Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

[Pawkeshup]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

Well, first of all, this discussion has raised a lot of great debate over what gilsellers have done to the environment of FFXI. However, it's sort of moved away from what I was aiming at.

We all know what the gilsellers have done to the economy. If anyone was unsure of that, these posts have all clarified that. But that's not really the topic here.

Again, let me try to set this back on the rails and get us back on track. I'm not referring to gilsellers dominating crafting markets, sky trigger, et. all.

I'm referring to the gil itself.

The gil as a commodity. How much are the gilseller toons, new and old, stealing out of the system. To use Sabaron's example: If the gilsellers currently filling the market with ninja tools get banned, the gil players have been feeding into that system is destroyed. My point, and the point of this post initially, was to discuss what happens AFTER that point. Gilsellers are leveling now, recreating lost characters. On Ramuh I've spotted hundreds of them. That means they are also selling us basic needs. When these gilsellers are removed, how much gil goes with them?

Then when that gil gets destroyed, what happens to our economy? How ingrained are these gilsellers, and how will the economy rebuild?

[Shinhiryu_Kage]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I think its been mentioned already, but if all Gilsellers were removed from the game and all RMT was taken away,... slowly, but surely, the player base would reinstate the crafting/farming etc. and replace what is missing. The laws of supply and demand would be reinforced again with somewhat "honest" reasons behind them. I think it would be a very flippant statement to say that RMT control the economy of all servers in FF11. However, I do not think it would be crass to say that they contribute a large portion to it either.

I think the general and greatest amount of the player base of FF11 buys gil from RMT. Of course, I also think there are still honest joes out there wanting to do a job and make money to support themselves and play fairly. But this is materialistic game. Materialism breeds want. Want causes fear. Fear causes greed. In addition, looking at the age group of 15-35 that plays the game, a sense of grotesque compeition exsists. I feel that if the majority of RMT suddenly went missing, you'd have alot of very unhappy, very spiteful players on all servers moaning and complaining about having to actually do work in the game to actually play it. In fact, I think we would see threads geared towards "Bring RMT back, they weren't so bad." I would venture to think most of those players would be the one's already spoiled by the RMT and the newbies trying to build their net worth in game.

On the same token, you'd have alot of older, wiser players (possibly new ones too) extremely happy that the game could get back to its "roots" and possibly be worth playing again in the sense of buying/selling/crafting/farming. We might see a return to where people hoarded items gathered and "wasted not/wanted not." When I first started playing 10/2003, I remember the economy being quite conservative anyway. Fishing, crafting, and farming actually had a very true meaning to them. lol

Does this raise the question that perhaps the majority of the player base is now dependent these days upon RMT to the point that many may quit playing simply because they are required now to farm their own items? Hmm... interesting question. Would FF11 suffer and lose alot of players and dwindle in interest because of this?

If you ask me, I think you'll lose some but it wouldn't be so noticable. I think that RMT has spoiled many people, but that most people remember when they first made their character and the pure hell you went through to gain enough money to buy your items and start a business and that.... it actually made playing FF11 worthwhile. It would be a nice feeling to actually see crafters return in full force as far as the issue of pride is concerned. That is, pride in working hard to get items and get resepcted for being a crafter.

RMT being reduced to nothing in FF11 would simply cause the player base to revert back to more simplier, interesting, happier times, where working hard actually had meaning.

[Olorin401]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

First of all, I am not trying to defend gilsellers!
They need to be removed from the game!
Please keep that in mind when reading my post!!!
I started considering this recently. Since gilsellers provide drops and consumables to us, they wind up with a lot of our gil. As these accounts get deleted, that gil is destroyed. Consider the history of that gil, where it came from, how long it took players to have as much as they do. As this "old money" gets ejected from the economy, what could be the long-term ramifications?
Opinions?

I was waiting for someone to start asking about this... This kind of discussion could be the subject of a Master's Thesis on the economics of online games.

