Could you ever have a realistic economy in an MMORPG?

[MithurElb]

I have to stop you right from the first sentence. How is it a problem for an economy to grow? Adding money into the system isn't a problem, is shows growth. Have you not taken econ 1010?

 

LOL. Is just the reverse.

 

Adding money to a system brings inflation, witch reduces your savings and rent, and make inversions unreliable.

 

Grow is create wealth, make real production, and mass of money must accomodate to that wealth: if one grows, both mus gorw, and the reverse.

 

What you define isn't grow, but inflation and stagnation.

[Uben]

"realistic economy" will never work in MMORPGS. Because we, humans , playing a game.

 

Create new character and avoid the limitation of one life where each decision impacts your whole life.

 

That's why we make expenses where we don't need, and avoid expenses which we would never avoid in the real life.

 

 

Even basic concept ideas like consumable virtual food does NOT work. Simply because i make an alt and trade the money.

 

 

 

Why even aspire to be "realistic". It's clearly not gonna work, and you have meaningful deep systems without trying to simulate need and demand.

 

EvE proves these statements wrong.

[zumbledum]

I have to stop you right from the first sentence. How is it a problem for an economy to grow? Adding money into the system isn't a problem, is shows growth. Have you not taken econ 1010?

 

 

no, no it doesnt and you might have taken econ but you didnt get it

 

 

You would have to change the entire way an MMO generates resources how they are spent and how they recycle /degrade, it could be done but i dont really see it being worth the effort.

Edited February 8, 2012 by zumbledum

[vvp_pe]

yeah, eve.

 

incidentally eve is probably hard for you to play.

 

that you being anyone reading this.

 

you probably have a life, friends, commitments.

 

i mean seriously, i know you think that if the economy was real you would become a randian super man in that system, but the truth is you will be *********** murdered for your purse change.

Edited February 8, 2012 by vvp_pe

[DaxRendar]

Every game I've ever played, including EVE, suffered from the fact that players *add money* to the economy as they play, instead of borrowing money from it. There's no set amount of currency in circulation.

 

The only way money is ever actually removed from the system is when players purchase things from NPC vendors...

 

Do you think a realistic economy, where the supply of money remains somewhat steady (maybe increasing or contracting by some set amount for each active player on the server), could work in a game like this? What sort of problems would you get?

 

Money is also removed on repairing gear (which I guess can be considered a form of vendor transaction too...)

 

Anyway, here's something to think about - this is a game and I'm not sure how many people right now would really want to play it if their ship got foreclosed/repossessed and they can no longer afford gear repairs because a very small percentage of the player-base made a killing on the GTC and see no need to "invest" any of it back into the community

[Slightlycampana]

Another interesting article: Virtual Economic Theory: How MMOs Really Work

[gurugeorge]

Only way for any MMO to simulate a real economy is to also simulate the economy for NPC:s. They have to earn credits before they can give it away to players as quest rewards.

 

I think this is correct, but it might be a rod for developers' backs to programme a functioning AI portion of the in-game economy.

 

Put simply, each AI actor would have to have an individual scale of preferences and that would have to vary somewhat randomly, but not completely randomly, between actor and actor, and over time in the same actor. Also, any co-operation between AI actors would have to have the co-operation be one factor on their individual scale of preferences.

 

Also for a game like EVE, you'd have to have a huge bulk of such actors "in the background" - like billions and billions of them, to give the economy stability - who interact with each other, but don't interact with the players. Perhaps their interactions could be modelled on a separate server farm, and the "results" (i.e. prices) fed into the player-facing NPCs.

 

The saving grace is that the amounts of things on the several scales of preferences wouldn't have to be too great - just a few abstracted economic goods that ultimately require the few asteroidal and planetary interaction raw materials.

Edited February 8, 2012 by gurugeorge

[Slightlycampana]

Guild Wars had kind of an interesting economy.

 

Basic materials could be bought from NPC traders. The sell and buy prices to the traders fluctuated based on the supply and demand. If lots of iron ingots got sold, the NPC's buy price for iron ingots would go down. So there was fluctuation in prices, driven by demand, but done via NPC traders intead of an aution house.

