A question about valuation

[Darolyn]

Obviously, right now, with pets, mounts, and battle chests on sale, valuation is skewed from normal.

What do you feel is a fair valuation of a dollar right now? I know a lot of people use 1K gold/$1 calculations, but in light of the sale, that heavily skews trades in favor of the person NOT trading with real money. (ex, last week I could get 10K gold worth of pets for a Blossoming Ancient, today I can only get 5K)

I feel like a pet that is normally $10, but on sale for $5, shouldn't be valued completely at $5 worth of whatever pet....

I want to meet in the middle. Why not make a $10 on sale for $5 pet value at $7.50 or therabouts, so that both sides get a little extra, but neither gives up all the advantage?

What do you guys think? How much is a $5 pet worth to you, in gold?

I'm sorry if this is in the wrong forum, I'm just wondering how most people are going about this?

[Nomadd]

I think it's up to the traders. I personally like to use token price as a rough metric (the 1k:$1 doesn't really fit this though). As far as sales go, I tend to feel that the price that you pay for them = the value for them. $5 = $5 no matter which way you split it, gold is the currency in flux.

[Peanutty]

Before the game tokens were in place, $1 = 1k was the usual going rate.

With the tokens in place most people now look at the current token values to determine a fair trade rate. Right now the tokens are hovering between 36-38k, so $1 = 1.8 to 1.9k. However given that more people are interested in trading gold or items or services over people trading bnet cards or store items, rates will usually skew even more in favor of the latter.

Long story short, for a $5 pet right now, I think 10-15k is fair.

[Kiella]

Since the tokens came out most people have based their values on that exchange rate, with a slight to significant advantage to the dollar side. So now with tokens around 37k, I would expect an exchange rate around 2-3k gold / $1. People are often willing to pay a bit more for battle net balance codes and collector's edition items because the supply is lower and there is more effort involved than simply gifting a store item.

Personally I'm with Nomadd in that I feel the price you pay for an item should be the dollar value, but if you make a reasonable offer for a slight premium, I'm sure most people will be fine with it. Keep in mind though, that while people would probably be willing to buy pets at full price other times of the year, nearly everyone waits till this annual sale to stock up on battle chests, so I don't think many people will be looking for full priced battle chests after this sale.

In any event, you should at least be getting 10k gold worth of pets for a $5 store pet, even without a premium.

[Saviya]

Since tokens came out I've found it impossible to find trades for less than 3:1, and had someone expecting even higher than that. That being said, when things are on sale, I still expect to be paying for their current price, not full price, otherwise I have no reason to bother trading for them when they are on sale.


edit: I posted about only finding 3:1 trades, and then had an amazing trade yesterday that ended up being a tad over 2:1, and since it was a large trade I was ecstatic about that!

[Darolyn]

Personally I'm with Nomadd in that I feel the price you pay for an item should be the dollar value, but if you make a reasonable offer for a slight premium, I'm sure most people will be fine with it. Keep in mind though, that while people would probably be willing to buy pets at full price other times of the year, nearly everyone waits till this annual sale to stock up on battle chests, so I don't think many people will be looking for full priced battle chests after this sale.

That's exactly why I gave the example regarding pets, and not regarding the battle chests. I know VERY few people that would pay full price, or even half price, for a battle chest these days. (I do have to upgrade my partner's inactive account to WOD though...must remember to do that...)

It's interesting to see the way people see it. I went offline for a few months about the time tokens came out, so I hadn't seen that valuation used much.

Also, I tend to use US median values on Undermine Journal, not any specific realm, to get an overall average, not artificially inflated by whatever is going on on any given server.

I negotiate for what I HOPE is a fair trade for both parties. My thoughts are, if you and I are both satisfied at the end, that's what counts. I was just wondering if there were a "going rate" lately.

[Peanutty]

I negotiate for what I HOPE is a fair trade for both parties. My thoughts are, if you and I are both satisfied at the end, that's what counts. I was just wondering if there were a "going rate" lately.

IMO that's the important thing - if both parties are satisfied with what they've received, it's no one else's business.

But yes due to token prices the going rate has steadily climbed in favor of the party trading items with actual cash value.

[Faelar]

Bnet trading is really tough now. I saw people dropping 50k-70k for 20 in bnet. Which is higher than the game tokens in game by quite a bit. I'd say the valuation of a dollar is really skewed in the dollar's favor now. Seems like a dollar is worth 2-3k or so now. It might start coming back down to earth now that some of the flood is out of the way for bigger ticket items.