When a shift in an economy of this size occurs, it is expected that there will be some major shifts in every single aspect of that economic system. In our case, there's the loss of many high-level crafters and fisherman, those who farm and grow products for sale. Also, RMT players charged astronomically high prices, because they had in effect full market monopoly control and could get away with it.

While this provided the ability for regular players to craft, farm, and sell at these inflated prices as well, it placed high-end items well out of reach of even some of the more seasoned players. Unlike a real capitalist economy where people need to make money in order to participate on a reasonable level, in a game you can still function well enough without an actual job! You're just going to have to manage without that Scorpion Harness or Noble's Tunic.

Now let's take a look at what happened to the economy after the two major events of the past year - the release of Aht Urghan, and the RMT bannings. After ToAU, the new areas gave high-level parties access to mass amounts of crystals, which flooded the market and drove prices WAY down, especially on Dark Crystals. Then, the bannings caused the rest of the prices to drop because the market monopoly was broken.

There's three major problems that this has created. First, the everyday guy who is a honest player and crafts/farms to buy items and equipment has seen his profits shrink dramatically on the back end, while his overhead costs have gone down as well but not nearly as much. Second, those honest players who already had a fortune in gil (over say.. 10 million) just had the value of that gil go up at least 10 times. And third, people who are looking to sell off items that they purchased a year ago will find that their items are worth a lot less (i.e. Nobles Tunic, which has gone from 30mil to 3mil in 11 months).

The good news comes when the prices bottom and start going back up a little bit, which they have started to do on some high-end items and food.

[Visper]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I understand what the OP is trying to say - its not the fact that crafters will replace rmt etc, etc. its the fact that gil that has been in the game for a long time basically got nuked. Lets compare to real life - it would be like 1/2 of our U.S. currency being lit on fire - it just doesn't exist anymore. It was gil that people made fair n square a long time ago, be it from fishing, farming etc. that got destroyed when they deleted the RMT accounts. So, what happens now is, just like in real life, the currency (because there is less of it) becomes all the more valuable.

I guess what gets me a little upset is all the money I did spend when prices where crazy. Now its all worth a small portion (especially blm gear) of what I paid. If I would have never spent all that hard earned gil - I would be Bill Gates rich atm, but I guess having just under 1 mil on the "new" economy doesn't make me poor either.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I've found even if they do nab the RMT camping particular NMs and ban them, its only a matter of days now before they're back there with a new character. I use to generally farm slime oil, morion talthlums and camp dune widow. It wasn't the fast or best profit, but it was a decent one when there was little competition. Even with the RMT presence back then, it was doable.

But not long after ToA the value of Morion Tathlums plummeted.

I think people don't realize that the deflation is not entirely due to RMT spam, but how ToA altered the economy. I've made this point a lot in the past, but to be brief (1) ToA made rare materials and crystals more common (2) Imperial Currency gained from or Imperial standing could be sold (3) Sanction added flexibility to how you geared your character and doubled food effect durations and (4) ToA gear offered viable alternatives to rather elite gear from prior expansions.

These things started the trend of deflation and it hit RMT from all sides, they had no choice but to go with that trend. With ToA, they lost their abililty to inflate the in-game economy to their whims because it was no longer practical. Consumable Foods started to move slower - there was less demand, but too much supply. SH was a hot item, but the supply rose and the demand lowered since Jaridah set could make up for it rather well.

And just about everything has deflated as a result. Even the once mighty and highly profitable Shi'ar Manteele is now having crafters shouting in desparation to sell it. 15 or 10 million and no one's buying. Well, thats because people got Yigit from Assault instead, sure as hell isn't because RMT were dominating Vrtra, I doubt Titan's RMT even could take that one down.

So the problem is now RMT are playing into deflation in general, but trying to dominate kings and sky completely and trying to make themselves the portal through which we get various endgame gear. Fixing kings is tricky, but sky not so much.

If they make sky triggers drop just a sea triggers do, then RMT lose a lot of ground in sky. Just change the trigger drops from the NM to the NM's mob family there. The NMs can still drop the trigger as well, 100 percent of the time, but give them some other lucrative drops to make them still worth persuing. But don't make them the crux of being able to do gods at all.

