Architect Archive

The level of ignorance of economics never fails to astound me on game forums. I'm not an expert by any means, but at least I understand the basics. It's been said in other threads, so I know some of you have a clue, but for those of you who don't, let me explain a basic principle.

Customers don't give a rat's ass what it cost you to make something. They don't care if that small house took 10 times the resources to build as the suit of armor they are wearing.

Thecustomer's number one concern for non-luxury items ishow useful the item is. A gun is very useful. So is armor. A couch? Useless. A small house? Practically useless. Right now a house has 3 uses:

-a backpack you can't carry with you

-a place to put a crafting station

- a status symbol

The first on the list means it's worth about as much as a backpack (1000 credits max)

The second makes it useful to crafters, but mostly only high-end ones whoe need a personal station

The third makes it useful only to people who care to spend money on those things.

Since the bulk of players currently only care about the first one, they really don't want to spend much on a house. If you make them more useful in some way, more people will be willing to spend more money on them. When you can share admin and people can actually swap stuff in them, they will become instand mini-PA halls, and the price can be raised a bit.

Remember, 90% of the fighters out there *need* a gun and armor. None of them *need* a house.

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The issue of grinder selling small houses for cheap is a problem, but nothing can be done about it. Move along into larger items and you'll leave them behind hopefully. But blame the game, not the playa. People are people and they are predictable. We should have seen this one coming.

"The level of ignorance of economics never fails to astound me on game forums. I'm not an expert by any means, but at least I understand the basics. It's been said in other threads, so I know some of you have a clue, but for those of you who don't, let me explain a basic principle."

Not really... yes, the usefulness is a factor, however, you cannot go ENTIRELY on usefulness. I.e. in many contexts, you can buy something... you can find another thing that is twice as good, but it is not always twice the price.. sometimes it's an extra 100, sometimes it is 4x the price. Partially this price is based on demand, but largely, there is a point to which you can push something's efficiency at a linear cost, and once you get past that point, the cost increase in manufacture is quite often exponential.

Harvesters in SWG are a good example, a medium harvester is really only as good as 2 personal harvesters, with several DOWNSIDES... on the positive side, it only takes 1 lot... it costs more than 10x what 2 personals would cost, though.

Normal economic rules don't apply exactly to games such as this... large portions of them apply, but the system is too uncontrolled and unbalanced for them to really work.

However... even if they DID apply perfectly... manufacturecost does apply. If it doesn't, there is NO reason to go into the business... meaning, no one will.. EXCEPT a select few who see the trend... then, when those are the only people in that profession, and people want what they can make... they can charge whatever they want, and people will pay it, if they actually want it. If there were only 1 person making small houses, and they wanted 400k for it... there would be people who would pay it, even KNOWING they are overpriced.

Too many people are placing too much on the shoulders of the customer... this gives them FAR more power than they should have, giving them the ability to define prices as they see fit, even though often they really know nothing about what they are defining. So yes, customers willingness to pay is a factor, but... if architects forced them to pay what they are worth, they would pay it. Perhaps less would, and owning a house WOULD be more of a rarity, people WOULD pay it. The architects willing to sell for next to nothing are defining the standard that buyers are latching onto though, which is the problem. But if architects start refusing to sell at that price, people will pay still. I had that happen earlier, someone asked what I charged for a medium house. I told them. They then told me I was wrong. Not sure how I could be wrong, when he asked what _I_ charge, but he then told me what I sell a medium house for. Needless to say, I did not accept this offer. A few hours later, he came back to me, and asked me to build the house for him. This has happened a few other times, but that is the most memorable. And I don't feel bad about it, because I feel my prices are quite reasonable, and fair both for the buyer and myself. If people don't feel it is worth it, they simply won't buy from me, and I have no problems with that.

Think about it, though. Airlines recently had a lot of problems. However, none of them sold flights for $10. They did drop prices a bit for a while, but they were STILL high. But did they drop them to half, a quarter, or lower, just so they had SOME income? No, they simply went out of business. Unless a company is PLANNING on going out of business, it is not going to, consistently, sell its goods at cost or less... much less without a decent profit margin.

Unfortunately... I am feeling sick, and am a bit tired... so I don't know if this entire post is actually coherent or not. I THINK it is, but... well.. if not, sorry.