Slashdot Mirror
Economics of Online Gaming
PGillingwater writes "The Walrus has a nice article up about the economics of on-line gaming communities. Starting with the original 2001 paper which shows that Everquest has a GNP greater than India, Bulgaria and China, and going on to the billionaires of Ultima Online and the Mafia takeover of The Sims.
"He began calculating frantically. He gathered data on 616 auctions, observing how much each item sold for in U.S. dollars. When he averaged the results, he was stunned to discover that the EverQuest platinum piece was worth about one cent U.S. -- higher than the Japanese yen or the Italian lira. With that information, he could figure out how fast the EverQuest economy was growing. Since players were killing monsters or skinning bunnies every day, they were, in effect, creating wealth. Crunching more numbers, Castronova found that the average player was generating 319 platinum pieces each hour he or she was in the game -- the equivalent of $3.42 (U.S.) per hour. "That's higher than the minimum wage in most countries," he marvelled.""
This is a dupe.. a year old or so.
Besides I never did any 300+ plat an hour, more like 5.
Not yet, although I'm wondering how long it'll be until players start outsourcing their in-game quests to India. :-)
:-)
Actually, it's already happening.
You can outsource the levelling of characters (and specificy to what level, or what skills) and even the hours it should be levelled between (e.g. when you are at work & not playing it yourself). I've seen this advertised for City Of Heroes (which ironically, isn't that hard to level in), I would guess it's around for games like EQ and SWG too.
These games are so one dimensional (I am a recovering Evercrack addict - so I know what I speak of). Working on an assembly line would be more stimulating than building tradeskills in the game; and the damage model for combat is a points based system - so if you get the math right, you can consistently win (or conversely, get it wrong and lose).
That being said, there was an addictive quality - particularly when playing with the same group of people you know in the real world (many of my coworkers played at the time). I don't know if it was the color scheme, or some subliminal message they strobed in the background between frames; whatever it was, it made it very hard to stop.
Sadly, most online games are built for the least common denominator - for folks who want instant action, and little thought put into the gameplay, with few exceptions.
I have recovered from my addiction - and I warn everyone who considers buying the game: don't do it!
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
You joke, but yes.
Several companies hire people in low-wage countries like mexico and have them produce EQ platnium. This in-game money is sold for real money on auction sites.
Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/05/econ omics_of_ff.html#more provides more analysis of the economics of Final Fantasy.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
... Wow. I mean, how do I explain everquest without comparing it to toher games which you probably also have not heard of.
Ok, let's see.
Everquest is a third person RPG - with emphasis on the game instead of the roleplaying.
It is mainly based around a reasonably complex combat system and grouping together to kill things and take their stuff tm. It's like diablo.
Except it's larger - much larger. Many more areas and everyone is online in the same world (well, in a fdew seperate worlds) all at once.
It's also a lot slower - there is a big difference between the monsters you can fight in your first week of playing and after your first year of playing.
Does that help?
There's been tragedy with EverCrackHeads forgetting about real life.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The piece you reference was cotemporaneous with the original paper, which was indeed published over two years ago. This latest piece is an update published in the June 2004 edition of The Walrus, which has just been slashdotted up the wazoo. Anyone grab a mirror?
Anyway, if you are able to read the article, you'll find a lot more in-depth analysis of the original paper, plus comparisons with other gaming systems and economic activity -- including extortion, prostitution, outsourcing (the Black Snow gang in Mexico) and even the disproportionate dominance of male gender characters.
Paul Gillingwater
MBA, CISSP, CISM
Just in case you're even remotely serious: It takes a few months of serious gaming before you get to the point where you can earn several hundred platinum in an hour. I should know, I was hooked on the game for like 5 months. So before you get to earning it will cost you the monthly fee and a lot of time. If you'd play anyway is another story, but I can imagine a few more lucrative businesses than playing EverCrack
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
Its all about leveling your character(s). It is really one giant level treadmill (think of a hamster in a cage running furiously on his little cylinder).
As you kill more creatures (or build your tradeskills) you gain level points. As you increase in level you can more easily kill the lower level creatures; however, you also do not get as much benefit from these creatures, and thus must move on to an area with higher level creatures to allow you to level faster again.
This process continues indefinitely. There are certain levels that are called 'Hell Levels' - mainly due to the fact that your particular character is at a point where there are no monsters that fit the level of your character, or the skills available to your character make it difficult to make headway - so leveling slows to a crawl.
Tradeskills follows a similar pattern, at each level you can build more interesting and/or useful items - that you then sell to other players, which finances further development of your tradeskills.
