FAQ about the Global Trade HQ
Greetings Mayors,
Global Trade HQ has been a very popular feature in SimCity BuildIt. Every day over 8 million transactions take place, meaning that it is busier than the New York Stock Exchange! The game team wanted to answer some of the most frequently asked questions we see from Mayors in regards to the Global Trade HQ.
Why is there no search filter in the Global Trade HQ?
Global Trade HQ works in a way that every item sold is created by another player. Certain items have a higher demand than others, and generally the high demand items will sell a lot quicker than the low demand ones.
If we added a feature that would enable players to search for a specific item type, it would make the high demand items sell incredibly fast. This would then result in the high demanding items completely disappearing from the market, and almost no one would find the type of items that they need.
We strive to make the Global Trade HQ a balanced and fair place, regardless of your connection, device, or location. Adding a search of filter functionality would make it highly unfair for those who are not able to quickly grab each new item that is put up for sale.
Any kind of feature that favors the few at the expense of the majority will lead to an unequal experience, considering that over 8 million transactions are made on the Global Trade HQ every day!
Why is there no variety in the Global Trade HQ?
It all works based on the laws of Supply and Demand. Each item placed in the Global Market is created by another player. Certain items sell more than others, causing the overall share of particular items to be higher for items that have a high supply.
Due to his, slower selling items placed in the market will make it look like it is more difficult to find the higher selling ones, while the higher selling items will sell faster.
The Global Trade HQ randomly picks a selection of items from the total available pool of items, and sometimes the system will pick a selection of items that have been on sale for a longer time.
We strive to improve the overall experience of the Global Trade HQ step by step with great care, as small tweaks can have considerable impact on millions of Mayors every day.
Why can’t we buy things from the Global Trade HQ directly instead of having to travel to the seller’s city?
The Global Trade HQ works like an advertisement catalogue for each player. Mayors can choose to either advertise particular items or sell them without advertising it. If the Mayor decides to advertise an item, it will be displayed in the Global Trade HQ in order to attract buyers to browse through the seller’s catalogue, and it is also a way for Mayors to showcase their cities.
In addition to enabling players to buy and sell items to other players around the world, we wanted the experience in itself to be fun and highly visual so that players could visit, admire, and learn from looking at the layout of other Mayor’s cities!
Are you taking player feedback into account when developing new content and updates for the game?
Yes, we do. Each and every member of the team cares greatly about making SimCity BuildIt the best possible experience for all of our players. Having spent years working hard to make it the best city builder game for mobile devices, we constantly read the feedback coming in on Facebook, Twitter, the forums, reddit, and elsewhere on the internet. We believe in putting players first, and we also actively play the game every day in the office and during our free time, and encounter the same experiences as other Mayors out there. SimCity BuildIt was made by a passionate team of people who not only have a common goal, but also share a passion for great games.
The team at EA tracktwenty work continuously to tweak the market in order to make it a more enjoyable experience, and we thank you for your support!
