Game monetary systems.

[Callan S.]

I was thinking about another thread talking about money and resources and not just getting them out of thin air. It's something I've been thinking about as well.

But in thinking of a way of implementing it, it makes me think just how much RL money is just really arbitrary and meaningless.

Okay, so game wise I'm thinking you can store up to 5 units of crops. If you go over, then some NPC's will take each unit and pay you $0.50. You or others can buy a food unit for $1.

So far, so good. But what if we were to make it player to player, instead of having NPCs?

Well, then every player would be able to mint coins.

Sure, with code you could restrict that. But if it were reality nothing would restrict someone just making up as many coins as they like. And having code restrict it is kinda like having an NPC still anyway, who goes 'uh, uh, uh!' anyway.

I'm wondering about approaches to that?

[Nihilant]

Yes that's the area I'm really interested in, too

[ATTENTION: real-life political economy in next few paragraphs! Scroll down for actual game-related discussion xD]

First, what is a currency/money? It should be a tool/means for easier exchanges. The point of money is to allow exchange of goods and services on the 'abstract' level, so that you pass the barrier of the need to meet only the people having the exact good/service you need. In other words, it's envisioned as a step forward from natural exchange, where you need boots and have crops so you find a shoemaker and give him certain amount of your crops for the new boots. In natural exchange the 'bad' side is that the one that has what you need might not be interested in what you have to offer in exchange. So the money gets in as 'intermediate' good: you exchange goods/services for money, so that you can find any shoemaker and then exchange your money from his services. The underlying logic is that all goods/services can be seen as the certain multiplication of some base value. Political economy has spent centuries arguing what that base value is. But I'm the follower of an idea that says that the base value is labour that one 'inserted' into the product. It usually comes down to work hours spent in producing something.

So, for example, if a shoe costs $12 and bread costs $1 it means that in making a shoe one has spent 12 times more hours than the baker on making one piece of bread. That is what the money relates to (at least in one of the most accepted approaches in political economy).

However, that also introduces one economical paradox which causes many problems: the surplus of values.

If the shoemaker and baker spent 12 hours each, we'll have 1 shoe and 12 breads. It's total of 24 hours of work. However, when we add money to the community where baker and shoemaker live, we actually add some more hours of work! In other words: if we just add $24 to their community, then we have 48 work hours circulating in that community (12 hours of shoemaker's work, 12 hours of baker's work and 24 hours of money's value). That kind of 'surplus value' came out of thin air.

That's where the 'standard' is introduced (on logical level, not so historical though) - we have for example a 'gold standard' which means that there is some 'stack' of gold that is not in the circulation but serves as 'guarantee' that the value of money really rests on something (in this case, on the work-value of the gold itself).

Now, one of the most known problems is inflation. It happens when the money 'loses' it's value: when there is more money banknotes (and supposed work-value in them!) in the circulation than what's their actual 'foundation' in the standard (gold, for example, or foreign currency in the National Bank for some nations nowadays etc.) Happens for various reasons. For example, I come from a country that had one of the worst inflation (during the 90s) - the National Bank was printing banknotes so fast (for their own reasons, not of the essence now) that the merchants kept rising the prices of their goods/services so much, that if you get paid in the morning, in the evening your cash was worth less!

[BACK TO THE POINTS RELATING TO GAME DESIGNING!]

So that's how we also get inflation in games: when money comes out of thin air - without 'foundation' in some other value. Inflation ingame is not only a thing that sounds bad, but it also means you might need to edit your database tables to accept longer INTs or make your textfields ingame bigger so that they can accept more characters when displaying the money (on player's hands, sell or buy prices etc.). Also, if your newbie starts with some set amount of money, it also means each new player starts with lower buying power! I'd also add my own disgust with having the items ingame that actually are not needed, and it means in this case: if there is no item cheaper than 100,000 and no possibility to make any real change ingame with 100,000 money, then you might as well remove 5 zeroes right away from any money display ingame and you won't see a thing changed for worse.

So, I think there are only 2 ways to solve these problems:

1. Make that nothing, or the least you can allow, comes into the game without having something else spent. That can be achieved in 3 ways:

1.1. Have no set currency ingame. That's my current approach: I only have 3 types of resources (Energetics, Solids, Fluids) that are gained in various ways but all including at least spending some Action Points (or Turns, or Moves or Actions whatever you call it in your game); you then exchange these resources for other things ingame. Of course, ActionPoints regenerate during the day, so they actually do come out of nothing. Thus it's not a perfect solution. The good side of it is that if player doesn't actually play, he gains nothing (doesn't accumulate ActionPoints over daily maximum) and it still means he has to 'do' something ingame (spend APs) to allow for regeneration of them. Still, players will value their items over how much resources (or: APs) they've spent in making them, so there we have some 'foundation' of exchange values.

