Did classic kill the BfA economy?

With the launch of classic loads of players have been diving into old Azeroth and leaving our current fight against Queen Azshara. Obviously this will have an effect on the economy and the main one shoudl be that loads of markets slow down, so let’s take a look at some data. 

My sales

I’ve done one single full repost cycle on BfA since classic launched. With just a single repost cycle the data is obviously extremely uncertain. My sales were just 100k, which is much less than I usually get, but I did pull in one BoE sale. The biggest let down was consumables, which have typically sold really well lately. That may just have been the time of week though. Either way this does indicate that sale rates may have slowed down on retail. 

Looking at the Undermine Journal

To get a better idea we’re going to look at the undermine Journal for some key BfA items. We will look at both tradeskill materials and finished items. For materials we will look at Tidespray Linen, Osmenite Ore and Zin’anthid. For finished items we will look at enchant weapon – Force Multiplier and Greater Flask of Endless Fathoms. 

Tidespray Linen

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As we can see both the price and quantity available have been pretty much completely unchanged by the launch of classic. This indicates that the market is still in an equilibrium. There might be both fewer farmers and buyers, but you should still be able to sell roughly the same amount. 

Osmenite Ore

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Osmenite shows pretty much the same story. The quantity did increase slightly on launch day, but outside of that the quantity has stayed the same. The price on my realm has increased slightly, where as the region price on EU has remained on the same level. Once again it looks like the market for Osmenite is fairly unchanged by the launch of classic. 

Zin’anthid

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For Zin’anthid the supply has been much more variable. We can also see a clearer downwards trend in price, even if there has not been any large short term change by the launch of classic. The downwards trend did start before launch though, so it might be that this is the effect of people that are planning to swap permanently to classic selling off their stock. If so we should see it level off pretty soon. 

Enchant Weapon – Force Multiplier

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Interestingly enough the region market price for Force Multiplier enchants has risen since the launch of classic. It looks like fewer players are crafting and this is driving the price up. We don’t know the sale rate, but the change is surprisingly large on a region basis, indicating that there are still tons of players that want max level enchants. 

Greater Flask of Endless Fathoms

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Flasks tell a slightly different story to enchants. The region price has stayed flat since classic launched. On my realm the quantity has been rising lately, but it is still lower than it was pre-classic. Overall the market looks a little stagnant, but nothing crazy. We do not see any massive changes, which indicates that tons of players still raid on the BfA version of the game. 

Summary

Overall it looks like the effect of classic on the BfA economy was relatively small, at least when looking at EU region wide pricing data. Obviously any one realm might have deviated from this, but the overall picture is that end-game items are still in demand, and materials are not cropping up in huge amounts.

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