Architect Archive
Thread: People who are jacking up our economy...
No you can't do this in the real wold if the intent is to freeze out local competition. The Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 clearly states that a real world company cannot do what you are proposing here.
Talision wrote:
How you htink it works in the real world? First they start off buying form a store usualy, and having to mark it up until they have enough, and a few contacts to start buying from the distrubitor for less, in which they can lower there prices to gain more buisnesss, while making more profit. Then at some point they can get it straight form the manufacter at even lower cost, and then what happens? They start buyign there own plants to make ther eproducts themselves obtaining the maximum profit margin they can achieve. So taking the 3-4 cred per resource isnt what the base is, its the cost of strippign the resources yourself, (which i have no idea of what that is on SWG) If your soo upset that someoen can sell lower then you because they own there own harvesters instead of buying it from the market, then you jsut havent commited yrouself that far yet and there is nothign stopping you. And if you say you don thave that much time, or things are interfering, or you want to explore the SWG universe some more, those are all jsut excuses and real life problems that interfere with buisness, jsut lile in everyday life.
I cant freeze out local competition, because I am nothing close to a monolopy, I hold maybe 1/100,000 of the total resoruces, and represent less than 1% of total sales.
Such a suit would never fly. I am smaller on my server then the winery I work for is in the world, and it owns it all from land to grape to wine to bottle to trucking company to sales office, they even bought our own gas station to fill the trucks ( I get to use it too ). But so do a lot of wineries.
It simply does not apply to what I am doing in SWG, Now if I held 60% and no one else had the same advantage, then it might mean something, but anyone can do what I do, it is NOT an unfair advantage.
No lawyer would touch it.
I don't have a problem with that either. What I and others have a problem with is when you mine your own resources than devalue them when you build a building. They you have the tenacity to call that good business practice.
Dayln wrote:
I have no problem with archetects mining thier own resrouces, others abovethink that, not me. I mine my own resources.
Anian wrote:
crafters must mine most of their own resources to stay competitive.
No my friend you are wrong. The only crafters that have to mine their own resources to stay competive is architects. That is all.
NeonEpitaph wrote:
Rath,
<snip>
I agreed with everything you wrote. My point of bringing up real world laws was to defend the point that we were not advocating price fixing and two that Dalyn claiming that he was running sound business practices was not entirely true.
I am not asking for npcs to have a minumum price or for some arbitrary value to be made up as a bottom end selling point. If you have ever read any of my other posts regarding architecture I have always advocated adding decay to harvesters and factories, along with making our expirementation mattered. If we did those two things than our wares would sell for considerably more because there would be something that differentiates us, the masters, from those coming up the ranks.
LikeI said I don't think the Devs should add "laws" to the game to prevent things like this from occuring. What I want them to add is a way for us to justify the cost we want. As someone else pointed to earlier, the only thing that differentiates are structures is cost, nothing more.
After reading this for a couple of days, I've come to the conclusion that I am an "undercutter" (if such a word exists). And for some reason, I don't feel the least bit ashamed about it.
I had a guy come to me last night saying that he'd asked one of us to build him like 30 torches. The architect he talked to told him he would charge 10k for 20 torches. What in the heck is that all about - It's a LIGHT for crying out loud!
I told him I'd charge 5 creds per torch. He upped his order to 50 and paid me 1k in creds because I treated him fairly.
Now who's bright idea is it to chrage 500 credits for a lousy torch of all things?! There's all of 80 resources in it, and a chip you can buyfrom a master artisan (or make if you are a master artisan!).How much do you guys charge for a couch?!
If resources are going to dictate prices instead of level headed thinking, then our market deserves to cut to shreds.
I'm sorry, but I *will* continue to charge lower for my offerings. And so be it if some other architect comes and buys my stuff just to sell it again. That's his/her choice, they made it - My name is still on the deed as the creator. One day, people like that get caught, and their reputation will be worthless.
And just for the record - I harvest my own stuff. I have paid for every level of my training (except for 1 rank which a friend gave me out of the kindness of his heart). You guys whine and complain. How many of you paid for every level of your training? I have worked my butt off in every aspect of this profession - why can't I dictate what I want to sell my items at? Why is it that a little competition shows up, and everyone screams bloody murder? So, you don't make a sale, find out why. Someone's bound to tell you.
If I don't sell anything, I fall back on my combat skills, and run missions to make sure I have steady income. It it gets to be too bad, I'll pull up my harvs and save the time and money I would have done in maintinance and go back to blowing up lairs.
I have no qualms about this - why do you guys? Don't you have a backup plan? Something else you've been working on before you became architects? Why do you have to dictate what everyone else does or does not charge? This is a free enterprise system, isn't it?
Flame on...