Salvage, in some ways, addresses the abjuration issues in sky and ground, but other means of getting the original abjurations are still needed.

Maybe its too early to say. If Salvage and the other parts of ToA are any indication of what's to come for further content, the theme seems to be "alternative means" when it comes to equipment.

[Olorin401]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I understand what the OP is trying to say - its not the fact that crafters will replace rmt etc, etc. its the fact that gil that has been in the game for a long time basically got nuked. Lets compare to real life - it would be like 1/2 of our U.S. currency being lit on fire - it just doesn't exist anymore. It was gil that people made fair n square a long time ago, be it from fishing, farming etc. that got destroyed when they deleted the RMT accounts. So, what happens now is, just like in real life, the currency (because there is less of it) becomes all the more valuable.
I guess what gets me a little upset is all the money I did spend when prices where crazy. Now its all worth a small portion (especially blm gear) of what I paid. If I would have never spent all that hard earned gil - I would be Bill Gates rich atm, but I guess having just under 1 mil on the "new" economy doesn't make me poor either.

Currency deflation is a serious problem that SE should have realized would happen when they nuked essentially half the industrial base. I mean, I can understand their approach and thinking because, after all, this is just a game.. however FFXI is the one MMO that is MOST reliant on its internal economy, and destroying that economy has a major impact on the livelihood of players, regardless of the threat posed by RMT.

[Visper]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

FFXI is the one MMO that is MOST reliant on its internal economy, and destroying that economy has a major impact on the livelihood of players, regardless of the threat posed by RMT.

I couldn't agree more, now essentially people that have been playing for years (like myself - about 2 1/2) are essentially put on the same level as a player that just started 6 months ago. I can't sell anything that I previously bought because NO WAY I'm gonna take a beating on my full weskit set, full set of elemental staffs.... god I can't even type the rest of the blm gear I bought. Newer players - even though the prices do kind of affect them, can still farm, harvest, etc and still get up to a descent amount of gil rather quickly, go out and buy gear that may have taken me a year to accumulate at crazy prices, and be right where I am, kind of disheartening.

Anyway I do think they should introduce more gil into the economy via raise gil received for quests or items sold to npc's just to try and balance out the Dollar...I mean gil...just so the uber rich don't get richer as more money gets taken out of circulation, and the poor/middle class - stay poor/middle class.

[nohopeless]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

Let me begin with saying that I am not defending gilsellers. The rules of economics accepts, and assumes (and yes it's a big assumption) that everyone is the same. Therefore, it rejects the notion that gilsellers are some how different. I apologize if my post weren't clear on illustrating the thinking logic of "Joe any player". In response to the original post, I should have been more clear. I do not think that gilsellers are either good or bad, but a part of competition, and competitor that everyone has to deal with in a free market economy.

To illustrate my point that everyone is greedy, or out to look for a profit, I would like to ask if any crafters sell for their items at a loss if they had a choice to sell it for a profit. (This does not include selling to friends, or time preference).

To build on your post, Sabaron: I agree with you that it is incredibly hard for someone to penetrate the market all by themselves. My point in my previous post of wanting to corner a market for themselves is the dominate strategy for both gilsellers and normal players. Both have the same dominate strategy to make money (Refer to my previous post). Therefore, it is not an individual that tries to do this. It is rather collectively that these people tries to do this. This was one of the main points of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, that somehow greater good would be achieved through competition by the vices of inidividuals. Therefore, my answer to the OP is a "no" since players, working collectively without even knowing it would cause the same effects that gilsellers have done.

You have quite clearly demonstrated for me how gilsellers have a comparative advantage over normal players. So, let us look at some of the global trends in recent history, around 1950's to present. The beginning of the 1950's was the peak of industrialization for the US. With the end of the second world war, the baby boom effect, US was a huge economic power. However, as the years progressed, jobs began to be shifted overseas. Factories were being shut down and began to decline around the 1980's. Fast foward to 1990's to present, most of the cars, clothes, even food are produced overseas due to the comparative advantage that third world countries have over first world countries. This is more or less free trade, something that the FFXI system has since anyone can put items on AH.

