Week 3: New Economy?

So the reading was talking about the new economy, and somehow I managed to read the entire thing and base it on what I've seen in games I've played.

Take Lineage II for example, a game that absolutly depends on players to drive it's economy in game. Now as soon as Adena Farmers showed up in the game, the economy went crazy, prices dropped to insane lows, and people who spend their free time farming materials were now wasting their time as farmers took up the entire demand in bulk. Companies employed people to basically play hours on end, to gain Adena (the in game currency) and materials selling those to then use that money to sell to players, off the game on websites for for real money.

Crazy you say? I'd agree, but let's face it, gaming has come so far that people that play a lot, and take it serious actually use these sites, i.e buying in game currency through real currency.

An example, just to show what I mean would be this:

To buy a piece of gear, let's say a doom helm, which at that time was a agility based light armor for rangers (archers) was say 12 million, simply because one had to farm the materials, and then craft it. Once farmers were in the picture, the price increased to hit 12 million.

So just thinking of those old debacles back in the early stages of lineage II, and the upcoming Diablo online stockmarket of sorts, just goes to show how the internet, as an economy is taking off.