GOM Folding Like a Cheap Hat! - April 29, 2005

Selling pressures have intensified, kiddos, and the L$ continues to fall down against the USD.

Bids are down to USD $4.01 and asks are down to USD $4.07.

Looks like this price erosion is here to stay. So long USD $4.36, so long!

The question is: Will the drop continue or have we stabilized?

Geez, Jamie, nobody wears cheap hats anymore, this isn't 1942 ROFL.

I see your join date is February 2005. My join date is September 2004. So honestly, we're a couple of newbs, and between us, we know a whole lot of nothing. Maybe I've watched this a little more than you have, unless you're an alt, but it really isn't enough time.

What old players will do is just silently post a chart of the GOM over time and make the point that it fluctuates and has cycles. I can accept that. I've seen it go from 3.87 to 4.00 to 4.25 in six months, up and down.

$4.00 isn't some "crash" or "fold" but what many people consider the "normal rate" or the "desirable rate" set by King Philip in his town hall speeches.

While you may have gotten cash-outs at $4.25, for many people playing along for months, that was an exception, not a rule, and they are grateful when it goes up anything over 4.00

Of course as we've already discussed, there is a kind of cap on this set by the Linden's game itself which has $500 LL for the price of $9.95 a month or ~$6.00 if you get the year-long subscription. So getting a year-long subscription is I guess like getting a kind of T-note or something LOL.

I'm going to bet that the drop continues as the whiplash of Anshe's departure from telehubs and her slashes of land prices around telehubs and elsewhere makes people feel the whip and want to cash out. It's the kind of thing where if you can gut it out, you can pick up some IW land bargains now and then hold them and sell later when GOM is up and do better -- that cycle might take you 30-60 days of paying tier though so you have to add that to your formula.

Everybody always tries to analyze the SL economy by all kinds of things like auction prices, real estate bubbles, events listings, etc. etc.

But I think there is a much, much simpler explanation for how the SL economy runs: patches or "versions". All you have to do is look at the GOM performance against a schedule of Linden patches to see it. In the period leading up to the patch, frustration with game problems is high, game play less, buys less, etc, the economy slows, and people cash out, and the GOM tumbles to $3.87 (of course other factors come into play). Then when a new patch is released there is the inevitable shock for some people where their game just doesn't work but most people are super excited it will be better.

For them, there are enough new toys that it increases their consumer and investor confidence and they run off and buy game dollars and do more stuff, making the GOM rise.

Then about 2-3 weeks later, patch disillusionment begins to take its toll, and the GOM falls again.

Someone who has the time, energy, spreadsheets, etc. to track the schedule of Linden patches and the schedule of big GOM fluctuations could study this, it's my hunch tho.

*GASPS* Your from the future?!

(Sorry had to do it)

Oh yay! L$ day-traders posting attempts at market manipulation under a heading that implies that GOM, the company, is in trouble.

Fantastic!

I think you're reading a bit too much into it Malachi. Jamie was obviously talking about the exchange rate, not GOM itself

Let's just repeat that....

It's the exchange rate. Not GOM itself. We're all fine here.

Its simple really. There are more sellers than buyers, and thus the price is going down.

I've been day-trading GOM long enough that I am not worried in the least about this current downward trend.

- Ace

this always happens at the end of the month

Ever since I added aluminum siding, my maintenance costs have gone to zero.

Isn't your house made of bricks?