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Economics of Minecraft

alicemaz.com

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Re: Economics of Minecraft

#71

Post by andybak »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #54

I'd hoped by the end the author and friends would've set up some kind of labour system. After all, it seems they controlled the economy and controlled a lot of mining-time indirectly. I'd have hoped this would lead to them tendering large infrastructure & art projects / city-building with their massive wealth and leave a long-lasting mark on their world.

For every Guggenheim or Medici there's a multitude of the elite who lack the imagination to bequeath anything more than a garage full of gold Rolls Royces.

Maybe the conditions for that kind of behavior are less common than we think.

Re: Economics of Minecraft

#72

Post by andybak »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #56
IIAOPSW wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This raised more questions than answers for me. What are we even talking about here? Economic theory? Political ideology? Philosophy? What exactly is anti-Fordist, accelerationism, L/ACC, R/ACC and CCRU?

That's what happens when someone wants to look/sound smart, but actually isn't - lots of jargon, piled like spaghetti, impossible to follow. Actual smart people are generally effective at explaining complex things succinctly and in simple terms.

A bit harsh. He might be busy rather than a charlatan.

I often err on the hand-wavey side when I don't have time to do the topic any justice. It was just a HN comment after all.

Re: Economics of Minecraft

#73

Post by andybak »

jd3 wrote: post #37
extr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't really follow those circles well so maybe i'm giving her too much credit. what does UACC stand for?

unconditional acceleration — think accelerationism but replace the traditional adherence on partisan political paradigms (seen in L/ACC and R/ACC) with a Landian (Nick Land from the CCRU) cyberpunk eschatological cult that employs ironic internet culture and an anti-Fordist faux-mythologization of 19th century literature & material relations à la alt-right. There was an attempt to institutionalize the movement (outsi…

Interesting theories.

Although I sincerely hope these people don't drive automobiles the way they advocate running society.

Re: Economics of Minecraft

#74

Post by pilif »

>No one who wanted wool for consumption was actually paying those prices, it was all wool merchants buying each other out

Kinda reminds me of Bitcoin. Or these free to play apps that force people to look at ads of other free to play apps (on an infinite time scale, only the bank^Wad platform will win that game)

Re: Economics of Minecraft

#75

Post by pluma »

Surprised to see so many positive comments considering her behaviour in the game seems eerily similar to that of the kind of startups HN likes to hate on. Her success was mostly based on exploiting the naïvity of other players, draining their money by selling excessive amounts of overpriced goods. She even brags that "scrubs" complained about her behaviour. The traders she bankrupted are the "moms and pops", the handful she eventually allied with formed a literal cartel (and she even describes it as such).

Sure, it's "just" a game but she was clearly playing a very different game from the one the majority of players were playing and it sounds like she was adversely affecting their experience.

The account sounds more like a cautionary tale than something worthy of praise.

Re: Economics of Minecraft

#76

Post by progval »

Iv wrote: post #38
dannyw wrote: post #13

If you liked this read, look into the upcoming ‘One Hour One Life’. Here’s the description: “A near-infinite, persistent online world full of untouched wilderness. Build a new civilization from scratch, starting from rocks and sticks. When you join the game, you're born as a helpless baby, with another player as your mother. Each minute marks a passing year, and over the course of an hour, you will live a full life,…

It looks interesting but it definetly needs a "how to install/compile" doc. I cloned the github repo but I am kind of lost there.

git clone https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLife.git

git clone https://github.com/jasonrohrer/MinorGems.git minorGems

cd OneLife/

./configure # answer the question

cd gameSource/

make -j 4

./OneLife

Re: Economics of Minecraft

#77

Post by pavel_lishin »

That was a great piece of writing. It reminded me of the best parts of Neal Stephenson's books, especially REAMDE. I wish there was more than just two more long pieces to read.

It looks like there haven't been any updates in almost a year - does anyone know what Alice is up to now?

Re: Economics of Minecraft

#78

Post by bgun »

pluma wrote: post #75

Surprised to see so many positive comments considering her behaviour in the game seems eerily similar to that of the kind of startups HN likes to hate on. Her success was mostly based on exploiting the naïvity of other players, draining their money by selling excessive amounts of overpriced goods. She even brags that "scrubs" complained about her behaviour. The traders she bankrupted are the "moms and pops", the hand…

You seem to be moralizing about how an economic game was played to maximize pretend profits. Do you have the same complaints about how winning at Monopoly "adversely affects" the losing players' experience?

Re: Economics of Minecraft

#79

Post by paol »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #64

OK - really dumb questions - if your child (8years or so) loves minecraft but you think staying away from public servers is sensible, is there a good way to introduce them to these worlds or just wait for some years ? - what are the tools and scripts for looking at the real world like a MMOneconomy game?

8yo is a great age to play MC with friends. Look around in the forums for kid friendly servers, or host your own.

Re: Economics of Minecraft

#80

Post by BearGoesChirp »

This reminds me of the time a few friends and I were playing a modded minecraft server and destroyed the market and entered into a post scarcity economy. The mods were different, but we took over so fast that every admin on the server was investigating us for hacking (eventually we were cleared).

The server we were on was much smaller, and while there was an economy, it was never to the point that B would buy from A just to resell at a higher price than A was selling.

One game that fascinates me with its economy is Path of Exile. It tried to do away with gold, and in doing so gave evidence that there will always be some sort of currency. Granted, I think this was already shown in Diablo 2 when, because of the gold cap being far below the value of the best items, a second organic currency economy was born trading in runes (I think it was runes, its been a long time).

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