False Economies

[Dark Vengeance]

In real life, you're stuck with the starting parameters you were born with. But you can always just quit playing a game that's not fun and either play a competing game or go watch TV.

Not to mention that IRL, there is a bit of fear and moral objection to simply "quitting to go do something else". Basically you boil down to the "opt out" defense.....but this is always a risk.

What's the alternative? Make a game that is fun for everyone at all times.

Now why didn't we think of that before?

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

[Mordechai]

What's the alternative? Make a game that is fun for everyone at all times.

Obviously that's not possible, which I presume is your point.

However, what can be done is twofold:

First, identify the target market for the game and what they find fun. If you're building a game to appeal to PvPers, you will want to include a wide variety of combat options, areas to attack and defend, etc. If you're building it for social/political gamers, you want to have a flexible guild structure, a player government, and maybe even a working economy. If you're going for the PvE players, they will want interesting mobs, unique items, etc. More important is not requiring things that your identified target group hates. Getting that wrong would lead to something like putting a complicated crafting system into a PvP game and requiring players to spend endless hours making their own weapons and armor: most crafters would hate it because they wouldn't be able to sell stuff, and most PvPers would hate it because they don't like crafting. So you'd lose both markets. This tends to come about when the designer has an ironclad idea of how he thinks the players should play, and when he finds out that the people he expected to be forming armies are having tea parties instead, he ignores the fact that they're paying just as much per month to have their tea parties and tries to force them to fight no matter what, because that's what his vision of the game is all about.

The other major aspect of this is to accept that every game isn't going to be fun for everyone all the time, so therefore you have to be careful to make sure that the positive payoff is worth the negatives. Not-fun things should be minimized as much as possible. Remember, people are paying for fun; that's your product, not pixels or documentation or ones and zeroes. If a game isn't fun for most players most of the time, it's broken. No matter how perfect a simulation of something it is, it's broken. With that in mind, intentionally tedious elements and deliberate time sinks should be minimized. Requiring someone to wait a certain length of time to gain an advanced rank is no more arbitrary than requiring them, as in one game I once played, to say "wood" literally tens of thousands of times, and it's much less boring. They aren't paying by the minute; toss out conventions that date back to the time when they were. Fun stuff should occur frequently, in small doses if necessary, without long, tedious waits for more of it. Rewards should be in clear view (not necessarily the nature of the reward, but the fact that there is one out there) and progress should be in some way visible. This stuff all sounds obvious, but there are a hell of a lot of designers who don't do it, and instead focus on "realism" to the detriment of having some fun.

Look at gambling. That's a fundamentally un-fun activity: giving your wealth away, because the odds always favor the house. Yet the casinos make it so appealing that people line up for the privilege of throwing money away. Bottle that and you've got it made.

[Venkman]

While it's good points there, it's not saying anything the devs don't already know: demographics and expectations.

We're not really arguing intent as much as we're debating process and the results from them. Details man, details! :)

[HRose]

I so do not agree. It's the public that should chase your game because it opens new perspectives and not the game that should chase an already established public.

[Venkman]

Business is both causal and reactive. Demographics work. Billions of dollars proves it. It's not the only option, but it's the one many like because it's less risky than taking real chances.

[Sky]

That's why we are getting Boy Bands and not Beethoven.

[Roac]

Look at gambling. That's a fundamentally un-fun activity: giving your wealth away, because the odds always favor the house. Yet the casinos make it so appealing that people line up for the privilege of throwing money away. Bottle that and you've got it made.

Everquest did, and that's why it's loved so dearly.  One of the primary motivating factors of gambling is the concept of small, random payouts; studies show that people are far more disposed to receiving that sort of payout instead of a single large payout that occurs less often, or steady payouts.  It's the uncertainty that drives us, because the Human brain is highly geared toward pattern matching.  If the series is too infrequent, then we do not notice enough change in the output to make a pattern (aside from "you lose"), and no payouts to create a positive experience.  If the series is too frequent, then the series is too simple and too obvious; every dollar we spend nets 95c in return, without much fail (or whatever the return is set to).  Achieving that middle road creates the randomness that entices us to try and solve the pattern (which leads to things such as the Gambler's Fallacy, belief in Lady Luck, etc), and generates enough positive payouts to keep us hooked.

