Neopets Inflation

[Ajax]

Is it just me or are all the prices for big ticket (or even small ticket) items seemingly to go continuously skyward?

For instance, I can’t quite reconcile a price of 180m-200m for a Scary Tree stamp with how many are on TP or in galleries.

Appreciate that it seems a lot easier to make NPs than it used to be (provided you have nps to begin with!)

[Ian Wolf-Park]

That's part of the reason, as Trudy's Surprise makes it easy to earn NP, especially since the site currently has a few games that have been converted from Flash.

It's also the basic rule of economics : Supply and Demand. The more demand there is for a certain item, but less supply, the more expensive it would be. The reverse is true, if supply outstrips the demand. A good (and recent) example was the Advent Calendar, as it gave out a Sticky Snowflake Stamp, causing the price of it to plummet.

[Twillie]

There's also less savory reasons for some of the recent inflation, like certain players deliberately driving up the prices by hoarding most of the inventory and putting them on the Trading Post for hundreds of times more than they usually cost. It can be in direct response to site events, like how petpet paint brush prices skyrocketed after the Advent Calendar gave out paintable Meowclopses.

There's one guild called Merchants Plus I believe who have become especially infamous for coordinating these efforts. TNT has banned a number of those guild members, but the problem isn't entirely gone, of course. It's not an easy problem to solve with a number of complexities to consider, so I'm not sure if and what TNT may be planning to do to help the economy more.

[Ajax]

Dec 26, 2022 10:39:43 GMT -5 Ian Wolf-Park said:

That's part of the reason, as Trudy's Surprise makes it easy to earn NP, especially since the site currently has a few games that have been converted from Flash.

It's also the basic rule of economics : Supply and Demand. The more demand there is for a certain item, but less supply, the more expensive it would be. The reverse is true, if supply outstrips the demand. A good (and recent) example was the Advent Calendar, as it gave out a Sticky Snowflake Stamp, causing the price of it to plummet.

This is why I singled out STS as example. There a quite a few on TP with manu more in galleries for sale.

SSS made me laugh. I paid 100m for it about 13 years ago! I just expect this will cause snow bunny and candychan to skyrocket on price.

[Breakingchains]

It's a huge issue with stamps especially, but I have noticed even mid-ticket items like popular petpets and things giving me sticker shock as of late.

Some of the oldest stamps are flat out unobtainable and the ones that aren't are price-gouged to death, which are issues I've been wishing they'd address for years. I play every day, do all right stuff to get rich, I've been trying to save for the high ticket stamps for ages and still don't feel like I'm keeping up at all.

[Stephanie (swordlilly)]

Dec 26, 2022 18:32:35 GMT -5 Breakingchains said:

I play every day, do all right stuff to get rich, I've been trying to save for the high ticket stamps for ages and still don't feel like I'm keeping up at all.

I feel the same way; I even subscribed to premium for a year to do the premium battledome every day and still my savings could barely keep pace with the stamp I was saving for (Queen Fyora Stamp). When I had 50 million, the stamp was priced at 100 million. When I got to 100 million, it shot up to 150 million. Now that I'm finally getting close to 150 million, the price jumped again, to 300 million, and I just kinda feel hopeless at this point.

I've started doing small giveaways to newer players who are struggling to save up for paint brushes and the like since I can't afford my own goals anyway, but it's a very deep problem. I think there are three main causes for it:

1) Not enough NP sinks. NPs are constantly entering the economy but very little is being taken out. This is called monetary inflation. In the past, TNT used to run things like the Save the Wheels event and Dr. Sloth auctions to remove NPs and inject more items into the economy. Currently TNT seems to lack the time/resources to do these things.

2) Group inflation and price fixing, where groups of people buy up all of the available supply of an item, set the price much higher, and collectively refuse to sell at anything lower than that price. The guild Merchant Plus was the most notorious offender; most of its members have now been frozen, but the problem is deep and many groups continue to do this.

3) Poor game design in the first place. Who thought it was a good idea to release a limited supply of items that would retire and be unobtainable in the future? That's just encouraging rich people to buy them all up and gouge the price.

The restocking system is also badly outdated and needs an overhaul. Someone on the boards suggested making the stocks unique to each player. I like that idea a lot and hope the team considers it.

I would also love to see high-end stamps made available to buy from the Hidden Tower and rotated in and out seasonally. For example, on Fyora Day only, Queen Fyora Stamp could be made available for sale there, for 100 million or whatever the team deems reasonable. On Sloth Day only, Commander Garoo Stamp could be sold. People who enjoy playing the market could still have some fun reselling to folks who miss out on that specific day and want to buy at other times of the year. And for regular collectors just slowly saving up to complete their album pages, the goal would feel achievable with time and effort, instead of always receding into the distant future.

[Ajax]

Dec 26, 2022 22:34:08 GMT -5 Stephanie (swordlilly) said:

Dec 26, 2022 18:32:35 GMT -5 Breakingchains said:

I play every day, do all right stuff to get rich, I've been trying to save for the high ticket stamps for ages and still don't feel like I'm keeping up at all.

I feel the same way; I even subscribed to premium for a year to do the premium battledome every day and still my savings could barely keep pace with the stamp I was saving for (Queen Fyora Stamp). When I had 50 million, the stamp was priced at 100 million. When I got to 100 million, it shot up to 150 million. Now that I'm finally getting close to 150 million, the price jumped again, to 300 million, and I just kinda feel hopeless at this point.

