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So a UK mortgage broker has done an analysis of the cost of property in various game worlds.
It's a reasonably entertaining read, and shows how ridiculous the economy is in many games when property is so cheap comparatively.

https://www.landc.co.uk/video-game-property/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Aug18_3
We have finite time before we die, yet and still have enough to focus on this. What a world.
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They left out Monopoly...
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theslitherydeee: We have finite time before we die, yet and still have enough to focus on this. What a world.
What a world indeed. But which world? Maybe we should do an analysis on the value of time in different game worlds.
Post edited August 17, 2018 by ZFR
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theslitherydeee: We have finite time before we die, yet and still have enough to focus on this. What a world.
Or maybe it's just marketing...
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Gawd struth,some people need a life.
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adaliabooks: So a UK mortgage broker has done an analysis of the cost of property in various game worlds.
It's a reasonably entertaining read, and shows how ridiculous the economy is in many games when property is so cheap comparatively.

https://www.landc.co.uk/video-game-property/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Aug18_3
You know, some time ago, boomers were able to buy houses on a part-time minimum wage job. Skyrim is actually quite expensive, if you consider the time period we assume the game to be. Also ,they based the calculations on food, not other things like weapons. Skyrim is in wartime, so food is much more scarce and expensive. So, yeah, the houses in skyrim would actually be more cheap than their calculations, but the prices aren't unreasonable, we're just in a wage anti-bubble (as opposed to all the other bubbles we talk about).

EDIT: Dear God, though, Stardew valley. I always knew i was getting totally riped and jipped in that game.
Post edited August 17, 2018 by kohlrak
Godd post )
That's a hilarious but also insightful study. I'm not a big fan of real estate because of its basis on financial loans (ugh..) but the connection to video games is interesting. Since economics in games are usually whacked (homeless poor in the beginning, capitalist or king in the end), I wonder if it's more common to buy without loans and how that would affect markets.

I have always liked buying houses in games as a place of settlement and inventory management, also because you can usually buy them in cash.
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Nirth: That's a hilarious but also insightful study. I'm not a big fan of real estate because of its basis on financial loans (ugh..) but the connection to video games is interesting. Since economics in games are usually whacked (homeless poor in the beginning, capitalist or king in the end), I wonder if it's more common to buy without loans and how that would affect markets.

I have always liked buying houses in games as a place of settlement and inventory management, also because you can usually buy them in cash.
Going from poor to rich isn't really whacked, it just doesn't happen often (but it does happen). What's whacked is that you can be a sellsword, with lots of experienced, be poor, find a way to make quick cash, but you're the only one who ever figures out how to do it. I understand it can be hard to code the AI to respond to your sneaky tactics of killing dragons from far away using a paralysis spell tied with an ice spell or something, but if you're picking up 2 or 3 dragon bones from a huge dragon skeleton beside a khajiit caravan, why aren't they selling the rest? Then again, why aren't you taking the whole thing?
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Nirth: That's a hilarious but also insightful study. I'm not a big fan of real estate because of its basis on financial loans (ugh..) but the connection to video games is interesting. Since economics in games are usually whacked (homeless poor in the beginning, capitalist or king in the end), I wonder if it's more common to buy without loans and how that would affect markets.

I have always liked buying houses in games as a place of settlement and inventory management, also because you can usually buy them in cash.
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kohlrak: Going from poor to rich isn't really whacked, it just doesn't happen often (but it does happen). What's whacked is that you can be a sellsword, with lots of experienced, be poor, find a way to make quick cash, but you're the only one who ever figures out how to do it. I understand it can be hard to code the AI to respond to your sneaky tactics of killing dragons from far away using a paralysis spell tied with an ice spell or something, but if you're picking up 2 or 3 dragon bones from a huge dragon skeleton beside a khajiit caravan, why aren't they selling the rest? Then again, why aren't you taking the whole thing?
I always assume that RPG villagers are very very conservative (in a "the village is my world" way), either due to tradition or to the number of monsters on the roads (but wait, how do the roads exist in the first place?), and the specificity of your character is that you do stroll beyond these boundaries. The Fallout games actually made this pretty explicit, with you playing a wanderer that the vault inhabitants barely comprehend. In a way, you end up playing Brin/Costner's "the Postman". You're the one nomad moving around, doing the fetch quests for all the radical sedentaries.

