In-Game Markets vs. Real markets?

L

Lethn

I'm fairly sure anyone here must have played computer games at least once in your life and I'm vaguely interested in knowing what your opinions are on the In-Game markets that are out there. Now of course ignoring the really cheap and simply made ones what do you think about the huge markets that almost act like the real thing? The more volume they have the lower the prices go and the less they have the higher the prices go.

Games like EVE Online ( As much as I utterly despise the game itself you got to admire the complexity of the system ) and X3 Terran Conflict are some of the ones that I can think of. One hilarious article even came out one time about a glitch that was discovered in EVE Online where a clan was creating tons of resources artificially secretly outside of the game code, it turned out that they had been doing it for so long that it caused the inflation of the in game currency making it lose value so things got far more expensive. Kinda ironic since that's very similar to what the Federal Reserve was doing.

Do you guys think any of these in-game markets are at all accurate to real life? I can understand them not being entirely due to them being in more controlled environments or whatnot. But I was just wondering what you thought. Part of the reason I got into the idea of trading in the first place I admit was because I made a huge amount of money in X3 Terran Conflict which was pretty crazy and it just made me wonder what would happen if that money had been real.
 
Quote from Lethn:

Part of the reason I got into the idea of trading in the first place I admit was because I made a huge amount of money in X3 Terran Conflict which was pretty crazy and it just made me wonder what would happen if that money had been real.
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Sell your account/character then. Game currency does have real value, just look at all the World of Warcraft gold sellers. Also, game characters and accounts that are worth something get traded. Eve, by the way, has some people selling their characters as high as $5000.
 
Hahah ;P I was only on X3 Terran Conflict then, singleplayer game sadly, I'm just wondering if in theory these kind of skills could be put to use in the markets with real trading.

By the way I just said EVE Online as an example, I utterly despise that game way too much grinding and there's absolutely no way to get past it.
 
Hi Lethn. I only play first person shooters and flight sims. What massively multiplayer games have 'liquid' markets? World of Warcraft? EVE? What else? Second Life?

I have heard of games where the transactions and profits are real, but how far can they go before they are targeted for taxes?
 
The only games I know of that 'react' to the rise and fall of prices etc. in the markets as well as volume like a normal market does are the ones I mentioned. X3 Terran Conflict and EVE Online, X3 is more an offline however so the situation is more controlled although they do have some reasonably clever NPCs that try their best to go for the profits so you end up losing on it.

I'm just interested in the whole viability of it that's all. The reason I ask is because I tried out paper trading and by hell, it was crap! And that's putting it nicely! If it takes you around ten minutes to execute an order then by that time the order you were about to buy or sell on could have changed several times. I honestly think I'd have better luck practicing in the markets of these games than doing paper trading until I get the money.
 
Quote from Lethn:


I'm just interested in the whole viability of it that's all.
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Well you are missing the fact that in these games, 90%+ of the items have real end users. In real life electronic markets, 90%+ of the stocks, futures, etc., have no end users. Most of these shares are worth jack sh*t as they pay pathetic dividends, if any. You either sell them higher to someone else who is hoping for further appreciation, or you get enough shares to liquidate the company, which is highly unlikely.

I'm an avid PC gamer and Eve is the game I play now. I can tell you, that in a game like Eve, which has the most developed & intricate game market & economy, you can get a little sense of market manipulation & some reading of orders. You can get a sense of where the price of a liquid mineral goes by how the bids & offers are moving. But in general, you need to understand that the mechanics of in game markets are more similar to real life markets where real goods are involved, NOT electronic trading.

If you like game markets, I would advise you to look into making money from them directly. There is definitely more opportunity in that industry for anyone with trading experience & mindset than in trying to battle it out in stocks or futures.
 
The problem I don't think a lot of you traders realize is that in most games trading in-game currency is actually illegal and you'll get banned for it supposedly which is why I haven't already tried it out.

I haven't had a chance to test out the REAL REAL markets though so I'm going to enter in with a reasonable amount of money and just see where I can go with it.
 
Quote from Lethn:

The problem I don't think a lot of you traders realize is that in most games trading in-game currency is actually illegal and you'll get banned for it supposedly which is why I haven't already tried it out.
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OMG illegal? Will the game police come barging into you apartment & arrest you?
There are whole companies all over Asia making money from it, do you really think it matters that it is a violation of the game's agreement?

I haven't had a chance to test out the REAL REAL markets though so I'm going to enter in with a reasonable amount of money and just see where I can go with it.
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I think you have problems understanding what I wrote before. The mechanics are different.
 
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