Bought out GameGavel.com, need community input.

[CPUWIZ]

Another suggestion, do not obscure bidders names like ebay.

[Atari_Bill]

What about a choice to sellers to pick traditional auction or sniper style auction?

 

That would make some sellers more popular than others.

That would be acceptable. I personally despise the eBay sniping aspect. Makes zero business sense when both seller and eBay could make more with the traditional auction setup.

[bojay1997]

Honestly, as someone who actually bought a few items over the years on Gamegavel, I just never saw any advantage for buyers on the site. There was no real buyer protection nor an Ebay Bucks or Ebates style rebate program which are things that are important to me. If you want to attract buyers, you really need to focus on the things Ebay is doing and build on those in ways Ebay isn't willing to. Doing away with sniping or adding protections for bad sellers is really not the way to go. While I appreciate that you think there is some value in the IP, aside from the taint left by Mike's years of failed efforts, the site never gained any real traction so I don't know that there is much point in trying to build on the existing IP rather than starting from scratch.

[bojay1997]

Another suggestion, do not obscure bidders names like ebay.

A lot of people will not take kindly to having their privacy invaded. There is no legitimate reason for showing bidder names as long as sufficient protections are put in place to prevent shill bidding.

[SignGuy81]

I don't see how much you sellers think you are going to make more on something if the time goes over. If people want your item and have more money to spend they could have just like anyone else placed a bid before the countdown. Don't see why people want to over-complicate things.

[CPUWIZ]

A lot of people will not take kindly to having their privacy invaded. There is no legitimate reason for showing bidder names as long as sufficient protections are put in place to prevent shill bidding.

 

You must be a late comer to ebay then, because that is what it was like when ebay was still okay. They changed it for selfish reasons, not to protect peoples privacy.

[Atari_Bill]

I don't see how much you sellers think you are going to make more on something if the time goes over. If people want your item and have more money to spend they could have just like anyone else placed a bid before the countdown. Don't see why people want to over-complicate things.

In a perfect world you are absolutely correct. In the real world where pride and ego and adrenaline take over, there is the "just one more bid" thought that buyers will go through over and over until the cost of an item has increased significantly over a sniped ending. Not sure why folks don't see that.

[icemanxp300]

As a seller having time extended past the last minute will work in your favor. As a buyer it would not. This is what "would happen". Buyer "a" has a $20 bid, buyer "b" puts in a $25 bid at last 20 seconds. Normally what would happen is buyer B wins for $21. If you allow the auction to keep resetting to 1 minute left after a bid is placed that means buyer "a" has less than 60 seconds to impulse bid a $1 more and vice versa with buyer "b". Then you can toss in a buyer "c" whom given that extra minute decides to pull the trigger as well.

 

This theory is not much different than candy bars at the check-out. You walked down the candy isle 3 different times but got nothing then at check-out you impulse buy a more expensive chocolate bar, same w/drinks.

 

Showing bidder names will be beneficial to keep people who are buying to corner the market from winning said games. If people see someone bidding that they know are only buying to relist at a higher bin, they will be more inclined to out bid them, plus when your identity is known it makes it harder to scam other people. Such as buying a repro and selling as the real deal.

[CPUWIZ]

In a perfect world you are absolutely correct. In the real world where pride and ego and adrenaline take over, there is the "just one more bid" thought that buyers will go through over and over until the cost of an item has increased significantly over a sniped ending. Not sure why folks don't see that.

 

That is how those "scam" sited like quibids and crap like that are like, plus some of them use bots to drive up prices. Entertainment shopping my ass.

[Tanooki]

What about a choice to sellers to pick traditional auction or sniper style auction?

 

That would make some sellers more popular than others.

