SquareEnix Earnings Call

I like how every step to improve the market wards make it look more and more like an auction house...

It proves that the market wards system is a step back and that ultimately it will evolve into an auction house. Adding a search function to the market wards is just like having a search function in an auction house, EXCEPT you get to go find the retainer that is selling the item. Price fixing/undercutting happens whether you have an auction house or not. Once the search function is added, sellers will just scan the ward for the item they will be selling... and undercut/price fix.

I like how every step to improve the market wards make it look more and more like an auction house...

It proves that the market wards system is a step back and that ultimately it will evolve into an auction house. Adding a search function to the market wards is just like having a search function in an auction house, EXCEPT you get to go find the retainer that is selling the item. Price fixing/undercutting happens whether you have an auction house or not. Once the search function is added, sellers will just scan the ward for the item they will be selling... and undercut/price fix.

EXCEPT v2.0: Your item doesn't have to be the absolutely lowest priced of the bunch to sell.. It may be more likely to sell if it's the lowest priced, but it doesn't HAVE to be, on the AH, it does.

EXCEPT v3.0: Either way, the search function gives sellers the opportunity to undercut and they will to sell their product. A healthy economy needs competition. The players that don't want an auction house are the sellers, and they are afraid to compete. There are far more players that would rather be able to find what they are looking for than make a little more money when they need to sell something.

During the month or so I spent in XIV I acquired over a million in Gil. I really don't expect Gil to ever be an issue or have very much value as compared to XI.

Then you have no idea what I'm talking about to begin with.. If you weren't there to witness rampant undercutting even when supply is down but demand is constant and 30, 40 even 50 of the same item or stack of items is being sold daily I've personally witnessed countless common items being sold dirt cheap, simply because people are impatient. Maybe everyone who keeps talking to me about supply and demand is just missing what I'm saying, I'm not saying that the market is flooded with the item and that stocks are outrageously high.. I'm saying prices plummeting for no good reason..

Here's an example for you.. Tav tacos, 18~ stacks being sold a day, consistently for 29k, with an average of 4-5 stacks up at a time. It's doing just fine, prices are stable, supply is fine. Then, along comes another person who hadn't been selling them, and puts them up for 20k a stack, they sell at the normal 20k for awhile, until someone comes and bids lower then the going price and discovers someone has put them up for cheaper then the normal price. This continues until he's the only one selling them and for 20k a stack.. Guess what happens next? EVERYONE starts dumping them off and before you know it they're down to 10-12k a stack..

That's not a competitive market or a simple pricing war, it's pure idiocy. The supply went up all of 5%, demand remained the same, but prices dropped to damn near 30% of what it was 2 days ago. All because of an impatient asshat undercutting the hell out of everyone.

Now what happens in the XIV marketing system? Idiot that wants to undercut loses profits, no one else has to drop prices just to sell their stuff, the overall market value for said item remains stable..

I've personally witnessed both situations in both games. Auction House = one idiot can *** up the market for everyone (because as long as he keeps putting up his items for the prices he is, you have to put them up for an even lower price, or they won't sell, until his stock runs out, which could be days, weeks or never.) XIV Market System = even a few idiots can sell their stock at ridiculously low prices, and your stuff that is priced at a fair price, and the general going price will still sell, even while his stocks hold out.

It's funny, im reading some posts that hate an auction house because of undercutting and some that hate it because of price fixing. Like, we're wanting to circumvent basic behaviors in an economy by just not having an auction house all together. It sounds stupid.

Then there's some people that just want the search feature for market wards and not the auction house. So, they want a list that looks like WoW or Aion without even saying it. Except in this system, you bring up the list, but still have to walk to a market ward or whatever to actually make the purchase. Why wouldn't you just want something centralized? If you want an AH without a price history, say that, not that you just want a search function on top of this decentralized system.

I hate how there's so many people scared to admit (or ignorant) that they want a feature similar to...gasp... WoW.

I hate how there's so many people scared to admit (or ignorant) that they want a feature similar to...gasp... WoW.

People are assuming that XIV's AH, if created, has to work exactly like XI's does. If you think about it, XI's auction house was a pretty weird-*** design. It was an auction house with no actual bidding, set (but unknown) reserves, buyers don't get to see listing prices, an arbitrary 7 item list limit to avoid it crashing, time limits on sales, and a bizarre system whereby the lowest priced item sells first and listers don't know what other people are listing things for.

It was weird guys, admit it. No real life or virtual economy has ever worked like that. They pulled the system entirely out of their ***, and there's no reason they need to faithfully recreate it.

There are plenty of ways they could centralize the economy in a way that circumvents the shockingly awful design of the market ward system, while not recreating the exact same problems of XI. There is an infinite sea of possible game economy designs out there -- we're not just limited to the arbitrarily binary proposition of "Just like XI, or not."

This is what scares me about an AH in FFXI. I was never much of a seller in FFXI, I just hated the system so much that I never want to see it again.

People are assuming that XIV's AH, if created, has to work exactly like XI's does. If you think about it, XI's auction house was a pretty weird-*** design. It was an auction house with no actual bidding, set (but unknown) reserves, buyers don't get to see listing prices, an arbitrary 7 item list limit to avoid it crashing, time limits on sales, and a bizarre system whereby the lowest priced item sells first and listers don't know what other people are listing things for.

It was weird guys, admit it. No real life or virtual economy has ever worked like that. They pulled the system entirely out of their ***, and there's no reason they need to faithfully recreate it.

