Informal observations of a grey market
There's a web-based browser game called Go Stones (http://gostones.net) based on the Wheel of Time series. Never mind how I got hooked into it. The game is in this incarnation has you battling any of the 3000+ registered users online. You battle, gain levels and skills. You can also increase the prowess of the character by getting better equipment, and since there is no level limit on equipment, you can have a low-level character with ridiculously high attacks and defenses.
This is pretty standard so far. What isn't standard is that there are no computer opponents. You may have 30 battles per 15 hour period (refresh 2 battles every hour, max 30), random ones or duels from the world list. Random battles drops items. The winner of the duel takes 10% of the cash-on-hand of the player they challenge. The twist is that random battles are done against a random player -- that is, there is a typically a real person creating and playing that character. Combined with a game that is skewed so that there isn't a way to catch up to high-level characters (unless the high level characters just stop playing), there is a very high demand to get better and better equipments.
Consequentially, the economic value set by the game creator does not reflect the actual market value. In fact, there is an automated, anonymous market system in the game. You may sell an item for 50% of the fait value for instant cash, or you may put it up for sale for a price on the market. Other players can browse and buy items off of the market. The money goes into the shop till, which has the additional advantage of being "hidden" -- unavailable for the taking from duels. It has been very interesting watching the market dynamics of different items ... the difference between their perceived value, their strategic value, and their fait value. For example, a talisman (an upgrade charm) called the Andoran talisman is valued at 16 gold. Over the course of the game, it has been selling for 25,000g, then averaging to 50,000g, now to beyond 100,000g. Andoran talisman is one of the more accessible talisman of high strategic value, and as more and more players have access to more cash, its value has become highly inflated.
. I had compiled together a list of all the different talisman, then decided to publish it to see if it had any effect on the market. On the way, I discovered talisman that were very good ... had I been using a different set of equipment and a different strategy. One of them is an Exquisite talisman, with both melee and ranged damage bonus. According to the list I compiled, it also gives the highest damage bonus for both melee and ranged, though there are better talisman that gives better melee-only damage, or ranged-only damage. This means that, applied to spears (which uses both) on a Wanderer class (which uses both), this is a very good talisman. On any other weapon, this is not nearly as good.
Another talisman I got is the Infected Talisman of the Waste. The Infected prefix modifies a weapon or armor to give 50% poison damage. This means that the damage applied is calculated, then half of it becomes poison, half becomes a regular attack. Poison damage generally bypasses defenses, though I think attack bonuses do not get applied, either. According to the list I compiled, the Infected talisman gives the best poison percentage. The "of the Waste" prefix, on the other hand, is suitable for armor (it gives ranged defense bonus) and ranged bonus. So again, this particular talisman is worth something to a ranged attack user, such as a Wanderer, not to me.
I both of these at their fait value from the shop (limited number of random items for sale at full market value, no player behind it). Their fait value is very low. I got them because I had just compiled the list, saw these on the shop for cheap, bought them out of reflex. But I didn't have anything to apply them to, so I thought about reselling them.
However, I didn't want to sell them at the market. That would not be interesting.
Instead, I put it up for sale on the profile. That is, I wrote on one of my character profiles that I have these two items for sale, and that someone should make me an offer. This is a different dynamic than the formal market in several respects. First, the buy makes the initial offer (so there is a possibility of an auction or negotiation). Second, this is not anonymous. To conduct the negotiation, there has to be communication among the users. I know who I sold the item to, and that is valuable (if time-limited) intelligence. Third, to complete the transaction, the items still has to be transferred via the regular market -- making it vulnerable for someone else to purchase it instead. However, at this stage of the game, groups (called clans) have formed together various protocols for transferring items among clanmates or friends. Finally and most importantly, this system is not as efficient as the automated market.
The character I used is a newly created character sponsored by the high level characters I controlled. This low-level character is optimized for melee combat, and even at level 1, he can take on level 25 or so characters so long as he can kill them in the first blow. His defense sucks, owing to his low hit points. However, as a result of raiding a number of much higher level characters and having a disporportionate amount of money, he had garnered a lot of attention. For a while, lots of other players dueled back, many of them succeeding until I upgraded this fighter's armor. Nobody likes the embarrassment of an upstart taking in some of their money. Since the game tracks who comes to attack you, you have a log of all of your wins and losses that someone else initiates. Having 400,000g (that you probably took from some other person) and having a level 5 character just take 40,000g, well, naturally, you'd click on the name in the log and respond in kind. Usually, as the defender, this character loses. I would see this in my logs. I'd usually attack the ones who hold gold at the time to take some extra. This sets up a feedback loop.
The reason I do this is to get other players to fight this character. Win or lose, a character gains levels. With a limited number of battles per time period (about 30 per 15 hours), in order to gain levels faster, a character has to fight more levels. As a zero-sum game, I'd have to get other players to fight me and use up their limited number of battles on me. Through either embarrassment or through greed, they have raiding -- far more constantly than the other higher-level characters I have.
In order to duel someone, you have to go through the screen to see their profile. So you see a bit of their stats, their avatar, and anything they write on their profile. This means that, the only people who sees the message that I have those two talisman up for sale are the people who come and to duel me. That of course, brings up the question of whether you really want to sell a good item to someone who you are dueling with.
This is why this informal, underground system is inefficient.
But to my surprise, within a day that I had these offers up, I started seeing other people copying the concept. Some of them improved it -- adding the stats on there, adding minimums, time limits, or making it into an auction. Fairly soon, someone will start up bartering-- rare objects for rare objects. And if I were less lazy, I would be tracking day-by-day how far this meme spreads ... whether it will flourish or fizzle.
The point in writing all of this as it relates to the Real World is this: we're moving to electronic markets now that are more efficient in terms of transaction costs. In the Real World, NASDAQ is completely automated, and Wall-Street had been moving from their 100+ year tradition to computer transactions. Companies like GE and John Deere uses electronic reverse auctions to find suppliers. Smaller examples would be ContractedWorks.com which provides a marketplace for services. In the small business my friend and I started, we had always wanted everything to be automated ... as hands-off as possible. Yet in Go Stones, the official market is automated with little transaction cost ... but a less efficient, manual, more time-consuming market seems to be taking hold. In the microcosm, this demonstrates the underground really won't ever go away.
Is this a feature of human nature?
Are people just as bored in the Real World?
Namaste
This is pretty standard so far. What isn't standard is that there are no computer opponents. You may have 30 battles per 15 hour period (refresh 2 battles every hour, max 30), random ones or duels from the world list. Random battles drops items. The winner of the duel takes 10% of the cash-on-hand of the player they challenge. The twist is that random battles are done against a random player -- that is, there is a typically a real person creating and playing that character. Combined with a game that is skewed so that there isn't a way to catch up to high-level characters (unless the high level characters just stop playing), there is a very high demand to get better and better equipments.
Consequentially, the economic value set by the game creator does not reflect the actual market value. In fact, there is an automated, anonymous market system in the game. You may sell an item for 50% of the fait value for instant cash, or you may put it up for sale for a price on the market. Other players can browse and buy items off of the market. The money goes into the shop till, which has the additional advantage of being "hidden" -- unavailable for the taking from duels. It has been very interesting watching the market dynamics of different items ... the difference between their perceived value, their strategic value, and their fait value. For example, a talisman (an upgrade charm) called the Andoran talisman is valued at 16 gold. Over the course of the game, it has been selling for 25,000g, then averaging to 50,000g, now to beyond 100,000g. Andoran talisman is one of the more accessible talisman of high strategic value, and as more and more players have access to more cash, its value has become highly inflated.
. I had compiled together a list of all the different talisman, then decided to publish it to see if it had any effect on the market. On the way, I discovered talisman that were very good ... had I been using a different set of equipment and a different strategy. One of them is an Exquisite talisman, with both melee and ranged damage bonus. According to the list I compiled, it also gives the highest damage bonus for both melee and ranged, though there are better talisman that gives better melee-only damage, or ranged-only damage. This means that, applied to spears (which uses both) on a Wanderer class (which uses both), this is a very good talisman. On any other weapon, this is not nearly as good.
Another talisman I got is the Infected Talisman of the Waste. The Infected prefix modifies a weapon or armor to give 50% poison damage. This means that the damage applied is calculated, then half of it becomes poison, half becomes a regular attack. Poison damage generally bypasses defenses, though I think attack bonuses do not get applied, either. According to the list I compiled, the Infected talisman gives the best poison percentage. The "of the Waste" prefix, on the other hand, is suitable for armor (it gives ranged defense bonus) and ranged bonus. So again, this particular talisman is worth something to a ranged attack user, such as a Wanderer, not to me.
I both of these at their fait value from the shop (limited number of random items for sale at full market value, no player behind it). Their fait value is very low. I got them because I had just compiled the list, saw these on the shop for cheap, bought them out of reflex. But I didn't have anything to apply them to, so I thought about reselling them.
However, I didn't want to sell them at the market. That would not be interesting.
Instead, I put it up for sale on the profile. That is, I wrote on one of my character profiles that I have these two items for sale, and that someone should make me an offer. This is a different dynamic than the formal market in several respects. First, the buy makes the initial offer (so there is a possibility of an auction or negotiation). Second, this is not anonymous. To conduct the negotiation, there has to be communication among the users. I know who I sold the item to, and that is valuable (if time-limited) intelligence. Third, to complete the transaction, the items still has to be transferred via the regular market -- making it vulnerable for someone else to purchase it instead. However, at this stage of the game, groups (called clans) have formed together various protocols for transferring items among clanmates or friends. Finally and most importantly, this system is not as efficient as the automated market.
The character I used is a newly created character sponsored by the high level characters I controlled. This low-level character is optimized for melee combat, and even at level 1, he can take on level 25 or so characters so long as he can kill them in the first blow. His defense sucks, owing to his low hit points. However, as a result of raiding a number of much higher level characters and having a disporportionate amount of money, he had garnered a lot of attention. For a while, lots of other players dueled back, many of them succeeding until I upgraded this fighter's armor. Nobody likes the embarrassment of an upstart taking in some of their money. Since the game tracks who comes to attack you, you have a log of all of your wins and losses that someone else initiates. Having 400,000g (that you probably took from some other person) and having a level 5 character just take 40,000g, well, naturally, you'd click on the name in the log and respond in kind. Usually, as the defender, this character loses. I would see this in my logs. I'd usually attack the ones who hold gold at the time to take some extra. This sets up a feedback loop.
The reason I do this is to get other players to fight this character. Win or lose, a character gains levels. With a limited number of battles per time period (about 30 per 15 hours), in order to gain levels faster, a character has to fight more levels. As a zero-sum game, I'd have to get other players to fight me and use up their limited number of battles on me. Through either embarrassment or through greed, they have raiding -- far more constantly than the other higher-level characters I have.
In order to duel someone, you have to go through the screen to see their profile. So you see a bit of their stats, their avatar, and anything they write on their profile. This means that, the only people who sees the message that I have those two talisman up for sale are the people who come and to duel me. That of course, brings up the question of whether you really want to sell a good item to someone who you are dueling with.
This is why this informal, underground system is inefficient.
But to my surprise, within a day that I had these offers up, I started seeing other people copying the concept. Some of them improved it -- adding the stats on there, adding minimums, time limits, or making it into an auction. Fairly soon, someone will start up bartering-- rare objects for rare objects. And if I were less lazy, I would be tracking day-by-day how far this meme spreads ... whether it will flourish or fizzle.
The point in writing all of this as it relates to the Real World is this: we're moving to electronic markets now that are more efficient in terms of transaction costs. In the Real World, NASDAQ is completely automated, and Wall-Street had been moving from their 100+ year tradition to computer transactions. Companies like GE and John Deere uses electronic reverse auctions to find suppliers. Smaller examples would be ContractedWorks.com which provides a marketplace for services. In the small business my friend and I started, we had always wanted everything to be automated ... as hands-off as possible. Yet in Go Stones, the official market is automated with little transaction cost ... but a less efficient, manual, more time-consuming market seems to be taking hold. In the microcosm, this demonstrates the underground really won't ever go away.
Is this a feature of human nature?
Are people just as bored in the Real World?
Namaste