Everquest did that with the "Ding".  That's the cheese, and although the xp per mob isn't much of a pattern, the combat itself is.  You have to do what you can to control the uncertain nature of combat in order to try and regulate the xp flow much as you can, in order to get your prize.  UO did something similar with their skill gains - people playing for hours past when they intended, hoping that they'll get just one more .1 gain.  You had people hooked on something as pointless as fishing primarilly because of that randomness.  You also had people comming up with all sorts of whacked ideas on how to improve skill gain, although devs said repeatedly that most of them didn't work - and obviously wouldn't even after mechanics were disclosed.  It's a MMOG version of the Gambler's Fallacy, where we try to see a pattern that does not exist.

[nesta]

Look at gambling. That's a fundamentally un-fun activity: giving your wealth away, because the odds always favor the house. Yet the casinos make it so appealing that people line up for the privilege of throwing money away. Bottle that and you've got it made.

Everquest did, and that's why it's loved so dearly.

WoW will be a perfect experiment to see if the gambling analogy and the small infrequent payouts hypothesis are correctly attributable to the success of EQ. For something to be a gamble there has to be a chance of loss - in EQ it was experience points. But in WoW there is no concomitant loss except the minor time and inconvenience of a safe and speedy corpse run - yet the game is still extremely fun and addicting.

Everquest did that with the "Ding".  That's the cheese, and although the xp per mob isn't much of a pattern, the combat itself is.  You have to do what you can to control the uncertain nature of combat in order to try and regulate the xp flow much as you can, in order to get your prize.  

Your example here isn't gambling, it's something more akin to collecting something, beanie babies perhaps. This is really my point: people aren't drawn to gambling and MMOGs for the same set of reasons. Getting addicted to the cheese isn't quite the same as being addicted to the thrill of gambling. This is an important distinction if you are trying to design a game for the masses to get addicted to.

Also, as an aside, not all gambling is inherently "un-fun" for the reasons described above. Poker is a game that can be beat since you're not playing the house, but other people. Video poker with a progressive jackpot can be profitable if played perfectly (not hard, they even let you use a book as a guide if you want) as well as sports betting, which can produce long term winners if they have sufficient talent as handicappers.

Nesta

[Margalis]

XP in MMORPGs is very predictable. If we are going to talk about random payouts, item drops would be the first place to look.

[Train Wreck]

Regarding gambling in RPGs, the Dragon Warrior series got it down pat.  I used to spend all day long in their virtual casinos (anybody remember Endor?)  It had slot machines, poker, and even let you bet on monster battles.  Credits could be spent on equipment that was available nowhere else, such as the Metal Babble Armor and Shield of Strength.

Using hazardous dungeon raids as analogies to gambling for luxuries is well and good, but why not make use of some real gambling?  Most people would love to gamble more irl, but usually put limits on themselves because of real-world considerations.  In a MMORPG -- where the name of the game is fun and entertainment -- such limitations are not necessary.

I believe pulling off a lavish "strip of Las Vegas" casino haven in a MMORPG can be met with great success.

[HaemishM]

NECRO POSTER!

Actually, I was always saddened by the casino games in Everquest. If you ever go into one or two of the bars in Highhold Pass, it's very obvious that they meant to put some serious gambling mini games with their own interfaces into the taverns in EQ. The NPC's are still there, they even talk about their games, I think, but the games were never implemented for two reasons: 1) They thought gambling would piss off the parents/lawyers/congressmen/lawyers or some such, 2) They didn't have time to implement them before release anyway.

Virtual casinos or at least bettable mini-games in fantasy taverns and sci-fi bars would be incredibly immersive and probably quite popular.

[Train Wreck]

NECRO POSTER!

When I saw a large thread about economics, I dived right in, not noticing that it died well over a month ago.  Dammit!!

I wanted to respond to points made by several different people, but it looks like I arrived to this party a bit late.

[HaemishM]

Hey, don't let the stale corpse stop you. :) If you can re-stimulate discussion, kick the bitch into gear.

[Train Wreck]

Hey, don't let the stale corpse stop you. :) If you can re-stimulate discussion, kick the bitch into gear.

