Eredan's World

Hi all,

Newish player here, but an old hand in economics and finance (which I have been professionally practising for 10 years or so) which perhaps is the key to this post as there is alot of pseudo-economic logic espoused on this thread which is flawed.

Just restricting my thoughts to the 30% tax here, as all other changes do not seem to be controversial. Also, if 'game' terminology has separate implications happy for my thoughts to be disputed.

Firstly, a 30% tax will have an inflationary impact and not a deflationary one. A good real world example is to observe the increase in tax for 'vice' products e.g. tobacco etc. They will add to inflation because transactional costs are higher. E.g. Seller who wants 1000 crystals for a card, will only transact with Buyer who is willing to pay 1300 crystals for a card. So long story short, prices should increase and less cards traded on the marketplace.

Secondly, will Feerik make more money from this change? Unlikely. Prices are determined by the demand and supply of cards and crystals. Supply of cards are from players which purchase Feez and crystal is effectively constantly generated within the game. The 30% tax will effectively penalise the card suppliers, hence Feez purchasers as less crystals will be received on average due to the tax. As a result, there is a disincentive to purchase Feez unless card prices rise to compensate (see point 1). Net result, Feerik is likely to lose Feez revenue, since they are reducing the value of Feez relative to crystals and the incentive for players to sell cards. Perhaps it will be offset by more new players? We'll wait and see.

So why are prices higher now than before? Whilst the conspiracy is that rich players drive up prices, there are simpler explanations:
Firstly, specific rare cards are substantially rarer now than in the past due to the huge database of random cards one can get in a booster. e.g. ABC card may have used to be 1 card in a thousand originally, but now is 1 in 5000.
The number of Feez paying card supplying playes may be a smaller proportion of the player base.
Crystals is too easily generated nowadays compared to the past.

That said, even if rich players are overpricing cards for sale, they do not add to inflation as long as there are no buyers willing to pay those prices. Irregardless of the tax, not being able to sell a card will naturally push the price down as more copies of the card enter supply. If these 'monopolies' are successfully selling cards at these prices, then buyers are willing to pay for it and hence the pricing is appropriate. This situation does not change irregardles sof the tax percentage. To summarise, the tax system has no impact on monopolies, if they exist.

Overall, I am not entirely certain why Feerik has implemented a 30% tax, as it does not benefit them and it is likely to reduce the trading activity on the marketplace. As discussed by others, since cards are non-consumables the impact of this tax is actuallly larger than 30% as the cards will be subsequently traded for further losses (trading decks).

Hopefully, this makes some sense...  I found a few earlier posts had assertions without explaining the logical though process establishing causation between the action and the expected result or hiding the 30% tax impact amongst the other changes...

Regards,

Dennis

P.S. I also thought it was hilarious that old cars were used as a comparison by another poster about why card prices should fall over times. I.e. technological improvement, depreciation (wear and tear), maintenance costs etc were not acvcounted for... Card equivalents would be power creep and rotation I guess, both I believe are undesirable?