Eve Online's New Chief Economist

eldavojohn writes "Recently CCP, the folks behind the online game Eve Online, hired a real world economist to advise them on their in-game economy. Says the new hire, Dr. Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, 'There's a lot of discussion in the game about inflation and that is my job, to find out if inflation is going on. This makes the consumers behave in a more natural way because they are competing against each other on multiple levels, not only on a tactical level in combat but for logistics and resources. That builds consumer behavior and patterns that you see in the real world.' Is this a serious step to keep Eve Online competitive in the virtual land of MMOs despite scandals, Ponzi schemes & scams?"

Re:the first step

[Danse]

I think the main problem with the devs playing the game is that they are insiders. Just like you aren't legally allowed to trade stocks based on insider info, they shouldn't be able to provide their corp with an unfair advantage due to their insider info. Of course if the devs don't play the game, then they aren't as familiar with the ins and outs of it as they should be, so that can present problems too. If there's no strong oversight though, these problems will continue to pop up.

Form their own guild

[MMaestro]

Or the devs could simply, you know, form their own guild/corp?

Honestly, if the devs simply formed their own guild and (more or less) remained "neutral" there'd be no problem. Super-rare/powerful ships at their disposal? As long as their not selling it off to the highest bidder or using it to smash the other guilds, who cares? They know exactly where and when certain items will appear? Just toggle the dev-only invisibility feature and disable all outgoing messages for the devs then watch players go into a frenzy when someone finally spots the target. Devs REALLY want in-game experience? Limit which guilds they can join and monitor what information/equipment they have access to (for god sakes don't let them join the #1 guild and then expect the community to not suspect foul play.)

Re:I am not a ship

[sykopomp]

Was it Vendetta Online that had twitch-based combat?I know there's some space MMO out there that does it. Either way, I personally enjoy EVE's combat system. It's very technical, lots of micro-tweaks and spreadsheeting, which is very different from most MMOs I've played out there. I'm also under the impression that a twitch-based space sim would be very very hard to pull off with current technology (or technology from 4 years ago), while still keeping the obscenely huge size of EVE's single-'shard' cluster. Heck, the cluster barely holds up as-is. Also worth noting that there's an 'Ambulation' feature in the development process, with videos already out. They're starting with just basic station walking and access to basic station resources through that interface. Going on planets has also been explored, and I've seen concept screenies, but that's just another one of those things that just doesn't seem to be needed right now. CCP doesn't get enough credit for the stuff they do. All people cry and moan about is a couple of controversies involving a few employees, which CCP definitely went and took care of. I'm amazed how just because a bunch of butthurt SA Goons make a big fuss out of something, EVE is considered the most corrupt MMO out there. It's as if everyone suddenly forgot all the s**t other major MMO companies have pulled (discriminatory bannings from Blizzard staff, major, high-rank GM corruption in AO, EverQuest, and UO after the move to EA, the destruction of SWG, and that's just a couple of the ones I've played...). Eve is a solid game, with a very good company behind it, regardless of what the /. and Goonfleet fear-mongering likes to make it seem. No, I don't work for CCP, but I've played enough MMOs to be a bit startled that EVE takes so much flak over relatively minor offenses.

Re:the first step

[blahplusplus]

"Maybe the first step towards keeping inflation stable is making sure developers aren't allowed to create epic/rare items repeatedly. That would be a good start."

Or just maybe don't treat a games economy like a real economy all together it's supposed to be a god damn game (no true scarcity), it's not supposed to be real. Our real economies are not very fun, oppressive, unjust and boring, indeed, people haved die over economic ideology and how the economy should be structured.

Re:Baloney Economy

[tibike77]

Funny you should say that, because EVE's economy IS based on work, and almost exclusively work.

Killing NPCs in asteroid belts for bounties and loot ? Work.
Running missions ? Work.
Mining ? Work.
Setting up a scam ? Work.
Ransoming people ? Work.
Research ? Invention ? Manufacture ? Trading and/or hauling ? Begging people in Jita for money ? Work, work and all work.

Sure, different kinds of work, different amounts of "boring" versus "fun", different amounts of attention vs smarts needed, but work nevertheless, in all cases.
So, sure... nobody wants to work in a game, but you pretty much have to, if you plan on getting in-game wealth.
That's why you have so many "ISK farmers", that's why GTC prices have gone up through the roof, that's why there's so much scamming and whining going on.
Because nobody wants to work, but everybody has to.