To bring my analogy to FFXI, I guess you can think of US as the normal players that existed before gilsellers ran rampant. And I guess you can think of gilsellers as the third world countries that are manufacturing goods for US.

If somebody have a comparative advantage over someone else, do we nuke the competition, the third world countries, the gilsellers as Olorin401 have termed it? Certainly countries have gone to war over such issues. I see this as economics as well as capitalism simply taking its course, it's either good or bad but human nature.

By the way, I couldn't agree with you more as well that "FFXI is the one MMO that is MOST reliant on its internal economy, and destroying that economy has a major impact on the livelihood of players, regardless of the threat posed by RMT."

To answer Sabaron's question, which I sincerely hope he was joking on whether or not I sell gil. No, I do not sell, or buy gil.

As WoW's craft botting. I only bring it up because it's an interesting notion how it is legit in one game and not legit in another. I think the german sociologist Max Weber said it best, "Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance that himself has spun". The webs of significance being the arbitary rules that we have created when we develope games.

[Vyuru]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

Nohopeless, I'm just going to do a general comment on your posts.

1) that is not the first rule of economics, and

2) you are misconstruing the arguements to make your statements seem more plausible. You might want to brush up on your economics a bit more before trying to argue economics, or at the very least stop mixing half truths in there if you actually know what you are talking about.

3) The rules of macro economics don't quite fit here, I'd say that micro econ rules with a monopolistic competition would be a better model for this game, for NMs and HNMs a monopoly model would be more appropriate.

Sorry if I came out as harsh, but it is more than a little irritating to see someone spreading misinformation, worse yet is if they are spreading correct information the wrong way. Especially so with economics since I am an economics major.

Then when that gil gets destroyed, what happens to our economy? How ingrained are these gilsellers, and how will the economy rebuild?

It seems like every year SE has a big gil seller ban around Christmas, heck last year they had what, 2-3 mass bans, each time removing several billion gil from the servers? So we can look at that time period and just kind of scale it up to get an idea of what would happen once all gil sellers were banned, assuming all at the same time.

That is a big assumption, since if it was a gradual weeding out of gil sellers, the changes would be more gradual, but if all the gil sellers were gone in a snap of the fingers, I'm sure prices would go crazy for awhile, then settle down somewhere.

I don't think it would be possible to say what exactly would happen, but I think that for most areas, low level crafting (below level 60) would become profitable again, fishing would become profitable, and mining would be profitable again.

Why do I think this?

Because I have been playing since the NA PC release, I've seen every single change to the economy since then, and I saw the rise of the gil sellers during that time too. Every single market that had legitimate players in it always had a profit margin, and we are talking consumables/crafting ingredients. Anytime I knew about a gil seller entering the market, one of two things always happened, either they took over the market and raised the price of the item to astronomical prices, or they literally flooded the market so that no one but them could make it, and sell it.

Now granted, you have to take into account high level crafters and HQ levels, for non consumables like the SH you have to take into account alternatives, and how many people these days have one, which complicates things a little bit but I think I'd still stand by my statement that things would be profitable again.

[Aeni]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

First off, many people are gettng confused with <monopoly> and RMT.

RMT did not monopolize majority of the game. HNM <Top Tier LSs> and Hard Core (Haijin) crafters did.

On Midgardsormr, where I was on, before the RMT problem took off, we STILL HAD A MAJOR inflation problem. One that was ... gasp ... caused by JP players.

They controlled roughly 80% of the economy.
Their HNM LSs controlled the vast majority of HNMs.
Several notorious crafters controlled the AH with such a ruthless fist you are sentenced to doom if you crossed their paths.

These were going on way BEFORE RMT started to really take off.

