Questions tagged [economy]

Questions about in-game economy.

48 questions
193
votes
35 answers

How do you prevent inflation in a virtual economy?

With your typical MMORPG, players can usually farm the world for raw materials essentially forever. Monsters/mineral veins/etc are usually on some sort of respawn timer, so other than time there really isn't a good way to limit the amount of new…
Tetrad
  • 30,154
  • 12
  • 97
  • 144
117
votes
28 answers

How to deal with "Scrooge McDucks" in my fixed-currency-amount game?

I'm currently working on a very small scale MMO game planned to support approximately hundred players per server, but we're having trouble with our economical model. For various reasons we have decided to go with a fixed-currency-amount system;…
Applekini
  • 8,553
  • 8
  • 40
  • 64
96
votes
12 answers

What data-type should I use for in-game currency?

In a simple business simulation game (built in Java + Slick2D), should a player's current amount of money be stored as a float or an int , or something else? In my use-case, most transactions will use cents ($0.50, $1.20, etc.), and simple interest…
Lucas Tulio
  • 1,317
  • 1
  • 11
  • 17
37
votes
7 answers

What makes MMOs with real-money economies legal?

I beieve most MMOs with an in-game currency tied to a real-world currency (e.g. Guild Wars 2 's gems or Eve 's PLEX) do not allow in-game items to be traded back into real cash for a bunch of reasons—partly because they may be subject to changes to…
Ross Taylor-Turner
  • 1,391
  • 1
  • 13
  • 27
26
votes
4 answers

Can inflation exist in a fixed price Mmorpg world?

Assumptions: Crafting materials are infinite. Limit is player boredom. Players can only trade through the auction house. All prices are fixed. Players cannot decide arbitrary prices. Goods in auction house stay stored for infinite duration and…
user2186597
  • 931
  • 1
  • 8
  • 11
21
votes
3 answers

Guidance for building a proper in game economy

I'm seriously thinking of building a space opera game which would share some of Machiavelli The Prince aspects regarding commerce: each player will be able to extract/build/buy/sell/donate a wide range of products (from ore to spaceships roughly).…
space borg
  • 435
  • 1
  • 3
  • 8
19
votes
2 answers

How do you decide a base threshold for leveling up in a game?

This was a question asked during an interview, and I was absolutely stumped. Let's say that there's a levelling system in the game. If you defeat an enemy, you get "n" XP. By the time you reach "nTotal" of Lvl 1, you progress to Lvl 2. But how do…
minimalDiannao
  • 193
  • 1
  • 7
17
votes
2 answers

Books for designing virtual economy

I am wondering if there are any books on designing virtual economies. I have encountered some books which have a few lines or paragraphs written about virtual economies, but they mainly highlight how difficult it is to design and control a virtual…
Noob Game Developer
  • 678
  • 9
  • 23
16
votes
6 answers

Why should I forbid real-money trading in my MMO?

I am soon going to go public with an MMO game, and I am currently in the progress of writing the terms of use I expect players to follow (no swearing, no spamming, no cheating... you get the point). My game allows players to trade rare items with…
Philipp
  • 123,682
  • 29
  • 265
  • 346
16
votes
4 answers

AI for auction bids in the Monopoly game

I'm currently creating a Monopoly game simulator in C++. I am currently struggling with implementing the auction mechanic for AI players. How could I implement the bots' participation in auctions? How could I define when the bot should buy and item,…
Leszek
  • 163
  • 1
  • 5
12
votes
4 answers

Dual Currency vs. One Currency in social games economics and monetization

Not a programming question but game development related. I am creating an iPhone online game which I wish to be free-to-play where in-app purchase is used for monetization. The important point is to make sure that this does not break the game-play,…
Jamornh
  • 796
  • 4
  • 15
11
votes
4 answers

What's the economical design difference for a global auction house or seperate auction traders?

I'm playing The Elder Scrolls: Tamriel Unlimited and there we have local auction houses. (Thy don't have auctions, but I keep the term to not get confused in the following text.) I can see the advantage that guilds (who own these AHs) can set up…
Trollwut
  • 211
  • 1
  • 6
10
votes
4 answers

Interstellar Economic Simulation

I'm designing a game reminiscent of Elite or Escape Velocity, those old space trading games, where you play a traveling merchant in space. I'd like to have the game's economy at least resemble a real one. What resources are available that I could…
Schilcote
  • 296
  • 3
  • 9
10
votes
1 answer

balancing a building game

I'm working on a building game (the usual, build house X to produce resource A, which then lets you build house Y...) and I am now in the stage of balancing the various resource needs and productions. Since I'm by far not the first person doing…
Tom
  • 1,323
  • 9
  • 18
9
votes
4 answers

Designing a trade / market system

I'm working on an idea for a trading game. Players would be traders buying in place A and selling in place B, hopefully for a profit. I want prices to be dynamic, based on demand and supply. So if place A produces less food than it consumes, prices…
Tom
  • 1,323
  • 9
  • 18
1
2 3 4