I hope you realize, that it's not a supplyheavy market, but a demandheavy. Just cause you are so dumb to not buy it, noone cares, as there are thousands of players who will instantly buy it, hence the P2W factor won't change.

If there would be pearl items sitting on the market 24/7, then you would have a point, but curently noone cares about your purchasing power, and you only rob yourself from gaining value.

Actually this wouldn't work either, for the first time in a year I have had a pearl item that I want on order for more than a day, and usually I don't have a pearl item on order at all.  The pearl items in the shop are not worth my time usually.   I don't just go dropping huge amounts of money on the game, in fact I rarely do, but I look at pearl items from the CM as a how long do I have to grind in game to make that amount of silver, versus how long do I have to work overtime to buy the item outright.  Until Elvia was released it took 2-3 hours grinding in game to buy any pearl item, where as it would take only 15-20 minutes of OT to buy that same thing.  I would rather spend those 2-3 hours going for something else, and put in an extra 20 minutes once a month at work for a VP, or an extra half hour if I really really wanted that outfit.

I can't speak for everyone, but a lot of times the pearl items off the CM are not worth their cost in time to buy, so I don't bother buying almost any pearl items off the CM.

Your numbers are already accounted for in the metrics.

"Even most spenders will still place a bid on this."

People selling VP's would generally not list them

People with enough VP that they simply don't to place orders wouldn't be listed.

People bidding on other items.

All of things are already included in the estimates, but they make a small fraction of the player base.  One could reasonably estimate that roughly 80% of the player base has a VP bid.  This would be based on multiple legitimate factors.  It also reasonable to estimate a fair portion of the players with bids on VP are no longer active or rarely play.  This is also based on real data such as the absorbtion rate of VP's.

There are roughly 7,000 Pre Orders on Value Packs for the NA servers.  While this does not include everyone it may actually include more than the active player base.

Pre-Order don't go away

There are only 2 conditions in which a pre order is removed.  Either the player manually removes it or the item is sold.  It's likely there are bids remaining from people that placed them 6 months ago or even an entire year.  Many of these players may not be active anymore, but their bids will remain for months/years.

It's a good metric for player count

Lets say that again It's a good metric for player count.  Potentially MORE precise than any other data you're going to get.  While not every player will have a bid on a VP, it does cover the vast majority of players.

Only a few conditions as to why you wouldn't

Can't afford it - Who is in this category?  Almost no one.  Maybe a brand new player 2 days into the game.

Bid on other items - Has to be another Cash Shop item and those numbers are known and they are low

Don't care - Hardly anyone.  Even most spenders will still place a bid on this.

Summary

The amount of Pre Orders on a Value Pack are quite a good indicator of how many people are playing the game.  It's a rough estimate, but again It's a good metric for player count.  It very likely there are far less than 10,000 active players on NA.

Again you show your lack of critical thinking. I care not if you think I am stupid for not buying pearl items from the cm. I choose not to due to my stance to not support pay to win. If I purchase these items from the cm I am enabling the people that sell them to pay to win, which in turn would make me a hypocrite just like every other player that screams against pay to win but still preorders pearl items thereby perpetuating pay to win in our games. You do whatever you want but I have made a decision  that  I can live with. I gain value by having principles and living up to them, what about you?

I buy my VP's myself.  What your metric misses are players that buy their own VP's.

How do you determine how many players buy their own VP's accurately, without access to PA's fanancial records?

Wait did you really assume the player base based on preorder on ONE ITEM ?

"It's a good metric for player count.  Potentially MORE precise than any other data you're going to get.  While not every player will have a bid on a VP, it does cover the vast majority of players."

No it's not ? that's retarded as fuck

Litteraly Steam will tell you the amount of current people playing the game and online, and it's ONLY steam, it doesnt say anything about the people who have the game on standalone launcher, which is a LOT more

When steam says there is already 22k people playing right now, you cant go around saying "oh the game population is only 20k" ( 10k preorder on NA, 12k on EU"
According to your logic, there is less than 25k active player right now for both server ? and well, also according to that logic, almost all players are playing on steam

Wait did you really assume the player base based on preorder on ONE ITEM ?

Did you miss this statement INTENTIONALLY TOO

"While not every player will have a bid on a VP, it does cover the vast majority of players."

It's almost like you are TRYING to fail ;)