My thoughts...
Things to address. First, ROI. I don't think anyone that doesn't play tournaments realizes how much a large score will skew your results in terms of ROI. To get a better idea of whether or not a certain markup is fair, I suggest looking at what tournaments they've played, what they've won, and also look at some of their deep runs. The outcome of a single hand can literally have a 50% difference in ROI for the lifetime of a player. I think it's funny that some of the people that have posted on this subject [some in this thread, and some in others] would literally be losing players without their 6 figure score, and believe it or not, that one Sunday 2 years ago doesn't indicate any kind of innate supremacy in regards to tournament skill.
I have no issue with people bringing up MU in individual threads, and think it's a good idea, that's really the only way we can continue to operate this free market without any kind of overhead costs. However, I do feel like people should be respectful about it, and I also feel like they should properly do their research beforehand so they have all of their facts straight. There have been several people [who before were otherwise great posters] who have come off as total clowns on some self righteous campaign to "save the people" from the monsters charging a markup.
I also think there is no issue with someone selling enough action to freeroll an event. Let's be honest guys, incase you weren't aware, a MAJORITY of poker players are backed. This indicates a certain level of risk aversion to variance, and personally that's why I sell action, am backed for tournaments online, etc. People seem to be worried about the big WSOP packages, but do you really think anyone with any kind of reputation/integrity/honor would go out there and play purposely bad with other people's money? Let's be completely honest, Vegas sucks, if it wasn't for the poker I'd never go there in my life nor would many others. There is a very high opportuniy cost for spending 6 weeks of your life in a literal hell hole, when you have so many other options available. Not to mention everyone going out there for any amount of time greater than a week, is putting forth a ton of money for transportation, lodging, and overpriced food, even if they are "freerolling" whatever % of their action. Players are putting in a lot more than what is on the surface, while I do agree that this isn't grounds to justify a certain % of markup, I do feel it sends a credible signal to investors that horses take their events seriously and play their best. Horses have nothing but profit in mind when playing tournaments, they literally have no incentive to perform worse than their best. Are you worried that people will play differently because they have nothing at risk? That maybe they'll take an early gamble to make the pool party if they bust out? That's why you select horses carefully, ones who are reputable, have something of value to lose, and are profitable. In addition to risking time and money, horses are also jeopardizing their reputation. There will be hundreds of 2p2ers following people's progress this summer, if they played a hand poorly, I have no doubt that we'll somehow hear about it [2p2ers are everywhere, even when we think they didnt see/hear something, they did] and the negative consequences will be severe. The value of being part of this community is very high, and being ostracized from it would be detrimenal to anybody who takes this game seriously.
I do feel that there should be penalties in form of markup reduction after the fact if horses fail to provide their end of the deal though. That's why I made a clause saying that if I didn't play a minimum numbers of buyins, I would reduce markup by 10%, I noticed Jorj did the same thing in regards to SCOOP. Again, I think clauses like these are great as they provide an insurance to backers, while horses are faced to back up the claims they made to sell their action.
Also, it's pretty laughable that anyone thinks they can even come close to an approximate figure for their EV in buying pieces for MTT packages as a whole. I don't want to single out threatnasty here, but for simplicity's sake I will. I don't know him, but I've played with him enough, and read enough of his posts to know that his expectation is much higher than his ROI. But where exactly does this ROI of 10% or whatever come from? He played several tournaments [none of which he was -EV in] and all of them he had varying levels of EV in. Obviously his ROI is going to be lower in a 320 than a 75, but what do you think his ROI in a 75fo is? I would say it's pretty damn high, if you added up his individual theoretical ROI for each tournament, and added it together, I think you'd see that that amount was greater than the amount he was charging for the package, even if you were to underestimate all of the numbers. This however would require a great amount of time to do. People in general, especially marketplace buyers [since that's what we're talking about here] are very lazy. I wouldn't be shocked to find out that most buyers have literally done zero research. The only times I've seen people raise objections in this forum are when they want to buy a piece of someone, and the price isn't right for them. As someone stated earlier, buyers have no moral qualms about buying pieces of zachvac at 0% markup when he would've instanly sold out charging 20% or possibly even more. Some of the people commenting in this thread, I know have never even bought a % in their life, so perhaps instead of talking about something you know nothing about, perhaps you should take a few hours and breakdown an entire package and estimate ROIs, and see just how good of a deal you're actually getting in some cases. The 2p2 marketplace is full of value, moreso than any other staking platform anywhere probably. The ROI by tournament factor is definitely something people seem to overlook, all the time...
Sellers are the ones setting the price, because they're the ones with the most realistic estimate of their equity, though this is far from perfect. It is this way because buyers just don't care enough to put in the time. You can't just jump into buying pieces and be successful. This is a highly volatile market that is in constant flux. Have you guys ever tried investing money in a forex market without any kind of research? I have, and failed, and I'd say people really underestimate the skill in selecting the right packages [this is pretty damn hard in fact], and instead base it of whatever current trend was set by another person who likely had no clue what they were doing. Poker sellers may be picking high numbers because they think they can get that much [since they saw someone else sell for XX% MU], but then again why wouldn't they want to create the best possible scenario for themself? Are we going to pretend horses aren't self-interested? If a buyer is willing to pay a price, and a seller is willing to accept that price, you have a fair transaction that was made by mutual agreement. So long as the seller isn't purposely misleading anyone, and is open and honest about everything, he will either have a deal, or he won't. If he doesn't perhaps he should charge less and try again.
As far as horses overestimating their edge, what ROI do you think someone who is even just breakeven online in a 1k wsop? a 1500 wsop? the main event? Now what about profitable players. Add the numbers up. Yes there is a lot of variance, but that's what an investment is. If it wasn't for the variance factor, why would anyone be selling action to begin with? Buying action is far from risk free, and probably one of the riskiest forms of investment you can make with your money. If you're uncomfortable with not having a guaraneed return, and paying a premium, then perhaps you should put some money into a 5 year CD. To be honest I think some people are just bitter over this whole thing because they're suck from making some bad investments, while I believe a very small number of people actually care abou the growth/longevity of this forum.
I don't know how much you guys use the marketplace, but not even 2 months ago this forum was completely dead in terms of people buying action.
Sorry if this comes off as condescending, but as someone who buys and sells action in the marketplace, I feel like protecting horses' rights here, since they are the ones always taking the brunt of attacks. If people, specifically buyers want things to change, it's not only the seller's duty to lower their prices. If prices were too high, there would be a be a new equilibrium set, which hasn't happened yet. Probably because nobody knows what that new equilibrium would be.
This is not to say that there aren't good buyers, and that there aren't bad sellers. The system is nowhere near perfect, but definitely requires work on both ends.
That's about all I have to say for now
ok nvm adding one more thing<
in regards to reopening action, i do agree that all of the original sellers should have to be ok with it, and be able to opt out if they dont like the direction somehing is headed in, and from the onset horses should at least give an estimate on what they plan to sell buyers should definitely be protected in that sense, at the same time horses should have a certain amount of flexibility as most packages are sold way in advance, and life changes very quickly for everyone. buyers should be given the benefit in these cases though, except in extreme circumstances, family deaths, illness, etc.