Since the opening topic mentioned Litecoin based games I thought I would give my two cents.
I've been thinking of creating an economy based browser game where the in-game currency being used would be Litecoins (or exchanged for Litecoins). Since Litecoins are very easy generated at the moment and because of the low price it seems like a perfect blend of real-life vs game-life.
The game itself would be a mix of games like 'Transport Tycoon' mixed together with 'Sim City' elements. There would be a whole economical chain where users need to trade with other players to build their empire. For instance you transfer 100LC to the game and use half of this money to buy your first woodcutter factory. You would then need to acquire wood which you can buy (or trade) from an other player that decided to start out with a foresting service. You can use the logs you create to trade and sell on the market to players that want to build housing (or other stuff) using your logs. The idea is that the more work your factory does the better you will perform decreasing costs and/or producing more with the same amount of resources (thus encouraging specialization). There should always be resources on the market so the game itself will offer certain resources for a fixed price to make sure the circle doesn't break. The idea is that you can always withdraw your LC and thus in theory could make money playing the game (although considering the going rate you won't be making much).
The idea itself is very raw at the moment. I have no clue how far to go with the resources. If you want to build factory do you need parts to build it? Do you need workers for your factory? Do you need food to feed the workers? Do the workers need housing? The answers to these questions will greatly determine the scope of the game as you can take this principle pretty far.
There are some possible caveats already.
- Since you can buy in-game resources you are basically turning the game into a pay-to-win system. Pool operators can probably buy loads of factories / resources to get ahead in the game. I haven't decided if this is a real problem though. Real life is just so unfair, those who get born into money (or even born in a western country) often have a leg up in life. Since this game is mirroring real life economics it might not be such a bad idea to have this aspect of the game and not try to fight it.
- For an economic game to work you require a large player base. LC's own userbase is very small already so in order to achieve enough traction you would require quite some marketing to attract enough people to make the game fun.
Before I even venture into thinking more about this I wanted to check to see if there are any things that I did not think off that can easily kill this idea. So please let me know what you think, would this be doable?
Show Posts