Dayln wrote:
I don't devalue them , I just dont use YOUR value. I value them at what they actually cost me.That is less than 1 cr per unit. I sell at over 3 times thier value.
If my value is the same as everyone else's value than yes, you are devalueing them. Once again like I said you cannot legally (in the real world) combine two seperate business entities like that. You are entering an exclusive sales agreement with yourself which is illegal. You said your winery owns its own gas station, but others can buy gas from them too. This is legal as long as both companies pay the same amount for gas, and the one winery doesn't use it's advantage on cheaper gas to lower it's wine prices. They cannot differentiate.
Lastly about the loal competition bit. If I place my shop next to yours with these provisions: You sell for 2 cpu; I sell for 4 cpu; Resources are worth 3 cpu. Then everyone buys from you because you are cheaper than yes, you have freezed out local competition. I have a case against your corporation because I can prove that you are using your trust to sell at an unfair value.
And we have shown that no lawyer would touch it.
A winery owns its product form land to grape to bottling to trucks to sales to the final customer. The reason it is not a monopoly is that every other winery has access to do the same. The only time it would be considered a monopoly is that if one held such an advantage that others could not.
I do not hold such an advantage, I am a tiny percentage of the reproduces, a tiny percentage of the sales, and hundreds upon hundreds of other architects have the same access and do exactly what I do, in fact any architect could have such access if they choose too.
There is no unfair advantage. It would not apply even if that law did exist in SWG.
which it does not.
You would loose becaue I could easlity prove that I am not selling my productat a loss. That you choose to sell at that price, but that 3 per unit is NOT the cost of a unti.
Even if i were selling at a loss, the lawsuit has already been won by Mr Walton thatI can choose to sell at a loss. I choose not too, I sell at a profit
You lost your case
VargusStarblazer wrote:
I had a guy come to me last night saying that he'd asked one of us to build him like 30 torches. The architect he talked to told him he would charge 10k for 20 torches. What in the heck is that all about - It's a LIGHT for crying out loud!
I told him I'd charge 5 creds per torch. He upped his order to 50 and paid me 1k in creds because I treated him fairly.
If resources are going to dictate prices instead of level headed thinking, then our market deserves to cut to shreds.
I'm sorry, but I *will* continue to charge lower for my offerings. And so be it if some other architect comes and buys my stuff just to sell it again. That's his/her choice, they made it - My name is still on the deed as the creator. One day, people like that get caught, and their reputation will be worthless.
If I don't sell anything, I fall back on my combat skills, and run missions to make sure I have steady income. It it gets to be too bad, I'll pull up my harvs and save the time and money I would have done in maintinance and go back to blowing up lairs.
I have no qualms about this - why do you guys? Don't you have a backup plan? Something else you've been working on before you became architects? Why do you have to dictate what everyone else does or does not charge? This is a free enterprise system, isn't it?
10K for 20 torches is about what I charge. It's a fair price.
Ok so you actually lost money here, that's beyond my comprehending. Let's see we'll use your 80 resources and see resources are worth 0.5 creds each. So let's see 80 X 50 is 4000 and 0.5 cred/unit that's 2000 credits. Wow brilliant job, you lost 1000 credits in the transaction. I wouldn't recommend running a real business.
Resources cost money. So yes they dictate the price. Just like in the real world materials and labor dictate price. Is that suprising to you?
Why would this taint his reputation? I would resell those torches on the bazaar and make a killing. They would sell like hot cakes at 250 credits each and I'd be still selling them below cost. Furthermore I'd be making 245 credits profit each.
Ah now it all makes sense. You'll fall back on your combat skills. Well let me tell you what my character has. Master Artisan, Master Architect, Master Weaponcrafter, and the rest of my points are in Merchant. So what combat skills do I have to fall back on? I'll answer it for you, none. I enjoy the crafting aspect of these types of games. That's how I make my money. Maybe you should drop your crafting skills and put the rest of your points in combat since that's what you're good at. Furthermore I'll buy any Krayt Tissue off of you for 500 credits. Since you don't care about credits in this game. I'll gladly sell the guns I make with said tissue for 6 figures.
My backup plan is crafting. You shouldn't need a backup plan to a whole facet of the game.
Wait a minute lets remember that not in every server they the cost of the resources it's the same, in mine I would say that for junk metal which I asume is what everyone uses here, is around 2-3cpu not more, unless you want something good to make crafting tools or stations then you are talking around 4-5cpu (what I have seen from people that mine and sell)
It might be that this discussion has no use since every single server would have it's own economy (like all countries if you would)
I would say that if in your server people that mine sell junk metal for 2-3cpu then you should charge accordingly not this nonesense of 8-10cpu now that would be stealing, and in a real economy it would only sell to the rich..