[MUD-Dev] Game Economies

[Timothy O'Neill Dang]

Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> 
> Timothy O'Neill Dang wrote:
> > Money serves two primary purposes. It is a store of value and a medium
> > of exchange. There are other purposes, such as being a unit of value,
> > and perhaps a proxy for status, but those two are the main ones.
> 
> "Unit of value" is probably a very important aspect, as a game system is
> typically designed and balanced to be fun.

I think we mean "unit of value" in different ways. Thinking about it
now, money serving as a unit of value may be equal to the other two
purposes in importance, but this is what I mean: Having number values
associated with things on a uniform scale makes things more easily
comparable to each other. In some ways it can facilitate a barter
economy if we both have a rough idea of the money value of the things we
are exchanging.
> The key point is; you can design you system
> in a way which makes different bases more or less important. If the game is
> largely depending upon a single base, then it will be tempting to think of
> that base as the currency... Even if it isn't really a currency, because a
> currency is a formalization of it.

It could be tempting to think of it as a currency, when it is in fact
merely the economic base or the primary economic constraint. My point is
that currency serves certain roles, which are quite different from that
of an economic base.

As an example, think of Feudal Europe. I don't honestly know what the
primary currency of the time was, but it is usually spoken of as gold
and other precious metals. The economic base was either land or
vassalage, but these weren't currencies.

> Example: The number of levels and useful objects you have obtained in a
> purified CRPG is the formalization of "game time", and thus can function as
> a currency.  With concepts like e-bay and LEDO it is convertible.

I'm being reminded of Mar's "Labor Theory of Value" now. While thinking
of the value of things as the embodied effort which went into producing
them can be a good meditative excercise, it doesn't prove analytically
very useful.

Game time may in fact be the underlying basis of the economy, the
primary constraint which determines to what extent other resources may
be productive. But it doesn't have any of the features of a currency and
doesn't function as one.

- I can't give you my time the same way as I can give you my gold.
Assuming I do "give" you my time by exerting effort on your behalf, you
can't give that time to someone else.
- Time isn't uniform. First, I may place a higher value on my time
because I can only play one hour a day while you can play three hours. I
may have a more advanced character than you and so be able to produce
more in that one hour than you can in your three.
- Time isn't durable. I can't store up all my time this month and use it
all in one massive binge one day.

In your example of auctioning off characters, think of it this way. The
power of a character is correlated to how much time went into it, and to
the price it will fetch. But if time was a currency embodied in a
character, all characters which had been played for the same amount of
time would fetch the same price.

> metaphor might be more interesting if you think about a game world as a
> country, and players as investors who's interest shift from one country to
> another... They sell their investments in one world in favour of a more
> promising country with a new and rising economy.  Others invest in the older
> countries which are more stable and better developed... *grin*

Yes, this is awfully fun.

> (Dilemma: A game system which focus on one base will obviously be easier to
> predict and balance, but miss out on some opportunities. A unified game
> system which embrace multiple bases risk inherent imbalance, because some
> users focus on one base and view the need to inolve themselves with other
> bases as unreasonable. A segmented game system might be able to satisfy
> desirable requirements with less pain, but you also risk overly simple and
> disconnected activities and segmented groups of users?)

This is what a uniform currency and markets are good for. There can be
many sub-games, with different economic bases. But if there is an
accepted currency, players playing these different sub-games will find
it easier to interact economically. They still won't interact unless the
game design gives them some kind of overlapping interests, but if these
interests exist, the currency and markets will lubricate things.

I imagine the currency could also serve as a signal that one base is
ripe for the picking, and aid in balancing. If one sort of activity is
too "powerful", it will draw more players, and produce more of whatever
it produces. Then this product will draw a very low price, and players
might move into other persuits.

It's certainly not enough to balance a game, and can be kind of cruel to
players in the process. But it should help some.

------------------------------
Timothy O'Neill Dang/Cretog8
timothy at nmia.com
H: 505-843-6966
W: 505-244-8803
One monkey don't stop no show



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