Google

Read the new book all about Team Fortress 2 trading and the TF2 Spreadsheet.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Server vs. Forum pricing

One thing I'd like to comment on today is the occasional discrepancy between the prices for items on trade servers and the pricing on forums.  Often the in-game price for items will be further away from the market price in both directions than forums.   Why is this?  It's very simple really: on a trade server the motivation is to move items more in the moment and to a smaller audience.  Everyone streams to trade servers once new items are released and promos are unlocked.  This is the place to get high variance from market pricing.  Traders with 'hot' items will unload them to the impulse buyer.  Traders with 'not so hot' items will look to just sell them to craft or upgrade their items.

Posting to a forum works as a wait and see situation potentially to a larger audience.  There are many thousands of users who look at forums while away from their gaming pc/mac.  They aren't buying or selling on impulse most of the time and pricing will be closer to market.  New items can be pricy on forums but similarly to trading on a server there is a short window of time for this.

Carry on.

No comments:

Post a Comment