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MUDflation, Legal Action To Hinder MMO Trading?
Thanks to Wired News for its article discussing the pitfalls which may face virtual item and currency trading in MMORPGs. The piece discusses previously covered sites such as the Gaming Open Market, whose founder ruminates on possible issues with TOS violations: "We're getting to the point where we're getting a reasonable amount of attention. I'm sort of afraid that the game companies are going to step in and terminate my accounts because we're violating the terms of service." Another commentator also worries about long-term dangers of virtual item/currency trading, "...because games like Ultima Online and EverQuest have flaws that allow cheaters to duplicate currency, and that ultimately leads to what Hunter calls 'MUDflation,' short for inflation in a multiple-user dimension."
It's not so much that people are duplicating currency all over the place as it is that currency tends to enter the world much much faster than it leaves it.
For example, in Everquest, this is how money enters the world: You kill a monster. That monster drops a junk item and a little bit of cash. You then take the junk item to an NPC merchant and sell that for more cash.
Money leaves the world when you buy things from NPC merchants. Food and water are so cheap that they might as well be free. The only things that really cost money are trade skill items and spell reagents.
The problem is that people kill stuff far far more than they buy things, so money enters the world at a faster rate than it leaves. Eventually, you wind up with tens or even hundreds of thousands of platinum pieces.
What really needs to happen is to somehow balance the game so that cash coming in is balanced by cash going out. If there's too much money in the world, monsters drop less cash, merchants raise prices to suck some out, and lower the prices they give for stuff. If there's too little, do the reverse.
Well, cant it be done like it is in the real world?
It used to be the case that at any one time the amount of currency equalled that of the value of the gold reserves. I suppose times have changed since then but the system might just as well work. Throw in a stock market algorithm ala Elite (or perhaps more sophisticated one) and maybe people will get a bit more interested in the trade aspects of the game.
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The gold standard isn't a very good idea in the real world. It'd be a piss poor idea in the game world. Allow me to explain:
Let's suppose that there was a fixed amount of money, which is what the gold standard does. Well, it has to be distributed somewhere to begin with, so let's say it's in a vault, and everytime someone kills a monster, the money's taken out of that vault and given to the player.
That's fine, until the vault runs out. After that point, killing a monster gets you no gold. Well, where else are you going to get gold? You could sell items to storekeepers, but eventually they'd run out of money, too. So, you'd have to get it from other players.
But, the supply of gold is fixed. The supply of items is not; more are still created all the time. What's that mean? It means that the value of gold goes up, and the value of items go down (deflation). The longer you hold onto your gold, the more it'll buy.
And don't forget, of course, that this gold would be piling up in the hands of the experienced players and guilds, who could've gotten the money when it was "free". New players who never had that chance would be left out.
So far, Second Life seems to be their most popular market. I've played with it a little bit; it's kind of fun, and taught me a little about how the bigger commodities markets work.
I think Second Life is doing especially well on OGM because the company that runs the game (Linden Labs) has not only allowed it to be used, but has encouraged SL residents to use it.
One of the things that really turned me on to SL was how open-minded the company is that runs it. It's too bad the other bigger MMO companies are afraid to let their users own the fruits of their "labors", including their currency.
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The real world has a fixed amount of money (reserve banking not withstanding). For doing what someone with money wants you to do, you recieve a certain reward. The amount of money in circulation is gradually tipped upwards as the population increases, productivity goes up, and old money is accidentally destroyed.
In a standard videogame, closed monetary arrangements are impossible. The players give money to the merchants, who then pay the players to kill monsters? What is the value of an item when nobody wants it? How is the loop closed if items are being generated? At that point you just have massive deflation. Likewise, as players enter or leave the world you have inflation / deflation.
Ok, so you have a closed-loop financial system, a closed-loop item generation and consumption system (that will encourage hording, of course), both of which are keyed to the number of subscribers. Yet special items must still be won, quests must be rewarded. The leveling treadmill will be in effect, but there must be the special blue blade of Nozerath for the adventuring players...
I agree that there needs to be various controls in place, and that developers need to better understand basic economics, but a model of the real world this is not.
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I'd like to point out the fact that nowhere in the article are legal threats mentioned. Just because an assistant director of legal studies makes an economic argument, doesn't mean that the invisible hand is now under the court's jurisdiction.
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IMAGD & IMAGP (I am a game designer & programmer)
I'm so tired of people bitching about a "broken" game economy, when they don't have a clue what a game designer is all about.
They speak of game balance, as if the game is a zero sum function, when it is not, no matter how hard you try. All MMORPGs, are *designed*, either directly, or indirectly, so that player's wealth gradually increase. How? Because players put their TIME into the game, and the game allows for players to convert their time into game wealth. This is a reason MMORPG tend to follow the instant gratification, and the materialism of "No Risk, No Reward"
So nerf the reward? If there is no reward, what is the incentive to play? It no longer becomes a game in the tradional sense, because what is the goal then? You can't have a game without a goal! True, you can make a game out of ANY situation, but MMORPGs players don't just want a gloried chat sessions -- they want to experience things together with others.
ANY game will have 1 or more of these core principles:
- Creation / Nurture
- Destruction
- Cooperation
- Competition
- Communication
- Exploratin
- Navigation
- Pattern Recognition
- Problem Solving / Strategy
- Organization
- Acquisition
- Trade
- Simulation / Complexity
What does EQ (mainly) focus on?
- Acquisition
- Cooperation
- Communication
- Strategy
- Destruction
By mistakingly thinking "money" is the problem, you're missed the whole point of the "goal" of the game: Acquisition
As I said, you can remove the goal of Acquisition, but you need another goal to take it's place.
Peace