 

However, there was a limit to how much gold currency an account could hold, so players beyond that limit would have to convert their gold into materials. Usually they used blobs of ectoplasm. Ectoplasm prices were kept artificially stable via the NPC traders, and were used as a heavy form of currency.

[Yfelsung]

Eve has inflation.

 

The "real" economy also has inflation.

 

You're never going to get a more real MMO economy than EvE.

[JumperPenn]

As I see it OP has it wrong there is no fixed amount of money in the world period. Money is 'invented' ie printed when needed games 'print' money when players do things and take it back when they shop with npcs or pay fees.

 

Thus we already have a realistic economy, granted games print money at much higher rates than the world does but we don't have people working for slave wages in game worlds. Players won't 'work' in game for fractions of credits unless the experience is really entertaining or will do it in limited bouts then go do the activity that pays better.

 

Real life has economies around the world where people get ripped off, paid slave wages, killed/exploited for their property and so on.

[HBninjaX]

Well, a contract would still be a contract. Even if the cost of doing the 'job' had gone down since you accepted the mission, they'd still have to pay the agreed-upon price.

 

Does the contract hold up in a court of law? What if the NPC said, I'm not paying you. Sue me if you want. Then you'd have to go through the hassle of getting an npc lawyer etc.

[Abelf]

No. People don't starve in MMOs. Kind of hard to starve in a Hotpocket-backed economy.

 

Credits are universally accepted. Global currency. The Illuminati. The Freemasons. Roswell. Aliens. Outerspace. Starwars. It all connects.

[Andryah]

There's no set amount of currency in circulation.

 

Seriously?

 

There is no set amount of currency in real life economies either. Central banks print, flood, and withdraw money as the economy changes temperature. There is no fixed currency economy in any modern nation in the world.

 

Sandbox games generally have more realistc economies then themepark MMOs as the money means something...... life/death and progression/lack-of-progression.

 

EVE is probably the most realistic MMO economy compared to real life, including the players and the developer manipulating the economy and the money supply (non-ethically accordnig to some, but that mirrors real life economies pretty well).

[Yfelsung]

I think the misconception the OP has is that our economy is "real."

 

You see, in our economic system for every "true" dollar that is put into a bank, that bank can "create" 9 dollars.

 

That means that roughly 90% of the money in our system is, basically, smoke and mirrors.

 

It's a complex shell game.

 

This is why a candy bar that costs 5 cents when my parents were kids now costs 1 dollar.

 

Eve's system is basically the same. A very small amount of real money translates into a large amount of fake money.

[MGriffith]

Do you think a realistic economy, where the supply of money remains somewhat steady (maybe increasing or contracting by some set amount for each active player on the server), could work in a game like this? What sort of problems would you get?

 

Yes it is possible, but it would not be much game like and few players would enjoy it.

What you describe is known as a faucet-drain model, and for players to feel like they are 'winning' they need to have a steady inflow of items (a.k.a. the diablo model of game design). In other words the faucet is opened as wide as possible. To keep the amount of resources in the game roughly steady this means that the drain needs to be equally torrential. Through taxes, item decay and destruction, huge repair bills, huger training bills.

 

Eve gets around to it by habitually destroying trillions (of in game currency) worth of space ships during battles. It works in that game but it creates an almost insurmountable barrier against entry of new players. It also requires a specific type of player who does not mind seeing months' worth of effort go down the drain in a PvP battle.

 

All other games inevitably suffer from mudflation (both in in-game currency and in character power) because a stable system is both hard to achieve and unpopular with the players.

[JSpliff]

a monetary system will always be flawed. that's why we should move onto new system in our games....

[Xenich]

In the real world we all have bills to pay. In game worlds your character doesn't need a car, or electricity or a house or anything so there's never any bills to pay so wealth is constantly being created but it isn't precious because there's no demand that you have to spend your wealth. You spend it how and where you like.

 

I'm pretty sure that no one wants a game where they have to pay bills tho, so I wouldn't call this a "problem". It's just a fact.

