WoW: The most free economy?

[cska80]

Most MMORPG's are based around the same sort of systems. It's interesting to me that the most successful game in the history of them is the most comparable to a free market economy. I know there must be hundreds of the liberty community who play WoW, so please add comparisons that I don't. I just wanted to point out a few. I think explaining these things on WoW forums can go far in reaching a lot of people. They don't even know (especially those in Europe and around the world) they are participating in the freedom and liberty of free market capitalism.

1. What's the most popular loot system? DKP, which is capitalist. The most successful guilds are DKP as well. The only successful guilds that are based on some sort of distribution by council, groups, etc. are those which are made up mostly of real life friends and even in those much corruption occurs and they never seem to reach the heights of DKP guilds.

2. Do successful guilds take terrible players along on raids? No! Players are often removed from guilds just for being idiots, being late or having inconsistant attendance in raids, etc. You can compare this to welfare, unions, and affirmative action.

3. Are players who have the best gear in the game torn down, attacked, abused or seen as greedy as they are today? No! Many of them are actually legends on their own servers! No one strives to wear greens, they strive to make their character as powerful as possible.

4. What would happen if Blizzard forced rich players with great gear or high professions to give money, gear, and items to players who are not so fortunate in the name of 'economic justice'? Those players would NOT PLAY! Does that mean that those players never give things away to people? Of course they do...and that's in game charity!

[JamesButabi]

haha great post. Its very truthful

[Kludge]

It's even more "free" when you play on a private blizzlike server (http://wow.spermik.info/) :p

[cska80]

Haha, true.

[JamesButabi]

you also forgot the biggest fault of our economy IMO. WoW uses a commodity standard!

[newbitech]

In WoW:

1.) prices aren't fixed by the game gods(government), they are fixed by market forces.
2.) bad assets are not sold at the price you got them for, you have to sell them to the vendor and take the loss.
3.) NO INCOME TAX
4.) Only usable items can be bought and sold.
5.) Banks don't exist
6.) Insurance doesn't exist
7.) Interest doesn't exist
8.) You are only poor if you refuse to work
9.) 1%> Unemployment
10.) No debt

[Ex Post Facto]

The greatest economy in any MMO I've played is EVE Online. Darkfall Online (http://www.darkfallonline.com) comes out this month and promises everything is player built, and prices can be set by the person selling.

WOW's economy sucks in my opinion as things cannot be recycled into their components. A good market economy allows you to break something down into it's original components and resell those materials back onto the market. You do this when items flood a market and the prices go lower than raw materials.

[idiom]

In WoW:

1.) prices aren't fixed by the game gods(government), they are fixed by market forces.
2.) bad assets are not sold at the price you got them for, you have to sell them to the vendor and take the loss.
3.) NO INCOME TAX
4.) Only usable items can be bought and sold.
5.) Banks don't exist
6.) Insurance doesn't exist
7.) Interest doesn't exist
8.) You are only poor if you refuse to work
9.) 1%> Unemployment
10.) No debt

Also, you can't stay home from Raids cuz yer pregnant. You can't be born without limbs.

Oh and there is massive inflation.

And when someone kills you. you just walk back to your body and its alright.

Also you pay the government in a foreign currency. A Flat Tax. Every Month. In FRN's.

[Ex Post Facto]

GOLD, SILVER and COPPER are legal Tender

[RedStripe]

The fact that people care enough about their online reputations to voluntarily help each other out and give tips to people for doing favors says a lot about the power of social norms.

[idiom]

MMPORG economies require a lot of oversight by their govenrments which are funded by subscriptions.

They have pure digital Fiat economies. The label their fiat dollars 'Gold' or whatever but they are in fact generated pretty readily.

[Conza88]

you also forgot the biggest fault of our economy IMO. WoW uses a commodity standard!

Pseudo commodity. ;)

Print stuff out of thin air. lol

[BarryDonegan]

In WoW:

1.) prices aren't fixed by the game gods(government), they are fixed by market forces.
2.) bad assets are not sold at the price you got them for, you have to sell them to the vendor and take the loss.
3.) NO INCOME TAX
4.) Only usable items can be bought and sold.
5.) Banks don't exist
6.) Insurance doesn't exist
7.) Interest doesn't exist
8.) You are only poor if you refuse to work
9.) 1%> Unemployment
10.) No debt

wow's gold is created out of pure fiat, out of thin air. every time a new series of quests comes out with a higher reward, the entire economy goes into massive overnight inflation.

[BarryDonegan]

also, the federal reserve now regulates banking in mmo economies as well, they regulate banks in second life and any lender in any mmo that formally embraces its currency and xfers them legally to USD. WOW is not such a game because it is a black market on which you sell the gold for dollars.

[BarryDonegan]

and yes, your second life money is backed by the FDIC.... seriously, because second life banks are also required to operate on the same fractional reserve and to buy stock in the fed, so if there was a sudden, massive withdrawal of videogame currency by players, then the real life federal reserve would really print the money to give to exchange into linden dollars and to back your fake videogame currency for your little digital videogame guy to buy sexxx from other videogame weirdos on second life.