The Ecto Issue: My thoughts (Economics involved)

First Off: Please don't flame. please. If you want to say something, try to keep it constructive.
Secondly: If this thread is in the wrong area, move it, remove it, whatever.
Thirdly: My experience with the topic is at a senior in high school level, but I'm just trying to help, try to appreciate it?

OK!

As many people know, you take economics in high school. I am currently enrolled, and I was thinking of the Glob of Ectoplasm's failing market from a purely economic stand point.

THE LAW OF SUPPLY states: As supply goes up, price goes down.

My thoughts on why (and this seems so obvious typed out) the ecto prices are failing is based so far on 2 important things.

1. Eye of the North's Release gave us a new item, chaos gloves!
People want this new shiny item, requires 75 ectos, the demand for ectoplasm has risen! And henceforth because of the demand boost, the supply of ecto's has also risen.

2. The SS/LB weekend event, gave a huge boost to the favor of the world. An estimated total of 60-80k minutes, with the ability to farm ectos when you want however many times you want, there are now lots of ectos in the market. And instead of a surplus being built, the want for FoW armor and Chaos Gloves meets the supply of ectoplasm. The unlimited wants of the consumer has almost been caught up to, so therefore prices go down.

Those are just some of the reasons i thought of off the top of my head, maybe we can get some other opinions on why the ecto (and general) economy of Guild Wars is in the recession that it is. Hopefully we can get a real economist to evaluate the situation!

So please, share your thoughts, and have a good day!

Today ectos were priced at 4.8k. The reason for such devaluation is, imo, because of the increasing availability of quick and easy ursan uw runs. As surely, high availability = low price. As more and more people get their hands on ectos and sell them, the overall price will go down. It's not just demand, remember supply.

Ectonomics...

This is standard supply/demand economics which has been rehashed for every single item including ecto's ad nauseum

Let us not get back into the same convo that has been rehashed more times than Ursan has been bashed

And Ursan has NOTHING to do with the current price of ectos, take that crap and QQ somewhere else, the price of ectos has been around this price for almost a year. Anytime an item in the games has been around for the amt of time it has it devalues, please do not start this as a QQ ursan thread good gracious

You've got it absolutely backwards. As SUPPLY goes up, prices go down. As DEMAND goes up, prices go up.

Technically if supply goes up and demand goes up in equal proportion, the price shouldn't change at all.

price of ectos goes down, it's good for the consumer who makes money other ways, but it's bad for those who make money in that certain comodity.

just like when oil goes up Arabia is happy and America is sad, but it is reversed when it goes down.

so if things are like the 70's, all the farmers need to do is stockpile ectos, hold them for a while, and then release them slowly to the traders for maximum profit!!!

Another thing is that the normal price sold/bought is inbetween the buy/sell price from rare material traders, so if that goes up so will the cost of ectos
and to your demand law there is also 1 for supply which is
As supply increases price increases
And seeing that the price of ectos has stayed around 4.5k-5k for a while now it would seem that the supply and demand for ectos are at the equilibrium point (supply=demand, seems true to me,and makes some sense)

(p.s. also in high school, so don't take this too literal)

Oh wow, i have to edit that. your absolutely right.

What your saying about the equilibrium point being nearly reached makes a lot, a lot of sense. That would definately explain the current sitting price.

GO HIGH SCHOOL

I find it a bit curious that so many people are always out to "fix" the ecto market... Human nature, I suppose.

I'm not a high-end trader, so I don't have stacks of them, but that's why I don't see the market as "broken" in any way. From my vantage point, it is what it is. If prices are low, it's a good time to buy. Since I don't horde them, I usually don't have any to sell, but that would be the time.

If you'd really like to extend your economics analogy, though, I guess the issue is that the government keeps printing money, but very little money is taken out of circulation. Until that situation is fixed, you will always be in a declining market. At best, you can only hope for a neutral market, but even that's short term.

Everything in this game is that way though. More and more "stuff" gets generated, and nothing ever leaves the system. So like ecto, prices on everything will always go down (in the long term). Just a fact of life...

You act as if America is the only country in the world that uses oil. Wow.

Ecto prices haven't moved much at all for at least a year now even before the big fow upage in minutes due to the SS/LB titles. Think it is just because when Ecto was high in price (6k+) it was because everyone wanted their fow armor early on in the game and yes people still do want fow armor but just not as many before. There is your demand. The supply is still rolling in which makes me kind of wonder that if we keep getting more and more supply but have a lower demand for the armor then why doesnt price go down further then 4.5k or 5k?

Always been curious if A-Net has a line where they dont let certain materials go below a certain price because I think that ecto and shards should be a little bit lower by now.

As supply increase price increases
As demand increases price decreases

trying to find a graph of this, but the ones on wikipedia are links so i can't upload it here because it won't let me copy the link to that graph

You are absolutely, positively mistaken.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand

:bangsheadondesk:

The laws of supply and demand state that the equilibrium market price and quantity of a commodity is at the intersection of consumer demand and producer supply. If the price for a good is below equilibrium, consumers demand more of the good than producers are prepared to supply. This defines a shortage of the good. A shortage results in the price being bid up. Producers will increase the price until it reaches equilibrium. If the price for a good is above equilibrium, there is a surplus of the good. Producers are motivated to eliminate the surplus by lowering the price. The price falls until it reaches equilibrium.

The ecto price has been pretty stable for months and months on end now, regardless of new campaign's, skills and featured being added to the game.
If you ask me ANet is keeping the price around ~5k artificially :3

This sounds to me that the falling prices are a result of a surplus in the ecto market, but that doesn't make sense, unless it has hit equilibrium.


Am confused.

you say i am mistaken, let me teach you how to read a graph, the Blue line is the supply, to the right is increasing, as the Blue line moves right price increases
the RED line is demand, as the demand increases(moves right) what does the y point(price) do, it decreases

I think it's interesting that the ectos cost about as much as they used to when the rare material trader was first introduced.

when a new campaign was released, new professions that have fow sets did increase demand for ectos, leading to price rises.

there wont be any price spikes without increaed demand. so, over time the price will lower.

Okay, so now that we are all agreed that the price of ectos is at a low... now what?

this is a good example of demand
and you are mistaken
when factions first came out ectos decreased to around 8-10k, when nf came out ectos droped to about what they are now
hence demand increases price decreases