I had a very interesting message from Sparks over on the JMTC forums regarding using my "Power" for evil and profits. Sparks wanted to know if I would ever say something on the blog, forums, or gold guide just to make myself a profit. When I first read this I started laughing so hard at how evil that would be.
Picture this, I have a huge stockpile of long elegant feathers and can't sell them no matter what I do. After a few weeks of fruitless attempts at rock bottom prices I decide to write a post about how these feathers are oh-so-important for a particular hat's recipe. Within a few hours all my feathers sell and I happily bank two hundred gold from ten gold's worth of feathers.
No, I didn't actually do this, but what if I did? Obviously I wouldn't throw away all the work I've done in creating this blog for a few hundred gold, but would you? What if it was ten thousand gold? Twenty? At what point would you go over the edge and use your "powers" for evil?
Thanks for the message Sparks, I had a blast coming up with imaginary ways to con my own readers.
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15 comments: on "Using My Power for Profit"
Kring said... July 9, 2009 at 8:43 AM
Only people who inherit power use it for evil. People who worked for their power know how to use it. :-)
Just an update. A few month ago I asked if I should buy azure dragon pet on the AH for 500g (which were obviously sold by a bot, because all had the same seller).
I finally sold the first two last week for 1300g each (I didn't try sooner because I don't need the gold and I wanted the demand to grow). You were right, thanks. :-)
Buillon said... July 9, 2009 at 8:43 AM
I believe Ted DiBiase had it right when he said that everyone has their price. This was back when he was known as the "Million Dollar Man."
Anonymous said... July 9, 2009 at 9:17 AM
First, we're not all on your server, so we can't all buy them from you.
Second, not all of us would buy out X if you said that it was important, some of us (like me) would run out to farm it and sell it ourselves instead.
Third, some of us (like me) aren't the kind to buy things out unless we see them at ridiculously low prices. While I try to control the market on my secondary server (poorly, since I only check there once a week at best) I don't do more than dabble in any market on my main (I'm to well known).
So, while you likely could flex your power to make a profit, not all of us would be taken by the attempt, and once the action was learned, you would probably lose a lot of loyal readers.
What's more important to you? The real life money from selling your guide to us or virtual money that is largely there for the sake of being there?
-Tufak of Feathermoon
Anonymous said... July 9, 2009 at 11:21 AM
Hahaha methinks that individual needs to get out in the real world and earn some real money.
At a certain point of having enough (20,30,40k?) you realize gold is absolutely worthless. If you have tons of it and want to go around griefing people in game in one way or another, well, there's always plenty of ways to grief people. But in wow at least, massive amounts of gold only gets you so far. Epic gems in 3.2? Enchants? Repairs? Flying for an alt? Its small change for many of us high earners these days, dont overestimate the power of a virtual currency, because it doesnt really have much power in the end :P
Anonymous said... July 9, 2009 at 11:43 AM
LOL, This is why I like Markco. He sees the humor in it all. The guy is publicly LOL'ing at the idea that he would ever con this community. Class act and always a good read. Keep it up Markco!
MomentEye said... July 9, 2009 at 11:55 AM
What if everybody benefited?
There is plenty of RL precedent for traders deliberately inflating prices. It's possible that the manipulation you suggest could earn cash for other feather merchants.
Importantly, if you could profit but it wouldn't hurt the blog would you do it then?
Unknown said... July 9, 2009 at 12:04 PM
I'd go over at enough to buy my epic flying....Yep....i'm a moocher xD
Anonymous said... July 9, 2009 at 12:09 PM
shh, keep your voices down - Gevlon will hear you and I fear that his heart may not be as pure as yours haha ^^
Logosh said... July 9, 2009 at 2:58 PM
Amazing way to make gold
Please Read Markco!!!!!!!
Hello this is Lògosh of Mug’ thol again I found a wonderful spot to make gold Frostfield Lake yes this sounds odd but this is mostly for miners.
You must farm brittle revenants. Not in the normal way but mining there corpses for the Geodesic Fragments and ultimately Crystallized earth
Notice all the people killing the brittle revenants for there dailies most just leaving the corpse behind to be mined so miners can keep mining them for crystallized earth and Geodesic Fragments
Geodesic Fragments sell 4g 50s per stack and eternal earth prices varies server to server but this is so easy corpses everywhere and no miner usually bothers mining the Brittle Revenants. Thanks to Metamaster for this original Idea.
You could kill them too they do drop Relics of Ulduar aswell.
This is a better spot than those Zuldrak sentinels when you do not have Wintergrasp for killing as I got crystallized earth a lot faster.
Also i sent this to your email, but since you said you do not check it often i posted this
Vennren said... July 9, 2009 at 3:13 PM
Gevlon somewhat mentioned this already:
http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/05/celebrity.html
Celebrities get away with it, their word is true no matter what.
Sparks said... July 9, 2009 at 4:10 PM
I don't remember that. I do remember asking if you'd see about getting the programmers in your audience to make some addons for us.
Ix-nay on the ecret-say rofit-pay!
Darth Solo said... July 9, 2009 at 8:30 PM
Nah it wouldn't work.
warcraft guide said... July 10, 2009 at 12:43 AM
Lol. very nice post I'm sure I'll be back again to read more if you post stuff like this in the future.
Seth said... July 10, 2009 at 4:36 AM
To be honest, bruttally honest even:
Grow Up! There is no evil, it's bussiness and nothing more.
bloggers don't have power, they have information. You can try this, but it will fail, if the information you provide is false, and someone notices it, you destroy what you worked for. Thats anything but power even. Power you can't use is weakness. And that is the bloggers weakness.
Also its a game, and pixle money. Evil doesn't exist untill you hurt a person in RL. Cleaning out a couple of hundred gold is pure bussiness we do everyday on the AH.
You destroy the little man everytime you buy his underpriced stuff. The only diffrence here is that you try to manipulate ppl to do this.Which would cut into your own RL bussiness (guide), so you would be hurting yourself more then them.
No personal offense intended.
Sparks said... July 10, 2009 at 1:58 PM
My personal thought on how Markco could best affect economies is best illustrated by pointing you to a different WoW Econ blog. They extolled the virtues of Scholazar Basin for farming.
The other forum site I participated in pretty much mocked that idea and saying how dumb the author was. Personally, I thought it was great. I set about farming stuff not found there. I personally think the blog author was doing the same and buying up cheaper stuff.
Cowboys are pretty much defined by their ability to control the herd. Reading between the lines about what opportunities open up by going counter to an author can be very profitable... or at least less frustrating as you don't have to compete for stuff.
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