I've started doing small giveaways to newer players who are struggling to save up for paint brushes and the like since I can't afford my own goals anyway, but it's a very deep problem. I think there are three main causes for it:

1) Not enough NP sinks. NPs are constantly entering the economy but very little is being taken out. This is called monetary inflation. In the past, TNT used to run things like the Save the Wheels event and Dr. Sloth auctions to remove NPs and inject more items into the economy. Currently TNT seems to lack the time/resources to do these things.

2) Group inflation and price fixing, where groups of people buy up all of the available supply of an item, set the price much higher, and collectively refuse to sell at anything lower than that price. The guild Merchant Plus was the most notorious offender; most of its members have now been frozen, but the problem is deep and many groups continue to do this.

3) Poor game design in the first place. Who thought it was a good idea to release a limited supply of items that would retire and be unobtainable in the future? That's just encouraging rich people to buy them all up and gouge the price.

The restocking system is also badly outdated and needs an overhaul. Someone on the boards suggested making the stocks unique to each player. I like that idea a lot and hope the team considers it.

I would also love to see high-end stamps made available to buy from the Hidden Tower and rotated in and out seasonally. For example, on Fyora Day only, Queen Fyora Stamp could be made available for sale there, for 100 million or whatever the team deems reasonable. On Sloth Day only, Commander Garoo Stamp could be sold. People who enjoy playing the market could still have some fun reselling to folks who miss out on that specific day and want to buy at other times of the year. And for regular collectors just slowly saving up to complete their album pages, the goal would feel achievable with time and effort, instead of always receding into the distant future.

I had wondered something similar with the HT - but perhaps something that effectively chooses a random r99/r101-120/r180 stamp?

[Stephanie (swordlilly)]

Dec 26, 2022 23:30:46 GMT -5 Ajax said:

I had wondered something similar with the HT - but perhaps something that effectively chooses a random r99/r101-120/r180 stamp?

I feel like there are already too many lootbox mechanics on the site with goodie bags, nerkmids, neocola tokens etc., but a new lootbox does seem to be easier to implement than a rotation system, so... it'd be better than nothing.

[Ilona]

They recently put a stamp into the HT, right? I love the idea of having certain rare stamps available once a year in there, so regular people can go and buy them. It would make things a lot more achievable.

Also, we clearly need a source to get those rare, retired stamps. Since only a limited number was given out, we're going to run out eventually and prices will only continue to climb. This year's advent calendar was a good start, but I think we need more sources.

[Stephanie (swordlilly)]

Hi friends, I decided to do a deeper dive into the issue and write an article. ^^; I made a survey to try and gather info on Neopians' experiences, so it's not just all my opinion haha. Would you be kind enough to fill it out and pass it along to anyone else who may be interested? I appreciate any data I can get!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxV-giWKYUmfOUx33qMfp5K2qU4GIAOKXt5koul8O6Kj8LNg/viewform

So far, I've collected 21 responses. I think that 100 or so would be a good number to aim for, to get an accurate sample size.

[Lex]

Jun 5, 2023 17:49:00 GMT -5 Stephanie (swordlilly) said:

Hi friends, I decided to do a deeper dive into the issue and write an article. ^^; I made a survey to try and gather info on Neopians' experiences, so it's not just all my opinion haha. Would you be kind enough to fill it out and pass it along to anyone else who may be interested? I appreciate any data I can get!

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxV-giWKYUmfOUx33qMfp5K2qU4GIAOKXt5koul8O6Kj8LNg/viewform

So far, I've collected 21 responses. I think that 100 or so would be a good number to aim for, to get an accurate sample size.

Took it, mentioned in the survey but I selected "Personal collections / galleries" due to there being no option for BD items/weapons. I have been priced out of completing my 2P sets and high end 1P items are basically impossible at this point for the average person. Figured I'd mention because its not really a "collection", I actively use these items and want to acquire more with the goal of using them.

[Twillie]

I also had to get creative with the question about goals. None of the given options really fit me as they were all either based on money or about how I had no goals with assumed reasons attached to them, i.e. I lost interest/don't have enough money (those two things are not always related), or I already achieved everything I want (hard to do when my goals don't really have a clear end point). I left a note at the end at least to hopefully give a better answer.

[Stephanie (swordlilly)]

Here's a snippet of the data I've collected so far ^^ If you'd like to also be included, be sure to fill out the survey. I think I'll leave it open through the weekend, and then write up what I've got.

[Carolyn]

Is it just me, or are a bunch of PBs, PPPBs and MPs suddenly flying off into the stratosphere as well? I'm glad the creative prize pool was updated, at least, but it looks like more needs to be done to keep the prices from going out of control. Maybe more daily prizes?

[Kat]

I think what happens is when TNT finds a way to release more of certain items, people who like to yank prices into the stratosphere double down on their efforts, whether it's hoarding, asking for insane prices, or targeting other items for inflation. I don't like this either, but they're smart - they know PBs and PPPBs will always be in demand and the creative contests will not churn out enough to make a significant change in the supply.

MPs are up for certain species with very good colors and if those colors are lab only, well, they'll take advantage of the fact that people with lab pets and people in the pet trading scene are always looking for MPs.

The best way at this point to combat inflation IMO is to have these items available at a certain shop or certain area/s at set prices that people can reasonably save for without worrying that once they hit their goal, the price shoots up another 100M. The Smuggler's Cove could have been used this way but unfortunately within a few days of it working again, it was overrun with bots.

Actually, the best BEST way is really to crack down on bots. It's too bad people are free to list petpetpets at stupid prices as they wish. Really regretting not buying some of them while they were still buyable because at this point I think the only buyable P3s are what, the Vernax and the Beelzebug? And the Beelzebug is not very popular, it doesn't draw enough demand away from the astronomically inflated petpetpets.