The Daily Grind: Does game currency matter?

I love manipulating the market for money. Unfortunately, its rare to find a game where money has any real value. Darkfall and EVE are really the only two I can think of.

In-game currency facilitates a number of gameplay styles, and serves as the primary "level-up" progress indicator for those who prefer the auction or crafting gameplay styles.
Also very importantly, in-game currency is a progress indicator for the player, not the character, and it is the primary enabler of twinking.
Lastly, it's a way of gating content other than by level or power.

In game currency is as important as the game enables it to be. Currency is used in the real world to lower transaction costs so that were not all bartering cows for chickens and chickens for cloths.

If the game restricts desirible transactions, bind of pickup etc, then game currency becomes less valuable.

Currency done right brings an in game economy into balance and further progresses the story and gameplay value
But soon as the Currency is the Highest common denominator in reaching that next level getting the next piece of gear or getting this or that
Here come the Bots & Gold Farmers

"Even stranger is the rise of alternative currencies in MMOs for decent gear that are gained through specific tasks instead of just picking it up off any old mob."

Isn't this because of players complaining about doing the same dungeon 20 times and not getting any loot?

When was this mythical age when vendors were other than "a joke"?

Yes, Anarchy Online had vendors that sold desirable gear, but wasn't that the exception among MMOs? One of my first important discoveries in Everquest, way back in 1999, was that the extremely expensive armor and weapons sold by NPC vendors were not, in fact, objects of desire for other players that I couldn't yet afford but useless junk that no-one wanted or bought.

Players lusted after dropped Bronze armor and made groups to get it. Coin from mobs and from selling what mobs dropped was indeed important, but mainly to buy gear dropped by other mobs that the lucky players who had killed them were selling in the East Commons tunnel, or to commissuion a full set of banded armor from some player-crafter.

And has this really changed? As I write this I am tabbed out from EQ2X where I've spent the last two hours farming goblns in Droga for coin and drops to sell so that I can buy some Incarnadine armor from another player. It all seems much the same to me.

Speaking of in game currency, One of my tweeters found this thread in EvE online.
The person has been playing for 3 months. and found a courier contract worth 64 Billion ISK(EvE's currency). When the collateral was only set at 4 billion. Talk about being set in a game heh

http://bit.ly/cyDLYh

I think I missed the days when currency was important. :)

Currency was *always* a joke in Asheron's Call 1. Vendors sold little of consequence (and some of that could be crafted), quest items were rare, and drop loot was Diablo style. You could get the best items in the game off random basepop mobs.

By 2000, people were already using tradeable quest items to run a barter economy, because the official coin was worthless. There was literally nothing to spend it on.

Money is far more important in Turbine's latest (LotRO). It pays for death repairs, house rental, fast travel abilities and horse routes, some crafting ingredients, and buying mounts.

Of the games I play regularly right now, City of Heroes has a fairly robust and interesting economy, with a variety of currencies, tokens, and token vendors in play that make for a complicated interplay. The market interface, while slow, is robust. All servers feed a common market. The one artificial limitation on market transfers, that villain markets were separate from hero markets, was abolished in the last issue. The interface allows buyer bid competition as well as seller price competition. The system is fully anonymous; no market participant is identified on either bids or sales. Finally, the system is fed with goods by the absence of character binding for most desirable game loot.

These features make the CoH market a fairly interesting minigame. If the system has a flaw, it is in the lack of money sinks. Not enough currency is absorbed by game systems. The value of the most basic currency ("inf", for influence / infamy / information, depending on which of the three sides you're on) has tended to succumb to fairly severe inflation. After the invention system was added, the origin enhancements that are the only in game peg for the value of the currency are now the most basic and least desirable kind. And, the invention system was planted on top of a system that had run for years without any inf sinks for levelled and completed characters.

This inflation tends to be daunting to new players. You have to play the market minigame to buy anything desirable there. It would be a truly daunting proposition to try to buy anything worthwhile by fighting mobs for currency drops.

Age of Conan has a far less interesting economy. The market is not anonymous, and does not feature buy orders: the only competition is price competition among sellers. The game does feature large money sinks for mounts, and certain types of crafting; but once you're done with that, you don't have a great deal to spend currency on. Because of character binding, the truly desirable gear in the game is not on the market anyways; most crafted items, with the exception of a single sword crafted in a complicated quest, are inferior to loot dropped from bosses or earned through token collection.