And when those start moving around aswell, then it's Soldak mayhem (Din's Curse, Depths of Peril, etc). Beware.
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kohlrak: Going from poor to rich isn't really whacked, it just doesn't happen often (but it does happen). What's whacked is that you can be a sellsword, with lots of experienced, be poor, find a way to make quick cash, but you're the only one who ever figures out how to do it. I understand it can be hard to code the AI to respond to your sneaky tactics of killing dragons from far away using a paralysis spell tied with an ice spell or something, but if you're picking up 2 or 3 dragon bones from a huge dragon skeleton beside a khajiit caravan, why aren't they selling the rest? Then again, why aren't you taking the whole thing?
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Telika: I always assume that RPG villagers are very very conservative (in a "the village is my world" way), either due to tradition or to the number of monsters on the roads (but wait, how do the roads exist in the first place?), and the specificity of your character is that you do stroll beyond these boundaries. The Fallout games actually made this pretty explicit, with you playing a wanderer that the vault inhabitants barely comprehend. In a way, you end up playing Brin/Costner's "the Postman". You're the one nomad moving around, doing the fetch quests for all the radical sedentaries.

And when those start moving around aswell, then it's Soldak mayhem (Din's Curse, Depths of Peril, etc). Beware.
Which is weird, because, especially in oblivion, it was common to see NPCs making special trips twice a year to visit a brother or something. I think the fear of dragons had something to do with why they didn't in skyrim.

Though, another interesting point is: why do so many games with localised villages pay the same price for, say, steel armor? You'd think if no one travels other than merchants, a mining town would sell and buy the armor for much, much cheaper than the town that only has fields and livestock.
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kohlrak: Though, another interesting point is: why do so many games with localised villages pay the same price for, say, steel armor? You'd think if no one travels other than merchants, a mining town would sell and buy the armor for much, much cheaper than the town that only has fields and livestock.
The question is why they even craft and sell them. But that just goes with "why do they send you off to save everybody but with just a wooden sword if you can't afford to buy their unused broadsword" and "why do bats drop chestplates when you shoot them".

I don't push my rationalisation efforts that far.
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kohlrak: Though, another interesting point is: why do so many games with localised villages pay the same price for, say, steel armor? You'd think if no one travels other than merchants, a mining town would sell and buy the armor for much, much cheaper than the town that only has fields and livestock.
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Telika: The question is why they even craft and sell them. But that just goes with "why do they send you off to save everybody but with just a wooden sword if you can't afford to buy their unused broadsword" and "why do bats drop chestplates when you shoot them".

I don't push my rationalisation efforts that far.
Actually, those questions always have bothered me, too. It does make sense why they'd craft the equipment, though: i'm sure their little world of a village does do business with other villages, and perhaps the king's army.
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kohlrak: You know, some time ago, boomers were able to buy houses on a part-time minimum wage job. Skyrim is actually quite expensive, if you consider the time period we assume the game to be. Also ,they based the calculations on food, not other things like weapons. Skyrim is in wartime, so food is much more scarce and expensive. So, yeah, the houses in skyrim would actually be more cheap than their calculations, but the prices aren't unreasonable, we're just in a wage anti-bubble (as opposed to all the other bubbles we talk about).

EDIT: Dear God, though, Stardew valley. I always knew i was getting totally riped and jipped in that game.
Not really... they're comparing against current currency values so it's prices in today's markets.
400 - 500 years ago the equivalent of £1 was probably a year's wages for most... if you compare against that then yes it is very expensive, but they based it on price of things these days with all the years of inflation in between, so £12k for a house is absolutely nothing.

It's by no means a perfect comparison, and I think they've made some flawed assumptions (particularly in regards to the few games where property didn't have a price like Stardew and the Witcher) but it's interesting none the less.
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Telika: The question is why they even craft and sell them. But that just goes with "why do they send you off to save everybody but with just a wooden sword if you can't afford to buy their unused broadsword" and "why do bats drop chestplates when you shoot them".

I don't push my rationalisation efforts that far.
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kohlrak: Actually, those questions always have bothered me, too. It does make sense why they'd craft the equipment, though: i'm sure their little world of a village does do business with other villages, and perhaps the king's army.
(Also those bats had to buy them somewhere.)