Merchant Archive
Thread: Anti-Trust: Why in-game Monopolies are pure fiction.
Numen wrote:
Avair wrote:
A coercive monopoly cannot exist without government interferance.
What this means is that unless the government (SWG) gives advantages to certain business (players), that give them an unfair advantage against other businesses, there is no way a single company can control the market.In atruly free market, no single company can drive the price up (hence the word coercive) without making it possible for other competitors to come in and undercut them, driving the price back to the 'market' levels.
While I agree with your overall idea I don't agree with your reason. I do believe a coercive monoply can exists without government interference.
I take Microsoft as an example although they aren't a true monopoly. They could raise their prices to $300 for exp home and people would probably still buy it. They might lose some sales, but I think their profits would remain. It just might give people less reason to upgrade when the new one comes out.
No. People would use the OS they have. New computers might buy it. For about a year, until the big software shops completed Linux versions of their software. Then Windows would die. Economics experts, is this a monopoly for a year, or not a monopoly?
Companies can also have a monopoly if they have the rights to a huge majority of the resources. Whether this be raw goods or actually people. If noone else has the capabilities(even in the short term) they technically have a monopoly.
Both of these situations can't happen in SWG so it doesn't apply here. There are just cases in the real world where these could happen(The diamond monopoly is one example with resources, Debeers I think?).
Aren't the a monopoly because some national government allows them to control 98% or more of the world's diamond mining? Government enablement...
Resources aren't an issue in SWG. There will always be more coming. Skills to make something is also not a monopoly. Anyone can grind up to master and make the exact same stuff anyone else can. If they have enough drive anyone can go from being nothing to doing 1+ million a day in sales.
The devs are going one step farther than any government has. They are preventing the walmarts, sears, or other huge corporations from forming or making it so difficult for them to function, it becomes a waste of effort. I think this is a bad thing, but that is up to anyone to decide for themselves. I like mom and pop stores, but I will never shop all the time at them just because my cost of living would climb a great deal if I did. Forceing me to pay more for my goods I don't see as a good think in RL or in game.
>I do believe a coercive monoply can exists without government interference. I take Microsoft as an example although they aren't a true monopoly.They could raise their prices to $300 for exp home and people would probably still buy it.
Microsoft has a non-coericive near-monopoly on the desktop OS only. The only viable competitor is Apple (2% or so i believe). Linux is a great server app, but until my mom can use it, not viable as desktop OS. Sorry guys. They also don't control near equilivlants like cellphones,the server market (Unix/Linux)or the web (Apache). Windows is also really cheap comparitively, which makes it unprofitable for other companies to try and build a new OS, which isvery expensive task. Non-coercive monopolys can't raise their price significantly (which causes harm to customers) without creating a profitable market. You better believe if windows cost $500 or $1000 you'd see viable competitors. There is no time limit on what makes a monopoly. A freer market would make transistions more rapid than a mixed economy though.
Raw Natural resources are another possible candidate for non-coercive monopolys. But they also have lots of viable substitutes.Even ifDebeer's controlsall diamond mines in the world, they can still only raise their prices far before people start using substitutes (synthetics,other gems,etc), orstop buying them alltogether. I don't know the specifics of Debeer's though, so I can't comment specifically to them. No control of natural resources possible SWG though.
Please, please, please don't let this thread degenerate into a Microsoft/Linux bashing thread. Keep that on Slashdot, I use all of the above OS and they all have their places. You may not like Microsoft, but that doesn't make them a monopoly. More relevant, monopolies (coercive or non) still can't exist in SWG, which is the main point of this thread.
DirthNader wrote:
Gavvot wrote:What I do know is that on my server, if there is a good spawn of woolie hide, all the scout resources are monopolised by 1 or 2 crafter max.
I seriously doubt that. In fact, I don't believe it at all.
For example, about6 month ago Shadowfire saw a very, very nice spawn of Tatooine wooly hide. Shadowfire had gone almost six months without a good wooly spawn, and prices for anything over 1600 OQ+SR were heading towards 200cpu.
So this new spawn hits, and right off the bat a couple of armorsmiths are paying 120-150cpu for the stuff. To someone outside of the scout / armorsmith community, it would appear that those two guys "monopolised" the spawn. What really happened was that those two guys got their fill within a day or two, and you now had rangers sending tells to just about every armorsmith on the server looking to unload the stuff. I bought 200K at 70-80cpu before I stopped accepting offers.
Bottom line, everyone who was remotely funded got all the hide they wanted. Again, if you weren't on the inside of that what it would have looked like to you was that those two guys with the original high offer were getting everything.
Monopolies can't exist in SWG.
Well, your couple AS aren't very rich that's all.
When the last good spawn of woolie hide spawned on farstar, 1 shop offered 200 CPU straight for whatever quantity, you could just go and offer it to their vendor.
Didn't knew 1 scout that wasn't hunting whooly hide.
Same stuff +/- happened with the last good spawn of avian meat.
Price started at 200 CPU, and raised.
And not all the doc could afford that much.
I even saw 10K of this meat auctioned, and go at more than 570 CPU.
As long as there is no limit in the money you can have and the storage you can have, monopoly can exist in SWG.
Gavvot wrote:
Well, your couple AS aren't very rich that's all.
Heh, I've got a bank balance that would make Jabba blush.
