Support your local merchant: Thoughts on buyer's psychology in WOW

Good Morning Musers!

First off; Yes I know I've been negligent on my posts over the last couple of days! To remedy this I've setup a Blog schedule. My goal is that Moonkin Musings will now be updated every four days. My hope is that this will remedy a issue that I've seen with my posting. I go through spats of grand ideas and then months of drivel!

Ok now that's out of the way. Onto new business. My experiment in working the auction house has been a profitable success. I won't say my coffer's are overflowing but I'm getting to the point where I can actually look at a BOE level 213 epic & mull over actually purchasing it. I haven't though I need to have money to make money, & alchemy while profitable isn't a cash cow the same way enchanting is!

Also while having a Mule has it's merits, I've found that a mule doesn't cut it after a certain point. I'm not saying that Mules don't have their place in the server economy, but they have their limits. Mules conflict directly with a need that a buyer has trust.

When you use an Alt to conduct business beyond X scale (X being the value of the item but for arguments sake lets us the 150 gold level that blizzard will be adding a confirm to in 3.1), it adds a a level of skepticism\mistrust to the transaction. This level directly increases to the amount of gold that is needed to purchase the goods or services.

OK so you may be thinking why? Well my hypothesis is quite simple. Just like in real life we're just more comfortable buying from people we know then people we don't know. We're able to rationalize away this discomfort with small purchases, but as purchases increase in cost, we get more nervous about the purchase. We want to buy the goods from someone we know, someone who we can go back to if we need something else etc. Also with large purchases, negotiations will take place. If an item is on the AH for 2800gp, it may sell it may not sell, however if you know the person and tell them I'll buy it for 2500gp, then they've still made a sale.

The question for me though is how far will real-world economic psychology permeates into MMORPG's will it get to the point where brand loyalty comes into play? Will people forgo gaming to be farmers for a player who's amassed enough gold to pay game salaries? I suppose only time will tell.

- Until Another Day

The Musing Moonkin