• Join Us |
  • |
  • Sign in with:

A Look at MMO Economies

by Chris Remo, Sep 20, 2005 3:12pm PDT
Related Topics – Sony, MMO

The Escapist has an article up entitled "We The Avatars", and it takes a look at player-run or player-influenced economies in MMORPGs. The article highlights some current and upcoming games whose designers have taken into account the fact that players are very likely to have an impact on the value of currency and items beyond what was actually intended in the game.

The forthcoming Roma Victor will also have no monthly fee, and will allow similar earnings and purchases (reportedly only up to a certain amount each month). From the sound of things, Roma Victor's designers at Red Bedlam are busy making sure you're going to have to buy some game currency if you want to get much out of the game. But Roma Victor's currency, the Sesterces, will have a variable exchange rate against real-world currencies. And while prices of most things in-world will be determined by player-driven supply and demand (not unlike UO and EVE), Red Bedlam, like all game companies, will be free to tweak the economy in an endless number of ways in order to satisfy the gods of gameplay balance.
I remember the Diablo II Battle.net economy becoming warped beyond all recognition as players had a greater and greater impact on it over time, with gold eventually becoming only a secondary currency when it came to dealing with player-to-player transactions. Eventually the designers put a stop to it, and that's what tends to happen in most online games that are highly developer-controlled. However, as more and more companies start acknowledging the relationship between in-game economies and the real world (we've already seen Sony officially acknowledge the real-world sale of in-game property) there will be more games that take advantage of it


Read all the News


Comments

9 Threads | 14 Comments
  • #13
    Refresh Thread
    By: BlackCat9 x
    Reply
    The article fails to mention There, which has the most realistic and successful economy of any game yet, in my opinion. There funcions a lot like Second Life, but with more control. Where in Second Life, you can pretty much create and duplicate any item in the game world that isn't flagged as Do Not Duplicate, leading to a gross boom in junk getting left around and ugly looking content, There has been a bit more restrictive. Players can create designs for clothing, vehicles or objects, but it must go through an approval process by a team of employees who make sure that the things that are approved aren't vulgar, rude, don't cause the game to break, and that they have some level of quality of design. The submission process costs a small amount, and each shirt/vehicle/toy that you make following that also has some cost associated with it, but in doing so, no object in the world is worthless. They all have an inherent material value. Then, when you want to sell your newly designed items, you can either pay for a bundle of them and market them in the auction house, on your website, by purchasing billboards, or by word of mouth, or you can sell them Cafe Press style and have people buy them one at a time with a little mark-up to the designer. In the end, the company, There, makes back a lot of money that they put out in the world so inflation doesn't become a big issue. People who want to make a lot of money designing clothes can become rich and consumers aren't flooded with worthless merchandise and, best of all, the sellers have a number of ways that they can interact to move merchandise.
    Sep 20, 2005 10:39pm PDT