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> Economist Ramin Shokrizade, with no formal knowledge of Georgist theory, fixed EVE Online’s land recession simply by directing CCP Games to assess a “high eno
by eqvinox 2y ago
> Economist Ramin Shokrizade, with no formal knowledge of Georgist theory, fixed EVE Online’s land recession simply by directing CCP Games to assess a “high enough” holding fee to land-like spaceship factories, which had the effect of dissuading speculators.
How is it that EVE Online (not even that large of an MMORPG) is notorious for having an actual economist on staff (Eyjolfur “Eyjo” Guðmundsson), while actual claimed-to-be publicly relevant projects ("metaverse") seem to be spitballing this? Some of them are going as far as claiming "everyone" will {need,want} a "parcel of land" there. Where are their economy papers?
- intelVISA 2y agoEVE online had to exist and deliver value to generate revenue. Metaverse and friends is under no such obligation, hence the vaporware attitude to any rigor.
- roughly 2y agoAt the end of the day, economics is still a social science, and tech cannot abide the social sciences. If Meta didn’t hire anyone after they facilitated genocide, if Twitter never bothered to hire any of the people who wrote books about the problems Twitter would face years before they faced them, if Google never bothered to hire anyone after their seven hundredth social network failed, they sure weren’t going to hire anyone with any real expertise when they decided to build an economy - after all, they’re very smart, and how hard could it be?
- Ono-Sendai 2y agoWhere are the useful economics papers to help the metaverse projects?
- eqvinox 2y agoWhy are you expecting economists to publish such papers for free? All metaverse projects I've seen so far are proprietary commercial ventures.
- Ono-Sendai 2y agoBecause economists are often academics that get public funding.
- eqvinox 2y agoThat's exactly the point. It is not appropriate to use public funds to research aspects specific to private commercial enterprises.
- Ono-Sendai 2y agoI tried to find some research on repeated auctions, couldn't find any.
- squigz 2y agoI'm pretty sure CCP's economist has been gone for a while. And the economy reflects that.
- eqvinox 2y agoI wouldn't know, I've won EVE years ago ;). But this kinda drives the point home even harder, if that economy deteriorated after the departure of the economist. Assuming you infer that an economist is necessary¹ for a well-working MMORPG economy, I'm quite loathe to accept a monetized "metaverse" built without consulting economists. ¹ well, CCP could also just be bad at managing the EVE economy without an economist. But that loops us back to the head article's discussion; other MMORPGs don't seem better off.