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Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

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Re: Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

#31

Post by markdown »

causality0 wrote: post #11
markdown wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep your weird "housewives" stereotypes to yourself, its 2020. FYI, I'm a house-husband. Imagine the stereotype, and yes, that's me. Stereotypes are useful. I know what games my mother-in-law plays, and what games appeal to her (bejewelled, etc) and others like her. These wonderful people do exist... they make up a lot of the generation that made us, much as you'd rather like to sweep them under the carpet. They h…

It's a great game if you like "vibing" instead of "striving". It's an alternate reality to partially immerse yourself in whose gameplay loop, if you can call it that, revolves around obtaining different cosmetic customization items and curating the physical and social aesthetic of a virtual island community. My girlfriend adores it but it hasn't been able to keep my attention for more than a couple of days.

Thank you.

Re: Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

#32

Post by markdown »

Pfhreak wrote: post #12
war1025 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently the hivemind disagrees, but I thought it was a worthwhile comment. Sure you could probably just look it up, but sometimes direct replies from people are better for getting at the essence of things.

The better way to phrase the comment would have been, "I've seen a lot of people posting about this game, but a quick google search doesn't really help me understand what it's all about. Can someone here who has played it give me their take?" That's a reasonable comment minus the several patronizing and snide remarks.

Thanks. That would definitely have worked better.

As for "patronizing", I wasn't the one who designed the game. I'm just going by the screenshots I've seen, and it looks to my like a game designed for children. Me thinking it's a kids game doesn't make it beneath me, just.. well.. a game designed for children.

Re: Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

#33

Post by markdown »

zimpenfish wrote: post #26
markdown wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Keep your weird "housewives" stereotypes to yourself, its 2020. FYI, I'm a house-husband. Imagine the stereotype, and yes, that's me. Stereotypes are useful. I know what games my mother-in-law plays, and what games appeal to her (bejewelled, etc) and others like her. These wonderful people do exist... they make up a lot of the generation that made us, much as you'd rather like to sweep them under the carpet. They h…

> I don't want to know what random gamers think about the game. I bought a Gamecube back in 2004 specifically to play Animal Crossing when it (finally!) got its EU release. If I hadn't already had access to a Switch (and they weren't in zero supply in the UK right now), I'd have bought one specifically for this version too. I don't really have a good description of it - it's whatever you want it to be. Want to design…

That sounds better than I initially assumed based on the character design I've seen in screenshots. Thanks for the description.

Re: Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

#34

Post by scast »

Spivak wrote: post #7

One detail I didn’t see that affects the risk profile is that every island in AC is their own market and you can buy and sell turnips on other people’s islands. You can afford to be far more risky than the model suggests if you have a few friends or an active Discord group because on any given day you can almost surely find an island with a profitable price if you need it in a pinch.

Hey there, author here. For sure, I hinted at this on the last paragraph of the post. The interesting bit is that if you do that you will build a more diversified portfolio (as the turnip price distributions on other islands are not correlated).

And for sure, if you have access to other people islands a lot of this becomes moot, as you will probably just sell at the highest price in any of your friends islands :)

Re: Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

#35

Post by scast »

madrox wrote: post #20

I was surprised that there was no mention of the secretary problem [1]. Optimal stopping has a whole host of problems and means of evaluating them [2]. I'm curious how this solution compares to just using the 1/e rule. Generally, the 1/e rule in this situation implies you should evaluate prices until Wednesday afternoon for the max sell price up to that point, and then sell the next time you see a price higher than t…

Hey there, author here.

I am not super well versed on the secretary problem but I think some people have already looked into it for AC [1].

In general, what I was looking was to associate a risk profile to a series of decisions of either HOLD or SELL(amount) given the current probability distribution.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/GAMETHEORY/comments/fn2grx/optimizi...

Re: Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

#36

Post by scast »

dmurray wrote: post #24
underanalyzer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik the 1/e solution is only optimal when you don't know anything about the distribution being draw from (but also why it's amazing). Since the author knows the probability distribution the prices are being draw from you can do much better with a little dynamic programming.

It's also solving a different problem: it maximises the when probability that you get the absolute best match, rather than maximising the expected value of your choice.

Yes, exactly. I was looking to solve the second problem, not the former. Following the secretary rule is good strategy for a lot of things, but I think we actually have more information here.

Re: Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

#37

Post by ganonm »

The Sharpe ratio should be mentioned here. It allows an apple to apples comparison between the performance of different assets in terms of expected return against variance (risk). In an efficiently priced market, assets will be priced to lie on a straight line of unit return vs unit risk. The line itself passes through the y-axis (zero risk) at a point called the 'risk free rate'. This is a hypothetical point but a close proxy in the real world is e.g. US treasury bills. In the game, I assume the bank always pays interest on deposits so it _is_ the risk free rate (0.05%).

Plotting the different strategies, then fitting a straight line (passing through the risk free point) would allow us to say "strategies falling above the line have market beating Sharpe ratios and strategies falling below are underperforming".

