A Virtual Weimar - Hyperinflation in Diablo 3

[flix]

A Virtual Weimar: Hyperinflation in a Video Game World
http://mises.org/daily/6435/A-Virtual-Weimar-Hyperinflation-in-a-Video-Game-World

But in the last few months, various outposts in that world — Silver City and New Tristram, to name two — have borne more in common with real world places like Harare, Zimbabwe in 2007 or Berlin in 1923 than with Dante’s Inferno. A culmination of a series of unanticipated circumstances — and, finally, a most unfortunate programming bug — has over the last few weeks produced a new and unforeseen dimension of hellishness within Diablo 3: hyperinflation.

Bitcoin to the rescue?  Blizzard should take note.

With over 15 million players in just this game... it's a perfect fit for BTC and a way to break into the mainstream.

[1715382398]

1715382398

[1715382398]

1715382398

[niothor]

You're really bored , right?

[Lohoris]

Well, the article was pretty cool.

Of course, expecting Blizzard, which is one of the most fossilised gaming companies, to embrace such a change, would be foolish.

[Impaler]

This is called 'Mudflation' (Mud being short for Multi User Dungeon).  It stems from two simple factors, first they are using COMMODITY MONEY, aka "gold" or items that are created by expenditure of time/character-labor in the game world rather then Fiat.  Fiat in this context means not created by the players character actions but issued from some central authority in the game environment, obviously all the 'gold' in Wow was created in a sense by Blizzard but in game it's all being done by players who effectively control the production. 

Second the commodity never rots or disappears (despite all the 'drains' they create) nor dose it's ever get harder to make so it's accumulation is inevitable.  BTC production declines over time so its deflationary, similarly a limited-time promotional item in WoW that's created for only a limited time will begin deflating as soon as it's creation stops.  The rule of supply and demand apply in every environment and the rules of the game determine if something inflates or deflates.

[bb999]

I would also say that Blizzard has an interest in maintaining control over their virtual money supply (even if they royally mismanage it) and to the extent they can keep their customers coming back they have no reason to pursue BTC adoption.  Now if they start losing market share or customers defect en masse anything is possible.  An interesting article either way.

[pornluver]

People act as if this is a bad thing.

It teach people lesson.

Put your gold in dollar. Wait till price drop, sell again.

[alan2here]

This is very interesting, although stories about WoW tend often to make stuff up, I don't know how good Diablo journalism is.

There are some interesting effects in WoW, for example both gains and sinks are nearly always optional but desirable, weighted to encorege lots of both over player to player trading, auction house fees is a horrible way this also occurs.

Another is that a trading stratergy can be to find a cheap but widely useful comodity that you could afford all of from the auction. Wool Cloth was a good example, although a bit on the expensive side as there was so much of it, I think something cheap a lot of players need but only a few times could be good. Then buy all of it as soon as any became available, returning it to the auction house at a high price. This always seemed to be risky and take a lot of time, starting capital and concentration, the price could never rise long turm because due to the conceqences of the first paragraph and how everything common can be farmed given enough time, the fundamentals are usually strong in deciding prices.

[Lohoris]

Auction House cuts aren't a good sink because they take only a small percentage of gold, and most items are traded only once, then consumed.

[Lethn]

This is a common problem in lots of online gaming that uses currency, particularly if they can transfer into the real world, look at EVE Online and Second Life, EVE Online is a great example because of all the stupid glitches and bad coding it has because at least with Second Life you have to be fairly creative to make real money but in EVE you have entire corporations botting in 0.0 space and I wouldn't be surprised if they were making a tidy fortune selling all they make.

If you're going to make an online game currency it has to have proper artificial limits placed on it and clear rules like with Bitcoin, that said, while I can understand the appeal of this sort of thing, I don't think currencies belong in an online game precisely because it's a game.

[Gabi]

It is funny how Blizzard keep advertising their games with all these "omg it's like real world" things 

Wow, a "virtual weimar" 

[Lohoris]

I don't think currencies belong in an online game precisely because it's a game.

Well, this is wrong.

The rest of your post made sense, mind, but this last sentence runed it :/

As long as you carefully design it and don't both it, it's good.
Actually, if you want to allow trading, then you need to create a currency, to facilitate that.
Of course if your aim is not to make your life easy for your users, and you prefer to make odd statistical experiments, then it might make sense not to have a currency (see TF2, which is a very interesting experiment).

[apetersson]

i think the time is right to launch a game with its ingame economy tied to BTC.

just think how addictive diablo could be with monsters dropping satoshis and bosses mBtc. pay your subscription in BTC and earn it back while having fun.

[Lohoris]

i think the time is right to launch a game with its ingame economy tied to BTC.

just think how addictive diablo could be with monsters dropping satoshis and bosses mBtc. pay your subscription in BTC and earn it back while having fun.

Yes but it's totally not trivial to design it correctly.

The reason is that traditionally they use unbound currencies, creating and destroying them at will.
If you want to "back" game currencies with BTC, you would have to either have a limited amount of them, or take the risk of buying more funds.
Also, you'd need a strong business model.

Another approach would be to only "enable" players to use BTC as an in-game currency, without having it necessarily drop from monsters.
This would be much easier to do, but you would still have two huge problems:
1) you would be keeping player's money, with all the security problems this brings
2) some states might consider your game akin to gambling or worse, requiring you strange regulations

[niothor]

Guys , it's a f*** rpg game....

Give it a rest , BTC might be a good thing but now to run everything according to BTC is madness.

[apetersson]

Yes but it's totally not trivial to design it correctly.

this is correct and also the reason we have not seen it yet.
but i think it could totally be doable.

i have some ideas about setting up a subscription service and a economic framework that you can put into any game theme. too many ideas and not enough time to implement it.

[bitcryptonit]

i think the time is right to launch a game with its ingame economy tied to BTC.

just think how addictive diablo could be with monsters dropping satoshis and bosses mBtc. pay your subscription in BTC and earn it back while having fun.

this is like inviting bots to play. if you will not give players income, then they will quit because your promise of regain invested money wont be fulfilled. but when you give them too much then expenses will be higher than profit and people would spawn bots everywhere. Even worse situation is if you would allow simply invest directly they bitcoins in game because you would have again uncontrolled inflation of money, because bitcoin supply is bigger than game needs.

[Lethn]

Guys , it's a f*** rpg game....

Give it a rest , BTC might be a good thing but now to run everything according to BTC is madness.

I agree, many of the problems that are in the games industry right now come from people taking it way too fucking seriously, the realism obsession is a great example

[apetersson]

this is like inviting bots to play...

agreed this could be a problem if you implement it directly. the trick is to incentivize socially desired behavior/interaction and not dumb farming. people will still farm but it is "mandatory fun day" for everyone.

[bitcryptonit]

Guys , it's a f*** rpg game....

Give it a rest , BTC might be a good thing but now to run everything according to BTC is madness.

I agree, many of the problems that are in the games industry right now come from people taking it way too fucking seriously, the realism obsession is a great example

sorry but where do you have realistic games? bind on equip nonsense in mmo maybe?

[Lethn]

That's what gets me as well, you have these realism junkies in the games industry but when they show off what they're made it's crap frankly, like with Arma 2 I was like ">_< yeah that's totally realistic, a player with clunky and slow movement and A.I buddies that smack into houses constantly when they drive". I didn't really say there were realistic games but there is a problem in the games industry with people who are desperate to achieve it. Also, a lot of 'realistic' features that games developers make claims about are ones I call utter bullshit on, particularly when games above all else are supposed to be about fun.