1) Their player isn't parsing the market mechanics, and doesn't understand the information they're being shown.
2) They've chanced upon one of the items created by characters with enormous artistry investment and/or deep player knowledge of the mechanics, which are the items more likely to end up in the market rather than left forever unnoticed on a cube hotel wall.
I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to devalue artistic works to keep them in circulation, because in my own experience there is actually an issue with there being way, way too many art objects in the game since they're all permanent, which I believe has depreciated the demand for specialist visual artists compared to other artistic pursuits and makes those artists much rarer and ultimately (again, I believe) less valued. Anyone who has sought out an in-characters specialist in that area can tell you how many more aspiring rockstars and fashion designers there are in comparison.
If there was going to be even more re-circulation of legacy art objects back into active play, I'd really like to see some kind of exit tap on the ecosystem as well that allows for degradation and destruction of those same items so there is some more value placed on current players who could be actively producing new stuff so that everything is kept fresher and contemporary.
Still I feel like art should just be trashable and then have a @review-art that players can filter for what might constitute fine art paintings, sculptures, holo-displays, et cetera that might qualify for it belongs in a museum status. Maybe that stuff would have to clear a certain value or age threshold to qualify. There's just so much of it.
Toss in some human checks to screen out non-art or anything that would be nonsensical or inappropriate to sell at auction and that'd be pretty awesome.
1a) Evictions clear walls of installed decorations and spirits them, and uninstalled art objects also present, out of the game.
1b) Art objects in the market in the market are also taken out of the game after a certain length of time (say six months, or a year).
2) Those objects are filtered, with ones over a certain value (say 10,000c to 25,000) going to temporary storage, and the rest being deleted.
3) Objects in storage go into a review queue just like clothes do now, maybe by builders or Fix-It specifically to select for those that could believably be auctioned as general artworks. The rest is deleted.
4) Reviewed artworks go to public auction every year, object value is halved and it's flagged as 'vintage', minimum reserve bid is something like 20% of full value. Unsold art is kept until next auction.
5) 'Vintage' flagged artwork getting cleared through markets or eviction again is deleted, as is artwork with a 'vintage' flag that is unsold at auction a second time through.
This would mean that ultra-pricey artwork that no one can buy now could eventually show up at auction at 1/20th it's original value as a minimum bid, which would mean in a second-year rotation through even a million chyen painting could be bid on for 50,000c.
It would also mean that old decorations, undesirable artworks, and various other unwanted or cheap assortments would eventually end up cleaned out and open up more opportunities for current characters to produce things to keep the world fresh.
However the idea pretty much works the same if nothing ever gets deleted too, just I imagine the auction will eventually fill up with a ton of unwanted stuff year-to-year.
1.) They're new to the markets and don't understand the in's and out's of how they function in terms of pricing and what can be done. A skilled haggler acting on your behalf can shave off ten's of thousands and bring the tag down from insanely priced to just stupid expensive.
2.) Art is supposed to be insanely expensive. The good art at least. As 0x1mm points out, some of these pieces of work really are absolutely gorgeous to behold from a visual stand point, and are often composed by people who have spent long hours and dedication to understanding the mechanics of the system and UE into Artistry. That should be at least rewarded by fetching prices equivalent to Picasso's works when they are sold.
And thematically fine art just isn't for Mixers if price tags are involved. When you're struggling for rent a cute poster with a kitten telling you to hang in there isn't in the budget, let alone buying an 'authentic Monet' from the shady man in the corner booth. But a corpie with money to splurge (or launder) can easily work through middle men to get that painting, giving them the dignitas of having an insanely priced piece of art dedicated to conspicuous consumption.
The pricing isn't the problem. It's the desire of people to own art.
Whether this means the market should pay less or the players should pay more, I'm not sure. But I can pretty much guarantee that at the moment, you will never see a player charge half a million chyen for a single piece of tailored clothing like the market seems to think they would.
As for clothing, from my understanding it is possible to sell your own clothing in the markets, but the item must be UNIQUE. So one time extravagant diamondweave outfits and prog cloth can be made to earn that scratch in the markets, but each item must be completely different from one another.
My hypothesis is this is related to memory bloat. One really expensive unique diamondweave item taking up 7 dynamic registers is probably acceptable. 5 identical mediocre synth-leather items taking up 35 registers is probably not.
I do think that the whole part about making unique items and not selling copies in the market should probably be added to the help files for painting, not just for tailoring. But if it's not been an issue then it's probably fine.
Art can't be trashed, that is true, but it can be dropped down a recycling chute, and then burned in the incinerator, at which point it goes into an OOC room and is later moved to an OOC museum of art that is admin accessible.
