Would this game benefit from a marketplace?

Unknown

I have played other online games where you are able to trade or buy items from other players and wanted the community's thoughts on this idea. To get specific in my vision-

You could buy/sell/trade any combinations of ISO/HP/covers/TU's/health packs for any other combination with any other player. You could keep it simple and limit it to ISO, HP, and covers.

For example,
Let's say you can sell/trade a cover that you've been awarded, but isn't recruited yet and expires in 13 days, 23 hrs, and 59 mins. You could put an asking price for it in HP and/or ISO. You could also ask for other covers.

So, maybe I am selling a for 2000 , or would trade for a .

I think this could be a big positive for generating revenue for d3. What do you guys think

Ludaa

I think you should study the "People vs. Diablo 3 Auction House" case for a good look at this idea. Probably not a good idea.

It leads to gold(HP) farming and relying on the market to progress in the game.

atomzed

Fineberg wrote:

I

I think this could be a big positive for generating revenue for d3. What do you guys think

Your proposal does not generate any income for d3... And may in fact under cut their main source of income (people buying packs to get covers).

eaise

Trading would be awesome for the players
It'd be bad for D3 as it'd cut into their profit. Which means it'll never happen

Cypr3ss

I'm sure D3 could work a 'tax' into each sale/trade, be it in ISO or HP to ensure they still get their cut from each transaction.

I think I'd like to see trading between alliance members, in the form of covers for ISO... but that's mostly because a few of my alliance members have heros covered I don't and I seem to have an excess of ISO which they don't

Regards,
Cypr3ss.

Unknown

I believe if marvel war of heroes is any example of what will happen by allowing trading or selling...it will only hurt the game and the players will get **** by other players who will then turn the game into their own little money making venture and hose over anyone and everyone as they set the prices and value of any distinct cover. If you like paying the equivalent of $700 in hero points for a 3* or 4* cover, then a marketplace is the thing for you. It got super ridiculous.

Unknown

They can tax the transactions just like Diablo 3 did. It'll certainly make money but it might not be worth it destroying whatever goodwill anyone may have had toward this game. Obviously all PvP/PvE event will just feature characters with hopelessly more powerful characters than whatever you have hogging all the covers, and expect people to charge a membership for top 100 alliances for the cover too because you could be secretly selling those on the side. Since Blizzard eventually shelved the RMAH, I'm guessing the destruction of your name, even for someone with a great name like Blizzard, was not worth the considerable money RMAH brought them.

Unknown

EpicBeastmode wrote:

I believe if marvel war of heroes is any example of what will happen by allowing trading or selling...it will only hurt the game and the players will get **** by other players who will then turn the game into their own little money making venture and hose over anyone and everyone as they set the prices and value of any distinct cover. If you like paying the equivalent of $700 in hero points for a 3* or 4* cover, then a marketplace is the thing for you. It got super ridiculous.

The cover upgrade price would set a ceiling on all cover sales assuming you were able to get the first one. Of course I totally wouldn't be surprised if people were paying 5000 HP for an X Force cover that they already have if this system went in.

Unknown

I agree that a marketplace has a potential to cause the game the self-implode, but there would still be whales, like there are now. There would still be colluding, like there is now. It would make the meta-game more in your face and probably either entice or scare off players. Maybe have it as a feature that unlocks after you max a team of 1* players so even if you are intimidated by the notion of an in-game marketplace- you'd already be invested in the game and may even dabble in trading, especially with alliance mates.

I like the idea of trading within an alliance. Alliance exclusiveness doesn't sound taboo or anything does it?

Unknown

Not a market per se, but I'd like to see a "discount bin" for alliances. Commanders can throw in covers, maybe for an cost, and then members can buy those covers at a discount. Maybe the Alliance cover also pops one in the discount bin every event.

Open market would be a disaster, as no one would ever buy a full price cover again.