1.2. Set some maximum amounts of items that player can have (like your mentioned crops). It will turn player's attention to spending APs (turns, moves, whatever) into direction that will probably generate conflict and thus the need to 'use' some of the maxed items and in return build them again (more spending). If you have a 'cap' on the available maximum of all possible items, you must make sure players will go into spending them. If there's no real reason to spend items once you have the maximum amount, then they'll lose interest. Good side to this system is that all players know what the maximum is and can make strategical decisions, and also helps new players to understand the power relations (they can surely know who is the 'strongest' or 'richest' because they have exact way to check it). I do have some items with maximum allowed amounts set.

1.3. Make the game so dynamic that players are driven to spend the resources instead of accumulating them. Instead of setting maximum amount of items one can have, we can give certain 'bonuses' or some 'extra' items to players that actually risk and spend stuff. The 'extra' that comes into game out of nothing is still gained due to doing something that promotes gameplay and changes in power relations (which I see as very important in any game) and is thus rewarding the ones who push forward and give reasons to others to play more actively.

2. Set the engine to control the amount of money/credits ingame. This can be achieved in 2 ways:

2.1. Set total amount of money at the start of the game. Each player is given a portion of it. To gain more you have to have someone else spending some, or you can steal it for example. If planet is buying player-made items and sells it's own items, the prices must be tied to actual economical activity on the planet: player A buys item A1 for $20 from the planet and now planet has $20 more so it can rise the amount of item A2 on requests or pay more for that item without rising the amount it requests; when a player B sells an item B1 to planet's request, planet has less cash at hand so it can rise the price of the item B2 that it's selling or put more of that item on sale. (The amounts of items on sale/buy should be kept in balance too, but that's another issue that can be treated similarly to this one). The issue of new players getting set amount of money means that some money has to be lost somewhere in order to keep the value of it at the same level. It might be done by lowering/rising (depending on scenario) the prices on sell/buy orders on planets, for example. Good side of this is that it also promotes conflict (can have more only if you make someone else lose some!). However, even if I wouldn't say so, someone can claim that such game economy is either too complicated or too non-profitable for a player. Id' say it would be reasoning of a player that was playing too much of those games that suffer from inflation, or that he just likes hoarding stuff instead of risking them. Point is that the profit is actual in this system: not only that you gained something, but it also means your enemy might have lost a bit.

2.2. Make total amount of money in the game dependable on some other factor. It might be dependable on used APs (turns, moves...) or you might put taxes/fees on come activities like mining, trading etc. and thus keep removing some money from the game in the same time. Also, trade action might not actually 'take' cash from player, but can rise the total (hidden) amount of available money ingame. At that point it's like an addition to previous system (2.1.).

Looks like there's no simple solution to 'money problem' but I think it's worth the hassle to try to find a way to remove inflation from the game even before it goes live.

[Callan S.]

My theory is based not on labour, but on desperation. If you are dying of thirst in the desert and someone offers to sell you a bottle of water for $100 dollars (and you have that much), that sale is pretty much going to happen.

It's why in real life you keep getting up at an ugly time in the morning, spend your precious life commuting and either having done jobs you would not do (if, say, you were a millionaire you would not do these things). The system keeps you in unpleasant circumstances, so as to generate the resource which is desperation. A desperation to get out of this cycle - but this particular system would collapse if desperation ran out. So no one gets out - or just a handfull out of hundreds of millions get out (much like a lottery system has hundreds of millions of losers for every single, lone winner), so as to make everyone else think 'you can totally make it to the top!'. But it doesn't work that way. Can't work that way.

On inflation, it'd be interesting to ensure there is a home crafting system and a second market based purely on trade. This way players who cannot afford the inflated prices simply abandon the system and trade directly. Which will undermine the monetary system and deflate it.

It's interesting to note how this really isn't an option in real life - the base currency of food - well, a crop takes about four months to mature. More than enough time to starve to death. Further, given the way we live (which is derived by warlords in medieval england driving peasants off their ancestral land and into condensed living - or so I've read), who has the land to grow their own food? The very bargaining chip against unpleasant working conditions is utterly removed.

Anyway, the trick for the game designer is - playing a game is an act of whimsy. It is very hard to have someone playing a game, yet actually desperate for something in the game. So enacting a genuine desperation system is hard to do.

1.2. Set some maximum amounts of items that player can have (like your mentioned crops). It will turn player's attention to spending APs (turns, moves, whatever) into direction that will probably generate conflict and thus the need to 'use' some of the maxed items and in return build them again (more spending).

Or rather than set limit, more the threat of violence. If your storage can simply be taken by force by others, then you suddenly have a series of issues, in which money can rear it's ugly head as the spine of the 'solution'. Guards, fortification - money is the easiest way towards all these. That or some warlord sweeps up the farmer as part of his property and the warlord uses money (which is easy for him as he gains it from exploiting the farmer).

2.1. Set total amount of money at the start of the game. Each player is given a portion of it.

Yeah, I've thought of that. A certain amount per player, which increases the overall amount the world has.

The issue of new players getting set amount of money means that some money has to be lost somewhere in order to keep the value of it at the same level.