 

Well, I only say problem in response to those who go on about how they want a realistic economic system, but never considering what that really entails. People forget about all the things you mention, yet those things really are the "key" to an economic system. That is, if you have to pay numerous costs and fees just to store your product, then there is an incentive to sell it or face the consequence of not only a loss of profit, but actually losing capitol completely.

 

The point is really that economic systems in these games will always be suffering from this lack of balance. Add in the problem with enormous influxes of cash through gold sales and economic systems really are just a gimmicky side show mechanism.

[DaxFlowLyfe]

I think the misconception the OP has is that our economy is "real."

 

You see, in our economic system for every "true" dollar that is put into a bank, that bank can "create" 9 dollars.

 

That means that roughly 90% of the money in our system is, basically, smoke and mirrors.

 

It's a complex shell game.

 

This is why a candy bar that costs 5 cents when my parents were kids now costs 1 dollar.

 

Eve's system is basically the same. A very small amount of real money translates into a large amount of fake money.

 

 

If you go by Plex prices.

(Plexes are gametime cards, allowing 60 days of gametime.)

 

30$ Plex = 600,000,000 Isk in EVE on the market.

 

EVE is serious bizznizz.

Edited February 8, 2012 by DaxFlowLyfe

[Lethality]

Every game I've ever played, including EVE, suffered from the fact that players *add money* to the economy as they play, instead of borrowing money from it. There's no set amount of currency in circulation.

 

The only way money is ever actually removed from the system is when players purchase things from NPC vendors. In EVE, money is also removed when players' expensive equipment is destroyed in PvP. But those are both just masks on inflation, and the actual money supply is completely unregulated.

 

Do you think a realistic economy, where the supply of money remains somewhat steady (maybe increasing or contracting by some set amount for each active player on the server), could work in a game like this? What sort of problems would you get?

 

Not even the best sandbox, I believe, will ever be able to have a true player economy.

 

The biggest reason? Because things we do virtually have no actual value. All we can put into it is "time" which is the only real currency we have.

 

In the real world, I might travel across town to eat at a specific italian restaurant because I like their spaghetti better than one much closer. For me there is added value there. But in a game it's hard to differentiate the "spaghetti" and make one player want one over the other...

[belialle]

EVE has a very robust economy. Players can even earn enough in the game to pay for their monthly subscription. In this way, the in-game currency can be directly converted to real-life currency in a totally legitimate way.

 

The EVE universe is very large. Prices on items fluctuate wildly from region to region. Players willing to take on big risks can reap big rewards. They can also suffer very large losses at the hands of other players.

 

Unless you've played it, I don't think you can really imagine just how fleshed out the economy is in EVE. It's really something else.

Edited February 8, 2012 by belialle

[Dyraele]

Let players borrow money from banks. They have to pay weekly with fees attached. If they do not pay, send an NPC bounty hunter after them every day to relieve them of their possesions/life until the debt is payed.

 

There, it is more like real life.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Dyraele

[Bluejayoo]

Eve is an example of how most economies have functioned through out the majority of human history. Central control of currency levels is a fairly recent invention and is designed to smooth out fluctuations in economic cycles.

 

While potentially devastating in the real world, I see no reason to prevent large swings in economic cycles in a game. The cycles themselves are part of the fun.

[Kthx]

You see, in our economic system for every "true" dollar that is put into a bank, that bank can "create" 9 dollars.

 

That means that roughly 90% of the money in our system is, basically, smoke and mirrors.

 

It's a complex shell game.

 

Just because you don't understand the fundamental of money supply and a fractional reserve banking system, does not make the economy a "shell game."

[Kthx]

Eve is an example of how most economies have functioned through out the majority of human history.

 

Where did the ISK come from? I assure you it was not created by players.

Edited February 8, 2012 by Kthx

[GalacticKegger]

Not unless playing the game for 65 years before you can afford to retire a character is appealing. Besides, do we really want the Senates taxing income or a Hutt skimming the top of our AH sales? Edited February 8, 2012 by GalacticKegger