WoW’s version of TARP
So what, exactly is the Auction House Cut for? Are we paying a virtual tax to bailout the fatcats at Goblin headquarters? Could somehow our fake silver be linked to Blizzard employee bonuses? Maybe it’s hush money to put the kibosh on Mage QQing future patches? Oh, sure, you might get all airquotes-logical-airquotes on me and say, “Slig, you are a silly goose. They penalize you for auctioning things so you don’t sell everything you own!” Well, why the heck would they care about that, anyway?
Can somebody please tell me how this Auction House Cut affects the WoW economy?
April 22, 2009 at 10:06 AM
Im not sure about the cut they take, but the deposit it to make sure that people dont use it as an extra bank.
April 22, 2009 at 1:27 PM
Gold sink ftl.
EQ2 has an interesting take on this, where players can set up sales displays inside their player housing. Customers can travel to the seller’s home to buy direct, and thereby avoid paying the broker’s fee.
In other economic news, I maintain that the Kalu’ak must be eating all the wolvarr puppies they have players out collecting.
April 22, 2009 at 3:02 PM
Without the “cut”, how would they pay the auctioneers? Really, would you stand there all day, DAY after friggin DAY smothered in Trade Chat, without some kind of compensation?
I thought not.
April 22, 2009 at 9:23 PM
I really took this aspect of AH for granted and I cannot give you a good bullshit answer as to why NPCs get commission. What would they need the gold for? To buy our grays? hmmm…
April 23, 2009 at 6:01 AM
With all of the money they dish out buying up our crappy grays, I’d say this evens it out a bit, totally agree with you HP!
~Sy
April 30, 2009 at 12:38 AM
This fee comes from the economic point.
if you play the AH, and many people do this. Everything is about calculation. If you undercount somebody by a small percentage you can be sure that he can not just buy your stuff and resale for his price again.
This way he would loose money since the fee is lost.
Next point for fighting in AH is: You can not put more products in Ah for sale, than the market is willing to absorb (someone has to buy).
So if you put say 100 Products, with a fee of 5G. You instantly lost a 500g. Now the product you must sale (and produce before) has to compensate those costs.
This points together make a very good restiction on what is and will be sold in ah.
got the point?
May 5, 2009 at 12:14 PM
@Holdor: Brilliant! This is a wonderful explanation. Thank you for helping us out!
July 14, 2009 at 10:44 AM
The Neutral AH got around 30% cut, so u cant transfer money from ally to horde as easy.