Balancing Act

One of the fairly common economic characteristics among MMORPGs is that they "print money" at a steady rate. That is, there is a constant influx of new currency (gold, gil, credits, etc.) due to drops from monsters, rewards from missons and quests, and infinitely replenishing natural resources (e.g. gold mining in WOW). Would is be better to limit the money supply - which could drive up the real world cost and sales of virtual currencies, or to have currency flow even more freely in the game - possibly disrupting game balance and marginalizing the value and role of currency?(see previous post "The End of the Game?")

Some people have suggested built in money "drains" like taxes (e.g. MMORPG economy problem solved?) but many players feel that online gaming would lose its fun factor when it becomes too much like the real world.

My suggestion? Provide, at least in some part, currency that expires - like coupons or frequent flier miles. For example, you trade in unwanted items to a merchant in the game and you get back a note which expires in 30 days. I believe this would also curb the out-of-game sales (which some game operators apparently would like to do) or instead drive down prices because of the urgency to sell (hmm - that could actually cause more volume of sales as a result of the lower cost of money). Another possible effect of this proposal is that players would be compelled to log in more frequently in order to "use it or lose it." This would be desirable for games that want players to generate hits on in-game ads (*cough* Anarchy Online). Of course if you're a game operator - or player - who prefers fewer people on yor server then you could have the expiration days only tick down on days when the player i slogged into the game.

There. Problem solved.