This suggestion makes a lot of sense. It would also be pretty cool if players had to trade commodities for fuel, especially with one another. It might even spark off a paradigm shift in their head.
Kind of reminds me of Firefly, in a way, where they were always trying to just keep going. Fuel would drive a space life (pun not intended).
Once you have the means to break down common components in space (oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc.) you have the materials necessary to recreate an earth-like environment - air, water, CO2, etc. The quantity of these materials would not make a very useful currency.
Energy sources are much more abundant in space, provided you have the means to tap into them. The fuels that would provide life support systems, including radiation protection, and transportation would be more abundant and the systems applying these resources would be more efficient. These materials would be extremely important, but still not good candidates for money.
Gold and silver still have value in space. Both metals are used in significant qualtities in space vehicles today due to their properties in extreme environments (gold more so than silver). For example, gold does not corrode or lose it’s electrical properties in a space environment, where temperatures range to both extremes. There is no reason to assume that gold will not retain it’s value in space. Even if they find more of the stuff out there, the supply of it will not diminish it’s usefulness or value to the human race.
Now for a space-based game you could use practically anything that’s novel. You could claim that all space vehicles capable of FTL or near FTL speeds require a special diamond or mineral that is in rare supply - whether the scarcity is real or artificial (introduces an element of intrigue into your game if there’s an artificial reason for scarcity). In addition, your currency may be completely electronic - although the practicality of such a system breaks down if you limit interstellar communications. It all depends on the amount of realism you want in your game. Overall, I think a gold standard is pretty sufficient even in a speculative fictional universe.
I should correct this by saying that silver may be even more useful. Both materials are indespensible in space and even in colonization of planets and other satellites.
This makes a lot of sense, but I might still go with fuel for the aforementioned “paradigm-shifting” possibilities. People can very easily understand how gold would be used as money (even if they would never support a gold standard), but to use a more exhaustible commodity might get them thinking.
Spice’s value was that it was required for space travel, more specifically to fold space. In addition there were a lot of other odd uses for the stuff. As far as applying economics to a sci-fi genre, I think Frank Herbert did a pretty fine job.
Justin, I’m fully convinced that is the way to go. What kind of message would it send if the game’s “free market” money had to be implemented by the game designers? Even in basic MMORPGs like Ragnarok Online, commodity money has taken over despite the fact that there was a different “money” designed into the game.
By they way, Ansury, would you care to give an overview of the aspects of Eve that might be of interest here?
I agree—it is definitely the way to go. But, like other posters have mentioned, there’s a big element of time investment there. I want to make a point, yes, but I also want a game, and I don’t want to be spending years working on it. If I can figure out a way to do it easily, I absolutely will; if I can’t, at least it won’t be fiat currency!
The question is, what commodity would be have the most demand in the high-tech society you envision?
I suppose that metals would be valuable, for building spaceships and other equipment. Gold, for example, resists corrosion, is a good conductor, and reflects infrared light. On the other hand, aluminum might be more valuable in this fictional space-based economy you are postulating.
I think the most in-demand commodity in space would be energy. Energy would have to be generated for powering the space ships, communications, lighting and heating, growing food, processing water, etc. So what is the energy source used? Hydrogen? Lithium? Uranium? Thorium? I suspect that fuel would be the most in-demand commodity, and thus used as currency.
Where are people living? Are they living on Mars, or are they living in a space ship? I suspect the space ship would be more hospitable.
In real life, I don’t think it will ever be economical for humans to ever live anyplace other than earth. Why go to the added expense of literally building castles in the sky, when everything we need is right on earth?
Actually I don’t think it will be that hard. So many games put a focus on a monetary unit. That is stuff you will have to program for. Removing that focus doesn’t detract from “gameplay fun” and doesn’t necessarily add a mad learning curve to get around. Just make sure your market is full of lots of things. Things with little marginal utility, things with lots. Rare things, moderate, and common. Then let the money emerge on its own, thats something you won’t even have to worry about as the programmer. The players will. Just make a good contracting/trade system.
I think removing the monetary part of the game may save you development time and I don’t think it will jeopardize any type of fun factor. If anything it will add to it.
Two games you should research as far as free markets go (Not completely though, a hard set currency is used)
Eve Online
Early on Star Wars Galaxies
If anyone played SWG early on than you know it was probably the most dynamic most indept market game made to date. Possibly more indept than Eve. SWG even had player built commercialized cities. Large cities where players would have everything from malls to manufacturing shops to trade shops. All items in the games from the tiniest units to the large factories were player built.
Items increased in quality based on a players manufacturing skill and the quality of his capital goods. It would go all the way down to the very quality of ore the player would harvest out of the ground.