Unknown

Diablo 3 auction house, while it was an unmitigated disaster, isn't really a good example, because its failure was compounded by the absurd difficulty of the game at the highest levels and the miserable drop rate for anything good at launch. It basically forced you to shop for gear at the AH because your chances of getting the drops you needed were next to zero and you were going to die horribly without them. Several significant updates later, the game ran much smoother. If everything had been better balanced from the start the AH could have better served its purpose and the whole thing might not have needed to be torched.

That said, I don't see any way they would ever allow any kind of cover trading/selling in MPQ. Too much of what they do is tied up in collecting and cover rarity. For something like this to benefit them in any way the entire system would need to be revamped, and I think the chances of that happening are very slim.

Eddiemon

Cypr3ss wrote:

I'm sure D3 could work a 'tax' into each sale/trade, be it in ISO or HP to ensure they still get their cut from each transaction.

What cut?

D3 can't actually pay the bills with ISO and HP, they need actual real money. And seeing as ISO and HP are given out for free, most of the transactions won't have originated with cash.

Eddiemon

Fineberg wrote:

I think this could be a big positive for generating revenue for d3. What do you guys think

This would be a massive negative in revenue. First off there is nothing in your plan that introduces any new actual money into the system. So I don't know where you get positive revenue.

Secondly commodities that often involve purchase of HP, such as cover purchases or Health packs can be bough with ISO, a relatively abundant resource. So there will be a reduced need to put money into the system.

And no, 'the whales' won't cover the loss of revenue. Especially seeing as 'the whales' can also buy all the covers they need at reduced prices on this new market. So not only do you take away lower level revenue but you also give discounts to 'the whales'.

Where is this 'positive' revenue? To my perception this is a massive loss of revenue.

I mean seriously where did you come up with this plan? Was it anything other than preventing you from having to spend money yourself on the game. And that being the case why wouldn't everyone else use it exactly the same way?

DaveR4470

From a practical standpoint, having that sort of marketplace requires a TREMENDOUS amount of backend server support. MPQ is not a Diablo-level-revenue sort of game. I think having that sort of system is just financially impractical for this game, even if everyone wanted to set it up.

Unknown

An Auction House isn't some kind of software engineering marvel. If you want a simple way you can just use the system WoW is planning to do with selling game time for gold (no bidding, sales cannot be retracted I think) because then you don't have to worry about concurrency issues (making sure there isn't some weird way people can somehow exploit the delay between server registered a sale). Assuming they tax the HP of course it'd be a significant revenue increase by HP isn't generated in significant amounts by playing. Whether that's worth the eventual trashing of the game is another question altogether. Sure Blizzard talks about how Diablo 3 is a runaway success, but do you seriously think that the RMAH which actually made a lot of money (people certainly used it a lot) would be spontaneously shut down if it didn't end up trashing Blizzard's name in the process? It'd be a good idea if the D3 staff is planning to flee to another country soon, but for in the long run it's not as obvious that this will help more than it hurts.

Vhailorx

The problem with any sort of marketplace is that it will allow us, the players, to distribute covers and other rewards more efficiently.

That is bad for revenue, since the inefficiency of cover rewards is the major source of income (hence the microscopic drop rates in tokens and the game system that allows for 7 days of regular grinding in pve to result in, at most, 4 3* covers and 1 4* cover).

I suppose that a marketplace could let players sell covers to each other and impose a monetary tax on the transaction, but why would the publishers take a small cut from cover sales when they take ALL the revenue in from pack sales now?

Unknown

Eddiemon wrote:

This would be a massive negative in revenue. First off there is nothing in your plan that introduces any new actual money into the system. So I don't know where you get positive revenue.?

If you are using currency in game, and currency can be bought with cash...
I am not saying it gaurantees anything but the potential is there. Let me be clear- this is just brainstorming the potential of a marketplace. I am not saying it's a set-in-stone good idea, but I believe there's certainly a lot of potential if it was implemented with care.

Eddiemon wrote:

Secondly commodities that often involve purchase of HP, such as cover purchases or Health packs can be bough with ISO, a relatively abundant resource. So there will be a reduced need to put money into the system.

The only way I know of buying covers with ISO is the 500 ISO roulette for a standard token equivilant . I guess that could work? But no guarantee.

