No one can stop you from buying out all of a certain item, and then listing that item in the auction house for an increased price. However, don't get upset if someone comes in after you continuing to sell the same good for a decreased price and none of your items sell as a result, leaving you with a ton of that item.
Not against game rules, but you asked because you know that morally it is not a nice thing to do. Legally right does not mean morally right. Your choice, you have to live with your conscience
Others have tried in the past. And then others have grouped together to bring the price down.
You have no way to manipulate the prices other players set in their towers.
Fewer people use tools like glitchremote to check SDB stuff than will just go to the auction house, I think - and you actually need to go to a tower to buy something, so it's harder to buy everything out and you can't do it in one fell swoop with a 3rd party tool.
so there are greater fluctuations in the auction prices.. it certainly looked that way yesterday with the prices for sparkly
I would say give it a go, just to see if you can really do it. The resources in Glitch are so limitless that I doubt anyone can truly corner a market and significantly push up prices for more than a brief period. As the price starts to spike other players will switch to producing whatever it is that has suddenly become valuable. The market will flood and the price will fall again. So why not do it and then report back on whether you made a killing or lost a bundle? If, against my expectations, you demonstrate that it is possible to control a resource and profit hugely from doing so, then TS would probably tweek the game mechanics so that you could no longer do so. You would have performed a service!
This is just a game, after all. If for a few few hours or a few days some resource becomes unusually costly nobody is getting hurt. I think a lot of people play Glitch to see how many currants they can accumulate. Many others play without care for the money, treating the game as a purely social experience and happily sharing whatever they have accumulated. And still others (myself included) play a mixed style with some of each, or have some completely different goals. I, for one, think there is ample room in Glitch for any style of play that does not directly encroach on the rights of others to play the game the way they want to.
Having played with this myself, sometimes even with the help of a few friends, the real difficulty is that it creates a false demand. Meaning when you buy out everyone and reprice higher, the next time they log in they think wow that all sold? time to put up more.
The more people you buy out, the more people put up product in response, and the more likely your acquisition of more product outraces the demand, until you have a cabinet full of the item, some of which probably bought just below your inflated price, and the item has fallen back to the price it was at before. Such is the experience I had a few times, though admittedly that was pre-towers so entirely through auctions.
I don't see how it's morally wrong or a "dick move". This was the economic "way of the world" in many other MMOs I've played. Sometimes I'll list things really low, knowing that they'll most likely get bought by a reseller, when I just need to get rid of something. As long as I'm making more than the NPC will give me, it's not a waste.
Likewise, if I see something priced far far lower than what the market typically is, and a trend hasn't followed, I'll snap it up, especially if I already have some of the same to sell, and add it back in with my auctions so I can sell at a more reasonable price.
Of course, we're talking something very different if we're talking about buying stuff at market and trying to push prices way high.
Supply and demand. I don't care where my 'stuff' comes from, unless it involves underage glitchen:
1).mining the underground caverns
2).sewing in sweat shops
3).pickin' in community gardens
4).working the streets in Cebarkul
5).feeding the batterflies...although, that could be fun, but only if they wear a mask
I have no problems with 'speculators' coming to my tower and buying everything out. I put it there knowing that the price I asked was fair. You're taking a risk that the price will increase at resale, a profit I myself could make if I had the patience and know how to speculate successfully. I say go for it if that's how you enjoy making currants.
it is amusing to manipulate the markets if you have the ability.
if you expect to succeed make sure you have a big pile of money and a big pile of the resource.
it you have a knack for it, you can yoyo a market up and down and even influence player harvesting and crafting habits.
typically it is easier to crash a market than inflate it.
oh, by the way.. a commitment to market manipulation isn't all that profitable. it costs money to keep a market price where you want it, so you;d better be good cranking out the currants to pay for your entertainment.
also by the way: if i see someone cranking prices for profiteering purposes, it amuses me to play with the market and give them a bath. the poor saps think they;re making money until their greed spiral takes them so high that once the plug is pulled they have a houseful of goods they bought at their super inflated prices and now can't sell except to the toolie.
It's sort of hard to do on account of it being so easy to undersell you. The market adjusts pretty fast. It's easy to manipulate it for a few currents in either direction, but cornering the market on a single item is pretty hard.
I'd say give it a try. As others have said though, you better have a big bankroll. When everything is basically free to acquire in game, the only thing it takes is for someone with time and determination to undercut you. I played this out with someone once for a couple of weeks. I was the flippee, they were trying to be the flipper. I always had my items priced under theirs. They tried to buy out all of my items and reprice it to their level. Once I figured out what they were doing, I acquired a huge stockpile and I would put just one more out on auction every time they bought me up. Constantly. I could feel them shooting flames at me through the screen as I'd pop a new batch up on auction after they just bought one. It was a battle of attrition. And then, before I'd log off I'd dump a crap ton on auction to try and hold my lower price over to the next day and repeat again. Good fun. That was when I was a young Glitch. I don't care much anymore. If you want to buy all of my stuff and try to resell it, go for it.
