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The Best Part of Grand Theft Auto V is the Stock-Trading Platform

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Re: The Best Part of Grand Theft Auto V is the Stock-Trading Platform

#21

Post by choult »

nslocum wrote: post #14

The BAWSAQ is by far the most interesting market. The BAWSAQ is an online market driven by the buy and sell orders of all 15M+ players. Early on, before people started to realize how the market worked, I did some pump-and-dump schemes and made >$400M. That's a lot of money, even in GTA. Now that I have that much money I can drive stocks up or down and milk the market for all I want. GTA isn't just for blue color crim…

"The BAWSAQ is by far the most interesting market. The BAWSAQ is an online market driven by the buy and sell orders of all 15M+ players."

I'm surprised no Scots have popped up to point out how hilarious that market's name is ;)

Re: The Best Part of Grand Theft Auto V is the Stock-Trading Platform

#23

Post by ASUmusicMAN »

jredwards wrote: post #11

Incidentally, there are already a multitude of subreddits which have formed for the express purpose of manipulating the public markets. This is a really interesting interaction, though it's somewhat skewed by the fact that a player can simply revert to a saved game if the stock they've purchased tanks.

Do you have a list of a few of the larger ones? I usually glance through /r/grandtheftautov every day or so but this is the first i've heard of subreddits organized for manipulation.

Re: The Best Part of Grand Theft Auto V is the Stock-Trading Platform

#24

Post by Nate75Sanders »

choult wrote: post #21
nslocum wrote: post #14

The BAWSAQ is by far the most interesting market. The BAWSAQ is an online market driven by the buy and sell orders of all 15M+ players. Early on, before people started to realize how the market worked, I did some pump-and-dump schemes and made >$400M. That's a lot of money, even in GTA. Now that I have that much money I can drive stocks up or down and milk the market for all I want. GTA isn't just for blue color crim…

"The BAWSAQ is by far the most interesting market. The BAWSAQ is an online market driven by the buy and sell orders of all 15M+ players." I'm surprised no Scots have popped up to point out how hilarious that market's name is ;)

I was thinking Southern American English, but I suspect we're on the same page.

Re: The Best Part of Grand Theft Auto V is the Stock-Trading Platform

#25

Post by Tiktaalik »

choult wrote: post #21
nslocum wrote: post #14

The BAWSAQ is by far the most interesting market. The BAWSAQ is an online market driven by the buy and sell orders of all 15M+ players. Early on, before people started to realize how the market worked, I did some pump-and-dump schemes and made >$400M. That's a lot of money, even in GTA. Now that I have that much money I can drive stocks up or down and milk the market for all I want. GTA isn't just for blue color crim…

"The BAWSAQ is by far the most interesting market. The BAWSAQ is an online market driven by the buy and sell orders of all 15M+ players." I'm surprised no Scots have popped up to point out how hilarious that market's name is ;)

The game is developed in Scotland so it must be intentional.

Re: The Best Part of Grand Theft Auto V is the Stock-Trading Platform

#26

Post by mathattack »

jaynos wrote: post #19
mathattack wrote: post #6

Interesting. I could see this as the intellectual genesis of an entirely different game. Imagine tying the virtual market to Bitcoins! One comment on being able to short... Based on how the game is described (I may be the only one the planet not to be an active player) it should be possible to short a stock. Every time you get new money, split the purchases evenly between all stock. (Can do a weighted average if you…

That's not a short, though. You don't profit on the difference between prices, you only get the chance to buy again at a lower price, but not sure if the stock will go back up.

Let's oversimplify for the sake of showing the calculation...

There are 4 stocks in the world, A, B, and C, and D, all trading at $25. I invest $100, buying $25 in each.

Now lets say that I know for sure that stock D will go down because I'm going to whack the CEO. So I sell my $25 of D, and put it in A, B and C (A stake of $33.33 in each - let's assume fractional shares are ok.) If Stock D goes to 0, while the others all double. I have a net gain of $100 - $75 from the stocks I already held, but $25 from the new investment, and I've avoided $25 as well.

Let's say you lived in a world where shorting was ok. If instead you invested $25 in A, B and C, and shorted $25 on D, you would gain $75 in A, B and C, and $25 on your short of D. In essence it's the same $100 profit.

Now this only works if A, B and C are also going up.

Let's say that D does move on the event, but A, B and C don't. If you do buy back D after the event, you ultimately are in the same position in both cases. In the shorting case, you have $100 in securities ($75 original, plus $25 of D bought near 0) and in the "sell now buy later" you sell back $25 of A, B and C to buy at the bottom.

Net - you create the effect of shorting.

This falls apart if you want a very concentrated bet, but it's a way that long-only professional money managers who compete against indexes find a way to effectively short.

Re: The Best Part of Grand Theft Auto V is the Stock-Trading Platform

#27

Post by Karunamon »

utefan001 wrote: post #5

Bill Cosby calls Grand Theft Auto Entrance Exam for Prison http://nativenotes.net/bill-cosby-calls-grand-theft-auto-ent...

An out of touch older individual slagging on video games? How totally unique and unsurprising. /s

Re: The Best Part of Grand Theft Auto V is the Stock-Trading Platform

#28

Post by choult »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #25
choult wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The BAWSAQ is by far the most interesting market. The BAWSAQ is an online market driven by the buy and sell orders of all 15M+ players." I'm surprised no Scots have popped up to point out how hilarious that market's name is ;)

The game is developed in Scotland so it must be intentional.

Oh definitely - Rockstar know what they're doing :)

Re: The Best Part of Grand Theft Auto V is the Stock-Trading Platform

#29

Post by socillion »

sown wrote: post #17

World of Warcraft's Auction House is similarly interesting. It can get really complicated trying to corner the market on different goods, although it's less integral to gameplay over all. It's more like an embedded minigame at times. One thing I learned in that game is that while one can make a lot of money being the middle man, the real value is from labor (as far as WoW is concerned) -- but grinding for materials c…

I think there are far better games for market PvP such as EVE Online, Guild Wars, or Kingdom of Loathing. Making profit on the WoW AH was very formulaic (refining raw materials into the largest variety of items possible to maximize turnover - see JC shuffle), the best route was to find botters who would sell raw materials to you below market rates, and the huge number of shards made markets much less interesting.

Every action also required far too much clicking, which meant many people just used tools like autohotkey (cheats, although nobody ever got banned for them), and having to relist products constantly to beat minor undercuts was a terrible experience.

WoW AH is to virtual markets what hitting a pinata is to hitting something that fights back - it's simplicity makes it unrewarding.

Re: The Best Part of Grand Theft Auto V is the Stock-Trading Platform

#30

Post by boomzilla »

petercooper wrote: post #18
nlh wrote: post #13

I...bought...twenty shares of Augury Insurance (which sells auto insurance — a good bet, considering all the cars I've been wrecking) I'd argue the opposite, no? The 100-year-storm of destruction that we, as Player 1, unleash upon the poor Liberty City automotive world would probably make any insurance company run screaming and crying in the opposite direction of profitability. "We had HOW MANY claims yesterday after…

I'm naive on this topic, but wouldn't a high number of claims be either neutral or positive if said level is anticipated or consistent (as in the crime-ridden metropolis of LS or LC)? Ultimately, all policyholders will pay through higher premiums, and it'd be easier to make a profit (in absolute amounts) on high premiums since bumping up $1000 to $1030 looks a lot less onerous than $300 vs $330. As I said though, I'm…

Assuming efficient market, insurance industry will do best in more volatile conditions. The reason is insurance is essentially risk trading and they have the advantage of having access to more information and therefore can come up with more optimal risk trading strategies.
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