I am continuing a retired post: http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=481977 This is a huge untapped market that most game makers overlook. We (Kaiz Games) are working on games that implement economics and socioeconomics to a serious degree. There have been very few (if any) games that have done this. I have never played games like capitalism, but my expectations for it's realism and versatility are low. I think that the best economic game I've played is Transport Tycoon, but besides transportation, it's a very weak game economically. Railroad Tycoon was on the right path when they introduced share trading and company takeovers, but it did not get into enough depth. I wanted to touch on demand for this type of game also, I think it is very high. I've developed a couple of economic board games that are fairly complex and introduced it to my friends. They all enjoyed it a lot, even my little cousin and one of those guys who are all about war and conquest. In economics and society there are wars, just without explosions. If the more intelligent war mongering gamers out there are introduced to the competitive and strategic nature of these alternative and intellectual games I guaranty they will become addicted to them. At any rate, we are about finished with our first strictly economic game (online multiplayer), and the success of this game will probably prove or disprove my prediction here to a large degree. Initially this game will be free to play as I'm interested to fully see the degree people enjoy it. It is not the most realistic economic game that one could possibly make, but it does have more in depth features such as share holding, company takeovers, banking, share voting, real estate, etc. After this game I hope that Kaiz Games will be able to create something like you mentioned in your post. In fact, we are already working on such a game, but it will be a long time coming. What strategy games are lacking is dimension. What needs to be done is to bring economics (actual economics), war, and social behavior into one. In my opinion this is long past due, we have seen so much of the same old bs. [Edited by - thekaiz on March 1, 2009 4:01:30 AM]

After my 4 years degree majoring in mathematical economics, I come to believe that Economics is not restricted to Finance (stocks, derivatives, bonds, currencies etc) and trade related issues (companies, strategic behavior, production etc) as the vast majority perceived it to be.

There are many bestsellers that show how Economics is being applied to a wide variety of "non-financial" topics like Dating, Crime, Education, Psychology etc. The best example of such books has to be "Freakonomics". There are also "Sex, Drugs & Economics", "Undercover Economist", "Armchair Economist", "Discover Your Inner Economists" as well as the many articles regarding Behavioral Economics.

I once had someone tell me Economics can't be applied to analyze MMORPG economies because it doesn't have a forex market, stocks or derivatives etc. *roll eyes*



One of the problem I see with such a game is that the game makers might have the misconception I described above and create a game that is too uncreative and/or boring because of the need to have forex, stocks or derivatives etc just to make it "Economics based".

I agree with Girsanov. It's very easy to present a strictly economic game as a bloodless spreadsheet game (no offense to those who like bloodless spreadsheet games, of course).

There are many aspects I like about economic games, but to maintain my interest there has to be some visceral feedback. I tend to like space trader games for this reason. Even the unrealistic and goofy ones (like Gazillionaire Deluxe) at least teach some general principals so that the subject isn't so passionless and dry.

I think you'd benefit from taking a few points from edutainment games that teach dry subjects by making funny analogues and interesting stories. Like a newspaper story, this provides the hook / human interest while you deliver the facts.



btw, on a side note: the bit about integrity in games was a bit off putting in the Youtube videos. I think I understand where you are trying to come from but it came across as arrogant.