What would happen if an MMO had a fixed money supply?

Let's say that a game starts with X amount of gold that is given to players by the typical means: mobs, quests, npcs, etc. But once X reaches 0, those systems temporarily no longer give out gold rewards. The only way to get them to payout again is by cycling the gold through the game's gold sinks: taxes, fees, etc that would feedback into that initial pool of gold.

What does the game's economy end up looking like with a system like this?
Do you think this is sustainable through close control of the gold sinks?
Would market prices actually be stable? How would player greed influence the economy?
Do players just hoard money? does it become extremely difficult to gain wealth as a new player?
Do materials/items constantly lose value, since the total amount of materials is increasing?

I'm genuinely curious of people's thoughts on this, as I don't know of any game that has/had a system like this.

***EDIT***
Seems like the general consensus is that "players will just hoard money". So let's move beyond that point and assume there is an automatic tax system in place that prevents players from hoarding forever. This system would tax X% of every players total currency amount and put it back into circulation on a regular basis.

Does this solve the hoarding problem? do other gold sinks need to co-exist with this tax system? what other types of consequences does this tax system have?

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Depraved

MrPockets wrote: »

Let's say that a game starts with X amount of gold that is given to players by the typical means: mobs, quests, npcs, etc. But once X reaches 0, those systems temporarily no longer give out gold rewards. The only way to get them to payout again is by cycling the gold through the game's gold sinks: taxes, fees, etc that would feedback into that initial pool of gold.

What does the game's economy end up looking like with a system like this?
Do you think this is sustainable through close control of the gold sinks?
Would market prices actually be stable? How would player greed influence the economy?
Do players just hoard money? does it become extremely difficult to gain wealth as a new player?
Do materials/items constantly lose value, since the total amount of materials is increasing?

I'm genuinely curious of people's thoughts on this, as I don't know of any game that has/had a system like this.

have you played monopoly?

Arya_Yeshe

I absolutely love topics like this!! Thank you so much for creating this thread!

In real life if a country stops printing money a few things will happen, a couple of them are possible inflation decrease and slow economic growth.

Percimes

If no coins are minted anymore and only those in game are in circulation, players will find another currency for as many things as possible (aka when with other players). Trading items directly. Used to see a lot of that in EverQuest on my server: trading this item and this item plus X pp against that other item.

Hard currencies will be reserved for trading with NPCs.

Some drop items would probably become more valuable than their use would suggest if they were easy to trade to NPC merchants for gold.

Better start collecting sea shells folks.

MrPockets

Percimes wrote: »

If no coins are minted anymore and only those in game are in circulation, players will find another currency for as many things as possible (aka when with other players). Trading items directly. Used to see a lot of that in EverQuest on my server: trading this item and this item plus X pp against that other item.

Hard currencies will be reserved for trading with NPCs.

Some drop items would probably become more valuable than their use would suggest if they were easy to trade to NPC merchants for gold.

Better start collecting sea shells folks.

I never thought of this, it is a good point. But would this really be a bad thing? would it drive away players? or would it be a unique selling point that brings in new players?

I know a lot of players want to bring the social aspect back to MMOs, and this helps in that endeavor, right?

Depraved

MrPockets wrote: »

Percimes wrote: »

If no coins are minted anymore and only those in game are in circulation, players will find another currency for as many things as possible (aka when with other players). Trading items directly. Used to see a lot of that in EverQuest on my server: trading this item and this item plus X pp against that other item.

Hard currencies will be reserved for trading with NPCs.

Some drop items would probably become more valuable than their use would suggest if they were easy to trade to NPC merchants for gold.

Better start collecting sea shells folks.

I never thought of this, it is a good point. But would this really be a bad thing? would it drive away players? or would it be a unique selling point that brings in new players?

I know a lot of players want to bring the social aspect back to MMOs, and this helps in that endeavor, right?

how is trading an item for an item more social than trading an item for money?

Azherae

MrPockets wrote: »

Percimes wrote: »

If no coins are minted anymore and only those in game are in circulation, players will find another currency for as many things as possible (aka when with other players). Trading items directly. Used to see a lot of that in EverQuest on my server: trading this item and this item plus X pp against that other item.

Hard currencies will be reserved for trading with NPCs.

Some drop items would probably become more valuable than their use would suggest if they were easy to trade to NPC merchants for gold.

Better start collecting sea shells folks.

I never thought of this, it is a good point. But would this really be a bad thing? would it drive away players? or would it be a unique selling point that brings in new players?

I know a lot of players want to bring the social aspect back to MMOs, and this helps in that endeavor, right?

It works if you tie the upper bound value in some way to known active/registered accounts on the server, such as 'allowing an upper bound of 40,000,000,000,000 if you have 40,000 registered players.

However, since enforcing it changes the options and behaviours related to NPC activity, it's not necessarily a good way to do it in terms of player engagement and fun.

Source: Me, a 'thesis' paper I wrote years ago. I have no other hard evidence so yeah.

Arya_Yeshe

As an EVE Online player, I indulged in unscrupulous trade practices, assuming the persona of a Ferengi merchant adhering to The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition. While I don't mean to boast, my experience has given me a solid understanding of gaming economics.

If gold was limited, I think people would directly trade materials and items directly with each other.

People would also hoard materials and items in general.

People with unique items would be able to ask any price they want and there would be people paying for it in gold.

So, what would really happen is that most of the items woud be devalued and the really important items would become way more expensive.

Ferengi Rules of Acquisition

Rule #1: Once you have their money, you never give it back.
Rule #2: The best deal is the one that brings the most profit.
Rule #3: Never spend more for an acquisition than you have to.
Rule #16: A deal is a deal, until a better one comes along.
Rule #38: Everyone needs something.
Rule #66: Double the price, then sell it half off.
Rule #108: Don't buy what you can't sell.

Arya_Yeshe

Another thing is, if no more gold was created, then the NPCs would become the gold sink that would destroy all gold, the game would break.

So, all gold consumed by the NPCs would have to be returned to the game somehow.

Azherae

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Another thing is, if no more gold was created, then the NPCs would become the gold sink that would destroy all gold, the game would break.

So, all gold consumed by the NPCs would have to be returned to the game somehow.

The concept is that once you sink some, the faucets turn back on.

Theoretically fine.

Percimes

Depraved wrote: »

MrPockets wrote: »

Percimes wrote: »

If no coins are minted anymore and only those in game are in circulation, players will find another currency for as many things as possible (aka when with other players). Trading items directly. Used to see a lot of that in EverQuest on my server: trading this item and this item plus X pp against that other item.

Hard currencies will be reserved for trading with NPCs.

Some drop items would probably become more valuable than their use would suggest if they were easy to trade to NPC merchants for gold.

Better start collecting sea shells folks.

I never thought of this, it is a good point. But would this really be a bad thing? would it drive away players? or would it be a unique selling point that brings in new players?

I know a lot of players want to bring the social aspect back to MMOs, and this helps in that endeavor, right?

how is trading an item for an item more social than trading an item for money?

It must be a in person trade, rather hard to implement in an automated player shop. And both parties can haggle for the exact term.

MrPockets

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

Another thing is, if no more gold was created, then the NPCs would become the gold sink that would destroy all gold, the game would break.

So, all gold consumed by the NPCs would have to be returned to the game somehow.

from OP:

MrPockets wrote: »

The only way to get them to payout again is by cycling the gold through the game's gold sinks: taxes, fees, etc that would feedback into that initial pool of gold.

Arya_Yeshe

What if people who mine gold could mint more coin? Or bring that gold to the node so more coin is minted.

It is quite crazy that there are so many MMOs with people mining gold, but the option of minting more coin was never there.

edit: What if minting was a skill? You would bring your minerals to a player who can mint an he could make coins of many kinds. So, your node could actually have it's own coin, a guild could have it's own coin and so on.

There would be people making money by exchanging coins

Kesthely

MrPockets wrote: »

What does the game's economy end up looking like with a system like this?