There are plenty of ways they could centralize the economy in a way that circumvents the shockingly awful design of the market ward system, while not recreating the exact same problems of XI. There is an infinite sea of possible game economy designs out there -- we're not just limited to the arbitrarily binary proposition of "Just like XI, or not."

People are assuming that XIV's AH, if created, has to work exactly like XI's does. If you think about it, XI's auction house was a pretty weird-*** design. It was an auction house with no actual bidding, set (but unknown) reserves, buyers don't get to see listing prices, an arbitrary 7 item list limit to avoid it crashing, time limits on sales, and a bizarre system whereby the lowest priced item sells first and listers don't know what other people are listing things for.

It was weird guys, admit it. No real life or virtual economy has ever worked like that. They pulled the system entirely out of their ***, and there's no reason they need to faithfully recreate it.

There are plenty of ways they could centralize the economy in a way that circumvents the shockingly awful design of the market ward system, while not recreating the exact same problems of XI. There is an infinite sea of possible game economy designs out there -- we're not just limited to the arbitrarily binary proposition of "Just like XI, or not."

you know if they add a search menu to find the items you want, itll be just like psu is o.o you type in the item you want (say psychowand) and it lists everyone whos selling along with the price next to their name and you can go check their room

\basically... black ops is a dissapointment IMO (this coming from someone who enjoys CODs alot) save ur money and stick with MW2

I see a lot of comparisons between the FFXI auction house and 'real world economics'. I'm not simply jumping to the defence of FFXIV here, but lets say I wanted to buy an item in the real world. I would have to go shopping around for the best price. There is not a single shop I can go to that will offer me the best price of everywhere in the world. Coincidentally, there is not a single auction house in the 'real world' that represents the sale of every item in the world. Even if I'm shopping online, there is no one site that can show me the price everywhere. Sure there are search engines that can grab most prices, but not all.

In other words, why are you guys even playing the real world card on your argument as to why FFXI AH is better than a shop system? It is nothing like the real world. I'm guessing you all want to be lazy about getting your items - so do I, and the retainer system will offer that in the end. The design is bad right now, but much like the rest of the game it's work in progress.

In defence of the idea of the shop system (as it is not currently executed properly in XIV), it worked much better than the auction house ever did in Phantasy Star Universe. It was pretty simple, you had a computer in your room (mog house to all the people who love comparing to XI) which you clicked on and then searched for the item you wanted. Additionally you could add various search parameters or even just browse a category of items just like an auction house. But it was pretty much instant and there was no bidding - you would get a list of player shops (retainers in other words) that had the item and you could order the list by price.

From what I can assume, SE are eventually aiming to have a system that works just like that. So I'm really confused as to why some of you are so hellbent on having the FFXI AH back... The only way I'd want an auction house back is if it was just like a real auction house (i.e. fun), something like the auction house minigame in FFIX.

I actually said it was NOT possible to have a real world economic structure in a video game environment. We agree here.

Although I disagree with you on the AH because if it *is* impossible to have a real world economic structure then the economy must be controlled by SE (like FFXI's economy is controlled) if it is controlled you might as well just have an auction house and make it as easy as possible for players to buy stuff. However that AH does not need to look anything like FFXI's AH.

I don't see why you can't have a real world economic structure in a game. FFXI's system is the same, FFXIV's system is the same, they're just smaller is all. Compare trying to buy a new camera IRL to trying to buy a new axe in game. RL searching the net = IG searching the ward/AH. RL Browsing shops in your home town = IG browsing bazaars in your home town. 99% of the time you'll get a better price on-line or on the AH/ward.

The one thing that games don't have compared to RL is copyright. There are three ways that RL merchants get rich.

1: Make something better than everyone else, and copyright it so if they copy it you sue their pants off.
2: Sell something cheaper than everyone else.
3: Sell something no-one else is selling.

#1 isn't possible in-game, so if you want to make money, it's all about selling ***cheaper than your competition, or finding a market to cover on your own. The issue with #2 in both situations is undercutters, the issue with #3 in both situations is someone discovering how much money you're making and turning #3 into #2.

ive played ffxi on and off for 5 years or so so ive seen the economy when like some 1 siad be4 when sh"s were 30 mil and ive seen it when they were 250k and what it boils down to is the maturity of the player which in ffxi case would lead to supply and demand for the simple fact that every one had a sh by the time it got down to 250 k be cause its not a consummable item now ive raised cooking to 100 in ffxi and also have my fishing at 80+ with a lu rod so i could catch every fish u need for fishing to make sushi what i noticed was that people camped the ah for fish to turn sushi out as fast as possible and then sold at a lost which i thought was funny because i could price with them and still make a huge profit because im only paying for the wasbi ect..with that said the problem i see with ffxiv is that there is no price point for any thing at all and until thats established there system is going to be flawed. just adding the search feature really anit gonna change the dynamics to favor the person whose item pops up first because if u a smart shopper ull look for the lowest priced item or atleast compare prices i understand gil is pretty easy to come by in ffxiv right now but that usually changes as people rank up ect especially the way ffxiv is set up i could rank every job up then what would i need any one for because i farm/craft every thing on my own or with a few friends basically what im trying to get at is yes the ah in ffxi is jacked but the same thing can and prolly will happen to ffxiv for the simple fact of the way u rank up in the game there would be no need to buy anything from any 1 cuz u could make it your self