The Broken Economy Is Your Fault

Twenty Sided’s Shamus Young has penned another one of his “Experienced Points” articles for The Escapist, with his latest focus being on the broken economies found in many role-playing games.

Anyone who has ever played an RPG has been there: You’re halfway through the game and you’ve already got enough cash to outright buy the kingdom, city, or planet where your adventure is taking place. Either that, or the people you’re saving are hateful, opportunistic jerks who, upon seeing you stagger back into town all scorched and smoldering from defeating the dragon that was menacing the town, will quadruple what they’re charging for burn salve. Every RPG economy seems to be bent or broken in some logic-defying ways, to the point where it doesn’t make sense, annoys the player, or it ruins the game balance.

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…if the player can loot foes, if the foes drop worthwhile items, if shopkeepers pay fair prices, and the shopkeepers have enough money, then the player will end up a tycoon about a half hour into the game. The problem all traces back to the conceit we all take for granted: Players can take on wave after wave of willing enemies. Never in history has there been a gunfighter or a swordfighter that regularly and single-handedly killed batches of foes with impunity. If there was, people would have stopped fighting them.

There are many steps developers could take toward fixing in-game economies, but it would take a lot of resources for what would probably amount to very little recognition from players. Not to mention that it might cause some conflict with another popular video game element: fun.