Season 1 Ep 11: A Currency Exchange

Can war be a vital and healthy tool to balance hyperinflation? Can you live off gold farming when your country's economy has collapsed? When you can sell your items for real money, is banning your account theft? (Spoiler alert, the law is still working on that) In this episode Milos and Steve take a broad look at the use of currency in games. From a balancing tool in single player experiences to managing an MMO economy and real world digital property rights. And yes dear listener, we talk about Microtransactions and Loot boxes.

Correction: The Two Worlds 2 developer, Reality Pump, patched microtransactions, not loot boxes, into the game 6 years (not 7 as stated) after launch. 

Games in order of appearance:

Resident Evil Series (Capcom)

Dark Souls (Sony Computer Entertainment, Atlus USA, Bandai Namco Entertainment)

Metro 2033 (4A Games)

Final Fantasy 7 (Square)

Dark age of Camelot (Mythic Entertainment, Electronic Arts)

Morrowind (Bethesda)

Darkest Dungeon (Red Hook Studios)

Magic the Gathering (Wizards of the Coast)

Dungeons and Dragons (Wizards of the Coast)

Skyrim (Bethesda)

The Witcher (CD Projekt RED)

Diablo 2 (Blizzard Entertainment)

World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment)

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery (Jam City)

Warframe (Digital Extremes)

Guild wars 2 (ArenaNet)

Eve Online (CCP Games)

Old School Runescape (Jagex)

Second Life (Linden Lab)

Lordmancer II (Active Games)

Star Wars Battlefront 2 (Electronic Arts)

NBA 2K18 (Visual Concepts)

Gears of war (The Coalition)

Call of Duty (Activision, Infinity Ward)

Two Worlds 2 (Reality Pump)

Recommended watching - Extra credits - Hyperinflation in MMOs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sumZLwFXJqE

Papers used during the research for this episode: http://manager.faa.ro/download/456_709.pdf

http://faculty.trinity.edu/adelwich/worlds/articles/trinity.sam.kaminski.pdf

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/801/1/012090/pdf

Post Upload Update (01/07/2019) - The day after we upload this, The Jimquisition released an emotionally charged rundown of the harmful effects of loot boxes and micro transactions on players, especially those with addiction in their past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S-DGTBZU14

Post Episode Update (16/01/2020) - For those interested in diving into the economics of Eve Online, the Youtube channel Economics Explained produced a good summary of the virtual economy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrW6p5ns8K8