MMO Creators Follow The Virtual Money Trail

Thanks to Wired News for its article discussing the dysfunctional economies of massively multiplayer games. The piece references an economic analysis by Raph Koster regarding Star Wars Galaxies, in which he mentions the game "...uses what is called a faucet-drain economy. You can visualize a spigot of cash coming into the game, a big ol' sink where the money sloshes around, and a set of drains where the money goes out the bottom." Virtual economist Edward Castronova also comments, concerned about the proletariat and the bourgeoisie: "The wealth distribution is not just unequal, it is incredibly unequal... Raph says it is similar to the distribution of wealth in (real-life) economies, which it is, but even the worst robber-baron economies were not this bad." In the end, though, Koster argues: "You don't get to ignore the economy, but absolutely, the goal is the fun, not Berkshire Hathaway."

Comments

Information readily available

[Oriumpor]

for a long long time on the Mud-Dev mailing list. In fact a point of discussion many times, and not just the faucet drain economy model either.

Mud Dev Faq
Full archive here

Once Again

[Apreche]

I must make another post about how Puzzle Pirates is the best. The entire game is based on economy. Sure, money comes in and out, but it sloshes a whole hell of a lot. The entire game is based on the economy, shop owning, pillaging, trading. Getting raw materials and manufacturing them into stuff that you use to make other stuff that you use to get more materials. What really makes puzzle pirates have the best economy is that labor plays a critical role. If you want to make stuff you need actual people to devote their labor to you. In turn you must pay them money for their services. Not only that, but first you need to have a very expensive shop to even begin thinking about it. It's complex and that's what makes it great, play puzzle pirates the only mmo worth playing right now.

Re:Once Again

[wgnorm]

This is really a mischaracterization of the game, and I don't see how you could reach this point of view.

I've never played any game that's so open and inviting to new players. For new pirates just starting out it's a fun game environment centered around playing puzzles. As you advance through the game you can get more involved in the social/political aspects (as well as perfect your puzzle skills) and try to achieve higher rank and status in a crew or flag. I suppose if you're completely incapable of social interaction you might not get far beyond the basic game, but that's not the same as others more adept at it being "granted monopolies."

As far as the Game Design forum, I have to wonder if you heard this second-hand. There is a pretty free flow of ideas and debate from people in all levels of the game, and the developers openly discuss and interact with anybody who has a good, original idea or insight, both in the forums and actually in-game. I remember standing on the docks on one of my first days playing the game, and carrying on a conversation with one of the lead designers regarding ideas for new clothing options. For a team of six developers to spend so much time interacting with players of all levels is really amazing.

The only restriction of speech that occurs (thankfully) on the forums is when frequently discussed issues are brought up again and again. Those posts are often locked and moved to the archive ("Davy Jones' Locker"). This is done in an effort to keep the forums clean and readable for newer players. If you think heated debate over game design issues doesn't take place, you have obviously never read those forums.

As far as free economy aspects of the game, just in the last couple of weeks a major update to the game was released that introduced 1) bazarres, where anyone who owns a ship can get involved directly in the economy by selling goods at a stall, and 2) the ability to blockade and claim entire islands. One flag just conquered a major island in the last couple of days (or "liberated" it from the developers) and declared it a free market where they will try to institute a democratic system of government with the involvement of the citizens and shop-owners.

If you haven't played this game, ignore the parent and check it out:
Puzzle Pirates

Devaluing Items and Currency

[Ieshan]

Devaluing Items and Currency is a big problem in many MMOs. Items/Currency are really one of three reasons people stay in the MMO game they're in, the other two are "People Social" and "Skills/Character".

An MMO with a more stable value on high-value items and large sums of money will be more likely to keep players around. It's just no reason to stay if EVERYONE has that Vorpal Sword of Timespendedness that you spent 5 months getting, but can now be had for 5 minutes of play-time because they're manufactured for mega-cheap by Craftsman1, Craftman2, Craftsman3, or had by camping for a few days in some random location with a dozen other people.

Well I guess this proves...

[Qwaniton]

...that MMOs are just like Real Life(TM), only expensive!

Wait, Real Life is too. Never mind :-)

Wants and needs

[MMaestro]

The wealth distribution is not just unequal, it is incredibly unequal... Raph says it is similar to the distribution of wealth in (real-life) economies, which it is, but even the worst robber-baron economies were not this bad.

True but in a player run economy, most things that PLAYERS sell at generally the premium stuff. Whereas the stuff sold by NPCs are the more generic, bland stuff.

For example in FFXI (which I play in now), theres two primary classifications of equipment. Starting/Basic equipment and Premium equipment. The first group is basic, your cheap basicly RAGS equipment and whatever gets tossed your way (its actually not uncommon to see level 20+ players running around in level 9 equipment sometimes).

