Re:Hammercoin – A Bitcoin-fueled game
by imtringued on Friday November 25, 2016 @03:30AM
(#13035096)
It's economy is going to fail like almost every MMORPG economy because they only cover the supply side but not the demand side. Since every item is a commodity which is mostly obtained incidentially there are a lot of sellers that sell low quantities of that item. They don't care a lot about losing a bit of money they want liquidity. there is usually a limit on simultaneous sell orders which means you cant sell anything at all if you don't prioritise liquidity or have high quantities. The easiest way to quickly sell your items is to just price your item lower than everyone else. When everyone is doing this the value of the commodity is quickly plummeting far below the price most buyers are willing to pay. Heck I've seen items that cost less than the money NPCs would give to you (premium users can access the market place anywhere outside a city and they dont want to go to the NPC) This gives rise to traders that buy these cheap commodities and then sell them for the market clearing price. The simple solution would be to just reflect the demand side as well. Allow players to issue buy orders like "I want x of item y. I pay z for each." on the central marketplace. Those who need liquidity get it and those who want fair prices to sell their items at get them too.
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It sounds like you are speaking about the deficiencies of some particular game, this certainly isn't true of all MMOs. GW2 and Eve both support buy orders, for instance. Items that drive the economy are also not always obtained incidentally, often they must be crafted by someone with high enough skill using rare components.
To be fair, EVE economy is kind of an exception in the world of MMOs... Since it's actually the central part of the game.
Given that the In-Game currency is purchasable with fiat currency, wouldn't it be reasonable to surmise that hyperinflation doesn't occur in the same way due to the fiat anchor for IG currency values?
Re:Hammercoin – A Bitcoin-fueled game
by keypusher on Saturday November 26, 2016 @01:00AM
(#13041970)
Only if it goes both ways. The ability to purchase in-game currency with fiat currency actually makes inflation worse by introducing even more money to the in-game economy. Most games currently do not allow in-game currency to be "legally" converted back to real world money directly. Their solution is the ability to convert large amount of in-game currency to meaningful metagame items. In Eve, you can use in-game currency to pay for your subscription. In GW2, you can use in-game currency to pay for "gems", which are used for microtransactions such as server transfers, rare skins, additional bank storage, etc. These gold sinks serve as an important valve to control inflation of the economy by permanently removing that currency from the game.