I found this process to be very boring after awhile. So I migrated to a PVP server (player versus player) - where the players could fight each other, in addition to the monsters. This made it much more interesting. I tried all of the different PVP servers (one allowed free for all, and the other three were team servers of various makeups). This was my downfall...I was glued to the game after that.
Finally, the fact that my peers were able to level faster (I have a family after all, and couldn't spend the same hours my single friends did in game), stripped me of my leveling party, and it became a boring slog...at which point I was able to extract myself, and go cold turkey...
Been clean and EverCrack free for 3 years now (knock on wood). Of course I am now involved in World War II Online - but I can stop playing at any time and step away - that is the key. A game is just that - A GAME. It shouldn't take your concentration for every waking moment - which EverQuest requires, particularly at higher levels (if you camp out deep in a dungeon, for example, that required your whole group to fight into - when you come back and login again, you will have to fight your way out alone, which might be impossible depending on the monsters in the dungeon - so you can't just stop playing until you are at a relatively 'safe' location).
Hope that helps you get an idea about what the game is about.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Actually, it's an excellent example of truly free market economies.
Look at all the hours people are willing to put in to gain advantage. No "government" there stealing it's mafia-like cut. No "voting" to take some of your wealth and give it to people who don't wanna work as hard, or to some doofus who can't figure out the interface controls. No "minimum wage law" that tells the monsters to drop a lot more cash OR ELSE!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I didn't play M:tG back in the days of the Power Nine, but I estimate it's still the case that you can make more by selling the cards individually - most sets have one or two rares which sell for four times the cost of a booster, and the last couple have uncommons which sell for twice the cost of a booster. Sell the commons in chunks of 100 cards on E-bay, and you've probably got a viable business model. (I haven't done a complete analysis, but AIUI there are a few businesses running on a model similar to this).
That was one of the funniest things I've read for a long time... thank you.
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
>>There are certain levels that are called 'Hell Levels' - mainly due to the fact that your particular character is at a point where there are no monsters that fit the level of your character, or the skills available to your character make it difficult to make headway - so leveling slows to a crawl.
Hell levels were removed years ago. The level transitions are all fairly smooth now. And there is plenty of content for anyone at any level these days, with 200+ zones to play in.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
There are programs like MacroQuest for botting in EverCrack. Some of the scripts are for making tradeskill items, those are primarily used when there is some tradeskill recipe that makes a profit (which happened last year, depending on cpu speed, up to around 50kpp per hour; and to throw people off the scent, they started rumors about a broken banker in zones like najena or befallen). There are other experience making scripts. There are even some folks who find fun in griefing botters. The folks who spend time writing the scripts and code for MQ could probably make more money writing their own games. But oh noooooooos, we be evercrackheads here.
how does this make people have less of a chance????????????
aww people are auctioning their crap, I'M NOT GOING TO GET ANYWHERE!! that's the biggest pile of horse shit i've ever heard (next to Linus is not the maker of Linux), yet a bunch of people somehow believe this
i've played DAoC, EQ, AO, SB, lineage 2, and countless others mmorpgs...i've never had a problem getting equipment or leveling in game by myself.. and have never resorted to online auction houses to by stuff
in lineage 2 you need millions of adena to get the great items...check ebay and you can see billions of it for sale from botters...did this stop me from getting decent weapons/armor? no...did it impede my progress? no
not to mention a majority of the people that do play don't sell their crap for real $$
people are lazy...even when it comes to mmorpgs, and they all gotta bitch about something, especially when real money is involved
play the damn game and quit your bitchin! if it's too "hard" and time consuming then why the hell are you playing??
Actually, there's nothing in European Law that forces you to work less than 35 hours a week or whatever. The law only states that your employers cannot stipulate that you do, as part of your contract. Meaning that if your boss asks you to work overtime, you have the choice between working the overtime and giving him the finger.
Now, I guess the standard Libertarian response to this would be "That's exactly the choice you have in a free market: either work the overtime or take a different job with a better boss".
Which is fine in theory, but when there aren't that many jobs about, and the bosses know it, and they all take advantage of the fact, what kind of a choice are you, the average worker, going to have?
While I sympathise with the Libertarian position as far as I don't think the gub'mint should be poking its nose in where it's not necessary, a few laws protecting the individual from the rapacious greed of their employers doesn't seem like such a bad thing.
evil math within Nature's Cubic Creation!
If they were a real currency, not necessarily the US dollar, then they would be convertible and these measurements and comparisions would make sense.
This site is still new, but it's basically a virtual currency "commodities" market which makes the comparision measurable...
http://www.gamingopenmarket.com
Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF