So, there’s a writer at my former employer who puts out a regular column on online games and economics called Making/Money. Can I get an opinion on a few of her articles from some of you? Just a general impression of the quality and maybe some commentary on the substance. I’m curious if I’m alone in my judgment of them.

I’m looking at you, specifically, Sam (since others will likely not care).

http://www.massively.com/2008/06/13/making-money-mudflation-ig-vs-irl/

http://www.massively.com/2008/08/24/making-money-economic-equilibrium-is-mia/

http://www.massively.com/2008/09/07/making-money-conservation-of-mass-part-1/

interesting yes I’ll read through and comment tonight or tomorrow (I’m really tired atm)

Anything?

okie. Thoughts:

1. Mudflation is similar to monetary inflation in the sense that a good depreciates in real terms over time. With money, however, it is possible to store and actually increase value over time; this is not possible with gear in MMOs.

2. Pretty much everything in the second article was spot-on. I’d only note that his complaint about a lack of ideal equilibrium results only from imperfect information, and not from some intrinsic flaw in the market model present in the game. He said this but I think he overemphasized their differences.

3. Will read soon, I’m totally bushed atm :)

Your fascination with personifying automated teller machines is mindboggling, Sam.

I don’t understand Adam’s comment.

Re #2, I agree… and I still think that MMO markets DO reach a reasonable equilibrium, by and large. The imperfect information just allows flippers to profit by bringing it there.

And actually, I was just curious what you thought of her as an economics writer, tone and substance, in general.

heh. Cameron – re Adam’s response, “atm”

Also. WOW. It’s a girl? Is she beautiful? I missed the feminine pronoun when I read the OP I guess.

Thoughts on her as an economic writer:

She’s writing for a non-technical audience, and given this I think she does a fantastic job of tying game mechanics to economic concepts [or physical ideas, in the last article]. She occasionally over-reaches, and sometimes I disagree with her analogies, but the fact that she’s writing these articles at all is fantastic. Her writing is easy for me to understand; do you have the same experience?

See, my thoughts were that she’s being overly simplistic, getting bogged down far too much in the technical details of how basic business and economic concepts work, and not focusing enough on what’s relevant about what she’s explaining. I feel like I’m in an economics 1001 class when I read her articles, and her actual point is either poorly made or rushed at the end. Here’s the feedback I sent her editor after complaining on Twitter about her articles:

“She does a great job of explaining the mechanics, in economic terms, of what’s happening within a game. Probably a little too much, actually. But she then just ends the article—she doesn’t explain why that’s interesting or what the relevance is to the average gamer. Instead, she poses questions that would be far more engaging if she had offered up her own answer to them in the article.

I think she’d have stronger articles if she focused less on the “what is happening here?” stuff and more on the “why is this interesting?” and “what do I think?” stuff. She’s hitting on some really interesting issues, but it feels more like she’s writing for beginning economics students and using MMOGs to illustrate basic concepts than for MMOG players interested in economics. A few examples from recent articles:

1. My value chains are broken – She explains what value chains are and then suggests that they don’t apply in World of Warcraft. She then provides a brief analysis of why she thinks that this is. However, she doesn’t spend nearly enough time on her analysis: 90% of the article goes into explaining the concept of a value chain using examples from World of Warcraft, and then her last paragraph (very briefly) dives into why it might not hold. Setting aside the fact that I disagree with her here, spending 90% of your article explaining a basic business concept when a wikipedia link would work just fine is pedantic and boring. It’s the analysis that’s much more interesting.

2. Economic Equilibrium is MIA – Again, I disagree with her premise here, but I definitely think it’s a topic worth exploring. The point of the article seems to be that MMOG markets have a hard time reaching price equilibrium on specific items due to a lack of transparency (among other things), more or less. She spends a LONG time explaining how markets work, giving asides on the history of MMO markets (which many of her readers will be familiar with already), and making a comparison between taxes and AH fees. What she doesn’t do is get to the point about why Economic Equilibrium might be MIA quickly, and then discuss whether there might be a reason for that (or what the effects of achieving equilibrium might be).

3. Conservation of mass – This is the article I was frustrated by this morning. I feel like she doesn’t do a good job of explaining why the topic is interesting before she launches into a rather technical explanation of how it would work (which is cut off rather abruptly towards the end of the article). For a multi-article, in-depth look at a hypothetical design for an online game (from a non-designer), I feel like she needs to spend more time on explaining why a fixed-sum item universe might be fun or interesting to a player. I mean, at the end of the article she asks what players think about a system like this without having fully explained it or saying what she thinks herself (as a player).

I think that the article often comes off as pedantic and simplistic if you’re already familiar with the concepts she spends a lot of time explaining, and if you’re not already familiar with those concepts you probably won’t stick around long enough to wade through the lengthy technical explanations to find out why they’re interesting for you. Briefly. At the end. In one paragraph.

I think that an article focusing on economic issues in online games has the potential to be really, really cool… but there needs to be more focus on analysis and less on Economics 1001 concepts—anyone interested in this stuff is either already up to speed or can get up to speed via a brief Wikipedia link.”

Am I being too hard on her?

And judging by her Facebook picture, she’s not bad.

Heh, I wasn’t going to critique her too harshly – usually I’m pleased with writing on a blog if it occasionally uses complete sentences.