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by Shivetya
5211 days ago
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MMO designers far too often create the need and people like the guy from the story naturally arise to fill it. This is usually done by having items to be purchased from NPCs for absurd values. Examples are pets, mounts, movement speed, costumes, and the like. Designers reason that not every one will need or what them but fail to take into account human emotions like greed, envy, and fear. These drive competitiveness for many a player and item sellers provide a simple and effective means to remedy it. The costs of these items or services in game helps to establish the value of what is traded among players, either directly or through an auction house. |
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They design these things into the game [i] on purpose [/i]
The economics of video games, in terms of GDP is simple - people constantly produce thing from a never ending well of digital resource nodes.
As a result of crafting + drop + trash sales, total gold in the servers always goes up, causing unending price inflation.
Its a pretty cool example of what would happen in a world with plenty.
Game designers create gold sinks to give people - especially the stupidly rich - something to dump their gold into.
I've been on the wow servers soon after vanilla launched - some gamers (and some human beings in general) are just wired to enjoy amassing wealth and gaming the economy.
These sinks were created to ensure that those players end up doing minimal damage to the average player.