Business And Economy Archive

Thread: Crafters and SWG Economics

GraySeven
Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:32 am
#1

There seems to be some serious misconceptions about the Player Economy.


The entire Player Economy is based almost exclusively on Perceived Worth, that is prices arebased on what individuals believe that something is worth instead of True Worth, which is the exact cost of making that same item.


Take for an example:


To compute True Value, I would have to factor in the cost of...



  • House Maintenance-storage and crafting station, plus vendor location

  • Vendor Maintenance-to sell my items

  • Factory Maintenance-for crates, multiple items or neccessary identical components

  • Power Cost-computing PE, site percentage, and what-not

  • Resource Cost-which would mean computing how much power and maintenance it takes to pull up the needed amount of resources used in the items crafting.

As you can see, its easier said than done. It'd be nice to get a good example from someone who has the mathematic wherewithall to give us hard numbers.


My time to craft could also be given a True Value based on how much money I could make in the same time of crafting by instead running missions, but that would be a somewhat nebulous number.


Instead of doing it through True Value, we tend more towards what we or othersperceive our crafted item is worth. Oh, we might use a SWAG (Scientific Wild-A** Guess), but its still going to be based on perception, not fact. Rarity also has a factor in perceived worth, as the rarer the item, the more others are willing to pay for it.


There is no inflation in this game. Inflation requires a number of economic factors that simply do not exist in this game that involve not the worth of an item, but the worth of the money used to purchase items.


Back when there were a large number of credit dupers, the value of the credit did not change. Credit Duping is akin to Bank Robbery in that it allows the people who did it to buy more, but it doesn't change the value of the stolen money. Some ITEMS cost more to buy, but only when auctioned off since dupers had more money to spend than non-dupers and were willing to throw the money around. You didn't see vendors raising their prices because more credits were available...


The SWG economy is really quite simple, and many people are all to quick to give it a greater complexity than it really has.




Vahl Arturin - Elder Ranger, Elder Bounty Hunter, Elder Rifleman
&
Vaylis Arturin - Elder Armorsmith
Starsider
"The burning is love"

BladePride
Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:56 am
#2

I do not know if this plays into the economy but I bet it dose:


If somone can run missions and make 100k in a hour, then they may spend 100k on a item worthonly10k if they only have to spend 5 mins looking for it and not a hour. Some times it takes hours to find what your looking for, so you just buy the frist item you find no matter how much it cost, just so you can get back to grinding.






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GraySeven
Tue Feb 15, 2005 10:59 am
#3

Yeah, it does. Its basically part of the "what people are willing to pay" section. Some people are willing to pay for convienience, which is why 7-11 sells a small jar of coffee for the same price a supermarket sells the largeones for.



Vahl Arturin - Elder Ranger, Elder Bounty Hunter, Elder Rifleman
&
Vaylis Arturin - Elder Armorsmith
Starsider
"The burning is love"

Happymob
Tue Feb 15, 2005 11:20 am
#4

For crafted items, you also have to include "lot cost". Asusming I am not using any of the known ways around my 10 lot limit, on any given lot, I can make x amount of money a day just harvesting and selling resources. For me, that's around 60K credits a day per lot. Now if I craft, instead of harvest resources, not only am I consuming reosurces (I have to factor in the retail value oof the resources), but I also have to factor in how many lots I use for storing resources and how many lots I use for factories.


In my case, I use approximately 1 factory/storage lot for every harvester lot's of resources I consume in medical crafting. So a day's run isn't just costing me 60K in resources, but another 60K in lost profits that I would make if I didn't craft at all. Which means if I sell my medical products at just above cost, I'm actually leaving money on the table. In the end, unless I charge 3 times the retail value of the resources used, I can't really justify the time and lots spent on crafting. ANything less than that, and I'd be better off just harvesting and selling resources.


Of course if my storage houses and factories were on swapped or rented lots, there would be no lot cost to factor in.





Imadoh and Ikiecobi
Quality Resources and the Corellia Butcher - NoCo
NoCo Trade Center, Corellia (just northeast of Coronet) 796, -3076


DirthNader
Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:39 pm
#5






GraySeven wrote:

Back when there were a large number of credit dupers, the value of the credit did not change. Credit Duping is akin to Bank Robbery in that it allows the people who did it to buy more, but it doesn't change the value of the stolen money. Some ITEMS cost more to buy, but only when auctioned off since dupers had more money to spend than non-dupers and were willing to throw the money around. You didn't see vendors raising their prices because more credits were available...





Credit duping is more akin to counterfeiting than it is to robbery. Look at many former Soviet blok countries if you want examples of the negative effects that counterfeiting can have on an economy.



The artist formerly known as Ittov
DirthNader
Tue Feb 15, 2005 12:42 pm
#6






Happymob wrote:


For crafted items, you also have to include "lot cost". Asusming I am not using any of the known ways around my 10 lot limit, on any given lot, I can make x amount of money a day just harvesting and selling resources. For me, that's around 60K credits a day per lot. Now if I craft, instead of harvest resources, not only am I consuming reosurces (I have to factor in the retail value oof the resources), but I also have to factor in how many lots I use for storing resources and how many lots I use for factories.






What you're describing is known as "oppurtunity cost". It's been so long since I took an econmics course that I can't remember if it's included in true cost or not.


FWIW, oppurtunity cost can also be extended to include your time. If you could have made 100K running missions in the time it took you to make and market your items, that's part of your oppurtunity cost.




The artist formerly known as Ittov
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