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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.""
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.
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.
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.
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.