraisal and depreciation but i guarantee people who are here to make money couldn't care less about seasonal or whatever cyclical-equivalant trend runescape has (udates?). rsgp is so volatile, its buyers even more so, that it's tedious and probably impossible to map out what sways market interest.

example: majority of resellers thought with the rising trend of gold nearing rs3 would carry through into rs3. however we saw yesterday that the trend did not continue. onto, today prices somewhat recovered.

this market isn't worth studying. if someone were to write a dissertation on rsgp trends, i'd laugh him and his "market" out of the room.