It's not about being rich, it's about not being stupid. Based on my demand, 200K of wooly hide will last at least until the next good spawn, of not longer. My demand isn't shabby, either. I do about 60mil of business a month on normal sales (special orders, like 15 mil for three pieces of RIS last month, are just gravy).
The only explanation to buying more than you need is either stupidity or some desire to prevent others from getting it. Considering that my sales, and the sales of every other armorsmith I know across multiple servers, are limited by how fast we can produce product, not demand or competition, I'd lump anyone spending 200cpu+ for a resource simply to keep it out of the hands of others in the stupid category as well.
Sounds like the 'smiths on your server are just plain stupid.
Message Edited by DirthNader on 08-13-2004 11:04 AM
Gavvot wrote:
DirthNader wrote:
Gavvot wrote:
What I do know is that on my server, if there is a good spawn of woolie hide, all the scout resources are monopolised by 1 or 2 crafter max.
I seriously doubt that. In fact, I don't believe it at all.
For example, about6 month ago Shadowfire saw a very, very nice spawn of Tatooine wooly hide. Shadowfire had gone almost six months without a good wooly spawn, and prices for anything over 1600 OQ+SR were heading towards 200cpu.
So this new spawn hits, and right off the bat a couple of armorsmiths are paying 120-150cpu for the stuff. To someone outside of the scout / armorsmith community, it would appear that those two guys "monopolised" the spawn. What really happened was that those two guys got their fill within a day or two, and you now had rangers sending tells to just about every armorsmith on the server looking to unload the stuff. I bought 200K at 70-80cpu before I stopped accepting offers.
Bottom line, everyone who was remotely funded got all the hide they wanted. Again, if you weren't on the inside of that what it would have looked like to you was that those two guys with the original high offer were getting everything.
Monopolies can't exist in SWG.
Well, your couple AS aren't very rich that's all.
When the last good spawn of woolie hide spawned on farstar, 1 shop offered 200 CPU straight for whatever quantity, you could just go and offer it to their vendor.
Didn't knew 1 scout that wasn't hunting whooly hide.
Same stuff +/- happened with the last good spawn of avian meat.
Price started at 200 CPU, and raised.
And not all the doc could afford that much.
I even saw 10K of this meat auctioned, and go at more than 570 CPU.
As long as there is no limit in the money you can have and the storage you can have, monopoly can exist in SWG.
DirthNader wrote:
Gavvot wrote:
Well, your couple AS aren't very rich that's all.Heh, I've got a bank balance that would make Jabba blush.
It's not about being rich, it's about not being stupid. Based on my demand, 200K of wooly hide will last at least until the next good spawn, of not longer. My demand isn't shabby, either. I do about 60mil of business a month on normal sales (special orders, like 15 mil for three pieces of RIS last month, are just gravy).
The only explanation to buying more than you need is either stupidity or some desire to prevent others from getting it. Considering that my sales, and the sales of every other armorsmith I know across multiple servers, are limited by how fast we can produce product, not demand or competition, I'd lump anyone spending 200cpu+ for a resource simply to keep it out of the hands of others in the stupid category as well.
Sounds like the 'smiths on your server are just plain stupid.
Message Edited by DirthNader on 08-13-2004 11:04 AM
I'm talking about a shop that was aimed at weapon only and started armor.
A shop that have 12 vendors.
A shop that made rules to prevent people from buying more than 2 identical item or crate per day on some of their items.
Because they couldn't follow the demand.
And for the speed of production, it's much more relative when you're not alone, but a group of people running one shop.
I don't doubt your demand is high, but I can tell you that some people have much higher demand than yours.
And I'm also quite sure that they didn't offer 200 CPU to prevent other people to buy it. They just wanted alot and could afford it.
As I said before it's not about a pure monopoly but more about a bunch of people that can control a major part of a market.
Those people can be nice, or not, but they have the power to do it and that's the problem.
Limiting the number of items on vendor will have the biggest impact on people like that, because it will reduce alot offer from them. And so increase demand for other crafters.
But I'm pretty sure that it will only be temporary, because even with limited number of items on vendor, there are alot of ways to have a big demand and handle it.
Gavvot wrote:
...As I said before it's not about a pure monopoly but more about a bunch of people that can control a major part of a market.
Those people can be nice, or not, but they have the power to do it and that's the problem.
Please explain to me, in very specific terms, how any one or any group has any power to control any portion of the market in SWG. Not implied control, specific control, as in a direct ability to control pricing, demandm and availability in any market.
Links to specific examples would be good too.
Thanks.
And keep us updated.
joined42904 wrote:
Dirth Nader,
A first day artisan with a survey tool may be able to hand mine nuclear power, but I think it will make him or her ill. The artisan can make wind power generators. But they don't get the "same" power as the nuclear power that DingoBoi must deal in.
BoberFett wrote:
joined42904 wrote:
Dirth Nader,
A first day artisan with a survey tool may be able to hand mine nuclear power, but I think it will make him or her ill. The artisan can make wind power generators. But they don't get the "same" power as the nuclear power that DingoBoi must deal in.
Hardly. Run some missions, buy one fusion gen. You don't have to sample the stuff, just survey for it. Plop down the generator.
I'm willing to bet that a new player could become a decent sized power dealer on any server in a very short amount of time. I'm thinking two weeks.
Maybe I should play on Eclipse myself.