People would start using a different currency, eg certain crafting materials.

Noaani

Percimes wrote: »

Depraved wrote: »

MrPockets wrote: »

Percimes wrote: »

If no coins are minted anymore and only those in game are in circulation, players will find another currency for as many things as possible (aka when with other players). Trading items directly. Used to see a lot of that in EverQuest on my server: trading this item and this item plus X pp against that other item.

Hard currencies will be reserved for trading with NPCs.

Some drop items would probably become more valuable than their use would suggest if they were easy to trade to NPC merchants for gold.

Better start collecting sea shells folks.

I never thought of this, it is a good point. But would this really be a bad thing? would it drive away players? or would it be a unique selling point that brings in new players?

I know a lot of players want to bring the social aspect back to MMOs, and this helps in that endeavor, right?

how is trading an item for an item more social than trading an item for money?

It must be a in person trade, rather hard to implement in an automated player shop. And both parties can haggle for the exact term.

While this is good in theory, the most recent game I can think of that had anything similar to this is Path of Exile.

The game sort of had currency, but only sort of, as the "currency" was consumable items.

What tended to happen in that game is about 65% of players just didnt bother trading at all.

It worked well enough for the remaining 35% or so. It was indeed more social for that percent that bothered with it - though an argument could be made that the 35% didn't need any assistance in socializing.

To me, this means that if your purpose for having a currency and trading system is to facilitate the easy and frequent trade between players, anything that removes basic currency from the picture is a negative.

If your reason for having currency and a trading system is different to that, then perhaps that outcome may change.

MrPockets

Noaani wrote: »

While this is good in theory, the most recent game I can think of that had anything similar to this is Path of Exile.

The game sort of had currency, but only sort of, as the "currency" was consumable items.

What tended to happen in that game is about 65% of players just didnt bother trading at all.

It worked well enough for the remaining 35% or so. It was indeed more social for that percent that bothered with it - though an argument could be made that the 35% didn't need any assistance in socializing.

To me, this means that if your purpose for having a currency and trading system is to facilitate the easy and frequent trade between players, anything that removes basic currency from the picture is a negative.

If your reason for having currency and a trading system is different to that, then perhaps that outcome may change.

I think this brings up good questions about player psychology. For sake of argument, let's assume we want to try an avoid players using items as a currency. One option to accomplish that is to just make the main currency infinite, as almost all games do.

But what if another goal we have is to prevent infinite inflation of that currency? I think than then leads to the most common practice of "gold sinks" - remove currency from circulation to curb the infinite influx of money generated by the game itself.

I think the next line of thought is then: How easy is it to manage/design those gold sinks? Does a fixed money supply change this at all? I think the sinks just turn into "gold recycle systems"....and now that I'm thinking through this, if a game had perfect gold sinks, would that be equivalent to a fixed money supply?

Azherae

MrPockets wrote: »

I think the next line of thought is then: How easy is it to manage/design those gold sinks? Does a fixed money supply change this at all? I think the sinks just turn into "gold recycle systems"....and now that I'm thinking through this, if a game had perfect gold sinks, would that be equivalent to a fixed money supply?

Yes. It's difficult but not impossible, because taxes in most games are percentage based, applying counterinflationary pressure if the faucets are weak.

Easier to tweak the faucets than the sinks anyway, for most games.

Arya_Yeshe

MrPockets wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

While this is good in theory, the most recent game I can think of that had anything similar to this is Path of Exile.

The game sort of had currency, but only sort of, as the "currency" was consumable items.

What tended to happen in that game is about 65% of players just didnt bother trading at all.

It worked well enough for the remaining 35% or so. It was indeed more social for that percent that bothered with it - though an argument could be made that the 35% didn't need any assistance in socializing.

To me, this means that if your purpose for having a currency and trading system is to facilitate the easy and frequent trade between players, anything that removes basic currency from the picture is a negative.

If your reason for having currency and a trading system is different to that, then perhaps that outcome may change.

