GW under the microscope

Hey guys, I just finished an economics lecture at my university and proposed doing an economics study on 'an online RPG' to the lecturer. They loved the idea and I'm now on to produce a detailed study within a week. I was inspired to do this after looking over the following thread which looked at Monks charging for their service:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...=124417&page=4

I've had a brainstorm and had the following thoughts:

• As we all know the economics rule states that the relationship between supply and demand will dictate price. However in Guild Wars, the aspect that playing the game in itself is fun (thus providing utility) means many people help out for free e.g. free runners because they've not much else to do. This may also be influenced by their general experience of the game.; if the majority of experiences with other people have been positive then they may be more inclined to help people in need out.
• The aspect of guildmates, relationships managed over friendlist and general trustworthy contacts can be a great determinant on the willingness to help/offer discounts of items. Further thought on this would be useful feedback.
• The nature of scamming and how it affects the demand for services and (though less often) items. From personal experience I know that running has come under regular fire for people scamming and thus making 'trustworthy' runner contacts more important. Some feedback on this and of how it is applicable when trading items would be useful feedback.
• I'd like to make the 'monks charging for their services' issue a mini-case study and will get lots of data for this from the thread I posted above. If anyone has any specific input on this topic however I'd very much welcome it.
• Substitution; to what extent can a dedicated healer or protector monk be substituted by other professions e.g. a blood necro with Well of Blood. This is a very important aspect as the greater the possibility of substitution, the more it undermines the value of the dedicated monk.
• Finally, the wealth and distribution thereof of the individuals of GW. It seems to me there are 2 main camps; people who take GW very seriously and strive to hoarde wealth through farming, charging for services, etc and the 2nd camp being those who want a quick fun time. This 2nd camp may belong more to people who are not willing to invest long hard hours into the game and to coin the phrase are more 'console minded', looking for a quick fix so to speak.

I may look to do some surveys to collate data e.g. for demand curves etc based on how much feedback I get on this thread. If anyone is specifically interested in helping me out with this report (which I am taking very seriously), please send me a message.

Haha - clever way to talk your professor into letting you play games for homework!

What you should be looking at is gross marginal utility rather than simple utility on playing the game. Buying the game in the first place provided utility (not to mention opportunity costs.) Furthermore the Law of Increasing Opportunity Costs states that as your marginal utility for doing said action decreases, the opportunity costs for that action increases to the point where the marginal costs (or opportunity costs) out weigh the marginal utility.

Guildmates, relationships, ect.. is not simply an economic statement. People may offer discounts to "friends" but they, and all market transactions, are governed by self interest. They give the discount so that they might recieve something in return, whether it be friendship, or a favor for them later on down the road.

Scamming affects consumer preferences with the slight chance it would affect utility.

Substitution does not readily exist in GW. If anything a monk or necro would be complimentary. Being a necro cannot undermine a spike healer. Plus the elasticity of said relationship would be fairly strong.

You have tunnel vision on the last issue. There are many reasons, rationale's, and causes people play GW. I would say the casual gamer who does not really care about hoarding gold is the most common, followed by the serious pvp/pve players. The gold farmers are somewhat of a minority seeing as the pvp and pve players gain gold through sale of items and services.

In closing, you want us to do all the work for you...all this "feedback would be appriciated, or "I'd very much welcome it" states that you arent all that willing to generate this study on your own. Do your own research, and ask personal opinions if you need too. You gather the data, YOU make the application of said data. Hell if I could have put my projects on some forum and have people do them for me, do you think i'd worry about my grades?

I could understand this being true if there were a monthly bill to play but with GW increasing opportunity cost can only be that of time invested. Players can get additional utility from new material like Sorrows Furnace, making more contacts and getting more experience over time may make competing in HOH more viable etc. If this were not true, how can you explain players who have stayed with GW ever since the release date? Clearly their 'increasing opportunity cost' has not overweighed marginal utility.

But it is an economic factor neverless

Scamming affects consumer preferences with the slight chance it would affect utility.

I have experienced many instances in my time playing where a team has asked a E/Mo to focus on healing rather than combat. Surely this alone is an instance of substitution, albeit not perfect substitution.

I'm simply suggesting a model, but your take on pvp/pve players is no doubt true.

I'm not trying to wings grades by exploiting contributing members to these forums. I'm just hoping that from insightful players that have much experience of GW, they may make me think more about the economics engines that operate in a marketplace of virtual capital and labour services.
Thanks for your input.

ahh, sometimes I just like reading an economics discussion and soak it all in

Carry on, don't mind me.

I think you should also consider the persective of the players... different people place a different level of reality on the game which affects how they interact in the market. Someone that places a high level of reality on an IDS, for example, will try to charge an arm and a leg for it in a sale, while someone like myself that considers it just a bunch of bits of data and nothing more is more apt to give the item away, keeping only the first one for the sake of novelty and nostalgia.

In an online game such as this, I think this is a huge factor that cannot be disregarded.

Oh God, if I could calculate my opportunity costs with my 1000+ hours on this game, hehehe...

Substitution readily exists to a good extent in earlier missions and to a lesser extent later on. However it still exists often when a group uses one monk and one or two others as backup healers or have everyone else focus on self healing to an extent rather than have another monk. Also, wouldn't Alesia, Lina and Mhenlo constitute as substitutions?



I think you have tunnel vision on what he meant by that. (hehe) Just because he is asking for feedback does not mean that all of his input and research would be entirely based on it, to believe such is a pretty cynical assumption. When researching anything, I don't see what's wrong with gathering as much data as possible, even if some not end up being used.




By the way, it's nice to see a thread that applies serious economics to GW. I like to think that I'm playing a more intelectually stimulating game than say Doom or GTA, especially since I've poured so much time into it, lol!