Ok, I'm known more as a thread-killer than a resurrector, but I'll give it a shot. :)  My first response is to Destro, who had a lot of interesting things to say (as did many others).

destro: ... players will prefer the banknotes to hides precisely because they're not easy to gather. However, if the economy is not working properly newbies may find themselves excluded and unable to make money from the other players.  In this case they will revert to a barter system simply because they don't have the option of using the more valuable and versatile currency.

Do you have any specific examples of newbies getting excluded from an economy, and/or not being able to make money off of other players?  The phrase “not working properly” seems to suggest that it was an artificial implementation.

If a tailor finds himself unable to harvest enough resources on his own, he would have no reason not to buy hides off of other players.  Whether a player can benefit by being a contracted hides gatherer is dependent upon on how much money they can expect to make in their normal activity during a certain time frame.

This is known in economics as “Opportunity Cost”, defined as “the sacrificed alternative.”  To use an example in the real world, imagine somebody that owns their own business (I’ll call him Fred).  The more time he devotes to it, the more money he makes in a day (as opposed to a wage-earner that works a set time for a set pay).  To keep it simple, let’s say that he makes about $100 per hour.  One day the business owner notices that his yard is starting to look neglected.  He is perfectly capable of mowing the lawn, trimming bushes, and whatnot, but that would cause him to lose $100 of missed opportunity each hour that he spends doing it.  The obvious solution: hire the neighbor’s kid at $5 an hour to do it for him.

To get a better perspective, compare this to somebody that is off on Saturdays (I’ll call him Bob) and couldn’t work for an income on that day even if he wanted to.  If Bob decides to hire the kid to do it, he will be out $5.  Fred, on the other hand, would be out $95.

This is the method to be used in MMORPGs to determine if you should gather your own resources, or if you are better off hiring somebody else to do it for you.  Many people do this intuitively, and they can even bust out the spreadsheets to really be a tycoon if they wanted to.  But as obvious as it may seem, I know lots of people in MMORPGs that failed to grasp the concept.

“Why should I pay you 10000 gold to spend an hour mining when I can do it myself???  I would only make 15000 after selling the finished goods!  I don't mind crafting when I can make 15k, but for 5k it just isn't worth it.”

Is that really so?  What if you could make 20k per hour from a dungeon raid?  In such a case, mining yourself would cause you to LOSE 5,000gp.  (Lost 20k by giving up a dungeon hunt, but made 15k from the finished goods.)  However, hiring somebody would result in netting 25k (20k from the hunt, -10k for wages, +15k for sold goods.)

This was very prevalent in EQ before common magic regs such as batwings and bonechips were stocked by NPC merchants.  Players would often pay newbies 5 plat for a stack of 20.  Why pay so much for something they could so easily harvest themselves?  If it takes them half an hour to harvest the resources, and they loot an average of 100p per hour during a normal hunt, why the hell should they harvest it themselves?  

Not only does this example taken straight out of MMORPG history show that it is beneficial for high level players to hire newbies, it also destroys the notion that players on the bottom rungs of the economy are doomed to exploitation.

Like Raph pointed out, not being at the very top doesn’t mean that participating in the economy will automatically not be fun.  In this case, even for a total newbie, participating in the very bottom of the economy is -- in every way, shape, and form --  immensely more fun than avoiding it.  Having 5 plat to spend, rather than 2 gp that an NPC would have paid them, means they will have new spells and equipment that much faster.

I’d like to see still more layers, large-scale management and trade routes. Also, some way to incorporate the activity of other players still in the lower layers into your business empire. For example, setting up large, expensive workshops which newbies could use to craft items, saving them from having to spend time obtaining certain tools and giving the elder player a cut of whatever they sell their products for.

Many of these things already exist in MMORPGS, having evolved in the community on their own.  In the first month of EQ’s existence, way back when patchwork armor was in high demand because 90% of the population were newbies, I used to hunt bear cubs in Halas to easily obtain large pelts, then carry the finished products to the ogre city.  Since large hides in that region were on full-grown bears, there was a pw shortage there.  The first trip was so lucrative (compared to what I was used to) that I got some friends to carry goods on the next trip.  It was a trade rout in every sense.  Of course it didn’t remain profitable for long, but such things are certainly possible and can be incorporated into game design.

