Sunday, August 1st, 2010
Issue: 39   Editor: Nyxxie


Delicious Thoughts DeliciousX
I've just bought 100 points.

To me, that's exciting... I have never been able to afford points before. But I managed to save up $3,700,000 bootleggers dollars to buy some off other players in the game.

What do I intend to do with these points? Wear them on a necklace? Hide them under the bed? Sew them into my undies? No. Nothing. I have no plans for them. Points are just a safer commodity than Bootleggers dollars. I could have kept my $3,700,000, a rather nice sum of money, significantly above the user average... then return in 3 months to find that the average is now double that amount.

With points, that won't happen. If I leave for 3 months, I will still have my 100 points, which will have risen in value and will be worth more than the $3,700,000 I could have kept. Unless the price of points crashes for some reason... I think recent weeks are some of the only in Bootleggers history where points have actually DECREASED in value.

As you may have seen, I have an exchange rate article every week. Inspired by this, I wanted to find out how much these points were worth.

At time of writing, my 100 points were worth £6.43, 7.71 Euro or 10 USD. I have, effectively, made money on the game.

True, I've had total online time of nearly 12 days... the £6.43 barely covers the electricity and broadband costs. It certainly doesn't amount to minimum wage. But, without spending anything directly, I have made something worth real life money.

This got me thinking... what if I had $37,000,000, (as players do) or 1000 points? That's £64.34, a nice sum of money. What if I were in that minority of players that has $370,000,000, or 10,000 points? £643.44, or $1000 USD, would be what my points were worth. A very large amount of money to be made from an online game.

Of course, there are rules. I can't sell my points for real life money. But the POTENTIAL is there. Bootleggers is a living, breathing economy. Perhaps new players would find Bootleggers more enticing if the Bootleggers economy could be intertwined with the world economy. If people could log on to Bootleggers, knowing that they're making a few cents every hour, wouldn't Bootleggers feel more rewarding?

This is all speculation, I stress. It will never happen. If we could sell our points, BSF wouldn't be able to sell as many points. Also, hacking and bugs and viruses would no longer be an annoyance, but a crime. As soon as money is involved, things get a lot more serious, especially for those who HAVE $1000 USD of points.

Bootleggers is a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). Other MMORPGs have made the connection between virtual and real-world economy. Read the Wikipedia article on game economies... it's a genuinely nerdy interesting read! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_economy

Imagine a system being introduced... being able to bet points in poker, steal points in Organised Crimes... generally involving points in the Bootleggers gameplay a lot more. Being able to sell points directly back to Bootleggers, for half its initial purchasing cost. I.e. a user buys 100 points at ten cents each. You buy them with Bootleggers dollars, then sell them back to Bootleggers for 5 cents each. Through time and effort, you could actually make money.

It would be exciting, refreshing, inspiring... and Bootleggers would feel more worthwhile. On the other hand, I think it would cause more problems than it's worth.

Hmmm. Lots of thoughts. No satisfying conclusion. I'll let you make up your own mind.