How Can We Learn The Art of Flipping?
I would very much like to talk about the art of flipping a prata and turning the dough into a delicious crispy breakfast meal. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m equipped with such skills, at least not yet. I shall stick with what I know. The flipping I’m referring to is the act of buying low and selling high. You buy an apple for $1, you sell the apple for $1.50 and you make a profit of $0.50. I believe there is no need for an online monthly course subscription of $9.90 to learn about the art of flipping. We can simply learn and apply it on the games that we play. If the game has an open market / trading post / auction, there is a good chance we can do some serious flipping in it.
In my humble opinion, flipping is by far the most boring way to gain progression in the game, unless you enjoy flipping or you’re in it solely to gain massive amount of in-game currency.
At the tender age between 8 to 10 years old, I was obsessed with Neopets. I would do the daily quests from visiting the faerie clouds for a free wish to getting a slice of omelette. I would play the games, especially Meerca Chase and Chia Bomber, to earn some neopoints. I had 2 goals, which are probably universal across many games that we’ve encountered in our lifetime. I wanted to make my pet drop-dead gorgeous while being ridiculously strong at the same time. I realised I needed A LOT of neopoints and it seemed absurd that doing what I’m currently doing will yield me substantial progress to what I want. I decided to explore other options of earning neopoints and realised that there were NPC (non-player character) shops selling items for a much cheaper price than in the marketplace.
I faced two issues. The first issue: item quantity was very limited. The second issue: I didn’t know when the item was periodically restocked.
I started refreshing the page till I saw the item again. I took notes on when the restock time was and I started to do research on what items were sold cheaper than the marketplace. Soon, I was quick enough to be the first few to witness the item restock and buy it immediately when it was restocked. It started with potions being bought for 500–800 neopoints from NPC shops and reselling them for 3–5k neopoints on the marketplace. It was intuitive to me as everyone requires healing potion to fight in the battledome. Demand is there. Once I had enough funds, I moved to equipment gear. I remember buying plenty of Hand Painted Scarab for 400–600 neopoints from NPC shops and reselling them for 25k neopoints on the marketplace. I picked this specific item, because it was the go-to starter gear to begin battling seriously in the battledome. The Hand Painted Scarab had a rarity of 79 (r79). This means that it is uncommon, but not so much. It probably explains its worth on the marketplace.
One day, it occurred to me — What if I try to flip an equipment that is both insanely rare and strong?
I spent months refreshing at the Ice Crystal shop (correct me if I’m wrong, old age is catching up) and finally chanced upon a Freezing Potion (r98) that costed 90k neopoints. It was only 1 in stock, and many months of practice buying trained my tiny fingers to be lightning quick. Ha! I got the Freezing Potion in my possession. I remember breathing really slowly. At that point in time, I knew the item was expensive, but I had no clue on the exact amount. I opened up the marketplace to discover that there were only 4 available in the market being sold for 3 million each. I used it a couple of times to test how strong it was, and HOLY SMOKE.. it was ridiculous. Honestly, I don’t remember if I sold the Freezing Potion, but ever since then I’ve never felt that certain items were out of reach for me in the game.
The art of flipping of the Freezing Potion changed my entire experience in Neopet. More than that, it helped to shape what I continued to do next.
Whether it is Runescape, Maplestory, Knightonline, Aika Online or Guild Wars 2, as long as there is a open market for players to trade freely, whether there is a trading fee or not, I have flipped and will continue to flip if I want to. Sometimes we require certain knowledge from the game itself, but the rules of capitalism remain the same. How do we find out whether something is in demand? We look at how an item is being used. In Runescape, there are plenty of players who enjoy using magic skills to kill monsters, and magic skills require runes. Runes can be mainly obtained from runecrafting skills (take time), NPC shops or marketplace. Similar to Neopets, NPC shops sell limited amount of rune for a cheap price.
The trick is to find out its restock timing (Hint: server restart).
In Maplestory, there are plenty of players who enjoy looking -cues drop roll- drop-dead gorgeous with various skins, especially the limited edition festive versions. These skins can be mainly obtained by doing the festive quest or bought from the marketplace from people who sell them. Note: when it is the winter season and you see a winter skin being sold on the marketplace, it is probably at its cheapest price. Many people can do the quest and obtain it, so there will naturally be a lesser volume of people wanting to buy it which decreases the price as the volume of item goes up. Supply increases, demand decreases. If you’re in it for the long run, you’ll probably earn quite a chunk from hoarding many of such limited edition festive winter skin and selling them 3–6 months after. We can rinse and repeat this process with items that only come out during the Lunar New Year and Halloween as well.
When the event ends and the quest is no longer available, supply decreases and demand increases.
Across all games, players usually go for items that are either beautiful-looking, strong or both. When you know how to flip successfully in the game, it shouldn’t take you long to get to where you want to be at, be it being the rare few who have maxed stat gears or simply walking around in an angelic outfit that costs millions of gold. The scary part about learning the art of flipping in virtual games isn’t the amount of time spent researching on supply and demand or actually materializing your end-game goals. The scary part is realizing that the art of flipping holds true for the real world too. The same bouquet of flower costs 3x — 5x more expensive during Valentines. The same generic gift-like items cost 2x — 4x more expensive during Christmas. The same air tickets cost 2x — 4x more expensive during school holidays.
The difference between flipping in game and in real life is coming to terms that everyone’s end goal appear to be different but are strangely the same. It isn’t as direct as being powerful or pretty. More than being powerful, pretty or both, all of us simply want to be happy. The demand in real life is happiness, but the issue is that happiness comes in many subjective form which in turn changes the type of supply. Happiness is the reason why people will carry on to buy a bouquet of flower to surprise their special someone year after year even though it is a universal scam. It holds true for the Christmas exchanges and seasonal air tickets. The flowers isn’t worth it, but her smile is.