One thing is for sure, your game is going to have a huge DB.
A barter system seems easy enough - just let players trade whatever they want with other players. Particularly, if you have a fungible commodity (like a mineral or material, like gold), if nothing else that will likely become money.
No headaches for anyone, and besides, having a barter phase would be a great economics lesson for them. Remember that what players really want in a game are the opposite of what they want in real life - the more obstacles the more fun. On a superficial level the player wants it easy, but it’s more fun if it isn’t so easy (as long as it’s not frustratingly hard, and barter in a game just isn’t). The players need to keep getting beaten down, or else the game element ends and it becomes just a ho-hum activity. Most game designers don’t even realize this.
Yeah, I agree. I was thinking about The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (by Heinlein), where Richard Ames argues with this bum about oxygen costing money, because somebody had to use money to bring it to the moon so the folks in Luna City and Hong Kong Luna could breath. yada yada yada but you’re right.
Well, part of the problem is that I’m taking inspiration from a game that has an incredibly primitive trading system. It sufficed, so I didn’t see a need to make it much more complex than basic supply and demand, but, I concede, a barter system sounds very cool. The real challenge with that, actually, will be programming the AI for it.
I’m programming a serverless game (or, to be more exact, a game without a central server).
If there is intersocietal integration, then one commodity will beat all other commodities. This would mean if someone from society A could supply people in society B with goods, and the other way around, and often.
If such intersocietal integration is very very weak, then you just remain having separate societies with separate moneys.
NPCs could just act as clearinghouses for other players’ stuff, like how there is the universal market thingy in WoW where you can buy goods being sold by people in remote locations. Then there’d be no need to create AI for determining how much each NPC values each in-game item at any given time (that would be probably be a headache).
Are you referring to WoW’s auction houses? I think I erred in calling this game massively-multiplayer; more precisely, it could be called scalably multiplayer, in that I want a game that can be played solo, with only AIs, as well as a game that can scale up to huge hordes of players. I’m not worried about implementing the networking aspect of that (already got it figured out), but it is causing some dilemmas regarding gameplay, like this one.
Credit (cards).
Yea than that will be much more difficult.
What about the items they use in prison as money? Weapons, cigarettes… things of that nature.
The Ragnarok Online (I’m not familiar with the game) currency takeover is interesting! I’d never have expected that in a game where a different currency was hard coded (i.e. almost mandatory), but it’s very cool.
I’m not an expert on Eve so I can’t say whether there are any commodities that have taken over ISK’s money role. There is ore trading that goes on, primarily I believe to support manufacturing and other processes, however I suspect that ISK (I think due to the fact that it is so tightly integrated with the game’s market and interface, by game design) still plays a role in the vast majority of transactions. But research may tell us otherwise.
If you’re planning on having a large number of players in a large world (MMO style), implementing a barter-only system might be totally feasible. AI still may be a bit problematic if there are AI merchants, but maybe not so bad. A barter-only system should develop an “unofficial” currency (or multiple), depending on what players consider the best choice for a currency, so technically it would always remain a barter system but practically speaking not so much.
Of one thing I’m sure of - Eve is definitely a good research subject for anyone interested in the topic and anyone looking for an “as real as possible” large scale economic simulation. The problem with looking to most game economies which simulate an economy is that there is generally a lack of consequences, so players behave very differently than they would in reality. But Eve (while definitely not as unforgiving as real life) is a game with consequences, at least as far as games go. So while I’d still use caution making ancap analogies, it might be the one of the best virtual “ancap-ish” experiments yet.
Just watch out for what those pesky “god-like” developer updates may do to the economy, scarcity of goods and resources, efficiency of professions, and so on. [:P]
One thing to consider, when designing the game economy and the material world (while remembering to keep an eye on project scope), is realistically simulating each aspect of an ideal currency that I listed above (if applicable):
General acceptability, Stability of value, Transportability, Storability, Divisibility, Homogeneity, Cognizability
Meaning, if you leave out some of these realties from the simulation, I’m not sure you’ll get realistic result. For example if every item in the game is of the same quality, you’ve just eliminated homogeneity as a criteria. Or if every item in the game is just as easy to transport from one place to another (pencils take up as much inventory space as monitors, etc), you’ve eliminated transportability as a criteria. Or if food never spoils (storability), now you may have just opened up the door to cupcakes becoming the de facto standard in trade deals. [:D] Etc.
Not sure how useful this is (I’ve yet to think about it in great, great detail), but I’d be interested in hearing thoughts about it. I am afraid it may increase the complexity a bit too much. Perhaps some (like cognizability) can be eliminated without too much harm–but try not to design it such that something like toilet paper or something else really silly becomes the currency. haha…