Just want to throw my 2 cents in that I REALLY like the potential this idea has to help move some lines that are totally immobile.
I'd request a ton of XBLA games if they all weren't 500-600 points and I'm sure sellers wouldn't mind voting the price down a bit to help move them.I'm sure I've got a few 100-200 point games I'd vote up as well to help a few trades happen.
I don't see how people are crapping on this idea, because if implemented properly it can REALLY boost the trading numbers of the site. People think it can be abused and rigged, but I don't think they really read the posts here. It makes a lot of sense to me how it can be beneficial, then again I actually took the time to read all of the posts and arguements here. Seems like anybody dumping on the idea just posted without paying attention.You've got my vote.
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Everybody keeps using XBLA/PSN games as an example of screwed up prices.
Even if these prices were correct, barely any trades would happen here. With a couple of exceptions, there just aren't that many codes flying around. Sure, a seller could buy them on Amazon as they are requested, but why do that when you can just purchase Goozex points directly?
The only way it's in the seller's interest is if the Goozex price is inflated, but this was supposed to be a measure to deflate the price, so we're caught in a cycle.
Contrary to what the fearmongers in this thread may be saying, prices on this site - as a whole - are fine. There are a relative few titles where a system like this may be beneficial, but there are many, many more that would just be negatively disrupted as a result of this system.
Stable, automated systems get destroyed when people step in and think they can do things better. There are plenty of other venues for user-moderated prices. Leave Goozex alone.
And I highly, highly, highly disagree with the person who said the minimum price should be raised. 200 points is way too much for a common game. Even Gamestop's prices are fairer than that.
StilesCrisis: killmak: Why is this thread still going. This idea is terrible. Users shouldnt be voting on price adjustments end of story. If you have a better idea, or a reason why this wouldn't work, here's your chance to share with the group. How would you solve the problem of stagnant items with bogus prices? Suggestions welcome.
killmak: Why is this thread still going. This idea is terrible. Users shouldnt be voting on price adjustments end of story.
Why is this thread still going. This idea is terrible. Users shouldnt be voting on price adjustments end of story.
If you have a better idea, or a reason why this wouldn't work, here's your chance to share with the group. How would you solve the problem of stagnant items with bogus prices? Suggestions welcome.
While I agree that there are some game prices out of whack with that of things like ebay, etc., the OP's idea is just plain terrible.
The only thing that needs to change is the algorithm to how prices are set by Goozex. Never, ever, should users have any say at all in how the prices should be set. On top of that, there is no guarantee that these games will start trading any way. In most instances, these are some pretty rare games that people will likely hold on to regardless of the price.
We would be inviting scammers if the power to influence point values goes into the hands of the users. Period, end of story.
To respond to a few things posted:
- Raising the minimum cap from 100 is a bad idea. I don't want that idea mixed up with my suggestion, because it's not the same thing at all. I do 100 point trades in either direction all the time. In fact, two of my incoming trades are 100 point DVDs, and two of my outgoing trades are 100 point games (one Dreamcast game, and one old Mac game, both collecting dust at my house).
- Now, this hasn't come up in the thread a lot, but to be clear--raising the maximum cap from 1200 to something higher is something I'd endorse--if lots of buyers voted an item's price higher than 1200, it should go up past 1200. I'd vote DJ Hero up from 1200. I'd vote the Harry Potter Years 1-6 Blu-Ray collection up from 1200. I think either title is worth more than $60 used. (DJ Hero has a fair market value of about $75 used. Not sure about the Harry Potter set but I'm sure it's closer to $100 than $60.)
- Some have claimed that this would lead to overall inflation. Others have claimed that it would lead to overall deflation. I don't see how this would be true in either case. Remember, for items with non-stagnant lines, voting would not be in effect. So, for instance, a new title like Modern Warfare 2 would not have active voting, because its line isn't stagnant. It's obviously got way more demand than supply at the moment, but there's plenty of people signing up as buyers and sellers adding it on-hold. That's activity, so it's not stagnant. This will only take effect for items with stagnant lines, so it will not affect most of the items people are concerned about at all when it comes to inflation and deflation.
- To reiterate, this is not intended to be a measure to cause inflation, or cause deflation. It's intended to correct prices which have stuck on basically invalid prices--items which deviate so far from fair market value that they will never trade. This can happen in either direction--many titles are stuck at overly expensive prices, and other titles are stuck at overly inexpensive prices. There doesn't seem to be a pattern.
- This is not intended exclusively for XBLA/PSN titles. They are coming up a lot in this discussion a lot because they are so problematic on Goozex, but they aren't the only things that would benefit. XBLA/PSN don't work well on Goozex simply because their price tends to start out far too high (somewhere around 800 points) and the system relies on adjustment-over-time to correct them. In reality, people often ignore the listings because the price is so far out of whack that buyers don't bother putting it on-hold (who wants to wait 6 months for a $10 item?). Sellers don't bother listing it because there are no buyers. So about half of the DLC items auto-correct, and the other half stagnate at wildly wrong amounts.
