Possibly a Cabbage Posted:

Really, a virtual economy where items only become less valuable over time (like .moar files) or remain at a fixed price (like all of the items in NPC shops), is really, terribly stale and uninteresting. Things have to be able to change in price, both positively and negatively, in order to really call it an economy. When formerly rare and expensive things can become widely available and inexpensive and formerly commonplace items become rare and valuable, that’s what makes virtual economies interesting.

If nothing other than headsets and the falcon plaque are ever “luxury items that not everybody can get” there’s really no point to having kyoubai in the game. And those are items that exist in quantities of less than a dozen. It would be nice to have a few desirable luxury items that there are a few hundred of, so even new players could have a reasonable expectation of acquiring a few of them if things break their way.

True, but there are two issues.

First, the question of scale – should an item that a minority of players have a large stock of multiply in value? Perhaps they should be rewarded for their prescience, at least in Acid Fluxes case – Inertia and the other guy just got lucky because they were boosting their auction seller value. If they are rewarded, we have to bear in mind it renders months of effort by many players (performing stale activities to work towards an almost impossible goal) null and void.

And second, is such a dynamic economy going to be by design (i.e. sustained) or by accident as in this case, with all the negative connotations stemming from the unplanned case. Acid Fluxes achievement here is unrepeatable, so he effectively gets handed an ‘you win’ card, and everyone else playing the same game gets a ‘**** you’ card. And to deal with these consequences, we end up artificially manipulating the top end of leaderboards, or else giving up on another game goal after months of effort, which is, you know, kind of a mbumive kick in the nuts. I just got spectacularly griefed by a badly designed game, and yes I share a big part in the blame for that, by playing the game in the first place. The lesson I therefore learn, is not to bother.