Name: Anonymous 2006-04-01 14:15
Most people in a MMORPG are told to work hard for their income, gradually accumulating enough to get by after spending hours of work each day. Yet it is the richest players who control the economy, who are able to afford luxury goods and keep their prices high enough for only the wealthy, and who can afford to craft goods in bulk below profit just to drive out competition, while they work on high quality items to craft that take a huge investment of startup capital to reach that level of crafting.
Gradual hard work is not the way to make money in these systems. It is more efficient to exploit the consumers as if they were crops ready to be harvested. This includes scamming people of their money, gambling, overcharging for goods in demand, or selling at markup items that are common or available in regular shops, especially if supply lowers or if the seller is conveniently closer to the player.
Then there are those who are fed up with the system, and are willing to use less legal methods- duping (counterfeiting), or buying currency, which could be seen as a form of black market exchange (drug dealing comes to mind).
In the end, the rich get richer by providing something to the masses that took lots of startup capital to begin with, and charges prices to the masses that hinders them from ever gaining enough capital to be competetive in the same business. Meanwhile, consumers lose money through spending, and some quit, become broke, or die off, never to be heard from again.
There are many parallels to a real world economy, except that an MMORPG economy provides endless new money by killing beetles.
Gradual hard work is not the way to make money in these systems. It is more efficient to exploit the consumers as if they were crops ready to be harvested. This includes scamming people of their money, gambling, overcharging for goods in demand, or selling at markup items that are common or available in regular shops, especially if supply lowers or if the seller is conveniently closer to the player.
Then there are those who are fed up with the system, and are willing to use less legal methods- duping (counterfeiting), or buying currency, which could be seen as a form of black market exchange (drug dealing comes to mind).
In the end, the rich get richer by providing something to the masses that took lots of startup capital to begin with, and charges prices to the masses that hinders them from ever gaining enough capital to be competetive in the same business. Meanwhile, consumers lose money through spending, and some quit, become broke, or die off, never to be heard from again.
There are many parallels to a real world economy, except that an MMORPG economy provides endless new money by killing beetles.