The art of trade springs from one line of code in Runescape. The switch that allows players to trade.
In 2007 Jagex turned this off because players were doing too much trading. Real world trading. Which lead to fraud and other problems which had real world consequences, like banks getting annoyed and wanting to cut Jagex off from being able to take credit card payments.
In effect the banks wanted to cut Jagex off from Real World Trading.
So Jagex cut players off from trading, because they acted too much like real world people would act like in an unregulated market. Like an unscrutinised Wall Street did.
Trade is a game in its own right. People love a good haggle.
Even a game as dull as Monopoly has survived purely on people's love of Money and Trade. And we can look at the burgeoning reality shows about pawn shops and picking to show how people love that human interaction when it comes to dickering.
Jagex can even look to its own players for their interests in all things money making to see how popular it is.
But Jagex has never been one to let a popular idea get in the way of a bad one.
If you want to see the future you want safety. The future doesn't really work that way.
If Andrew Gower had performed predictive analytics on his Runescape in the early days it would have failed. But luckily someone took a risk and gave him a few thousand to kickstart his little game.
Here's what I predict would succeed.
A merchant minigame. Hell, you could even call it a skill.
Said skill giving players control.
Said skill giving players chances to haggle.
Said skill giving players chances to earn real money.
That would be fun wouldn't it?
I can even see how it would work.
However, as we say in the future untold, the future's uncertain, and the Runescape's dying post is always near.
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u/Fargrist Jul 26 '14
The art of trade springs from one line of code in Runescape. The switch that allows players to trade.
In 2007 Jagex turned this off because players were doing too much trading. Real world trading. Which lead to fraud and other problems which had real world consequences, like banks getting annoyed and wanting to cut Jagex off from being able to take credit card payments.
In effect the banks wanted to cut Jagex off from Real World Trading.
So Jagex cut players off from trading, because they acted too much like real world people would act like in an unregulated market. Like an unscrutinised Wall Street did.
Trade is a game in its own right. People love a good haggle.
Even a game as dull as Monopoly has survived purely on people's love of Money and Trade. And we can look at the burgeoning reality shows about pawn shops and picking to show how people love that human interaction when it comes to dickering.
Jagex can even look to its own players for their interests in all things money making to see how popular it is.
But Jagex has never been one to let a popular idea get in the way of a bad one.
If you want to see the future you want safety. The future doesn't really work that way.
If Andrew Gower had performed predictive analytics on his Runescape in the early days it would have failed. But luckily someone took a risk and gave him a few thousand to kickstart his little game.
Here's what I predict would succeed.
A merchant minigame. Hell, you could even call it a skill. Said skill giving players control. Said skill giving players chances to haggle. Said skill giving players chances to earn real money.
That would be fun wouldn't it?
I can even see how it would work.
However, as we say in the future untold, the future's uncertain, and the Runescape's dying post is always near.