I don't think so, because if the player is playing, they are desparate to get things. So you have a continuing source of desperation - if the starting amount simply isn't adequate, then you are fine. The issue I think is more players who cease playing - for each inactive account, you'd want some way of slowly destroying the amount of money a player starts with. So if players start with $10 and you have ten players, the total is $100. Say you get 100 players, then it's $1000 - then say 90 go inactive. So the system slowly destroys, in some way (though NPC vendors/tax) $900, to reduce the amount down to $100 again.


That's all I can think of for the time being! Thanks for your reply!

[Callan S.]

For my own game I've got this set up in mind: -

Players have a yard to grow food unit, being able to have up to 5 food units in it.

Any more gets auto sold to and put into an NPC store specific to each player, gaining the player 20 cents.

If another player buys a food unit from the players NPC store, they pay $1 for the unit and the player gets another 20 cents.

Note: I have 20 rather than 25 because I also have a risk system in place, where the pay is actually split, half into the players wallet, half into a risk value, which can be lost during battles (and conversely, won from beating other players as well). And 25 just would split badly/not neatly.

This ensures you can't get more money than food units available - you can't have useless money. Though of couse, in reality that worthless money thing can happen - so my systems kind of unrealistic, even though it works better than real life systems in that regard!

Anyway, food units are gained by player activity - clicks made during play are stored. every ten clicks during battles is enough for one food unit. But the number of them gained per day is based on how many clicks stored. Beneath a hundred clicks and it will convert just ten clicks into one food unit. Between 100 and 200 clicks and it will convert a random amount between one and two food units, into the yard. And so on.

[Xaos]

I like all the ideas above, and I would love to play a game like that ! I was thinking that also you could have a real "Gold" (or whatever) value and as players mint money, the "currency" becoems less and less valuable, and you need more to match the equivalent of 1 gold, like real life.

[Jackolantern]

I was thinking that also you could have a real "Gold" (or whatever) value and as players mint money, the "currency" becoems less and less valuable, and you need more to match the equivalent of 1 gold, like real life.

That is actually how almost every MMO out today works lol Players actually do "mint money" each time they kill a monster that drops gold, or they turn in a quest. Gold becomes less and less valuable as time goes on, and nowhere is this more evident than on third-party gold selling sites. When WoW first launched, I think 1 gold cost something like $20 of real money. Now I think it goes something like 5,000 gold for $20. Of course buying gold is an easy way to get your account stolen for any game you play, it has always been an interesting meter for me as to the value of gold in-game. Looking at item costs in-game is not a great way to tell since fluctuating content strategies can cause prices to change rapidly, but nearly the same $20 in 2005 buys 5000x more gold today, which is a sure-fire way to see that massive inflation has gone on since then.

[Sharlenwar]

What happens is there is no method to remove the money from the players as time goes on. There need to be significant money sinks placed into the game. Such as when you die it costs you money, when you use the community portal to another area, hiring a boat, maybe hiring a horse from the stable to return it at your destination. Usually in many games, there aren't enough money pits to extract the money from players. So to prevent inflation, you would just need to have a system in place that makes players use up their precious money.

[Callan S.]

You have to watch that as being a solution, because really all it does is delay inflation. If you drain half the money players make, it just means if inflation would have been horrible in 1 year, it'll instead be horrible in 2 years. Money sinks, unless they actually bring the money down to a set number, just delay the problem rather than be a solution to it.

Mind you, RL has this exact sort of problem as well, so you might not want a game economy that works better than a RL equivalent!

[Sharlenwar]

Well, inflation happens in a game why? Because there is a way for players to accumulate money and to hold on to it. So therefore as players obtain items, when they used to cost $1.00, they might later cost $5.00. I remember back in the old EQ2? days when I was a druid and was teleporting players across zones and what not. Initially when I started I could only earn 1PP, as it wasn't very popular. With the use of convincing people and showing them an alternative to travel, I began to charge more per portal as the demand increased.

Anyways, from running a few game servers, economy is always huge. The way I have combat inflation was to regulate how the player earned an income, how long they retained their money, and how they spent their money. I had to always make sure that there were services where the players would need to pay for to extract money. Usually tiny nominal fees here and there which would usually balance out how fast people killed monsters, earned money, and spent it. This mechanism kept the economy relatively normalized, and using NPC store systems also allowed you to control how much money players earned, and traded with each other. As currently in the Minecraft world I run, I am looking at going with a monetary system to be able to buy the blocks that may be more difficult to find, or you wouldn't mind yourself to buy it rather than harvest it. From that, I was even cooking up a way to use real life funding through paypal to be able to get items in the game.

The point I'm trying to make, is there is a balance as there is in anything else. You need to find that healthy balance where players can earn money in the game, and be able to hoard it, but then there is opportunity to spend that money. So if you are smart with your money, then you should be able to accumulate and be able to hit the big ticket deals for those magically enchanted objects that enhance your game experience.

Of course, take this as my opinion and point of view of course. Like salt.