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Old 06-23-2019, 05:35 PM   #16
waittilnextyear
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Join Date: Jan 2016
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mcdog512 View Post
I'm torn - I'm perfectly fine with capitalism but it bugs me that PT Barnum was right....
Yeah, in general I think setting your prices to what people are willing to pay is perfectly fine. In fact, I always try to get a small cut on top of my auction fee when I decide to sell a card that I had intended to use.

I think where I personally draw the line (not that anyone needs to care) is when people are engaging in cartel behavior. When one (or a few people) are basically changing the entire economy of the game by severely altering the supply and then marking up 100x, 200x, 1000x, 2000x etc. To invoke "well, that's how markets work" is a bit incomplete when you're talking about free markets vs restricted supply markets (cartels, monopolies). I still assert that what has been going on this past week is 100% certifiable price gouging. I also think that a handful of guys getting fat and rich while most of the PT'verse can't complete collections is, in general, a bad thing for the game. I'm not sure that's how the developers wanted it to work, although, to be cynical, it does incentivize more people to buy PP. So...maybe this is actually a mixed thing for the game and more of a gray area. Good thing it's just a game, and not some actual resource we need in real life, LOL.

Like you said...P.T. Barnum and all. Some people just cannot wait or don't want to. And until this throng of buyers works its way through the system, guys will keep their listing prices at 'price gouging' levels and think themselves justified by market forces in doing so.
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