I'm bored at work!

[Ihealyou]

I was thinking about virtual economies in MMOs like EQ and WoW. There is a huge amount of in MMOs. Every mob killed brings plat into the game, and killing named mobs brings more items into the game. At least in EQ, short of buying food and gems, or deleteing items/characters, there really isn't anything taking items and money out of the game. As people play, currency is worth less and less, and items sold to players become more common, lowering their value in real plat/gold/whatever.

In the real world, this would be devastating for the economy. At the same time that people's money is worth less, their assets are losing value in real terms also. So why do people put up with it in MMOs? I don't believe that its because they don't value ingame currency, since buying currency for real money is common. New players absorb some of the inflation, but is it enough to keep it at a reasonable level? Or is there not enough wealth signaling in games for poorer people to feel poor, causing players to be unaware of the problem?

I'm just curious if anyone has any thoughts on this. Don't turn it into rants about the national debt or abolishing the fed please. Rants about abolishing gnomes however, are always welcome! [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]