 

You do this you got me as a member guaranteed. Same with the suggestion on restoring the public viewing of the current bidder names. IT's not like they're human names, they're internet nicks just like the titles on here everyone uses. You're still anon other than NICk and City/State/Country. If anyone would have an issue with this, either A) they need a bigger hat made of tin foil, or B) they're one of the people on ebay who use multiple accounts, shill bid, and pull other shady tactics to screw honest bidders. Ebay only covered them up just a few years back as they caught hell from people pointing out how many crooked bidders there were and probably got tired of trying to enforce and patrol it with watchdogging users all over them for it. You gouge out the eyes, you can't see who is playing games, just assume it.

[Amstari]

I'll address the suggestions later on today.

 

But quickly @icemanxp300

 

Unfortunately we just bought the domain, logo, name, and Ip. We didnt buy game gavel llc. That business probably is or is going bankrupt and are liquidating assets to pay creditors etc.

 

So we are not responsible for lifetime memberships. The site will be built again from the ground up, the only thing that will stay the same is the domain, name and logo, social media accounts.

 

I'm just curious why you would buy the Game Gavel domain, name, and IP and not just start a new website with a new name?

 

Did the sale included the software used to run the site? I can see value in using the existing software but I can't see any value using the Game Gavel name. Would you consider renaming the site or are you sticking with the Game Gavel name?

 

Best of luck, I will check it out as an alternative to eBay.

[PlaysWithWolves]

We're focusing a lot on the auctioning site, but Eli mentioned in the OP that he was considering going strictly marketplace. What does everyone think about that idea?

Is bidding important enough for him to spend resources on, or should he just essentially have only BIN and "Make Offer" buttons?

Edited May 29, 2017 by PlaysWithWolves

[Andromeda Stardust]

The amount of negativity here directed at Piko is quite unfair and uncalled for. I get the level of butthurt well deserved by that fraud Mike and all the shit he perpetrated to the member base here quite a bit and overall online in general and his losses he truly deserves as they rack up.

 

That said, it's quite clear what Piko said he bought up of what was Game Gavel. He didn't buy the site itself (ie: the code, server, existing program) but the name, the web domain address, and the IP about it. He did not buy up the core site, so it's not his site to be continuing on as is, therefore anyone with a free account (which I have one too) is just shit out of luck. Get over it. Blame Mike, he's the problem here. I don't feel entitled to some freebie from the new owner of the name, not the LLC behind it one bit. All the lies and bs around his failed magazine he couldn't keep profitable even with money begging campaigns, nor his go nowhere auction site with promises of new expansion and deals that never happened. That's all him, right through the multiple scam protos of the truly was a Chameleon as it looked like a console and never was.

 

All this drama about poisons, dumpster fires and stains, is just that small scale drama, a personal issue in the end. If he can just use the names, but not the branding and all the bad crap that was bound to them and make a positive out of it I say good. Give it a chance. Piko has enough going on his own to prove he's no stupid Mike with stupid ideas and stupid backfire problems that'll immolate anyone in the area around it. This whole attack dog thing is really uncalled for given his rep. I'd agree otherwise if it was just some rich toolbag newb who bought up the crap to try and keep the dumpster fire going without fixing the problems.

Thank you. I remain cautiously optimistic that Piko/Eli can turn this around. Sure it's a pile of crap right now. But spread around rose seed in horse manure, add water, sunshine, and most importantly time, and you may grow something beautiful out of it.

[Rockin' Kat]

Gosh... Game Gavel. I hadn't thought about that place in years. Whenever I looked there was never much interesting. I bought maybe once the whole time. I just went over there and clicked on the login page to be given an error saying that FireFox didn't connect to gamegavel because "my computer’s clock appears to show the wrong time and this is preventing a secure connection." The message tells me my computer should be set to four days in the past. There appears to be some kind of time warp happening wherever the server is running from.

 

Personally, I had no idea there was some ill will surrounding Game Gavel... but then I haven't really been around much.

 

I just want to repeat a couple things others have already posted: choice between time extending auctions or snipe-able auction would be cool. Also, non-hidden bidder names. Not getting an idea of who you were competing with made bidding kind of boring and uninteresting.

