Casual Players are Auction House Gurus

In order for any MMO to survive with a pay to play business model such as wow or rift, they have to cater to two things that are seemingly mutually exclusive. They need people to be occupied as much as possible so that they keep paying their $15 per month fee but play as little as possible so that the monthly fee draws out as long as possible.

Based on these two necessities for success, they need to cater as much towards the biggest crowd that fits the bill, no pun intended. There are only two types of gamers that will fill this spot, the casual and the social. The so called hard core players are not what fund a game as they make up a very small percentage of the player base. If you’ve read anything by Gevlon, you know exactly what a social player is. If you’ve read most any of my rant styled entries you know what a casual is.

In any MMO you’ll find many of both since they’re the ones that keep the game afloat, but who you really want to look for are the casuals. You want to get in fairly close with a casual guildie that seems to know or at least talk and run with a good number of people. Why is that? Because this casual George actually have a much better grasp of where to price things, when to sell them and so on that anybody but the accomplished AH baron of that market.

I will admit first that it is true that a casual gamer doesn’t typically play the AH in the sense that a goblin or an otherwise AH focused player does. They do however play the game in many more ways that your typical raider or AH baron does. That means that they fit perfectly into the category of who you sell everything to. Does the expression “know your customers” ring a bell? It should because that’s exactly where I’m going with this.

This is not because they’re stupid or lazy, they are just the same as I was before I started to build my empire: uninformed. They just don’t know and if they do, then they either don’t have the time for it or would rather be just plain getting by. That’s the definition of a casual pretty much, limited play time, enjoys everything they do on game and are somewhat competent players at the very least. Suffice to say, casuals are my kind of people, probably because I’m a casual player as well.

The “middle ground” is where everything should be priced at

The casual player knows much more about the “middle ground” that every pay to play MMO is required to focus on merely because they are casuals. And I’ll say it once again, the moderately overpriced blue pig-sticker you just sold was most likely to a casual player. When working any market weather it be an old one or new you have to be ever mindful of your pricing points and max sale prices especially. The normal MO of an AH baron to figure out prices is start off with below market averages and slowly raise them up until they find the happy middle ground over a long period of time. This is something that I have previously written about in very great detail.

Casual George is an AH guru in disguise

Since the casual player knows a great deal more about other casual players they can easily tell you what something is “worth” to them or what they would consider a fair price. What they say is a fair price to them is likely going to be pretty damn close to “fair” to all of the other casuals out there. This is why I say that your average casual player knows what “proper” pricing is better than most. They are just about always going to be spot on with how things should be priced for the best sales to profit ratios. They just don’t know it yet but once they do, that is when another goblin is born.

In every guild or circle of gaming friends there’s always going to be a few popular-ish casual players mixed in. Talk to them, get to know them, learn from them. They are going to be one of your best resources for working a new market and finding the right pricing point. Ask them about a few random items and if they’d buy them if they could afford it and how much they’d pay. You might be surprised how accurate they can be.

Thanks for stopping by!