You might find this interesting...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4360654.stm

MANY real life economic principles can not be applied to the game for many reasons, one of the biggest being ebay gold.

I have a Minor in Economics.....and it has always been my secret (until now I guess) wish to be hired by a Game Inc as their Economic Manager, as I have seen some Horrible sytems implemented....so I will give this a shot:

Before I start though, I found this to be hilarious:

So I guess when your Professor recommended a textbook for you, he/she was inferring that Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Mr. Keynes were going to do all the work for you....or that if you went on a field trip to the Fed and asked them a bunch of questions or conducted an interview, that this would mean they were doing all the work for you. Who knew? Just make up everything on your own...........comedy. In addition, just reference/biblio this thread in your report......


It appears that you are going to approach this from a Normative perspective. In that case, the reasons are legion. In my case, the reason I actually like Runners is two-fold: One, the structure of the game and it's replayability leads me to think of following the mission tree (again) when I bring up another roleplaying char as a chore. So it is a Want of mine to advance a Char quickly to the point where he/she has utility value. So I see this service as valuable. Second, I enjoy runners in an Roleplaying sense; this is little precious material in this game (non-loot based, money can't buy you love) that I see as important to have. I do not value green items, I can get Gold Items anytime I want....and their value is extremely marginal to me as I am a PVP'er at heart. So when I see a Runner that is advertising, I think it adds to the game: It's fun to think of it like the Old West/Frontier...."Guide for Hire....was part of the Lewis and Clark expedition..I know these mountains folks"...etc. I mean, the "Shiverpeak Stragglers" quest is actually a quest asking your Char to "Run" some folks. I think it makes the game more interesting and actually gives it an echo of a "real" economy. See, the above is all Normative in Nature.


It also seems that you are approaching this in terms of Microeconomics, so I would continue to go with that. Examine the "mercantile" relationship between these contacts. Are there the begginnings of Merchant Guilds? Will Factions build upon this? Is there really enough Scarcity in GW to justify an individuals involvement in this process (ie...is it simpler just to farm)?



This is basically very similar to your previous bulletpoint. Do a search on 55-hp monk scams; take a look at the issue of monks who get into UW and then train mobs on their groups in order to kill them and steal the loot. Do you think this has affected the demand for services and more specifically Items (did this produce a spike in the price of Ectos)? And I think this dovetails nicely with the below:

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Camp out in the Ring of Fire area and do these missions with the variables you described. Do it 10 times changing the variables (you will of course have to explain some assumptions and the classes to your professor who I would hazard to guess is not a hard-core gamer). Do it with a Monk....no Monks....with an interuptor, without an interuptor. Give the results and your conclusions. Compare this to the Normative decisions of the of the community. Send out a broadcast "Who here has finished this mission with no monks before?" Personally, I have done every thing in the game without a monk (plenty of 15+ Runs in Randoms included) and so, I see a monk as an extra that, while providing a nice lubrication, is not the linchpin of success. (GVG and certain other aspects Aside; this does seem primarily PVE in nature).



Again this is Microeconomic and Normative in nature. Personally, I sometimes farm, not because I'm taking GW "very seriously and strive(ing) to hoarde wealth" (sic), but because it is like sitting in a Casino and playing the Nickel slot machines for hours. I really don't see loot in the game as being important (what a nice break from EQuipment based games), but its fun to mindlessly pull that handle for awhile and see what happens.

So the Fixed Cost (perhaps, having a weapon that is effective) in GW is quite low in my opinion....I can get a collector item at my leisure. But the Marginal Cost to many varies. Some want that Fissure Set......I find that the height of Marginalism.....

So I would argue that there are a myriad of reasons why people pursue activities related to wealth in this game.


I'm sure that this was not as helpful to you as I intended (I just don't have that much time to put into it...and my old brain is a bit rusty in this area these days...and to the dismay of your detractor, I had to look up some terms to remember if I was using them correctly), but maybe I provided some Marginal Value.

You might also check out Game Theory and its place in the Economic System of GW...but stick to the Micro side.....


And just to let you know my predispositions (I think it is important to show my biases when I start to spout economics)...I would say I am more of the Austrian School than a Mathmatically Based Economist. Optimism or Pessimism rules.....perceptions over reality.....Gold without activity is not wealth...etc.


Edit: Check out this thread OP: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...d.php?t=126944

In reading this it struck me that the aspect of knowledge could be critisised in such a study. Classical economics works upon the assumption that all buyers in the market have perfect knowledge; they know their perceived value for every good, every selling price for that good and the implications in obtaining it. To take the runner service as example, the knowledge as to the value of the service offered is (unless you have previous experience of the runner) low as is the subjective nature of services. Walk into Beacons Perch and the going rate seems to lie around 3k a person. Price undercutting does occur and on occasion someone will advertise a free run for the hell of it. The is a definate price elasticity that I've observed in response to 'nerfs' of the Droknar run, even is this is just uninformed banter. This could be compared to market confidence. Still, the service runners provide is homogenious; they either get you to Droknars Forge or not. There is little unique selling proposition, although I have observed instances of 2 runners in matching FOW armor finding it far easier to obtain clients. In conclusion, there seems a degree of buyer power for the majority of the time as experienced players can be sensitive to the 'acclaim' of a runner. Oliposony however may be an inappropriate way of describin the relationship and is it is so subject to change.

You could throw in some organizational behavior by looking at the price discrimiation of collectors editions, music packs... ect.

Organisational Behaviour could most obviously fit into GW as a heirarchical investigation into guilds that strictly organise their members or regular HOH teams and their reserve players. There is definite scope to be synoptic, though original focus was upon applying microeconomics to GW; markets, prices, etc and feeding sociology into this where necessary or extremely appropriate. Thanks for input.