[Charlott]

Pretty much agree with everything that's been said. 2-3k to $1 seems common (though some people are crazy generous on either end of the spectrum.) Tokens were the end of 1:1 trading in general, and I'd expect the token exchange rate to be the minimum. And I agree with Faelar, bnet seems to be buying a lot of gold lately - and as long as token prices don't go up, when the sales are over and people have had a chance to pick up SC/legion/OW/etc, things will probably settle down.

[Lazykal]

I tend to overpay for things just to get trades done quicker but I seem to be in that 4-5k/$1 range, which is pretty generous and some people don't always like that sort of thing. I could tone it down a bit in the future probably.

[Synplicity]

Sold a good bit of Brightpaws for 50k each

[Faelar]

Fools and their gold are soon parted I guess. 50k for 10 bucks seems extreme when you look at the cost of game time tokens and the like.

[Synplicity]

You can buy the game time off the AH, you can't get Brightpaw there is the reason I'm guessing.
A lot of rich people also already have months of tokens purchased. WoD is just insane for making gold.

[Charlott]

50k isn't really that much either. It might be different if it were 200k for 2 cards. Same rate but probably a lot less people able/willing to do it. Most people probably have 50.

50k for 10 bucks seems extreme when you look at the cost of game time tokens and the like.

Or the thread where the guy is offering 1 card per 60k Illidan. (I didn't jump on it, but I know others that did/are.)

But if I didn't have brightpaw and only had 50k, I'd be seriously tempted too. That pet is so awesome and pretty!

[Salus]

Or the thread where the guy is offering 1 card per 60k Illidan. (I didn't jump on it, but I know others that did/are.)

Illidan is unique in terms of the WoW Economy. I wouldn't extrapolate too much based on prices there.

[Sam918]

im not sure why you feel the sale is more in favor of the buyers than sellers.. if your doing a rough estimate of how much gold per $ your getting the same value based off what you spend. yes you would have to trade more to get more but your still spending the same amount to get the same amount. there is PLENTY of people looking to get bnet cards and store items so finding people shouldnt be difficult really...

as far as the actual valuation... it fluctuates based on whats currently available... if new expansions or pets or mounts come out more people are trying to get things and so the price goes up.

a $5 pet is a $5 pet.. a $10 pet on sale for $5 is a $5 pet. if you want to try to get more for your 5 thats fine, people would likely pay it. supply and demand imo. but if your only spending 5 why should it be valued at 7.5? if your only doing it to make gold i suggest bnet cards. imo better odds of getting higher returns on them.

[Darolyn]

im not sure why you feel the sale is more in favor of the buyers than sellers.. if your doing a rough estimate of how much gold per $ your getting the same value based off what you spend. yes you would have to trade more to get more but your still spending the same amount to get the same amount. there is PLENTY of people looking to get bnet cards and store items so finding people shouldnt be difficult really...

as far as the actual valuation... it fluctuates based on whats currently available... if new expansions or pets or mounts come out more people are trying to get things and so the price goes up.

a $5 pet is a $5 pet.. a $10 pet on sale for $5 is a $5 pet. if you want to try to get more for your 5 thats fine, people would likely pay it. supply and demand imo. but if your only spending 5 why should it be valued at 7.5? if your only doing it to make gold i suggest bnet cards. imo better odds of getting higher returns on them.

My reference to the "value" of the pet being 5, or 10, or somewhere in between came from the OLD valuation of 1k for $1. I personally would feel bad giving someone something worth 5K for something they could have gotten 10K for yesterday. So I was saying some sort of middle ground would benefit both sides. That's where my example came from.

But since the topic of tokens has come up, all of that has changed, valuation has skewed in a completely different direction than it was a year ago, my original examples are moot, and there's no point in continuing in that vein.

Edit: Bnet is not readily available here in Canada, or else I'd probably get in on that market, too.

Sorry if I've upset anyone. Love you all!

~Thali

[Sam918]

i believe you could grab some bnet cards online, thats how ive recieved many of mine. and i was not upset, i apologize if it came off that way.

also, my point on value was not so much about how much gold per $. it was that if you pay 5 why expect 7.5 or 10? best thing to do imo is gift yourself a few while they are cheap and wait till the sales over.

[Charlott]

Or the thread where the guy is offering 1 card per 60k Illidan. (I didn't jump on it, but I know others that did/are.)

Illidan is unique in terms of the WoW Economy. I wouldn't extrapolate too much based on prices there.

I think you missed some background here.
Someone said they were getting 5:1, and I have no doubt about it. But at the same time, others were offering 3:1. (Both were in terms of Illidan gold, and I was only pointing out the 3:1 to say that 5:1 does not seem to be the most common exchange.)