Detailed Analysis of Economies in MMOs (massive multiplayer online games) and Their Applications to a Younger Generation

Blog Post 0

Hello!

My name is Theodore Chen. This is going to be Blog Post 0, so, uh, have a nice read.

For starters, I’m going to go over a quick overview on what you’re going to be seeing within the next few posts. Expect a quick overview of the research I have done (along with some vacation photos. The photos are important to the senior project. Trust me.)

To begin my project, I am going to do some data collection by finding virtual items of interest in video games that act as a form of “currency” that other items are traded by. Additionally, rather than focusing primarily on the raw data of the price of the item relative to the game’s original currency, I’m going to focus on important details and the bigger picture when examining each item – for example, did this item get a buff? Did a new competing item get released? So on and so forth.

Secondly, I’m going to create a basic framework for the game, which should handle all of the actual data that is occurring and the whole game loop. Nothing fancy, just enough to function. After that, it’s going to be a little bit of polishing before I finish up the main game. The main element that’s going to be added is that the change in the stock will be pre-simulated, and players have to infer that change by receiving tidbits of information (that will be gathered in the first step).

Lastly, I’m going to create a short test/assessment/survey that records the testers’ stock knowledge before and after development to assess the effectiveness of the game.

For a timeline, I’m hoping to finish data collection in the first three weeks. On that third week, I want to begin creating the framework for the game, and have an alpha product by the end of week 5. After that, I want to spend the next two weeks for art and polish, maybe sending out test versions of the game and drafting the assessment for effectiveness.

Blog 1

This week was quite a hectic week, but I did manage to get a good chunk of content done along with a decent setup for next week. (However, given the fact that my next week will also be hectic, I can only hope that this preparation pays off.)

Main accomplishments:

• Tuesday, tried creating a sample scenario of the game, realized that the scenario that I was planning didn’t really have a good teaching aspect to it just by copying real-life values from the item price of the virtual item. (Context, the Great Potato War in Hypixel Skyblock in 2020.) Interestingly enough, while the item in question (potatoes) did increase in supply, its price also increased due to hype and popular attention towards the item. 
  • Decided to create more of an “attention” level stock market growth – stocks with more attention will create more volatility
  • This does correlate with real-life principles, and that got me thinking to focus on principles and draft events from scratch rather than find real-life events and try to shove them into certain principles
    • Ex. SMCI versus BRK.B. SMCI is a hyped up AI technology company stock, and its value fluctuates worse than the school’s Wifi. BRK.B is a real estate company that doesn’t get much attention but does get guaranteed growth.
• Wednesday, had meeting with IA (Mr. Powers), got some valuable insights on a couple of important mechanics I wanted to implement, including:
  • Taxes and how tax brackets work in order to keep the game engaging
  • Play length – how long can a player play before they have to stop? I wanted to decide in what “interval” each day would ideally take place through, and eventually decided on 20 minutes as a rough baseline. On one hand, it can’t be too long, otherwise the casual player won’t be able to stay focused and remember everything. On the other hand, if it’s too short, the player can’t actually learn anything meaningful!
  • Information retention between days. Decided that the player would only get minor context.
  • Storylines for each stock (a series of linked events that occur one after another)
• Thursday, more drafting concepts. Not much to talk about here, mainly working on getting more framework set up.
• Friday, was going to have a meeting with EA (Mr. Orr), unfortunately something came up and we didn’t end up meeting.
  • Ended up continuing on the feedback from Wednesday.
  • Began drafting slight pseudocode for the entire game, mainly considering which variables will control the stocks and how that’s handled.