[...] December 24, 2007 by mrrx Raph decides to lay it out for all of us about how and why we have RMT issues in games, and what to do about them, or even not to do. Also gives us a link to a presentation he attended in 2006 by a seriously smart economist who layed out a great economic primer on MMO’s – look at this. [...]

[...] within both the real world and the virtual that if you disallow one currency for free exchanges, players create a new one. It happened in muds when mudflation hit, it happened on Meridian 59, it happened on UO, and it [...]

[...] MMO dev Good Article by Bartle One of the big cores should be your economy. Check out these: From Raph again Sam Lewis’ ideas on economy Sam Lewis again Thread here on economy Mu’s thoughts on [...]

[...] Der Text ist natürlich von Dir, aber Du benutzt ja nun unbestritten gewisse Quellen in diesem Text, die Du freundlichweise übersetzt hast. Nicht wirklich. Eher persönliche Erfahrung und viele viele Diskussionen über das Thema. Wenn es dich allerdings näher interessiert, kann ich dir gerne einige Quellen nennen, die sich sehr viel umfassender damit beschäftigen. Allerdings bin ich selber nicht immer der gleichen Meinung der Autoren (und teilweise widersprechen sie sich auch gegenseitig): Sam Lewis: AGC: MMO economies http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/09/07/agc-mmo-economies/ Raph Koster hat freundlicherweise den Vortrag von Sam Lewis von der Austin Games Conference zusammengefasst, der eine schöne Kurzabhandlung zu dem Thema her gibt. Dr. Richard Bartle: Design of Virtual Worlds ISBN 0131018167 Die Bibel des MMORPG Design. Schon recht alt, aber keineswegs veraltet. Ein Must Read für jeden, der sich wirklich ernsthaft für die Hintergründe von MMORPGs interessiert. Bart Stewart: Advanced Economic Systems in Online Games http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nov…omicStages.rtf Ziemlich theoretisch. Stewart vergleicht reale und virtuelle Ökonomien und stellt (teilweise umstrittene) Thesen und Vorschläge auf. Edward Castronova: Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c…ract_id=294828 Edward Castronova: On Virtual Economies http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c…ract_id=338500 Edward Castronova: The Price of ‘Man’ and ‘Woman’: A Hedonic Pricing Model of Avatar Attributes in a Synthethic World http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.c…ract_id=415043 Daniel Terdiman: Fun in Following the Money http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,21…w=wn_tophead_2 Recht allgemein aus der Sicht eines Redakteurs, dafür aber leichter zu verdauen Bei GrepLaw gibt es auch noch ein Interview mit Castronova zur MMO Ökonomie. http://grep.law.harvard.edu/articles…8/206239.shtml Von Constanze Steinkuehler gab es meines Wissens nach auch einmal eine wissenschaftliche Arbeit zu dem Thema, die finde ich aber bei Google nicht mehr. Ansonsten sind Terra Nova oder Raph Koster’s Webseite immer ein guter Anlaufpunkt. Meines erachtens waren das Interessanteste zu dem Thema immer die Diskussionen auf der Mud-Dev Mailingliste. Da hier von Raph Koster bis Brad McQuaid praktisch alle namhaften MMO (und MUD) Entwickler ihre Thesen diskutierten. Allerdings gibt es diese Liste meines Wissens nach schon lange nicht mehr , da bin ich aber nicht mehr so auf dem Laufenden, vielleicht sind die Archive noch irgendwo im Web zu finden. Zitat: [...]

[...] Well, I love the start of this topic, since this is going to be a portion of the game that we absolutely have to do correctly.Instead of posting just yet, I went researching. My preliminary results are these:http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/09/07/agc-mmo-economies/http://www.flyingscythemonkey.com/new_page_1.htmhttp://www.flyingscythemonkey.com/Money_Su…White_Paper.htmhttp://www.devmaster.net/articles/mmorpg-p…ortem/part2.php (read parts 1-5 for a great source of info about MMO dev)http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/to…topic_id=394622I figure, unless we get an economy pro in here, we all need to do a bit of research. That should keep you busy for a few hours. ——————– JerkyProject Wish Art Team Lead [...]

[...] Raph’s Website » AGC: MMO economies [...]

But you see, the fact that you have to build in constraints shows that you’re not really “maximizing allocation of limited resources� when you create an MMO economy.

One resource, money, is infinite in the real world because most money is digital. We can print as much money as we want; however, our economic systems impose constraints for economic reasons. We can mimic a real economy in a virtual world because the mechanics are the same. We’re just using a window to another environment populated by real people with the same unlimited wants.

[...] Virtual Economies [...]

For some reason, Sam, with his “MBA in Economics” insisted on spelling it “fait”.

He also totally misunderstands the “Invisible Hand” of Adam Smith — but then he has this in common with many, many economists, mostly because they rely on bad distillations of Adam Smith rather than reading the original.

Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand” that supposedly directs the free market, if you bother actually reading Adam Smith, is the hand of God, which Smith felt directed and controlled human affairs so we’d all be ok in the long run. God wouldn’t allow market fluctuations that would let us all starve, for example.

Clearly that won’t work in an MMO, unless your Invisible Hand is the hand of the game designer… just like he then suggests, apparently without irony, with fluctuating NPC prices. I agree that simplistic formulas for doing this would be easily exploitable, however.

But apart from these basic snafus, there are some excellent points. Personally, I especially appreciated how clearly his talk lays bare the old “gold farmers cause inflation” lunacy.

[...] Courtesy of Sam, here are his slides for his presentation. You can read them alongside the liveblog I did. [...]