The Fairness of Virtual Currency

CNet.com is running an article looking into the fairness of the virtual currency exchange. From the article: "...according to two of the leading experts in the economies of these virtual worlds, getting a fair price in the exchange of real dollars for fantasy coins can be a crapshoot. Turns out it's hard to find reliable data about the dollar/virtual currency exchange rates in a pretend world where there's no Alan Greenspan setting interest rates and scolding everyone about irrational exuberance."

Comments

Re:Artificial?

[interiot]

It's easier to argue that the falling exchange rates are more due to the in-game economy (eg. the economies have actual inflation) than it is due to increased competition among MMORPG currency sellers. In fact, that paper almost seems to be arguing that MMORPG economies, as they currently stand, are almost unavaoidably always inflationary.

(city of heros seems to buck the trend... is there anything fundamentally very different about its economy?)

Re:Artificial?

[dfenstrate]

I'd say that the initial storage limitation is one of the least fun parts of the beginning game in WoW

After you get your first 60, this isn't such a problem because you can always send gold and bags to your low level alts. But yeah, a pain at the start.

Other than that, I've actually noticed deflation on my server- arcane crystals and arcanite bars are down 9g or so from their peak, runecloth is down from 2g a stack, and some other crafting items have taken price hits as well. Gold sellers prices are also down a few bucks. I'm not entirely sure how that relates, if at all.

I think it has to do with the game/server reaching 'maturity'. Most of the first adopters who rushed to the scene have maxed out a character or two, and have them equipped with all the craftable items they're going to get. They also have an alt or so that can provide all of the players characters with whatever they need, so they don't visit the AH as much, driving up prices. So know you just have a trickle of characters passing through various levels and buying up some stuff, but at a slower rate than the original mass leveling that came with the server opening.

Anyway, I hope that all makes sense, cause i've been up far too late. And it's just my humble observations, I have no data to back any of it up.

Re:Artificial?

[HyperTiger]

There really is nothing to spend on in COH in the later half of the game that drains your money (or influence). In the first half, costs for buying upgrades for your powers (damage enhancements, accuracy enhancements, duration enhancements, etc) are a significant part of the game so much that most people don't enhance until level 33 or so (out of 50 levels) for their first characters. After that though, all money issues are over as people have much more than they know what to do with. Costume changes are the biggest drain at that point, but that is decorative and doesn't add to the numeric or power aspect of the game. Money transactions such as costume contests only transfer the money from higher levels to lower levels, so does not leave the game economy. At the high levels COH has an economy problem, but there is not much of a demand for cash, and so money plays a small part. I would say that COH suffers from the inflation as much as any other game. The problem with a balanced economy is that of the haves and the have nots. In a balanced economy you will get some people that make a lot and some that will always struggle and not be able to pay for things (repair, rent, upgrades, transportation) and thus you get people that will complain and quit. In order to keep the weakest players able to play, you end up with increasing cash in the economy either through lack of money drains, or higher incomes.