The second class is where the article at hand seems to have the biggest beef. We all know the basics of a player run economy, players craft certain items that are sold NOWHERE ELSE and sell them to other players. However the problem with this is, it comes down to the age old rule of 'supply and demand.' MOST players DEMAND to have that badass +1 Sword to go along with their +1 Armor, +1 Rings, and +1 Helm. However theres only a FEW number of people who can SUPPLY these items (visit the Auction House in FFXI, any server, and more than 50% of the items listed there won't have that item up for bid). So what happens (after raising the price to cover expenses)? You raise the price some more!

That +1 leather armor which ANYONE can make for 500 gil? That only costs 300 gil to make. But that special, job specific, quest only, high fame only, high level only armor? 300,000+ gil. The legendary fishing pole which LITERALLY takes MONTHS to obtain? (You have to hand in 10,000 of a certain type of fish and they sell for 300 EACH at the Auction House. You do the math.) Well, lets just say the only listings of them being sold (on my server at least) were from the owners, to themselves.. for 3 MILLION GIL. (I've heard of listings going as high 8 million on other servers.)

In real life, robber-barons (most notably) with oil. In MMO games they deal with the 'phat l3wt'. But they never dealt with things such as food, clothes, and shelter.

Re:Wants and needs

[The Evil Couch]

if FFXI had a better crafting system, gear prices would come down considerably. considering that it takes a crystal to make anything and crystals are semi-rare drop items, the only people making things are those that manage to hoard a bunch of crystals and grind through enough to get decent at their craft.

after about a week of experiementing with crafting in FFXI, I gave up on it completely, since it was just too costly to advance as a crafter.

Horizons, on the other hand, has probably the most open crafting system out there. It's extremely easy for anyone to decide to be a crafter and start cranking out tier 1 items. It does get progressively harder(tier 4 armor is very hard to make), however, there's not the same kind of beating your head against the wall, trying to break through the first baby steps of crafting and you only do as much crafting as you want to.

the supply and demand system doesn't really apply with crafting in Horizons. Looking at the consigners, the things that sell for the most, are rare mob drops, used to enhance crafting. player crafted gear is still cheap.

Hell, I just got a full set of steel platemail (tier 3, requires a level 60+ armorer with 100 being current max level) done, complete with all the special techniques that would fit for tips. all I had to do was supply him with the materials for the techniques (the aforementioned pricey rare drops).

All that crafting took about half an hour for us to go through and figure out exactly what to make and what ingrediants were needed. and he did it for tips. and I didn't even KNOW the guy. I just sent a tell to the highest level armorer online!

honestly, I think player-run economies are more influenced by supply (how much of a pain in the ass it is to make things) than demand.

Re:Wants and needs

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm... I disagree entirely with the FFXI-related content of this post. To call crystals a "semi-rare" drop item is, to be blunt, completely wrong.

For those who haven't played the game, the crystal works as follows. Players can ask NPC guards in their home cities (or their embassies in other cities) to cast a spell called Signet on them. This is free of charge and any player can do it. The effect of the spell lasts for a few hours and it causes enemies killed by the player to drop crystals (there are also other effects, but these aren't significant by now.) So long as a player is under the effect of Signet, any enemy they kill that is strong enough to grant them experience points when killed (ie. Not more than about 5 or 6 levels lower than the player) has a chance (roughly 50/50) to drop a crystal, with an elemental property determined by the type of enemy killed (eg. wasps drop air crystals, worms drop earth crystals). In a party, if more than one player has Signet, you may well get more than 1 crystal per kill. In other words, these are extremely common items indeed.

In terms of cost, a stack of 12 of the cheapest crystals (usually Earth and Water) will sell for about 400 gil in the auction houses in the start-cities, while the more expensive ones (such as fire), will sell for 1800 a stack of 12. 400 gil is a pitance in game terms. There are many obstacles to a successful crafting career, but I'm not aware that crystals are really one of them. The biggest problem is that people try to get started in it before they know the game mechanics well and before they have the funds to cover the startup costs.

Re:Wants and needs

[The Evil Couch]

they must have upped the drop rate since I quit, because it was more like a 10-20% chance about 6 months ago. glad to hear they made crafting less of a pain.

Re:Wants and needs

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want player run mafia games mught I suggest Sims Online ;)

Re:Wants and needs

[a hollow voice]

Just FYI, this is probably the specific change that fixed the crystal drop problem:

If you quit 6 months ago or so, that was right after the NA release, and nobody was getting crystals. Crystals don't drop in regions controlled by beastmen. Since all the noobs were running out when they got the game and getting killed left and right, beastmen controlled all areas near towns. I had the game for 3 weeks before I saw a single crystal (on La Theine Plateau, for those who play the game - Ronfaure was always under beastmen control).

Probably about the time you left, they changed the rules so people under level 4 or 5 (I forget) don't affect the control of a region when they die, and now crystals are common drops in the noob zones at low levels.

Comparisons to real life fearsomely accurate

[mactari]

Koster responds that while "the truly obscene amount of money is in the hands of a few," the situation is not as bad as it sounds. And that, he says, is because there are tens of thousands of what he terms "try me out" Galaxies characters lying dormant that skew the distribution numbers.

"They are dirt-poor," Koster says, "and they really distort the statistics."