This is why I don't see how Gold Farming companies continue to thrive where in today's current crop of MMO's make their currency in game have little value.

I actually prefer it when currency is meaningless because it means no gold-farming bots - you never see inf-farming bots in City of Heroes!

Also enough people have money problems in the real world that it's nice to play an MMO and be able to leave all that behind. Besides, it's not like Aragorn, Luke Skywalker or Superman had money problems (admittedly they didn't go around looting Uruk-hai, Storm Troopers and Intergang members either) - having to worry about money just doesn't seem very hero-like.

In-game economies are rarely balanced properly anyway - over time they suffer horrendous mudflation (i.e. not enough cash-sinks taking looted money out of the game) - long-time players get very rich, so desirable auction house items get sold and bought at high prices other players simply cannot meet.

I understand EVE Online is fairly balanced in terms of inflation, so maybe every MMO Dev Team should hire an economist like CCP does if they intend to create an in-game economy that will actually function properly with a currency that will hold its value over time and not become a complete joke.

When WoW first started I rarely gathered gold, as I could barter items for other more useful stuff. Now the economy on many servers just seems to dip and dive with each patch and the expansions don't help matters. The expansion just voids any vaule, save nostalgia, and yet you still have to use the previous items to get your now useless crafting skills up. Jewelcrafting, Inscribtion, and Enchanting so far are the only useful profession and I keep a hardy sum of gold to tip those people for the time they put into those professions.

EVE probably has the most realistic economy that I've seen as there is little to no influx of isk in the game. Missions and 'Ratting' are about the only way to inject money into the economy. To combat this CCP sell orders of trade goods that people can buy and ferry to other regions to potentially make a profit on. Furthermore, if you have a large stash of isk you can contract industrialist to build you a fleet of ship, harvest resources for you starbases, and/or mercanaries to harass/destroy your enemies.

Just look to WAR to see how to make currency worthless in a game. I'm not talking about tokens and such. General currency I.E. gold/silver. I'd rather have a real economy without the stupid BoP items everywhere and deal with gold spammers. WAR never really seemed like a real MMO because partially because the economy was so fake. The only thing you really could use gold for was to buy skills and dye. Sure you could buy items on the AH, but the best gear is all BoP or purchased with tokens.

mmo economy = EVE online

it's pretty much the only mmo where not only does in game currency (ISK) matter the most when it comes to wealth, but where the game economy is proper.

For everyone who has a free hour, check the economy lecture at eve fanfest 2009 (on youtube). You will clearly see how much thought and care is constantly put into a system so it will be as real as possible.and the results are amazing, to say the least, from supply and demand in peace time and war, to clear changes before and after an expansion and even the influence of the underground market (isk sellers, bots, etc.). And the guy talking is quite funny, at least for an economist.

And let's face it, almost every single MMO out there should try and do as good of a job. It might not be interesting for most people, but that doesn't matter if you want to make a good game, not a popular one. Even though no one in the foreseeable future will even come close to what CCP has achieved, the better the economy/trading is, the better the game is. It's just one of those things that make a game good under the hood.

Loot drops allow those new players and those who would rather not play the "stock market" simulation to gain items.

Of course, even the "Stock Market" players tend to like loot drops because they equal free money.

Some players like to play stock markets and others like to just focus on adventuring and heck, there are many that do a bit of both to lesser/greater degrees!

Generally, in games nowadays, loot drops put more players on an equal footing than gold. Market economy nowadays tends to rise too fast because of those who want to feel like J.P.Morgan Moneybags, banker-extrodanairre and that puts off many average/new players that gaze longingly at the +10 sword for 100,000 gold, which is worth only 10,000 gold through in-game NPC retail shops and they only have about 7,000 gold in their pockets.

I quite like the idea that currency should only form one part of an economy for lore reasons. Take WoW for example: You can buy a handful of rare and powerful artifacts for some cash that any old merchant could make, but the truly powerful relics of legend and lore can't be bought with money. They have to be earned through heroic deeds. Now, admittedly it's been 'monetized' in a way for expediency, but at least the old rep-based epics (now utterly obsolete) held true to this kind of ideal.