Might I add that it was <elistism> <greed> that created the RMT problem in the first place. Many NA players were impatient or could not seem to justify having to spend hours and hours "farming" resources to fund their purchases for many of the overpriced items.

Therefore, RMT was becoming a hot source of liquidity for these players (Being able to convert real money into in-game virtual currency was much more easier than having to spend hours upon hours trying to get anywhere in the game)

Many legitimate players were involved in the rusty cap fishing fiasco.
Many more admitted to fish botting, one way or another. "But I just botted enough so I could get a VC and then I stopped botting" or "I botted to fund goldsmithing" was the normal excuse/reasoning these players gave.

I have ... a list ... of scores of people that are currently playing that have at one time or another admitted to ME personally to these offenses (Heck, a couple of names would shock people like Icemage if I told them). Are they RMT? No. Are they any better? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

[DR2D2]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

Here is the simple answer: at first the economy will be out of wack(similar to a new economy being made), but after a point in time the economy will tend to balience itself out and the prices will fall more in line to what they are worth. Tje problem is that the Gillsellers have the economy so out of wack that it will take time to get the balance(sp) back. I realize the "old" gill will forever be losted, but in time new, legit Gill will take its place. Right now the prices are all out of wack but ,in time prices, and the economy will even out and all will be well(untill the next RMT problem).

[Freyr]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

As far a I understand good economics is about flow. A good economy has a high sustained percent of total gil in existence moving around daily between a high percent of all the people on a given server. Gil sellers just by how they work destroy this and people that can get a monopoly on certain sector of the economy can to a lesser extent.

Gil Sellers collect a huge amount of gil and take it out of circulation, then in huge bursts throw it back into circulation, thus the “high sustained percent of total gil” is broken because the gil is not in the economy, then it is, then it's not, then it is, and so on. Then the people that bought the gil buy stuff and a lot of it goes right back to the gil sellers, which have great control over high level gear but also consumables, this brakes the second part above because gil is bring traded thru very few hands.

Now a gil seller or a gil seller group(a enterprise if you will) can have dozens if not hundreds of bots making gil 24/7 but all those bots should be considered as one per seller or group. Because all gil coming in is for the same goal.

Now a player will make gil for 2-5 hours a day if that. But when they sell or buy something it switches many more unique hands then gil seller's items/gil.

Now if you have thousands of unique players all trading gil and items back and forth from all there unique niches where they get stuff from, you will have a much more constant and stable economy, while each unique gil sellers can control dozens if not hundreds of niches with a majority of wealth going one way(to the gil seller). Then huge bursts of currency throw back into the economy violently.

I'll try to finish this tomorrow, i hope people get what I am trying to say, I am not very good at writing out my thoughts. If anybody has ideas to make the above more clearer pleace give a shout.

[Pawkeshup]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

I have to say, this is why I love this forum. 3 pages, no flames, all great, well thought out posts.

It's also great to see some responces more aimed at the overall subject, but by all means, the discussion of the gilseller impact on global economics is really fascinating, hence why I really didn't want to see that completely die out.

Now, as to Visper's posts:

See, that is what concerns me. That elimination and re-eval of the currency's standard value. For 4 years that I am aware of (I started about a year or so after the release), I've watched the economy bloat with gil. People like big numbers, they like to see they have a million gil, etc. The correction in prices I've already seen was pretty startling. Literally, on Ramuh, prices bottomed out in a 6 month span. It took some time for the high level gear to come down, but it most certainly did.

However, will players feel disheartened when they can no longer make that uber amount of gil? Will the player base have to start generating that new gil to make a nice sustainable market?

I understand what Freyr is getting at, and that's really my point with this post. We trade gil among each other. It's the same as in the real world, just more direct.

In real life, the total amount of money is finite and controlled by a third party, the country's national bank. They set the value of the currency. When we go and by a latte down at Starbucks or a new game over at EB, that money helps to run the business, and pay those employees. They in turn use that money to buy other things. And so on and so on.

