The Game Economy

I’ve really been learning a lot about economics today. We’re having some interesting discussions over in the Blogshares forums, mostly about the dynamics of the fantasy economy there. Seyed has some interesting statistics that are well worth analyzing. Several of us are tossing ideas around, but it’s hard to predict what will happen in the future with each change that may be made to the game system. Approximately ten percent of the active players of the game have above $10,000, with 8 millionaires included in that number, and player wealth is growing. 90% currently have less than that, but wealth is increasing faster than market capitalization… and that could lead to stagnation in the game economy. We’re discussing such things as capital gains tax, and other methods of recapturing that wealth and putting it back into the market. On the other hand, the poorer players would never get ahead if they were unfairly taxed because any sort of tax is going to be more significant on the poor than on the rich, imho.

In the meantime, I’m doing fairly well so far, but things have slowed somewhat for me as I find it harder and harder to find stocks that I think are potentially good investments. I’m back up on the Best Player’s List tonight (so far), but that tends to fluctuate as other players make their gains. Currently I’m #79 on the list (as of this moment I have $18,781 in wealth (stocks and cash), an increase of 452% from the beginning of the month), which means my percent of growth is up there among the best 100 players in the game (not necessarily the richest either, by any means), and with over 5600 active players, that’s not too shabby. *grins* Only problem is, next month it is going to be that much harder to make those kinds of gains… the wealthier you are, the more this becomes a problem, it seems.

I’ve run across some very interesting blogs while playing this game. One of them, which I’ve invested in, is called My Life as a Cunt, Part II which, I think, is an hilarious read… I checked it out the other night, and the lady who writes it sounds very kewl, very witty. That’s one of the things this game has done for me is introduce me to other blogs I might not have ever found online. It’s fun!