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- Forum Ninja
Personally I think nearly every game has had an "Economic Designer" of sorts in more recent memory. Being an Economics Major (woot woot I graduate soon!), I tend to like looking at the various economic systems in games and a lot of them could use some work.
The franchise with one of the largest in-game economies that comes to mind is the Assassin's Creed franchise. Introduced in ACII, the economic system has developed quite a bit since. The point of the monetary system in any game is to drive the individual to work toward something, but not aggravate the player with an impossible goal.
Now, MMO's too are famous for this and tend to rely on free markets where players select prices and sell goods on an auction house similar to ebay. BUT, this all had to be predicted at one point. Between testers and the guy in charge of the economic system, they establish, probably though some nifty data collection, about when people will achieve things in their game progress and try to predict how things will sell based on drop rates. It is why drop rates alter.
People complain that the Assassin's Creed economic system rewards you too much with vast amounts of money readily available and little to purchase. It is quite the contrary, but few people feel that some purchased items in AC offer enough of an reward. Why buy a monument in those titles when it offers you no real tangible reward to play with? People prefer to just snag the weapons they want.
I'm interested in the Economic Designer position at Bungie as far as what it will mean for the rest of the industry. It is a step toward trying to actively establishing better reward systems while simultaneously driving players to keep on playing day after day. The right man or woman in the job could make a really effective in-game system of rewards and a strong work ethic amidst its players.
[Edited on 01.01.2012 8:22 PM PST]