Re: Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

#38

Post by jchw »

zimpenfish wrote: post #25
jchw wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's amusing that you mention this, because 'time traveling' appears to be a huge sticking point among fans, with some coming out vigorously against it, almost violently, and 100% in earnest. I've seen people say things like "If you time travel in AC, please unfollow me now." and going as far as writing articles about how time traveling makes you a bad person. I think it's absolutely fascinating. I'm not by a…

> other people are able to accomplish more By cheating, tho'. It's the same as saying people who get rich by dodging taxes or defrauding people are "accomplishing more" than people who play 'fair and square'. (Personally, I don't care if people time travel and island-hop to grind turnips all day - it affects nothing about my game and my experience.) > folks who are ending friendships and getting genuinely angry over…

> Or they might feel that someone who is ok cheating at a zero-stakes, zero-effect game might not be a great person after all. It's the difference between, say, cheating your taxes purely because you want to be rich vs dodging your taxes because you have to feed your family.

I don’t cheat at Animal Crossing. No real reason not to, I just don’t feel like it. I am not in a rush or anything. But to me, Animal Crossing is (and I mean, to be fair, literally is) a computer program and “cheating” is really just “using in unintended ways” that are not really much different from modding games (that are not intended to be.)

I can’t tell if you are playing devil’s advocate or not but I view this argument as being pretty much projection. I think everyone should feel guilt-free to explore video games and the arts however they enjoy so as long as nobody is directly being harmed by it. I personally would bet the farm and some change that there’s no correlation between cheating in Animal Crossing and “not [being] a great person.”

And I’m not saying this as though I view video games as purely being software and experience absolutely no emotion. I am pretty much saying that for Animal Crossing, but there are plenty of games where I felt very immersed and felt empathy/sympathy for characters the way I would in other realms of fiction and indeed, real life. I couldn’t do “genocide route” in Undertale, for example. But, that also does not mean that I engage in this stuff as if it’s real, because of course, it’s not. It’s fiction. It’s walled off into its own space where I can explore and experience things in ways that I probably wouldn’t and maybe would not want to in real life. I certainly do not condone my actions in Grand Theft Auto as good, but I assure you I am no closer to committing such offenses in real life.

(Aside: I think the video game violence debates are equally fascinating as a subject matter, on that note.)

I am also not at all suggesting how you consume this content has no bearing on reality, but I am certainly saying I believe it’s very non-trivial and fair to handwave as being too complicated and personal to make pure blanket statements about.

I went a bit rambley here, sorry. My thoughts on this subject matter are complicated, although it isn’t really something I hold too personal, especially because the reality is I play exceedingly few video games anymore.

I don’t really condemn anyone for their opinion on this either, but I do feel it is a good moment to reflect and broaden the horizons (pun intended) regarding how people consume and enjoy games. Again, watching people play this game has been absolutely fascinating, no two people I’ve seen appear to get the same exact thing out of it!

Re: Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

#39

Post by p1necone »

markdown wrote: post #33
zimpenfish wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't want to know what random gamers think about the game. I bought a Gamecube back in 2004 specifically to play Animal Crossing when it (finally!) got its EU release. If I hadn't already had access to a Switch (and they weren't in zero supply in the UK right now), I'd have bought one specifically for this version too. I don't really have a good description of it - it's whatever you want it to be. Want to design…

That sounds better than I initially assumed based on the character design I've seen in screenshots. Thanks for the description.

Are you this weirdly cynical and judgemental about everything that's new to you? Do you always go out of your way to put barriers in the way of learning new things?

Re: Speculating on the Animal Crossing Turnip Market

#40

Post by zimpenfish »

jchw wrote: post #38
zimpenfish wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> other people are able to accomplish more By cheating, tho'. It's the same as saying people who get rich by dodging taxes or defrauding people are "accomplishing more" than people who play 'fair and square'. (Personally, I don't care if people time travel and island-hop to grind turnips all day - it affects nothing about my game and my experience.) > folks who are ending friendships and getting genuinely angry over…

> Or they might feel that someone who is ok cheating at a zero-stakes, zero-effect game might not be a great person after all. It's the difference between, say, cheating your taxes purely because you want to be rich vs dodging your taxes because you have to feed your family. I don’t cheat at Animal Crossing. No real reason not to, I just don’t feel like it. I am not in a rush or anything. But to me, Animal Crossing i…

> I can’t tell if you are playing devil’s advocate or not

Not really - I can well believe that someone could/would view another person who "cheats" (their opinion) at zero stake games to be a less worthy person. I wouldn't personally condemn someone for "cheating" Animal Crossing - I'd think they were missing the point of the game per my perspective, mind, and it would definitely confuse me about their outlook.

Same as if someone cheated at Monopoly or Scrabble whilst playing board games at home, I guess.

> I think everyone should feel guilt-free to explore video games and the arts however they enjoy

In an ideal world, yes. (I do try but having been a ridiculously cynical and judgemental arsehole for many a year, it is taking some time to adjust.)

> no two people I’ve seen appear to get the same exact thing out of it!

I think that's the beautiful thing about Animal Crossing.

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