Eddiemon wrote:

I mean seriously where did you come up with this plan? Was it anything other than preventing you from having to spend money yourself on the game. And that being the case why wouldn't everyone else use it exactly the same way?

I think it has the potential to make the game more dynamic, I am aware of the risk. And I appreciate your criticism. I thought the forums would be appropriate place to post an idea for the game, whether or not there is too much seriousness behind it being implemented.

Unknown

Vhailorx wrote:

The problem with any sort of marketplace is that it will allow us, the players, to distribute covers and other rewards more efficiently.

That is bad for revenue, since the inefficiency of cover rewards is the major source of income (hence the microscopic drop rates in tokens and the game system that allows for 7 days of regular grinding in pve to result in, at most, 4 3* covers and 1 4* cover).

I suppose that a marketplace could let players sell covers to each other and impose a monetary tax on the transaction, but why would the publishers take a small cut from cover sales when they take ALL the revenue in from pack sales now?

Efficiency is irrelevent because they can just tax this stuff. D3 also controls the supply of all characters and all covers in the first place so if the average 3* cover somehow plummets to 200 HP a piece it's not really hard for them to either greatly tighten the supply or simply release more characters. Marketplace is a straight up revenue versus brand name cost benefit analysis. It is always beneficial in terms of short term revenue, but in the long run everyone's going to hate you for doing this and that will impact your ability to make money in the future. Now if long term means 15 years or if D3 guys are already planning to flee to another country then maybe it's okay, but unless you got a crystal ball it's an awfully big risk to take.

Vhailorx

Phantron wrote:

Vhailorx wrote:

The problem with any sort of marketplace is that it will allow us, the players, to distribute covers and other rewards more efficiently.

That is bad for revenue, since the inefficiency of cover rewards is the major source of income (hence the microscopic drop rates in tokens and the game system that allows for 7 days of regular grinding in pve to result in, at most, 4 3* covers and 1 4* cover).

I suppose that a marketplace could let players sell covers to each other and impose a monetary tax on the transaction, but why would the publishers take a small cut from cover sales when they take ALL the revenue in from pack sales now?

Efficiency is irrelevent because they can just tax this stuff. D3 also controls the supply of all characters and all covers in the first place so if the average 3* cover somehow plummets to 200 HP a piece it's not really hard for them to either greatly tighten the supply or simply release more characters. Marketplace is a straight up revenue versus brand name cost benefit analysis. It is always beneficial in terms of short term revenue, but in the long run everyone's going to hate you for doing this and that will impact your ability to make money in the future. Now if long term means 15 years or if D3 guys are already planning to flee to another country then maybe it's okay, but unless you got a crystal ball it's an awfully big risk to take.

Efficiency is everything in terms of inducing players to spend money. You call it revenue v. brand name cost/benefit, I call it efficiency. Thee devs have to strike a careful balance between giving out covers too freely (in which case no one will ever by packs) and given not giving them out at all (in which case people will lose interest in the game after not making any progress).

Any marketplace that allows players to shuffle covers around between themselves increases the efficiency of player effort (a 14th cover for a 3* turns from 500 extra iso into a tradeable asset that might get you a cover that you actually need). You are right that the devs could balance that increased efficiency by reducing cover drop rates or increasing the new character rate. But now you are talking about making multiple very significant changes on a relatively complex player economy, which means a huge risk of unintended consequences. Why risk that unless/until the game is really struggling financially?

Vinmarc43

One thing that could be good, is the ability to sell your whole roster to some newbie, 50/50 , you and D3 split the caaaaaash, and I run away in the sunset happy

Dragon_Nexus

People hate on the Diablo 3 marketplace and I don't see why.
Sure they said they drastically lowered legendary drop rates to increase prices on the marketplace, but that wasn't the marketplace's fault. I didn't see why they couldn't give us the drop rate we currently have now without removing the market.

It's like if a new character came out that had an ability that was way too weak and instead of boosting that character up they just nerfed everyone. Sorta. I dunno, it's late and my analogy powers are fading.