Sometimes, market tells us much more…

January 7th, 2006 Jun Sok Huhh Posted in news |

Sometimes, the crowded market with large number tells us more preciously than the wisdom of small experts. The level structure of a game is not so easy to comprehend or describe, for experiences can be totally different across players. Some in-depth investigations of experts could shed considerable light on the matter, but we could not be sure that their opinions reflect actual experiences of players.

What if the information through collective decision making might be possibly attained? Usually, Market is one of best devices for this kind of information collecting.

One of RMT mediators in Korea, ItemPF, launched its service for avatar(or character) breeding at Sep. of last year. In short, with this service, the player makes a contract with ItemPF to grow his characters at a specific level instead of himself. So, the price of this service is a decisive evidence for the level structure of a game.

- If there are many players who want to avoid repetitive leveling, the demand for the service is increasing.
- prices for each range of level and price changes between ranges are indicators for the degree of toiling in the game.

One of the interesting is the comparison between price of L2 and that of WoW. Because the very final stages of leveling are exceptional for their price, these prices are excluded. The observed servicing level of L2 is between 1 and 70, and that of WoW is between 1 and 60. Following simple plotting shows that the level structure or toiling nature of each games. X axis is the number of level, and Y axis is price of breeding to 1 upper level(Korea Won, 1000 Won = 1 USD). I Think this one show clearly which one is more toiling. But, the interpretation needs to be done more cautiously.

I’m preparing for more detail research on many aspects of this service.