Incorporating newbies into your business empire -- SWG players do that every day by buying resources off the bazaar.  They did the same thing in UO by buying ingots and wood.  If you mean hiring them as contractors, UO was onto something when they finally added work contracts that were randomly given to players when they sold crafted items to NPC merchants -- simply make the orders so large that they will be better off buying the items off of lesser skilled craftsmen (who usually have trouble selling non-commodities to other players) than creating the goods themselves.

The UO contract idea can even be used to facilitate trade routs.  Require goods to be crafted in one area (perhaps by requiring a specific regional resource) and sold in another.

I'll post more later, particularly about gambling and player innovation.

[Dark Vengeance]

To get a better perspective, compare this to somebody that is off on Saturdays (I’ll call him Bob) and couldn’t work for an income on that day even if he wanted to.  If Bob decides to hire the kid to do it, he will be out $5.  Fred, on the other hand, would be out $95.

Just to nitpick...if Bob hires the kid, he is out $5, but he can do it himself basically for free. If Fred hires the kid, he is out $5...but if he does it himself he is out $100. This basically means Fred has a $95 incentive to pay the kid.

Your comments on opportunity cost, and how it pertains to the way many powergamers typically play are correct. Basically, it's an effort to min/max on time/profit. But, playing in the most efficient way doesn't mean you'll have fun....if anything, quite possibly the opposite.

Bring the noise.
Cheers.............

[Train Wreck]

Just to nitpick...if Bob hires the kid, he is out $5, but he can do it himself basically for free. If Fred hires the kid, he is out $5...but if he does it himself he is out $100. This basically means Fred has a $95 incentive to pay the kid.

What you call the "incentive" is a synonym for O.C.  It's a tangible numerical value that you can compare to see which is better, at least when measuring money.

Your comments on opportunity cost, and how it pertains to the way many powergamers typically play are correct. Basically, it's an effort to min/max on time/profit. But, playing in the most efficient way doesn't mean you'll have fun....if anything, quite possibly the opposite.

It's crafter's version of the powergamer when taken to extremes, but I mostly use it as a means of weighing options and making virtual business decisions.  It's also a good argument to use against players that believe they are getting hosed or exploited when they really aren't.  

And I agree 100% that anybody whose goal is to maximum their income all the time will probably get bored/burned out quickly.  That's why I purposely used an example in which the "best" option was also probably the most enjoyable option: hunting in a dungeon instead of gathering resources.

[Train Wreck]

HRose: This is the whole point. Economies are unnecessary if the game itself doesn't offer a very strict specialization in the possible activities.

Economies will intrinsically exist wherever items are traded between players.  It’s as natural as a law of nature.  Even Diablo II has an economy, and I doubt Blizzard spent any amount of time deciding how it would function.

In a game like WoW, DAoC or EQ the economy is simply a burden and every attempt at adjusting it will destroy a bit more the fun in the game.

It’s been my observation in the few MMORPGs I played that a badly planned economy was a bigger burden than one that sought to be realistic.  Perhaps the devs’ interventions to try to fix the flawed system were even worse than the original problems, but that does nothing to prove that realistic economies are burdens to the players; it proves that planning an economy poorly and trying to fix it later is the biggest burden.

The more the economy works the more the game will bleed. In other games (like Eve), the economy simply works because you have 80% of the game painfully boring. So that trading acquires a meaning. And this demonstrate how much a real economy defines an horrible game with faked depth.

It sounds like you’re saying that the more realistic an economy is, the more boring the game will be.  Just because this is true in Eve (which I’ve never played), doesn’t make it true for everything.

Complaints about SWG -- such as having to wait around for entertainers and doctors in between hunts -- are valid.  But I believe they are the result of forcing player interaction in various relationships that are not really related to the economy.

[chinslim]

There's no such thing as a broken MMO economy - only a dead video game.  As long as there's a flow of "goods" and "services" of some definable value, no matter how twisted it may get, the game's economy is working.  The only thing broken is the modeling of the real world.

We don't expect combat to model the real world(i.e. permadeath), so why should the economy?  

The economy(and the game) stops when that flow of goods and services stop.  Let the game developers encourage free market capitalism or moderate the economy programmatically(npc's that buy and sell loot), all that matters is stuff moves to allow people to play.

[personman]

Agreed.  UO has to be the poster child for why "open-ended" (I'm trying to be nice!) economies have no real effect on the fun factor.