 

At the same time though: lately as a buyer I find the whole auction thing obnoxious and really just want to buy something and get it in my mailbox already and it feels like it's been quite long time since I've ever wanted something where I was actually forced into bidding and waiting for the auction to end.

Edited May 29, 2017 by Rockin' Kat

[bojay1997]

 

You must be a late comer to ebay then, because that is what it was like when ebay was still okay. They changed it for selfish reasons, not to protect peoples privacy.

Actually, I was an early joiner on Ebay and I distinctively recall receiving harassing messages from people I outbid early on. There is no legitimate reason why bidders need to be identifiable to other bidders. Ebay's current system shows you the first and last digit or numeral of the bidder ID and the number of feedback. That's sufficient. Sniping protects against shilling for the most part.

Edited May 29, 2017 by bojay1997

[PlaysWithWolves]

Ebay's official statement on obscuring names: http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200803030932242.html

 

The main stated reason is to protect "second chance offer" frauds for people who lost a bid. I'd bet they also did it to put a damper on legitimate, but back-alley, second chance offer sales too.

[PikoInteractive]

I think the obscuring names is just ebay trying to control outside-of-ebay transactions. Same with the feature that prevents you from writing an email address or a domain on a private message. May be I'll add the see the bidders name to paid subscriptions or something like that. Harassing can be reported to staff, and users could get banned and reported to authorities as we would be able to see name, and address and credit card; heck, even a potty mouth fee to the potty mouth jar of the site would be cool. You curse at a member? automatically pay 1 buck etc.

 

To the question about why not start from scratch. Surprisingly GG has pretty good rank on Google searches, one that would take me a couple of years of hard work or a lot of money to reach fast.

Edited May 29, 2017 by PikoInteractive

[bojay1997]

I think the obscuring names is just ebay trying to control outside-of-ebay transactions. Same with the feature that prevents you from writing an email address or a domain on a private message. May be I'll add the see the bidders name to paid subscriptions or something like that. Harassing can be reported to staff, and users could get banned and reported to authorities as we would be able to see name, and address and credit card; heck, even a potty mouth fee to the potty mouth jar of the site would be cool. You curse at a member? automatically pay 1 buck etc.

 

To the question about why not start from scratch. Surprisingly GG has pretty good rank on Google searches, one that would take me a couple of years of hard work or a lot of money to reach fast.

So you're going to require bidders to subscribe to a paid service? You're going to give yourself access to bidder's credit card information? You're going to have sufficient staff to monitor transactions and behavior? I mean I know Mike got a lot of crap for the way he overhyped Game Gavel and he clearly had some odd ideas about how to run a business, but a lot of what you are proposing seems totally unrealistic and downright worse than Ebay. As I posted in many of Mike's Game Gavel plugging spam posts, if you really want to provide an alternative to Ebay, you have to find a niche they aren't filling and then provide a higher level of service and features to both buyers and sellers that Ebay can't or won't provide. Erasing privacy protections, eliminating sniping and getting overly involved in interactions between users seems like a bad idea. I mean as Mike found, it's a very tough nut to crack and ultimately, he used the only real tools he could (i.e. cutting seller fees to nothing and trying to secure high profile rare items to drive interest) and unfortunately, those things make profitability impossible because cutting fees means no revenue and there are only so many rare items and frankly, the greater reach of Ebay is a better fit than a niche auction site for really unusual items.

[bojay1997]

In a perfect world you are absolutely correct. In the real world where pride and ego and adrenaline take over, there is the "just one more bid" thought that buyers will go through over and over until the cost of an item has increased significantly over a sniped ending. Not sure why folks don't see that.

There's no real evidence that sniping results in lower ending amounts for items. In fact, many people drop massive last minute sniped bids that they might not otherwise because they think of their snipe as their only shot to win the item and the time pressure causes reason to go out the window. I remember when other sites like Yahoo Auctions extended a minute or two and people would nickel and dime for another buck or two, but the time pressure went away and people applied more rational thinking which in my opinion led to worse results for sellers.

