A lot of people in the clan have become distressed over the recent updates to the game. Things like the increased taxes in the realms, the altered spawn and drop times for certain NMs, and the taxation of previously untaxed personal bazaars have caused some heated discussion in the linkshell. Well, before we all get in a big huff over this stuff, perhaps we should take a look at what problems Square Enix is trying to solve with this update, and how the update might actually solve them.



First of all, the biggest problems the game has had in the past have been caused by those persons known as "Gil Sellers". A "Gil Seller", in case you didn't know, is anyone who takes gil in the game (in game currency) and sells it for real money in the real world. Gil Selling has become a fairly lucrative business and there are companies which exist solely to sell you in-game currency.



The problems that Gil Sellers cause are really threefold:

• Gil Sellers create Monopolies. When a group Gil Sellers camp a certain Notorious Monster in the game 24 hours a day (such as Stroper Chyme and Mee Deegi) they get the vast majority of the drops. When those drops are so vital to the game, they create a monopoly on them and can dictate price.
• Gil Sellers fuel Inflation. By constantly raising the prices on the monopolies they control, they fuel inflation elsewhere. When a player "Bob" is saving for his Ochiudo's Kotes, he may decide to drive up the sales price on all those Wind Clusters he is selling in Sand O'ria. The inflation in the game is so bad, that the rate is estimated at over 200%! By contrast, the U.S. has an inflation rate of 3%.
• Gil Sellers wind up recycling their gil. Suppose Bob buys gil from a Gil Selling company (like IGE) so that he can purchase his outrageously priced Ochiudo's Kotes for his level 33 MNK. If the Gil Sellers control the market on those Kotes, then when Bob buys them, he is effectively giving his gil back to the Gil Sellers. The Gil Sellers now have made money selling effectively nothing.

I have made these arguments before in IRC, and others have spelled it out even better (see the second post) than I ever could. The bottom line is that Gil Sellers hurt the in-game economy and, in turn, hurt the players.



So, how do these updates and changes hurt the Gil Sellers you ask and yet not hurt the normal players?



First of all, here is a great post from an economist on the matter. He concludes that the extra sales tax at the Auction House will help deflate the economy and promote undercutting at the AH to drive sales (if you keep having to pay the tax each time an item doesn't sell and you have to re-post it at the AH, eventually you'll realize that you'll make more money by undercutting and driving the sales down rather than up). Deflating the in-game economy is a good thing.



Second of all, this patch encourages muling. The way to get around having to pay the taxes at the AH is to place your items in your bazaar. The tax is still paid, but it is paid by the buyer and it is paid only once. Muling has never been (and never will be) an efffective means for Gil Sellers to make gil: they need their characters in the game 24 hours a day camping to control their rare drop monopolies, they cannot sacrifice them to push their wares. Even if they did purchase additional accounts for muling, they would wind up competing with the other mulers in the game, and this will break their monopolies quite nicely (in the AH you get 7 slots to sell items, in mules you get as many slots as you have free in your inventory).



Long story short, it is my opinion that these measures Square Enix has taken to fight Gil Sellers will help the game. They may seem harsh at first, but once you think logically about them, they start to make sense.



Any questions, comments? Please post them bellow.