This week we looked at in-game economies:

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I found the lecture this week much easier to engage with as it was less mathematically-based and more centred around discussing various factors and values such as what effects the supply and demand of these economies and how the player may acquire certain resources. I also made extensive notes as you can see above, often using the wording in the presentation so that I have a strong foundation to come back to if I choose to work with such systems in my game designs. Personally I am incredibly narrative and storytelling orientated but often in-game economies can apply even in the smallest of ways so I feel more confident knowing I have a basic understanding of how these work. An awful lot of balancing is required for systems like this which isn't my strong point but with a clear process of valuing each resource depending on the factors we have outlined I feel like I could make something work if necessary.

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For the workshop part of the session we looked at a game called 'Blood and Soul', one which I have not personally played but one of our other teammates explained. I understand the game to essentially be like a monster-hunting game, similar to that of Runescape with a heavy-emphasis on the trading. However the trading systems are broken where unnecessary inflation and deflation events regarding resource abundancy became an issue. This game became more of a stocks trading simulator than a game in itself, often giving people incredibly valuable items in abundancy before the market crashing and making these resources plummet in value. From what I have heard, it sounds as if this game needs to look at how common these resources are and how easily accessible they are so that they do not flood the market. They could also potentially consider capping the stocks of valuable items that are being traded so that this does not become an issue. 'Blood and Soul' is an important example of how a game can completely lose its playability when such an element as the in-game economy does not work effectively.

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