As you can probably tell from my current auction listings... I list hooch... I once decided that anything less than 12c was too cheap for hooch... so I stockpiled a few thousand hooch and one day bought up everyones hooch that was less than 12 c... then flooded the market with 12 c hooch... and got hosed... never again...
I think the big problem with "cornering the market" is there isn't really anything you could make and sell, that can't be made/harvested etc. by dozens or hundreds of other players. Occasionally you'll learn a new skill before the majority of players have and that will give you an edge, but most things in this game everyone can do. If market prices get too high for something, people will just create it themselves, or strike a trade with a friend who has the necessary skills to give them that item. I buy from the auction when I want something quickly and don't really enjoy making/harvesting it for myself, but if the price is too high I live without it or find another way to get it. I'm sure others do the same.
You need an advanced degree in economics and mathematics to keep up with the Gitch market. Usually I undersell and let someone else try to get market price, as long as I can get a fair price. If it's too low, I'll either NPC it or toss it into an SDB for my asking price.
However, there are time that I will buy someone out to even out the auction. I want to sell a couple somethings (or stacks of something) worth 200c. There are hundreds of listings, the cheapest being 185c, if I'll still get more than tossing it at the NPC, then I'll list for 180c. But, if there is an anomaly, someone selling a couple of the same for 75c and no one has yet started trying to undersell him, then yeah, I'll buy his stock and add it to my own.
Yes, I still run the risk that someone will sell for less than me. That's always a risk. But at least I have a better chance of selling my product without that 75c auction under me driving prices even lower as people try to outsell him.
I don't play the market to get rich. I would just rather sell to a player who may need the item (or simply not want to harvest something themselves) rather than toss it to an NPC, but I want a fair price for it.
I just sit outside the market, finding and making everything I need. I tend to only use currants for tithing and groceries, so don't need a lot of them.
It wouldn't work, imo. The resources are way to limitless to corner a market. You might be able to do it for a short time, but it won't last long. If it's just something for entertainment value go ahead, but don't expect to make huge sums of currants.
It's not wrong, perhaps not terribly nice though.
Edit: You also better have a large sum of currants too. Holding a market is going to require a lot of currants. A lot.
Pfft, the Market is a joke. I've said a million times, it's so hard to turn a profit on basic items there. I don't know how many times I've checked my Gregarious Grocer addon and it's said that I would be better off selling things to the tool vendor!
see, glitch isn't so much a game as it is a platform on which to play games.
some people are playing the "let's rack up img" game and some people are playing the "fill an sdb with every item" game and still others are playing the "stand around and chat" game.
some of us clearly are playing the "let's mess with the markets" game.
they're all valid games to play and the best thing is you don't have to do any of them if you don't want. you can even choose them by the day or by the hour according to your whim.
in terms of the possibility of cornering a market, it is not possible to be the only seller of a particular item, but is possible to control what the selling price will be, provided you are willing to buy up any items below your price and keep a steady stream of that item on the market at your price so you don't get oversold.
you can do it. it's not all that difficult, but it does take a great deal of time and it is not a profit making exercise. the more basic the item is, the easier it is to manipulate the price of it, because there are fewer variables.
before you get all upset about the rightness of it, remember that if the price of cherries is high, it;s a great benefit to the sellers, but not so much to the buyers. so while a market action is a pain for some people, it is a boon to others.
as to the speculation of "how currant farmers will be dealt with" in the game, why do people who play with money as a goal need to "be dealt with"? are we going to ask how img farmers are being dealt with? or stew hoarders?
if you don't care about money, don't make any.
and in terms of whether the market is a joke or not, it is nto hard at all to make bazillions of currants in the market. the trick is knowing which items to sell at market and which items to take to the vendor. if you want, you can make a LOT of money on the market just by simply selling the things people want without bothering to manipulate prices.
that's where the real profit is: knowing what to sell and then going and selling it.
i made most of my money selling beans at auction. that's right; plain beans at market price. no sleight-of-hand, no special effort. if you like making money in this game, it is easily done.
I suspect that by "currant farmers", they might have meant people who collect in-game currency and then sell it to people for real-life money through shady websites, creating dummy accounts and spamming ingame chats with their advertisements. From what one hears, many MMORPG's are crawling with them. And if any of those should start to show up here, I hope (and expect) that the Powers that Be would do something about it.