Ways to defect in the AH Prisoners Dilema

This post is part of a series;(TL;DR the collective wins from co-operation but the individual wins from defection)


The urban dictionary has a few definitions for jerk.  In WoW AH parlance, a jerk is someone who prevents you from making sales.  As such, I consider few players AH jerks.  There are many who would consider me one.  There are no care-bears on this page.

The selling jerk is the buyer's favourite nice guy. 


Most customers that buy of the AH don't care if we are cheaper by 1 copper, 1 silver or 100g. However, defecting is a way to get the sale.  There are different ways to defect in the AH.

• Undercutting (even by one copper), with special 'jerk' status applied to:
• Camping the AH, immediately undercutting new auctions
• Deep undercutting, pricing below thresholds.
• Posting with long durations

Gevlon, love him or hate him, is the pinnacle of the defector; He prefers defection to co-operation.  It is worth reading his industry post talking about random sellers, vs campers, vs monopolists, vs deep undercutters, and their interactions.


When you post an auction, you are capping the price for that item until you are either bought out, or it expires.  Posting a 48 hour auction is a form of defection.


Every time you undercut someone; you defect a little; We all do it.  We want to be the one to sell.


I post daily (or maybe twice per day).  In my 'co-operative stance', I am vulnerable to being undercut.  Every undercut is a 'defection'.  While campers hit my sales (and hence my profits), there is no difference between 1 player 'defecting' 24 times / day, and 24 players 'defecting' once / day; they both 'hurt'.

Deep undercutting is a way for a player to say; stuff it with the nickle and dime stuff; The price is heading down anyway - lets see where it ends up.  If I post under a real market price; I will be bought.  If I post over a market price; I will continue to be undercut.


Before I restarted my deep undercutting, I was selling 1-2 alliance glyphs/day at an average profit of 60g.  I had a princely profit of lets call it 90g/day.  I was also posting then collecting 500 glyphs/day. (call it 15 minutes).

In contrast, once I started deep undercutting, with 48 hour auctions initially at 20g each; currently down to 18g.  I am now selling 10-20 Alliance glyphs/day; with a profit between 5 & 10g each, still for the princely profit of around 90g/day.  Awful income but still better than dailies.  I also only need to post and then collect 50 glyphs per day. (call it 2 minutes)

The majority of scribes have packed up and gone home.  There are still 3 or 4 other posters.  Where there was continuous competition, there is now leisurely posting.  There are now glyphs sitting at 350g every time I login and post, at least until I log in and trash the market again. (I think this means that some of you haven't finished your research yet.)

The 3 or 4 other posters also consider 18g sufficient to stay in the game.  I have a true threshold of lower than that, and I am genuinely curious to find out what their threshold is too.

There is nothing particularly personal about this, though I am taking notes on the names of still active scribes. I also don't think it was any one player dominating the market (unlike other times).


I am the nice guy in Northrend gems.  I am also the nice guy with horde glyphs.  I prefer co-operation, but I am also very well aware that the continuous nice guy ... will have a screwdriver applied.  When I 'feel' the time is right: in a week, a month or maybe next expansion; I will become the nice guy again.