This is the part that gets me about all the /.ers running around with Atlas Shrugged images and quotes on their websites. In an pure market economy where value is placed on everything, there are people whose lives the market decides aren't worth supporting. In a 100% open market economy, survivial of the fittest is right back in play, and people die.

Though you might argue it's also very easy for us to ignore the dying caused by our own present system, it's a factor I haven't seen one economist mention in plain speak in their studies, anecdotal and more rigorous. The fantasy equivalent of death (a stream of unrenewed accounts, among other things) is being ignored.

I played Ultima Online for quite some time, and I have to imagine the routine of, "Hack tree, build bow, repeat *100, sell bows, buy adventuring gear, get player-killed [by another player], rinse, repeat," didn't appeal to everyone.* These people left the game -- their account were, for all practical purposes, killed. These players gave up the will to live in this fantasy world. And the money they earned during their brief lives stayed right where the market placed it -- with the powerful.

Anyhow, not to belabor the point, but I wonder if those "dirt poor" characters "lying dormant" don't represent the people a true, ideological market economy would leave in our gutters even moreso than our governed market does today.

(* -- Yes, I realize UO changed the rules to eliminate pkilling quite a bit, but the old days, phew!)

Re:Comparisons to real life fearsomely accurate

[JavaLord]

No they don't. They are extra characters that people don't play. I play Star Wars Galaxies and have about 6 characters. Two of my characters have money, the other ones only have the 250 credits you start with. This does distort the statistics quite a bit and I imagine there are a bunch of other people who do the same thing.

There are, most SWG power players have a few characters of different classes which they can use to "buff" (enhance) their main character. It's nice to have a second character on the same server who is a doctor that you can log in to treat your main character (if you have 2 computers). Also, you can have a merchant that makes the money for your brawler, who just tips him whatever he needs. The merchant could appear dirt poor, because he's constantly tipping the brawler (main character).

They could measure the economy more accurately if they had 1 character per account.

A MMORPG with no economy:

[Abraxis]

I understand why most online RPGs have items and money, and therefore economies...
But I have to say that I'm really enjoying the comic book goodness of City of Heroes-- The inventory is limited to a dozen or so slots where you can store power-ups (One-time use powerups called "Inspirations", and longer term but still not permanent powerups that enhance your powers called "Enhancements").
The only currency to speak of is "Influence"-- which can only be gained by defeatomg bad guys, and which can be used to obtain Inspirations and Enhancements to a degree...
But the focus of the game is pretty much to get your your bad (err, "Good" I should say) super-hero self together with some super hero buddies, form a super-hero team, and go beat some evil-doer butt.
Extremely satisfying, and delightfully free (in my opinion) of feeling like you're "level grinding". Plus, designing your very own super-hero outfit is disturbingly satisfying.

...to bring it back to the discussion about virtual economies, the choice of the developers in this particular game to exclude such things really, for me at least, makes the game more enjoyable, and just seems to work with the comic book theme.

its not that bad

[theMerovingian]

Here is some data about the real world.

It probably sucks to start in SWG as a crafter, but I have been doing combat professions for about 5 weeks and have a decent amount of money. Most weapons on my server are less than 25k, and I can earn that much in one mission on dantooine.

The tricks:
1) get buffed by a master doctor
2) get a set of good composite armor
3) buy vasarian brandy and spice to boost your mind
4) get a decent gun
5) learn novice medic, and work your way up ONLY the third skill tree (buy stim packs off the bazaar)
6) group with people more powerful than you are to run missions
7) read the trade forums for your server, so you can understand the economy better and know who the best weapon and armorsmiths are

This will take about 120k credits (on my server), but once you get there you're in pretty good shape.

Alot of experienced players will pay you upwards of 1k to train you in skills (they need apprenticeship points to master their professions).

My favorite starting combo is scout/marksman. You have to kill stuff to get marksman xp, and you have to 'harvest resources' from dead things to get scout xp. The two are pretty complimentary. Get a bundle of about 600 good quality hide (overall quality better than 500), and sell it on the bazaar for 6k.

If you do those two things (and don't waste money on a speeder bike and clothes and stuff), you can get your composite armor and weapon in just a week or two.

Try to master the scout and marksman professions, then you can be a bounty hunter. (I'm almost there!)

SWG improved my real life economy.

[JavaLord]

The piece references an economic analysis by Raph Koster regarding Star Wars Galaxies, in which he mentions the game "...uses what is called a faucet-drain economy.

And the faucet drains right into e-bay . I played SWG for the first month, and quit after I realized it was an annoying timesink and that Jedi were a sick marketing ploy. I had some money to play around with last month, so I bought myself a Jedi on ebay for $600. The Jedi was mislisted, so I got it pretty cheap. I played for a week, realized it was still boring (You have killed a generic monster, you gain 100 Jedi XP! Only 190000 more till you can get your next box/level!) so I relisted it on ebay. And I got $2000 for it. $1400 isn't a bad profit for a weeks work/play. Thanks for improving my real life economy Ralph. Maybe I'll see you again after pub 10 when being a Jedi is fun, or when the vehicle expansion comes out this fall.