Tradelands Economic Update – June 1st, 2024

The month of May saw the release of the 9th Anniversary Crates and a late surge in market activity which corrected a three month long trend of under performance. The market saw just over $1 Billion in market activity with $356 Million of that (over 1/3 of all market activity) occurring in the final week of May. Coincidentally, this was the same week that the new crates were released which demonstrates how important they are to the economic mechanics of the game.

The past few months have seen less economic activity than the same month in 2023, to the tune of 3% to 5% less activity. However, June marks the first time since February where we haven’t seen that happen. In fact, June’s performance is on par with June of 2023 which also saw relatively the same level of activity. We also saw similar trends with players attempting to hoard doubloons and a spike in over-pricing which is partly why there was a lower dip in activity mid-June.

Impact of Exclusive Woods

The crate release also saw exclusive woods back on the Premium Merchant for a limited time. This had a direct impact on the Timberfelling market as players switch to buying the wood from the merchant instead of grinding it from trees. The JSI index shows the drop that occured at the end of the month, stopping a two month upward trend that saw Timberfelling almost reach parity with the mining industry.

Probably the most important exclusive wood that has appeared on the market is Blood Oak. In the past few re-releases of exclusive woods, Blood Oak has been notably absent from the list. This used to be a premium wood, meaning it was available on the merchant year round, but was changed last year as a part of a string of changes to the premium materials.

However, it should be noted that Blood Oak is available for 450 Premium Tokens, translating to an overall price of 4.5 tokens per piece. With tokens currently trading at $247 per piece, this means the true cost of Blood Oak is $1.111.50 per piece. Since sellers are often trying to make a profit, this means a player should expect to but Blood Oak for more than this, with $1.1k being the minimum price they would pay. The current market is at $2,060.32 per piece, meaning players are applying a 2x markup on the material, which isn’t unreasonable considering that the timberfelling market as a whole typically operates at around 70-90% contribution margin.

Brass Returns Through Crates

Brass is a material which was typically obtained through special events. This month, Brass is obtainable as an added item to crates. They are typically distributed in stacks of 10 each so selling them in batches is the preferred method for dedicated sellers.

Brass is a niche item. It’s not a highly sought after material due to the low amount of customization that are dependent on it. As a result, it was an item typically requested by collectors. since there was a limited supply of it, buyer demand was higher than seller availability, but only in low quantities. The release of Brass as a crate obtainable has allowed all the buyers to obtain the material at their price point, effectively zeroing out their purchases, and shifting to a seller dominated market where prices were now set by buyers instead of sellers.

This shift has effectively moved the price point from it’s previously stable 10k per piece pricepoint, to under $4k per piece on average. At the same time, the amount of seller activity on the market has seen a five fold increase, meaning the market will remain saturated until interest can expand beyond the handful of sellers who were purchasing Brass prior to the release. Whether this happens is probably dependent on how much interest is gained through the use of Brass on shipbuilding, which is the single most important influence on interest in the game today.

Mystery Crates and Ship Blueprints

Mystery crates have once again become the highlight of the economic activity in May. When the Lunar Crates were released, there were questions on how they would work with the refresh in crate materials. Thankfully, with the release of the new 9th Anniversary Crates, the developer made a specific mention about this in the update post.

The increased transparency with the crates, their use/value, and the acknowledgement of how tradable crates work is a great step in the right direction. If we look back at how crates worked in the past, they used to be purchased directly from the Premium Merchant with Robux, meaning some players would not have the opportunity to use them and were reliant on others to trade them the items inside the crates instead. However, this system has made it a lot easier for players, especially newer ones, to have a chance at opening one and getting their own items. One of the hottest demand item in a crate is the ship blueprints, and the potential of having a wider net of players able to obtain them will create fluctuations with their value which helps the market overall.

If you are a newer player, our guidance is to use the buyer price point (green line on the charts above) as your true price point. Sellers tend to over-inflate the price of items when they are released in an attempt to get better returns from the hype. However, once opened, the items inside a crate tend to average around $20k in value, meaning if you are purchasing a crate at $50k you are effectively paying over twice what it’s worth. The true cost of a 9th Anniversary Crate is at $24k meaning if you buy a crate above this price point, they are still making a profit.

The main item of interest inside a crate is the Wyvern Blueprint. This is a new ship that follows a similar formula to the Komodo and the Nautilus from the past two crate events. It’s still too early to tell where the price for this blueprint will ultimately end up, but it’s clear that players are treating it as similar to these past blueprints. The price point currently sits at just under $800k, which is higher than the other two blueprints.

However, it’s worth noting that both the Nautilus and Komodo Blueprints started closer to $1M before losing their value and hovering between 700k – 750k per piece. The Wyvern topped out at $916k on it’s first day on sale before falling to the current $800k price point. This leads to speculation that the item may not out-perform the Nautilus and Komodo, while other members of our group speculate that the Nautilus was benchmarked on the Ghostship Voucher, whereas the Wyvern is benchmarked on the Komodo. If you follow the speculation of the former, then you can expect the new blueprint to fall as low as $600k within the first 3 weeks. If you follow the latter, then it will probably stabilize at around $700k in the long term.

Either way, the ship is largely being praised by the community as a good purchase, due to its unique combat characteristics. It is currently one of the few dual mount turret ships with a steam engine that are obtainable outside of auctions. Moreover, it has good sail performance downwind, meaning it can outrun most ships that are trying to escape it, in much the same way the Phoenix used to before the model was updated and its stats changed.