Do we have any programmers on this site? I thought it would be interesting to start some kind of Austrian school based web game about economics. I’ve noticed there are some more mainstream based web games which are based on modifications of ISLM and other macro models. Having an ASE web game could be a good introduction to younger people.
This has the potential of being the easiest webgame ever.
krazy, i have some programmign knowledge.
but you would need to invent a game with a ‘challenge’.
One man’s crusade to convince Wall Street to listen to Peter Schiff
We’ve already had that a while ago when someone proposed a game along the lines of “Civilization” that could be won by employing the most laissez-faire approach.
Obviously, that’d be a fairly lame game. If your best solution is not to act (in other words, to let others act for you), you won’t be playing for too long. And we have to be honest here, when it comes to creative solutions, Keynesian econowizardism is definitely superior to our rather predictable Austrian approaches. [;)]
Two Words: Starcraft Mod
/end of thread
haha we’d win over all of the Korean peninsula in that case…
I didn’t think of that major flaw.
Could we have something about the electorate and the media getting pissed off when you get rid of Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare, so you have to make only gradual changes?
i used to play a game i thought fun, called Capitalism…
it was like a get rich kind of simulator.
i was thinking that a private defense agency simulator would be fun. you open a pda and have to attract customers, and provide security services, the better you do the more money you make and the more you invest to gain market share etc.
^ That’s a good idea.
Has anyone here ever played Tropico? We could make a game similar to Tropico, but instead of planning everything, you could possibly allow people to settle and do as they wish. This could make game play more interesting as players could take a hands off approach with the economy and instead focus on the diplomacy and military aspects of the game (which I think need to be developed more too).
Lol Command and Conquer anarchist style.
How about mortal combat with economists.
You mean… I could beat up on Krugman?
Actually that was a silly suggestion by me. A fighting game with libertarians.
I have a game idea (originally a plot idea) that I discussed with Knight_of_BAAWA. Basically, there is a futuristic statist society that has set aside an island. They educate people, and train them to use what we call modern-day technology. They are then released on this island, with the statist society never interfereing. A few gain illegitemate power. Eventually, people get fed up with their dominance, as one person revives anachno-capitalist ideals. It is up for you to help the rebel army achieve victory over the ones in power. Your success will determine whether these dominators are driven out and the society becomes free, or whether the enslavement continues.
Another way would be to put the player in the position of an entreprenuer. I am reminded of a game called lemonade stand, where you can do this. As the producer of a good/service, you are tasked with managing a business and gaining the most profit. This would be an excellent opportunity to illustrate how government intervention harms, or helps only you if you can take advantage of it. You can also show austrian economic concepts within it.
I have made some programs, yes.
Check out Entropia Universe for a virtual economy based (almost) only on individual actions!
Please note that I haven’t played the game myself! But a good friend plays it since years and I’ve looked upon at times. There’s more to it than I know of. It is a first person 3D virtual game where the player runs around in the shape of his avatar. There is no way of someone managing anything else than ones own avatar, property and actions. Violence between players is possible only in certain designated areas.
No prices are fixed, but they result from player interactions on a free market. Trades can be made public through auctioneers, or secretely face to face. There are defined production chains from mining raw materials to producing some intermediary goods (not in so many steps though) to consumer goods, “mining equipment” or weapons for hunting. In order to be entertaining to players, I suppose, the main industry seems to be to hunt monsters and loot them. Hunting can be performed in team work, were some team members, against payment, specialize on healing players during combat as they get wounded by monsters. The consumer goods market consists of avatar clothings and such which have no other benefit than that they are nice to look at. Shapes and colors can be designed at will by the players, within some constrictions, by using some raw and intermediare goods together with some tools. My friend has said that he has noted that the production of some weapon has ceased because one of shortage of some of the complementary raw materials needed, and that prices of it thus has soared with more mining of it taking place. But mostly, the connections between complementary or substitution goods are not very obvious, at least not for my friend who is more of a hunting specialist than a trader of many different kinds of goods. There is also a real estate market.
All exchange with nature is a lottery. There is some probability distribution for the damage each shot fired at a monster will cause, depending on type of monster, distance, type of weapon and player skills (there is a whole complex of skills, professions et cetera which develop according to some learning curves), at the same time all equipment is slightly worn in a random manner each time it is used. There is also a probability distribution for what and how much raw minerals will result from performing a mining action (basically putting a bomb in the ground). Owners of real estate have some way (I don’t know how) to invest in their ground yielding monsters and or minerals and they charge some fee of their choosing of players who finds minerals or loot on their ground.
The economy uses one currency, the PED, which is directly interchangable to USD (10 PED = 1 USD). Money can be inserted to or withdrawn from the game at will by the player. There are vivid off-world forums where discussions of good investments, agreements to meet in-game and make face-to-face trades and trying to figure out what weapon and armour is the most cost efficient in order to hunt what monster based on player collected statistical experiences and so on.
Two types problems I’ve thought about, is firstly the limitations for innovation in product development. A game cannot have the complexity of natures chemistry and physics. The second type of problem consists of the interference of the game developer. They introduce the possibility to produce new weapons. They withdraw the possibility to produce other kinds of weapons. Only parts of the territory is actiually provately held and the game developer sells some new plots now and then. They also create new real estate out of thin air, like a space station and a Moon. And who really knows what more they meddle with? Oh yes, they monopolize some services such as storage and I believe public auctions. But in all fairness, according to my friend who plays the game, such interferences seem to have been more serious in the youth of the game and less today as it has matured.
The game is very laissez faire and it is played from the perspective of the entrepreneur taking actions, rather from the powerful manager issuing orders. Maybe the software engine of it could be useful from an ASE perspective? But in its present shape I personally don’t feel that it is more educative than the real economy is!
(Btw, prices of goods have fallen across the board during this winter, but my friend has been very well compensated by the rising USD, and hece PED, exchange rate to his local currency)
I’ve played an MMO or two - and the problem with all of them is credit sellers - and that is because the game is inherently flawed with credits coming from nowhere. I had some ideas for a space/land realistic physics sort of firefly mmo where money arises organically - such that commodities are mined and traded by mass and purity. Players would also have an incentive to not play as the efficiency of their actions decreases after 2 hours 8^}
The last few comments gave me an idea. We might as well make a MMORPG similar to SecondLife, but crossed with Warcraft (to make it more fun!). The admins could then use the game for economic experiments, i.e. doubling the amount of credit (creating money), and therefore proving that credit creation creates the boom-bust cycle.
For the know how Capitalism is a game that has already been created. I agree we do need a game, or even a mod at that.
Ok, the MMO idea should be another thread, but for the web game, one idea could be pretty cool:
Have a fed rate to control, foreign countries central banks and buying habbits, government spending, tax rates, and try to keep it from train-wrecking lol. abuse the fed rate, you no longer have effective control, abuse the government spending, you destroy surplusses.. etc. The idea is that you can’t win.