I think this brings up good questions about player psychology. For sake of argument, let's assume we want to try an avoid players using items as a currency. One option to accomplish that is to just make the main currency infinite, as almost all games do.

But what if another goal we have is to prevent infinite inflation of that currency? I think than then leads to the most common practice of "gold sinks" - remove currency from circulation to curb the infinite influx of money generated by the game itself.

I think the next line of thought is then: How easy is it to manage/design those gold sinks? Does a fixed money supply change this at all? I think the sinks just turn into "gold recycle systems"....and now that I'm thinking through this, if a game had perfect gold sinks, would that be equivalent to a fixed money supply?

Problem is that MMOs are games mostly made to appease carebears, this means that they don't want item destruction and loss set to 100%....but they want to farm infinite gold, carebears demand infinite gold faucets and infinite material faucets and demand infinite hoarding and infinite protection.

So, in games where the economy is more realistic you will have 100% item loss by destruction or loot drop, being your gear and player buildings. Those are the real and natural sinks, these sinks are the sinks that can effectively fix economies and balance things out.

If a game had these natural sinks and had real coining, then you could turn off the infinite gold faucets.
People would be able to mine gold and make coins, also would be important that in such a game, all players would have to carry gold in their inventories and the loss rate would have to be 100% too (having gold in the bank would be ok).

That's it!
That's how you can disable infinite gold faucets.

MrPockets

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

If a game had these natural sinks and had real coining, then you could turn off the infinite gold faucets.
People would be able to mine gold and make coins, also would be important that in such a game, all players would have to carry gold in their inventories and the loss rate would have to be 100% too (having gold in the bank would be ok).

That's it!
That's how you can disable infinite gold faucets.

In this example, is the raw gold resource infinite? if it is, then it is no different, it just takes longer, no?

Arya_Yeshe

MrPockets wrote: »

Arya_Yeshe wrote: »

If a game had these natural sinks and had real coining, then you could turn off the infinite gold faucets.
People would be able to mine gold and make coins, also would be important that in such a game, all players would have to carry gold in their inventories and the loss rate would have to be 100% too (having gold in the bank would be ok).

That's it!
That's how you can disable infinite gold faucets.

In this example, is the raw gold resource infinite? if it is, then it is no different, it just takes longer, no?

Even with infinite gold to be mined, it would be fine, if there's item destruction... it would be a problem if people stop dying and most deaths usually come from PvP.

Any game can have a scarcity system and dimish the spawn of gold veins in areas where people are over mining. In AoC there is something about this in regards of fauna and flora, I don't remember if minerals are included in the land degradation system.

Kesthely

MrPockets wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

While this is good in theory, the most recent game I can think of that had anything similar to this is Path of Exile.

The game sort of had currency, but only sort of, as the "currency" was consumable items.

What tended to happen in that game is about 65% of players just didnt bother trading at all.

It worked well enough for the remaining 35% or so. It was indeed more social for that percent that bothered with it - though an argument could be made that the 35% didn't need any assistance in socializing.

To me, this means that if your purpose for having a currency and trading system is to facilitate the easy and frequent trade between players, anything that removes basic currency from the picture is a negative.

If your reason for having currency and a trading system is different to that, then perhaps that outcome may change.

I think this brings up good questions about player psychology. For sake of argument, let's assume we want to try an avoid players using items as a currency. One option to accomplish that is to just make the main currency infinite, as almost all games do.

But what if another goal we have is to prevent infinite inflation of that currency? I think than then leads to the most common practice of "gold sinks" - remove currency from circulation to curb the infinite influx of money generated by the game itself.

I think the next line of thought is then: How easy is it to manage/design those gold sinks? Does a fixed money supply change this at all? I think the sinks just turn into "gold recycle systems"....and now that I'm thinking through this, if a game had perfect gold sinks, would that be equivalent to a fixed money supply?

inflation actually isn't caused by a surplus of money, its caused by a surplus of goods. Restricting money, or adding gold sinks only increases inflation, if you don't have enough good sinks. With node development causing a lot of goods to be consumed, and those nodes beeing destructible, inflations will be a lot less

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