Greed (Part 3 of 3)

As we conclude the topic of greed, the question needs to be asked, are those who bot on Magic Online being greedy?  If you are trying to find a fourth copy of that highly desired Mythic Rare and seeing the few bots who have it charging 50+ tickets for it, you will definitely think so.  How can a few bits of virtual data be worth so much?  At least in paper Magic, you actually receive a piece of cardboard.

But as was mentioned in the comment forums, this is more than a supply and demand answer.

We botters have expenses as well.  First off, there is the hardware that needs to be purchased.  A full-time bot requires a computer to be run.  Even a second-hand computer will cost some money unless one was gifted to the bot owner.  Then there is the purchase of a bot name.  Then a successful bot needs a lot of tickets and/or a large inventory.  This expense is a large initial start up cost which deters many from getting into botting.

Then there is the bot fee itself.  Unless you have the proper programming skills and are willing to devote a lot of time to writing a trading bot, expect to pay for that privilege as well.  Whether you choose the 2.5%, 3.5% or fixed license fee, this too is part of the cost of dong business. 

Consider the following example: your bot purchases a highly desired card for 29 tickets.  Being nice, you sell it for 30 tickets, making a 1 ticket profit.  While this is certainly the case if you just choose to focus on this single transaction.  The licensing fee for this transaction will be around 1 ticket for getting the card, and another ticket for selling the card.  That’s two tickets right there, so now you’re down 1 ticket.  You would need to sell it for 31 tickets just to absorb the costs of the licensing fee.  And this would need to be even higher based on your other costs.

So the next time someone angrily terminates a trade and mutters about how these bots are just being greedy, know that they are simply showing their economic ignorance.