Villager price guide...

[in-a-pickle]

Hey everyone. So recently I begun to think about how nice it would be to have a guide to refer to when trading your villagers, bell-wise. I googled it to see if such a thing was in existence and stumbled across and old thread on this forum. It brought up a couple of valid points, while also explaining the cons of having such a thing (people tampering with it, prices continuing to skyrocket on certain villagers).

Here's the thread: http://www.belltreeforums.com/showthread.php?82979-Would-anyone-find-this-villager-pricing-guide-useful

Anyway, people that trade often may find it uncomfortable to ask for too much for a villager, not knowing how much they typically go for, as well as not wanting to come out on the short end of the stick, What do you think? Should somebody create a thing like this?

 

[Aquadirt]

Still not a great idea. This guy said it perfectly.

I think a pricing guide could be a disastrous idea.

Value is entirely subjective, and it should remain that way. Making a public document that's easy for people to grasp and disseminate will only lead to inflation of popular villagers and a drought of unpopular ones.

The issue, as I see it;

1) Villager prices are spiking because money is easy to accrue, but not everyone will pursue the easiest money-gathering venues. Thus, a three-class economy emerges; top-tier dupers > power traders > non-traders/non-TTers/low-end turnip marketeers.
2) Villagers are primarily gained through alt/spare towns that reset and cycle through to popular villagers, giving a weak, but steady supply of super-rare ones and more common ones alike.
3) 16-villager cycle rule keeps supply in check from main towns.
4) Popular interest keeps supply in check because not everyone who gets an expensive villager will sell them.
5) Everyone is after a handful of villagers with about 20-30 that are also of interest to some and have occasional price spikes, as well.

To release a pricing guide does nothing good for anyone in this situation, however. Prices will go up because everyone will expect the highest of prices; everyone will want to beat that 150mil auction for Ankha, or that 38mil auction for Tangy, or expect the "average" of 30mil for Tangy to go higher as fewer are resetting their alt towns and fewer are cycling them out of their main towns (as we can expect to see in the coming months, I'm sure).

So what does the pricing guide do, exactly? As far as I can see, it only promotes inflation. It will not help cap inflation whatsoever, and that should really be the ultimate goal anyone hoping to impact the market should seek. Nobody is going to try and sell a villager and say "I'm setting the buyout for Tangy at 25mil, which is under the average price, because I wanna be nice. " Why? They're smart. They've found a pricing guide because they want their money's worth, not to be fair. There are nice people out there, sure. But most people are either looking for a good price, or are giving villagers away. A cut down the middle, of pricing fairly under the market average because of some pricing guide? That's unrealistic to expect.

So if there is a pricing guide, there will be only one group of people benefiting; sellers. And that's not good.

Now, that's not to say sellers shouldn't get good prices!

But if someone is happy to take 2mil for Tangy while others take 38mil for her, then why should the 2-mil Tangy person be made to feel ripped off by seeing a pricing guide that tells them they vastly underpriced?

After all, they were happy to accept that 2mil!

And they don't necessarily NEED 38mil, do they? Perhaps to compete in this inflating economy, but the best thing for this economy would be lower prices, which would lead to fairer access to all things for those who are in the lowest class of my proposed 3 classes.

But if a pricing guide is readily available, suddenly 2mil Tangy becomes 30mil minimum starting bid Tangy, and nobody with a less-than-duping/power-trading income will be able to compete. Meanwhile, this person who would've otherwise been fine to take 2mil is now sitting on 38mil and they don't know what to do with it.

So what do they do? Spend it too freely, paying too much to get items extra fast, or to outbid someone else in a villager auction. Inflation keeps happening, and even more rapidly because there is no check on lazy sellers - the lazy sellers, who help to slow down inflation by being ill-informed, are now instantly as savvy as the researching, active sellers - thanks to the price guide.

And so, villager prices keep soaring, and dreamies become more impossible for the little gal.

"But what about buyers? Shouldn't they know the value of what they're paying for?!"

But they do! A pricing guide is useless to buyers by default, because the buyer determines how much they're willing to spend on something. I, as a buyer, always have the authority to set my own price - a guide will never help me do anything but plan my savings, but that's not really that useful, now, is it? I should be saving up anyway!

So if, to me, Cole is worth 6mil, then I'll bid that much if I must, even if everyone else is only paying 2mil on average. Because what does an average price matter in an auction? It might curb bidding to 100k increments or something, sure, but at the end of the day, I'm not going to drop out of an auction because it crept over the average price - I'm going to keep pressing on, but because of the price guide that says he's worth 2mil, I'm going to feel a little ripped off.

So from my point of view, a pricing guide seems like a good idea, but I think it'll cause more problems than it solves.

 

[AhBobby]

Oh my god. That was crazy. That just blew my mind. o.o

 

[TheResult]

Everybody should just use the Search function to find the last two or three threads that sold a villager and estimate the villager's worth based on them. And then make the price at least 25% cheaper to be a sport.

 

[in-a-pickle]

Still not a great idea. This guy said it perfectly.

All very good points. It does certainly question if such of thing would ruin trading and dreams for everyone (now that sounds horrible xD). But what if villagers weren't priced specifically, such as the Tangy=30mil bells equation, but more into groups. You can expect to pay below one million for this tier, 1 million-5million for this tier and so on. It shows the lowest and highest you pay, so people who aren't rolling in dough know that "once-upon-a-trade" one anonymous user bought Tangy for only 6 million, thus tangy falls into the 6-whatever million category. The list would always have to change of course, as rare instances and generous sellers alter it.

Stitches/Ankha, etc... will likely always end up in the tippy top place, but this guide can still include information about every trading instance of Stitches (a lot of work to keep up, but still useful). If only a vague number is given, a wide range, it doesn't do away with all the problems, but still allows sellers to find useful info. It's still up to them how much they want.

 

[ben_nyc]

The backlash in creating suggested price points is like giving your opinion on how much a volatile stock is worth in the Stockmarket. Don't do it. The buyer should have a general idea of the value each Dreamie is worth (or what they are willing to spend) via research.

 

[in-a-pickle]

Everybody should just use the Search function to find the last two or three threads that sold a villager and estimate the villager's worth based on them. And then make the price at least 25% cheaper to be a sport.

True, but some villagers aren't usually sold, one's that people think will probably end up not going for much..

- - - Post Merge - - -

The backlash in creating suggested price points is like giving your opinion on how much a volatile stock is worth in the Stockmarket. Don't do it. The buyer should have a general idea of the value each Dreamie is worth (or what they are willing to spend) via research.

But research for many villagers isn't always easy to access. If the guide included the past three to five sales for every villager, then it would be easy to access and decide what you see as a fair price without having a clearly stated, concrete number.

It would, of course, make this a community effort. With people going around observing trades and seeing if people want to offer info on trades they have done in the past.

 

[TheResult]

In that case, I'd say just to an auction thread or ask for offers. After all, a villager's worth is only equal to how much people are willing to pay for it, regardless of how much somebody has spent on the villager in the past. Pay what you're willing to pay, sell for how much you're willing to sell-- don't worry too much about whether somebody else would have gotten more.

 

[in-a-pickle]

In that case, I'd say just to an auction thread or ask for offers. After all, a villager's worth is only equal to how much people are willing to pay for it, regardless of how much somebody has spent on the villager in the past. Pay what you're willing to pay, sell for how much you're willing to sell-- don't worry too much about whether somebody else would have gotten more.

Auction threads are very useful. One problem the guide would fix is when you're privately asked to trade. There's always that tip-toeing around the "how much should I ask for?" question.

Then again, it is just pixels, so your not really getting "ripped-off" in the true sense xD