Bargaining skill in real cash economy games.

[Geralt]

I 2017 I had unique opportunity to move to India for 2 months to conduct some business project with my co-workers and travel across to country (Mumbai, Pune, Chennai).

India is the biggest democracy in the world and its economy is open, when you travel you often have a lot of chances to find some unique items, souvenirs etc. Open economy means that prices are usually not fixed and you can actually negotiate some prices. Skill of bargaining is useful in real life but also in virtual real cash economies.

I remember when in Ellora Caves (Maharashtra state) I had chance to negotiate price of a wonderful looking stone craved figure of elephant. Indian seller wanted 800 Rupees but I managed to down the price to 200 Rs. I bought it because my Indian interlocutor promised me that he bought it for 180 Rs and he wants to resell it only with 20 Rs profit. "A divine occasion!" I thought and I bought it.

10 mins after that I went to my co-workers to tell them about great deal I did - imagine my face when I realized that one of them bought exactly the same stone craved elephant for 50 Rs from the same seller.

When you sell something, you want to at least break even, true is that?

Entropia Universe seems to be very similar environment - people tend to lie about true value of items and try to scam other players. Sometimes you borrow some money without collateral and case becomes very sensitive.

Perhaps some of you had similar experience? Share your bargaining methods with us, it may be good for us, it may pay off in future. Who knows when next opportunity will appear, it may be as simple as buying bananas (on Rocktropia or in real life) or buying high-end items in-game.


Bargaining skills matters. Stay vigilante.

 

[SleePy]

You draw a nice parallell between India and Entropia since it works the same way, a reseller buys an item for actual cost, then tries to scam their way to absurd profit. In entropia its even worse because we actually have auction history. A reseller simply post the item for the amount they want to manipulate the price close to, then buy it either with an alt or have a friend buy it. Get it traded back and then he can sell it slightly under the last sold auction price, most often some new or ignorant player will think they make a bargain for this item since it's below "auction price" when infact he gets scammed.

Only time you will be able to bargain and actually get the item for lower then it's actual worth is when you meet a seller that's really desperate or when they dont know what they are doing (new to the game), at that point i wouldnt call it skills.

 

[MrFatBoy]

EU is not a "real" economy never has been, in a real economy 99% do not lose more than they make (spending more is a different story)

Your points are valid and do echo what happens in RL (one pay X other pays 5 times x) but in EU it is too easy to manipulate the "value" via auction or some well known / respected player explaining why an item is worth XXX based on a comparison to some other item.

in RL an item is worth something cause it lets you do something or make more $. I am not talking about clothes here but more like tools - In RL better tool = getting the job done better = making more $, which in EU is extremely debatable. Ubers will say they profit cause of the top level gear etc... but seriously who believes that anymore given how many use exploits, run alts, share avas or just plain cheat. They just want the value high so they can profit or make back lost $ - which i can understand - i would do the same

I never really agreed with coming up with a value for an item based on a single sale in auction when it most likely was sold to the same person via an alt or to a friend. If you base value on what any person can make with said item most stuff would be worth +50 ped. for years every gun was compare to MM or Imk II

Maybe rare uniuqe BPs have a good value if its an item that people want or helps to increase eco but again the value is based on what 1 person paid. With BPs like armor plates and amp BPs (Dante for example) were very expensive based on what one persn paid. To make their $ back the value of the items are manipulated by the owners of those BPs. Sure that helps owners of the items too but that is not the issue or point. In RL there would be a competitor and the market would find balance in EU there is no balance on most items because value can be manipulated.

Just realized the guy above me made similar points but since i typed all this crap - i am posting anyway.

 

[yeeck]

Guys, EU is still a game = entertainment. No matter how you describe it.
Just play EU as like other games.

You should focus your discussion more on RCE.
That's the reason why we are all here right?