Marketsize for Runescape + Low-High Volume RS Sellers

Hello,

2015 is upon us, and to prepare for this year, PA is mapping out the current RMT industry.

You may have read research reports on virtual trades, numbering in the billions of dollars, but realistically, just how big are gaming secondary markets?

If you are an RS gold seller and have your own website and would like to contribute to the white paper we're preparing, drop a line here and I'll be in touch.

The bulk of the research has already been done, but here is an opportunity to contribute to the data. We're planning to release an initial draft to Sythe first, beginning of Feb

 

whats the plan? I;d like to hear it.

 

I think they are going to show the sales of a goldseller in graph and show statistics of how much they make in dollars/euros

 

What type of information are you looking for?

 

This will be interesting, thanks for the work

 

Im assuming a graph of a goldseller and his profit? PM him to make sure

 

Basically, I'd like to speak (on an individual basis, assuming now one would want to share publicly), what % of sales an RS seller does on PA, vs offsite.

I have enough data on our end to estimate these market sizes, but if anyone wants to participate in adding data to the assumption pool, then I'd be happy to discuss further.

I went with an overall assumption, that current RS sellers do:
30% of their total sales on PA
70% of their total sales offsite

If this is true with a few sellers, I speak to, then that helps corroborate some of the marketwise estimations that I have.

Going into more detail such as order volume, transaction value, can help me further establish market trends (which you guys may be interested) such as:

Lifetime value of a user (LTV)
Average order values (AoV)
Average Revenue per Users (ARPU)
Average Revenue per paying user (ARPPU)

 

Your metrics are completely wrong.

 

+10 for clarity, sense, and rationale.

 

In this type of market, you may only see ~7% of buyers/sellers publicly (if you're lucky). At best your assumptions are based on a sample that can't be quantified due to the fact that the market is black labeled (with the exception of your internal metrics).

You have enough data on your end to estimate only your internal market-size of your own market-share of your facilitated transactions--not the market-size of the entire market.

However, (PA) you're in the market of player-to-player transactions, not sales or occurrence.

The questions your asking... even if they are truly objective... are marketing questions (more importantly, they're competitive questions in a market you don't necessarily compete in).

In terms of research, you would have to publicly acknowledge your methodology for it to be valid. In black markets, you can only see tips of icebergs.

 

I believe you may underestimate the amount of information both internal and external which is available to PA. But your request for validity is fair enough, so I'll indulge where our data comes from.

1. 15 years of aggregate data on p2p trades
2. Internally measured data across sister companies (total assets are publicly disclosed at 10 million users & $1bn in annual sales)
3. Professional grade analytics tools for trend volumes & unique visitor demographics (and I'm not referring to "alexa 'pro'")
4. Data sharing agreements with Oxford University
5. Specialized knowledge on primary production sources [which I would be impressed beyond belief if anyone here could locate and estimate their size]
6. More industry connections (both in gaming & RMT) than I'd like to admit to.

For those reasons above, I have to disagree with you that we are limited to only determining our own internal marketshare. On the contrary, I feel that we are the best possible voice in this industry currently to speak on actual market sizes

Yes, the questions I am asking can be categorized as "marketing questions". They can also be "product questions" or "research". Either way, it's beneficial to everyone (who would know how to use the data) once I release the results.

And you are right, they are 'competitive questions' in a market we don't compete in (since we are c2c, very intelligent of you). To explain why this data would be useful to us (PA); in establishing market sizes, we are better able to manage the capacity of the human resources we have available to us, and appropriately allocate resources to markets prioritizing them according to size. So if RS ends up being minuscule compared to Guild Wars 2 (not true), then I would allocate more resources to developing and supporting GW2, as opposed to RS (again, not the case, just an example).

The market is huge. I have a very limited team. We need to know where we should be focusing our support energies. (That, and I think it would be very cool to allow people the opportunity to contribute).

All that being said, ping me if you have numbers you'd like to bounce around/discuss (such as that 7% figure).

Cheers,
jake

 

We'll give that: you most likely are the best possible voice to guide the industry because of your accomplishments, history and reference.

We know the market is significant, in at least the terms of demand it is huge (just like most other black markets).

The question(s) that the research solves for you (PA), should be advantageous if you can gather out-side information from market transactors.

The question for the community (on sythe) is: how does the research help us? We're thinking that some econometric definitions would have to be included with the report.

'And as far as methodology... have you been using displacement practices to solve for unknown variables? The list you provided is full of acknowledgements, not methods...

Maybe watch the two clips found below from the movie battleship in order:

http://www.anyclip.com/movies/battleship/theres-a-way-to-track-them/#!quotes/

http://youtu.be/9-WheXcau94

It may make more sense.

 

PA is tailored for businesses that already have built offsite reputation due to them getting high amounts of gp sellers, or those who farm huge amounts of GP, rather than buy it from others. Personally, 0% of my trades are PA currently, though I'm sure I'll have to return to PA soon enough.

If you are doing this study, and are including sellers that aren't in the scope of playerauctions I can message you data about daily/weekly customer traffic.

 

Yes, offsite users would be helpful as well. Ping me.

 

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