Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
Issue: 49   Editor: SeanGoesToUni


COLUMN: Stock Market Noir
Looking through the list of available articles in the Buzz Forum, I stumbled across THIS little gem:

"Does the Stock Market work as well as Bootlegging or Jail Busting to bring the community together and how could it be improved?"

Though it had the prefix 'BORING:' (the list of available articles is ordered by priority and newsworthiness), I thought the question implied something rather interesting. It suggests that the Stock Market "brings the community together". That had never occured to me before.

Bootleggers, like any MMORPG, is built on community. Crews and organised crimes, both requiring user interaction, are by far the most important parts of the game in terms of gameplay. And as I've said countless times before; if there were no forum, I simply wouldn't be here. I'd have lost interest. Features requiring interaction is what separates this game from a really poor text-based PC game you play alone. Interaction encourages competition, the basis of fun in any game.

I hadn't thought of Bootlegging or Jail busting as particularly 'interactive' features as far as the community is concerned, much less the Stock Market. However, all are dependant on user interaction, only more subtly than in an organised crime, crew, or forum topic.

I suppose I take for granted that if I go to jail, some random soul will bust me out. I don't thank them. I go to jail too often for that. I also don't see it as a particularly selfless deed... sure, the user risks themselves going to jail, but merely clicking the 'Bust' button is mutually beneficial. It may bust me out, but it gives the user some busting experience.

I suppose Bootlegging and Jail Busting is more of a communicative feature than you might think. Every day you'll see a topic in the game forum asking people to bring beer to California, after all. The amount of booze available in each state is governed by users buying and selling. Much like the Stock Market, really.

A recent topic in the game forum (http://www.bootleggers.us/forum_new/view.php?forum=1&id=443732) asked people to buy shares of Walt Disney. Why? Firstly, to give them some solid stock market advice. Secondly... to drive the price of Walt Disney shares up, so that the original poster could sell his shares for a tidy profit. This is community interaction on a large scale. One person buying a few hundred shares of Walt Disney won't make much difference to the price. A hundred users can change the face of the stock market. I'm amazed that this hasn't been done more often.

Think of the bust parties, commonly held in Pennsylvania. Users drum up a lot of hype, build up a good, excited atmosphere, and ask that people bust them out of jail in the name of competition and cold, hard cash. The Pennsylvania jail is soon full to the brim with convicts, all trying to break out so that they can... break back in again. You'd have thought the Pennsylvanian authorities would transfer some of their inmates to the other states, take the pressure off a bit...

Reading the stock market topic linked above, I wonder why the same hype and excitement hasn't been drummed up for the purchase and sale of shares. If, as is commonly believed, the amount of shares users buy affects the overall share price, why have we not exploited this beautiful system? We should be getting everyone to BUY BUY BUY, and sell when the shares profits will see us happily into our retirement. Forget the financial implications on the company, let it wither and die, we've made OUR money.

The POTENTIAL for community interaction is there. All it needs is organisation. I genuinely believe that before long, we could be seeing 'stock parties.'

Of course, this community interaction could be taken to new heights... of sabotage. If people were organised, they could, say, gather a team of people in Nevada and do nothing but major crimes, and try to make the local Bullet Factory owner bankrupt. If you had more people, you could all do an Organised Crime in New Jersey, en masse... then anyone else who wanted to do an OC there would find that there's nothing left in the bank except for a packet of ginger biscuits and a copy of Playboy.

As for Bootlegging? Let's all smuggle cognac into Michigan... the price will plummet, and we'll be able to buy it by the pint for less than the cost of the glass!

Which has JUST sparked another torrent of verbal diarrhea... what if we could COMBINE these elements of user interaction? Say, by investing in the Colorado Beer Brewery, before smuggling gallons of the stuff into New York, and selling the Colorado Beer Brewery Stock for double what you paid for it! What if you could invest in Louisiana's State Penitentiary, just before hosting a bust party there, and seeing the price of the stock rise as the number of its inmates swells?

In answer to the original question; yes, the Stock Market DOES work as well as Jail Busting or Bootlegging in bringing the community together. At least, in theory. All we need is organisation, baby.