dragnwtf Wrote:BECAUSE SPREADSHEET SAID SO. PERIOD.
it's not about the law of supply and demand - all about the sheet!
/ironic
The only way to follow the rule of supply and demand is by having a central market with dynamic pricing.
There are at least 2 ways to accomplish this ( open to know more ):
First, a central currency has to be chosen.
a) Refs/Keys/Promos are for 1:1 direct trades
b) Credits ( like tf2wh.com - but there is no dynamic pricing there ) are for automated trades.
So:
1) A Bid/Ask market.
If the value is credits, items are hosted on 1 or more bots.
Everyone can see and use the book, and so choose the right price for bid or ask. This is a pure supply/demand pricing.
Currently there is nothing like this, you can go on tf2outpost and tf2tp and get/search offers for an item, but nothing resembles an ordered book where you can view the best bid or ask offer.
However, this is a user-regulated market. Nothing can prevent the spread to grow too big and put the market in stall
2) In a credit system, it's also possible a dynamic pricing based on IN/OUT ( bought/sold ) from the market. The basic concept is:
choose a single item as value conversion. I.e., 1 Key = X credits. This is locked, and everything else will change around this
Now,
if an item is overpriced, there will be "far" more people selling to the market ( for profit ) and less buying ( they want the item, but it's not worth the current value )
If an item is underpriced, there will be "far" more people buying from the market ( they get what they want for cheap ) and less selling ( the item is worth more than credits given )
If an item is correctly priced, there will be "little" difference between buying and selling
The "far" and "little" are relative to the total trades of that item
So, using total IN, total OUT of an item for 1 day, it is possible to revalue the price for the next day with a given weight formula.
It's worth noting that such a system does not impose any kind of "overstock" limit: simply, if too many items are sold to the market, it's price will drop to very low values. With 64 bits value, it can be
very low
To compare 1) and 2), I would say:
1) Bid/Ask:
- 100% pure market-driven price
- Sellers: don't get anything up until their item is sold. This means that they can't buy another item until their is sold, and this slows down the market flow.
- Buyers: High spread can stall the buying process
2) Weighted Price:
- It uses an impartial intermediary (the market), if price is incorrect, it takes time (1+ days) to change
- Sellers: they get payed immediately.
- Buyers: users can immediately buy what they want, and keep the market flow high.
This is of course for all normal items
for everything else, i.e. special levels, painted items, unusuals, ultra rare items, and so on, an ( always automated ) an auction system is better suited, ebay stile:
start bid, buyout price, and (optional,hidden) reserve price
still using credits as currency, though: this way, you have only to find a buyer for your currency-scaled ( due to fixed credits/key conversion ) item, and find another seller whose prices is in your willing pay range in credits.
This has far more chances than finding a buyer who also has the item you want plus other things to reach equivalent value, simply because such a buyer belongs to a subset of the "I want your item" and "I have the items you want" ensembles, leading to lesser chances for a successful complete trade.
After all, that's why most accept buds for unusuals
