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.
adaliabooks: 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.
What you find is, inflation adjusts all prices, which is important to note. Inflation is basically the result of cutting down on the rarity of your currency of choice. Village currency is 1 dollar, so a penny or less buys a loaf of bread. Same village has the same goods and value, prints another dollar, now all prices double. Inflation works slower because it's more distributed over a larger distance and there's more than just bread for sale, so you can artificially boost your economy now to suffer the consequences later.
kohlrak: Going from poor to rich isn't really whacked, it just doesn't happen often.
Nirth: I suppose it's realistic but I was thinking in terms of balance.. money is usually needed in the beginning but almost worthless in the end. Pure realism isn't what I was looking for, I've a decent ability to suspend disbelief. That said, game balance is important. No one wants to play a game that is too hard or too easy to the point it even feels ridiculous or humorous. I recently played through Kingdoms of Amalur, I had 4 million gold at the end. Still that game offered NPCs with items to sell for as high as a 1 million, I think I saw a sword or staff for 1.2 million. Of course, they were not near as good as the unique I've found in the wild (or potential crafting items).
Why did they compare an item that exists in real life? Someone with a degree in economics that could answer that? I would assume comparing one's purchase power for a X amount of time trying to maximise income would be more relevant.
The crafting vs buying thing is always something that bothered me. Player crafted staff of magic +1000 sells for less than store crafted staff of magic +50. If someone's been making staves for 50 years, i expect them to give me some quality. I understand finding some ancient staff in the wild that was crafted by a 200 year old dragon magician would be more valuable and powerful (assuming it didn't rust/rot), but my 5 minutes shouldn't be outdoing that master craftsman, unless i happen to have materials he can't get and/or I was taught by the 200 year old dragon magician. On the flip side, not much point to crafting if it isn't worth while, so the master craftsman should be selling game-breaking, or at least over powerful staves.
Well, that's the idea of using food: your purchasing power is tied to the price of food, really, since that's what's most important at the end of the day. The problem is, they didn't take in consideration the value of certain goods rises during wartime, and that includes food.
On the flip side, pokemon has a really realistic economy. "pokedollars" are merely rebranded "yen," so a singe pokeball is actually worth about 2 bucks, which makes sense why we can buy a bunch and throw them away so willy nilly, and why when we beat up youngster we get 200 bucks out of him: because we just took his lunch money, not his life savings.