[cvgplus]

I used CTCW and later on Game Gavel but haven't checked it out for years as both a buyer and seller. Didn't sell much and bought a few items. A lot of good points have been made and I believe auctions are a dying breed. But if auctions are to be an option I do like the part where you can see who you are bidding against. Niche sites need a great base and with video games there are other categories that could be included with it. I think cards (pokemon/mtg, etc), electronics and other media such as movies and music, board games, etc would offer a larger base for buyers and sellers. An honest type of feedback system is needed for sellers and buyers because on Ebay you are at the buyer's mercy and there are scammers out there trying to get something for nothing and/or misuse the fb system. I believe I had a free lifetime membership and can understand both sides of the equation. You need sellers so try to make it work for everybody like those who had free memberships or first ones signing up are charter members and sell free for a specific period of time and then after that at a lower FV. I would make storefronts free and just do FV fees. For charter members make it 1-2 percent lower than those that sign up later on and are locked in at that rate. Game Gavel didn't have a great reputation in last couple years so I don't know if I would have kept it since all you bought is the domain name. It still isn't too late to rebuild a new site/name but it won't be easy either way you decide on and will take time and hard work. I feel you are pretty set on keeping the GG name so these are my 3 cents.

[icemanxp300]

In order for GG to succeed it has to sell more than just games, plain and simple.

 

How many of you would sign up to a DVD only auction site? Sure to those of us who are gamers and deal in games on a daily basis it is great but the majority of people are not like the small group of us. There is simply not enough hardcore gamers to sustain a game only auction site.

 

Just like I would not go out of my way to create an account on a DVD only site so I could casually sell my few DVD's the average consumer is not going to go out of there way to sign up to a game only site to sell there games once in awhile. Majority of people want a full service site that they can use like ebay and sell everything they need to sell.

 

GG's audience of us gamers is not good. Mike killed that site w/many of the hardcore gamers. So you will need to attract a different member base. I am going to be straight up honest here, if using GG means I have to pay fees, I will not use it. I'm sure many people who purchased into the lifetime account will share my thoughts as well. It was gamble I hoped would pay off and it did not. So you really need to obtain a different member base.

[PikoInteractive]

In order for GG to succeed it has to sell more than just games, plain and simple.

 

How many of you would sign up to a DVD only auction site? Sure to those of us who are gamers and deal in games on a daily basis it is great but the majority of people are not like the small group of us. There is simply not enough hardcore gamers to sustain a game only auction site.

 

Just like I would not go out of my way to create an account on a DVD only site so I could casually sell my few DVD's the average consumer is not going to go out of there way to sign up to a game only site to sell there games once in awhile. Majority of people want a full service site that they can use like ebay and sell everything they need to sell.

 

GG's audience of us gamers is not good. Mike killed that site w/many of the hardcore gamers. So you will need to attract a different member base. I am going to be straight up honest here, if using GG means I have to pay fees, I will not use it. I'm sure many people who purchased into the lifetime account will share my thoughts as well. It was gamble I hoped would pay off and it did not. So you really need to obtain a different member base.

 

 

Oh I guess I haven't mentioned. But for sure, I'll add toys (preferably vintage), board games, and some other categories. Won't be games only.

Edited May 29, 2017 by PikoInteractive

[krslam]

I'd prefer you keep the auction format. Just doing some random searching for common terms on ebay (like 'red' or 'the'), it looks like auctions account for only about 3% of total listings, but 30% of sales, meaning items listed for auction are much more likely to sell. Of course it also means that the vast majority of BIN listings are overpriced - would be nice to have a mechanism for tossing those bandwidth-wasters out.

[Shawn]

 

 

Oh I guess I haven't mentioned. But for sure, I'll add toys (preferably vintage), board games, and some other categories. Won't be games only.

 

Mike tried that.

[PikoInteractive]

 

Mike tried that.

 

I don't really care what Mike have or had not tried in the past. Moving forward, I only care about what I can do to improve it.