WoW Auction House: Non-Buyout Bids Do Not Work
Jan 15th, 2009 by tyson
I’ve seen it time and time again. I make huge profits and I stake them out whenever they appear on the auction house because I know I’ll get a deal. The higher value the item, the better.
Non-buyout bids are the heritage of real life auctioneering such as eBay or live auction houses. Start very low price to get increased competition and interest, then let humanity, jealousy, and greed take over. Instant profit, right?
Well, mainly because of this history of success and synonymous identification with auctioneering, non-buyouts are of course necessary to include in any virtual auction house scheme. Moreover, they’re fun for the auctioneer who dreams of competition and those virtuous human traits listed above which is nearly reason enough to include.
In a virtual world, more specifically World of Warcraft’s virtual auction house, however, they just don’t work. At least now they don’t. In the beginning, when there was more demand and less farming as well as general knowledge about the game and questable equivalent items, it was better for the non-buyout. They were more commonly seen (almost annoyingly so), money was more difficult to come by for the average person, and rare items were just that… rare. All this meant more demand for a particular item. Not so any more and there are a number of reasons this is the case.
First and foremost, the game is easy even without great items. You don’t really *need* upgrades because the itemization is working better than it once did. Remember when you just never seemed to get a quest that gave you anything that you could use, or specific slot rewards were non-existent? Now it seems you almost always get a variety of items you can use for any sequence of quests. They of course aren’t as good as the ones you buy unless they’re an end-of-quest chain or dungeon drop, but they’ll do. The point is, this takes a small toll on demand, which is half of what it’s all about.
Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, people a) are usually not logged on when others outbid them or are not near an auction house, b) people have to make it back to a mailbox, then to the auction house to rebid, and c) the fact that you can’t see who is bidding against you like you can in eBay is also a negative. While I understand anonymity, having the bidders name could promote friendly competition and make it more real.
So what’s the solution? Can this type of bid still survive in current virtual markets? Is it necessary for it to survive?
In my opinion, the answer is yes to both. To preserve the integrity of open bidding and to allow this type to thrive, all I believe it needs is a proxy bidding system, in which you can set a max bid you’re willing to pay and it automatically bids for you if it you get outbid. Optionally, allow for those to see who is bidding against them. People like me who buy low and sell high would probably faster gain a negative reputation for doing this type of thing as our names would be known to more and become infamous. Heck, it wasn’t long ago when advertising more than one rare at a time would initiate people calling you a farmer.
Pros of the proxy bid system:
- bid whenever you want without the need to check back
- encourages a higher initial max bid – just how badly do you want this thing
- things likely to go for closer or slightly higher than average
Cons of the proxy bid system:
- people less likely to get into a direct bidding war, thus hugely inflated end prices will be even less likely to be seen (however they rarely are these days anyway, as explained above)
What do you think of the proxy bid system?
Interesting idea. Bidding just doesn’t work in this game, but your solution could solve that. However, I always have some reservations with taking people out of cities. It hurts the atmosphere. Additionally, the proxy bidding seems a little wonky. Say I set my max bid at 100g and my competitor sets his at 101g. I bid, then he out bids me and then it would all be done in a flash as we keep going ahead of each other until he exceeeds my limit.
I think to help this you do need a) see who you are bidding against and b) choose how much you want to raise the bid by. I think it would be an interesting addition, if nothing else. I’m not sure anythign would change, though. People love instant gratification and in the age of daily quests, I’m not sure many people would take advantage of it. But for auctioneers it might make for some interesting battles.
I’ve thought about the same issue, but as long as I’m reaping the benefits of people posting Runecloth for 20s a stack on very low non-buyout bids so that there is less than 30min left when I’m online, I have no objections about the current system…
No, really, I have made nice profit as long as I have been working in ah’s by putting that lowest possible bid at the end of the auction. And most probably will continue to do so. It’s not as lucrative as your method, Tyson, but it’s more secure one. I only wish I could reap the epics like you do… but then again, being on a first generation server has it’s negatives…
It would be good, however, to see the names of the people you’re bidding against. You could put more emphasis on the bidding game knowing that there is this bugger at the other end who just won that other bid…
Copra
@ Wes:
I agree with you about populated cities being a good thing, but I’m not sure proxy bidding would take people out of them more. I mean you still need to go to the AH to browse for an item you want, and you still bid. Nothing different about that part. In a proxy bidding system you are allowed to rebid a new maximum whenever you feel the need. Whether someone puts a max bid that’s higher than yours and therefore outbids you or even if someone doesn’t, eBay lets you change your true max bid, even if you currently are the highest bidder and feel like you would spend more.
But I see the AH more as a browsing draw. Go there and hang out to browse. After you browse and bid/buyout you go an do something else, even hang out if that’s what you like. At least that’s my take, whether it would be a proxy system or not.
@ Copra:
Welcome back! I admire your ability to micromanage a huge amount of different low net profit items to secure a lot of money even if our profit margin is the same. You know I’m going to experiment with that soon and report it here. I think those of you with money should experiment with buying an epic once. It’s not as risky as you might think. In fact, I have not managed to lose money on an epic since starting… not saying that you wouldn’t but just need to find the right ones at the right prices.
Totally off topic, but I want to respond to Tyson’s comment to Copra. When I flip on the AH, I generally do it with trade goods or insanely cheap blues/epics. Your podcasts inspired me to try my hand in the weaponds/armour/epics market. I’ve actually had a lot of success with it! It isn’t nearly as scary as I thought. I’ve been using auctioneer/alakazam/my own knowledge and it’s been fun and profitable. Thanks!
I’m still a Runecloth mogul though
I’m not saying that I don’t make money from the higher end goods, either. In fact, I’m dealing with blues, but only from the safe price margin: perhaps too safe.
What I am saying is that the last minute bids on trade goods and severely under priced gear creates very stable and solid basis on the higher end trading: depends only on how long you want to spend on the AH and the last minute bidding round.
I thought I was doing badly with my ally toons, but as I started to sum the things I’ve gotten I came to the conclusion that my mule is doing just fine: I’ve singly purchased a guild, three bank slots, twelve basic lv30 mounts, two lv60′s and still I’m sitting on 2k gold in hand and about the same flowing through the AH constantly. Mostly by fiddling the last minute no-buyout’s and flipping them.
But like Tyson has noted, you have to try something else for a while to really say that you know the game. I’m off to epics.
Copra
Sounds like you are doing just fine. To give you a little incentive perhaps, yesterday morning I saw Wapach’s Spaulders of Solidarity on the AH for I believe 1.9k buyout. It normally goes for about 3.5k. I bought it, and within a couple hours (I put it up at 3.25k) it sold for a quick little 1.1k (incl. AH take) profit. Now, if I were to buy commodities at 1g and resell for 3g, I’d have to actually put up 500+ of them and they all would have to sell for me to make the same. That’s probably an unrealistic price point, but for about 2 minutes worth of work (find plus run to mailbox then back and put them up), it just seems that this currently is the best profit to work ratio in the game… providing you a) have the cash which you obviously do, and b) can find the deals (which really doesn’t take to much effort to learn). Again though, I’ll stress that they aren’t found each time I log on, more like one or two every 5 times.