A healthy economy, like Freyr stated, is when that money doesn't rest too long in one spot, so everyone has some to trade for the goods and services they need. Zapping gil from the system is "starving" that trade in a way. My concern is that with the new crop of gilseller minions comes a renewed interest in collection of gil.

Here's a what-if scenario. What if the new crop of gilsellers has paid attention to how WE make our money? As opposed to just monopolizing NM's and common items, they start acting like, say, a certain large retail chain in the states and undercutting every single player on the game. Virtually impossible, I know, but again this a hypothetical.

If they ingrain themselves into that trade in just about every level, providing several of our services, then, with SE's new aggresive banning, are spontaneously removed, will that cause a serious crash in the economy?

We've seen, at least on Ramuh, prices that are 1/3 to 1/4, even less, on some items. The amount of free flowing gil has already been reduced. How much more "to the bone" could we get? Will we see prices under a million for "uber" gear? And how will long-term players react? I know, like Visper, I felt the pain watching my Weskit devalue to near worthless status, knowing it had taken so long to save for and buy it.

And how will the players cope? Will they stop farming certain "low end" items for a time, thinking there will be a rebound? Will a lot of gil be destroyed in lost AH fees?

Some more questions to stir up the pot and get people thinking ^.^

And I will avoid the deep econ questions, I'm no economist, hence why I really haven't commented on posts like Olorin's and Vyuru's. And Vyruru put it, I don't want to put out mistaken info, since I am not a major economic brain. But those posts are a fun read though.

[nohopeless]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

Perhaps I've been a bit crude with the analogy of comparing global trends to FFXI. I'll admitt to that. Macro doesnt really apply here, but I thought it would be helpful in making interesting connections. At least I thought it was interesting.

If maximization isnt the first rule of economics, it's at least one of the core principles. I think we can both agree on that. In hindsight, I probably should have called it core principles in the first place. However, I'm not sure how I am mixing in half truths, or spreading incorrect information though. I would be interested in listening to what you have to say. I'm certainly not trying to impose my point of view on anyone, but I am presenting things in a manner that supports my point of view.

[Sabaron]

Re: Could banning Gilsellers actually damage our economy?

Zapping gil from the system is "starving" that trade in a way. My concern is that with the new crop of gilseller minions comes a renewed interest in collection of gil.

Essentially, zapping gilseller currency has only a small net effect on the economy. Depending on the turn-around for GS Currency, that currency is already not participating in the economy. What it does is stops gilbuyers from participating in the economy since they have no gil but that which they have bought (they don't farm or craft, that's for chumps). The economy is only affected insofar as gilbuyer participation in the economy is concerned. Gilseller participation in the economy is also affected--most gilsellers purchase at least a portion of their reagents from the AH, but then again, I've only seen one GS Crafter disappear and I suspect she was a combination minebot-jusatsubot since she was always running around in field gear (this was a former Justatsubot competitor who mysteriously disappeared during a "warphack" banning).

As for the devaluation of your Weskit, the relative value of items does not change based on inflation/deflation--it stays roughly static. Therefore, if the currency volume decreases and we have deflation, everything is devalued roughly proportionally. Now, there will be some slack because people who are hoarding currency still exist and will be much much richer when the prices go down. Items made for them from the middle-classers will slowly tap their resources and these new Veuille Riche will be, in general, quite miserly in order to maintain their position.

The relative value of a low-supply item depends on the number in circulation. Rare (Igquira Weskit) and extremely rare (Genie Weskit) items are valued based on the rate of production. If it takes 8 weeks for one to come on, you'll have rich up-and-coming black mages turning purple holding their breath in front of the AH or running through the Rolanberry Duty Free looking for one (listening to Whitegate shouts as well). Lower-level durables are valued based on the number in circulation. Consumables are valued based on rate of production like rare items, but they cannot be expensive per unit. The consumables market shows the first fluctuations of inflation/deflation and they can be useful barometers for determining which way the wind is blowing but you have to be careful since consumable markets have a tendency toward volatility.