- This is not intended to be something which causes wild price fluctuations, and it's definitely not intended to causes immediate point changes when a user clicks on it. It's more intended to be a hint to the existing weekly point update system. Right now, with the automated system as it stands, if an item has a short- or medium-length line of buyers or sellers, and doesn't trade often or at all, it's difficult for any automated system to differentiate between a low-popularity item that's priced at fair market value, or an item that's completely mispriced and so it's not trading. For items with higher popularity, you can kind of tell this by looking at the on-hold queues (e.g. an item with lots of on-hold sellers might need a point increase, and an item with lots of on-hold buyers might need a point decrease), but if the price is completely wrong, people don't even bother putting it in their on-hold queue.
- This shouldn't lead to a massive increase in scamming, simply because the affected titles are by definition not highly desirable (stagnant line) and the expected changes in price would occur slowly over time--much like prices fluctuate now, only slightly influenced by the outside world. If a title is getting a lot of attention, by definition, it wouldn't be affected by voting.
The best way to think of this proposal is an automated version of the "points are out of whack" thread that's currently at 100 pages long. Instead of posting messages to a black hole, we can hint the system in a better way. Rather than having mods flag titles and update points by hand, we can have the automated system recognize and better deal with problem titles.
I'll agree that some point costs need adjustment, but I don't know if a user vote is the best way to go about it. That type of stuff should be automaticly done by Goozex. They say that the system works on a supply/demand point calculator, but it clearly isn't working. Ever try to get some of the rarer PSP games? I've had requests on many in the 15-40 length list that haven't budged in weeks. In cases like that the system should up the point costs of those games by itself.
I will definitely agree that there are some cases where the supply/demand calculation seems to have all the information it needs, but fails to adjust the price. If a title has 50 requests and supply never pops up, or only sells one in a blue moon, that seems to be enough data for the price to start moving. Yet this often doesn't seem to be enough for the system to notice. (See Castlevania Chronicles and others.) Fixing this issue would go a long way to improving things.
However, this still doesn't address titles that are radically mispriced but don't have high demand or high supply. See Assassin's Creed II: Battle of Forli (too high), Rising Sun (too low), and others.
Note that all the examples I'm posting are items I would love to trade--I'm not just scouring the database for bunk entries. These are items which I would personally by happy to trade if the opportunity presented itself. But it's not going to happen at these price points.
Can we at least eliminate the 200 point cap that PS1 games seem to have?
Indeed it isn't just digital games that need fixing. I have a GBA title that hasn't moved, one that I've been first in line for since I added it. It has climbed 100-150 points, despite no one moving the title?! I'd vote that down a bit if I could.
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Porksta: Can we at least eliminate the 200 point cap that PS1 games seem to have?
Well, there are some exceptions to that: Final Fantasy VII, Castlevania SOTN, Lunar, ...
Do an advanced search and you'll find almost 50 games have broken through that 200-point barrier. I don't know if they are adding exceptions to the cap by hand, or if the algorithm is actually super clever or something. I kind of guess it's hand-added exceptions (based on user suggestions in the 100-page point adjustment thread). Hopefully user voting could be a smarter way to cause arbitrary caps like that to be removed.
Brave Story: New Traveler for the PSP
150 point value with 24 people in line (not including restricted) and no movement.
Yeah, it's an old game, but it's still worth $20 USED. This happens to a lot of older RPGs usually. I know for sure that I would have been willing to pay around 300 or so points for this game and so would many of the people in line.
As it stands, this game is going NOWHERE fast and I decided to order it online elsewhere for $17 shipped.
I don't remember them offhand, but I recall seeing MANY other games like this with a big line of people who want it and 100-200 point values keeping anyone from offering it.
For a game like this, someone would get $9.00 worth of points minus the $3.00 for shipping and packaging. That's $6.00 for a game that's going for $20 just about everywhere.
Overall the site is great, but this sort of skewing happens a lot with older games. Why, with 24 people in line and ZERO offers does a game not raise in points from month to month?
Oh, and as much as I like the OPs idea, here is a way to abuse it:
Any time you receive a game (from this site or others) with a stagnant line and low trade price, immediately REQUEST the game again, putting you at/near the back of the line with no risk of getting the game again. When you finish the game, if trading is still stagnant, vote as a REQUESTER to up the trade price. Then jump ships and send it out for an inflated price.
Devious genius!
DinnertimeNinja: Oh, and as much as I like the OPs idea, here is a way to abuse it: Any time you receive a game (from this site or others) with a stagnant line and low trade price, immediately REQUEST the game again, putting you at/near the back of the line with no risk of getting the game again. When you finish the game, if trading is still stagnant, vote as a REQUESTER to up the trade price. Then jump ships and send it out for an inflated price. Devious genius!
Ideally the system would be setup in such a fashion that a single user jumping around the queues wouldn't have an effect on the overall price.
definitely increase the maximum points for newly released games, i would pay 1300 points to get heavy rain right away
I don't think Heavy Rain counts as stagnant, somehow.
