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[Loud Whispers]

crop was a currency in many early market societies

noun (plural currencies)
A system of money in general use in a particular country:
the dollar was a strong currency

Definition of money
noun
[mass noun]
A current medium of exchange in the form of coins and banknotes; coins and banknotes collectively:
I counted the money before putting it in my wallet
he borrowed money to modernize the shop


No, not really.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_money

[Loud Whispers]

This isn't about video games which exist in a world that works only on barter; those could presumably work like trade in DF's Fortress Mode would. This is about a hypothetical world in which people (for the sake of the argument, let's say humans, although it shouldn't matter) have ascended to roughly our level of technology without developing even the concept of currency.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

that's the op. what about it?
i'm defending the notion that currency arises naturally in a trade system... maybe we've derailed this a bit

[GreatWyrmGold]

Currency has three characteristics that it needs, to be a currency:
1--It must be a unit of account (e.g, a measure you use to compare prices)
2--It must be a store of value (e.g, a way to store money for a while)
3--It must be a standard of exchange (e.g, something anyone will accept)

That's a bit simplified, but you get the idea.

Crops can usually be given good units of account, but not always (not all apples are equal, for instance). They are (almost) never a good store of value. They are consistently a good standard of exchange, but only because people need to keep eating them, which violates the idea of a standard of exchange (e.g, Alice accepts Bob's $5 bill because Alice knows Charlie will accept it).

[SalmonGod]

So we have a few options, I think.

It could be a world with some form of easily harvested, highly concentrated energy in abundance that made for really easy technology advance without much specialization.  Wouldn't need much sophistication to make modern things happen.  Just brute force energy.

It could be a culture that has maintained from its beginnings a high degree of mutualism.  People don't trade so much as give freely to anyone who needs something, with the expectation that they'll do the same in return later.  Things aren't assigned value in the sense that they are now.  If somebody needs something and you are able to share, you do.

It could be a people that never spread out after they came into being.  A race who formed one tribe that never splintered and advanced together as one unit with a centrally planned economy, so that there was never trade.  Could be some form of hive creature.  Could be a very intelligent race that was created artificially and kept confined in a limited space, but otherwise left to do its own thing... like an entire species stuck in a sort of ant farm/Truman Show scenario.

[GreatWyrmGold]

So we have a few options, I think.

It could be a world with some form of easily harvested, highly concentrated energy in abundance that made for really easy technology advance without much specialization.  Wouldn't need much sophistication to make modern things happen.  Just brute force energy.

It could be a culture that has maintained from its beginnings a high degree of mutualism.  People don't trade so much as give freely to anyone who needs something, with the expectation that they'll do the same in return later.  Things aren't assigned value in the sense that they are now.  If somebody needs something and you are able to share, you do.

It could be a people that never spread out after they came into being.  A race who formed one tribe that never splintered and advanced together as one unit with a centrally planned economy, so that there was never trade.  Could be some form of hive creature.  Could be a very intelligent race that was created artificially and kept confined in a limited space, but otherwise left to do its own thing... like an entire species stuck in a sort of ant farm/Truman Show scenario.

Why not all three, to improve the chances of it happening?
...
Okay, now can we get back to the video games, or have we exhausted our ideas on that front?

[SalmonGod]

I'm trying to come up with plot settings that could be used in a video game that would meet the still-developing criteria    My last post was developed under the assumption that advanced trade is necessary for a society with specialized roles and thus technology, and that currency is a natural feature of trade.  And the OP dictates that the setting in this video game must not even have developed the concept of currency.  So I've proposed three situations where that might be possible.

[Trollheiming]

Currency is so easy, even a monkey can do it.

I think there's a mod for Oblivion that does something dynamic, but it's not very good/full/realistic.
Doesn't Mount and Blade have a dynamic economy?

I dove into the module script once to check out the M&B economy, and I recall it was just disappointing window dressing. Probably a little better than the Living Economy mod for Oblivion, but not too much.

Or maybe currency didn't exist there in the first place?

Let's keep in mind that the source for pre-Conquest Incan civilization is probably Juan de Betanzos. Nothing wrong with that, except he was a Spanish man who married the Incan princess Dona Angelina, who was 10 years old when the Empire fell. What you're getting is the tale of an Incan princess who knew the systems of the Incan empire as one of the elite, not a grubby commoner. If it seems to work like a flawlessly planned central economy without trade or barter, that's why. Princesses rarely need trade or barter.

i'm defending the notion that currency arises naturally in a trade system...

I, for one, am convinced.

[Lectorog]

It could be a culture that has maintained from its beginnings a high degree of mutualism.  People don't trade so much as give freely to anyone who needs something, with the expectation that they'll do the same in return later.  Things aren't assigned value in the sense that they are now.  If somebody needs something and you are able to share, you do.

Wow, this is a strange thing. Fun to imagine. Would a free-range adventurer be accepted in this society? Kind of a sinkhole for resources, considering they'll probably die and not give much back. I suppose once you give things to a community they might accept you. Potentially interesting system for a game.

[GreatWyrmGold]

It could be a culture that has maintained from its beginnings a high degree of mutualism.  People don't trade so much as give freely to anyone who needs something, with the expectation that they'll do the same in return later.  Things aren't assigned value in the sense that they are now.  If somebody needs something and you are able to share, you do.

Wow, this is a strange thing. Fun to imagine. Would a free-range adventurer be accepted in this society? Kind of a sinkhole for resources, considering they'll probably die and not give much back. I suppose once you give things to a community they might accept you. Potentially interesting system for a game.

I think he was talking about a culture that wouldn't get currency...but that could be a neat idea for a game...until the player abuses the people, of course...

[SalmonGod]

It could be a culture that has maintained from its beginnings a high degree of mutualism.  People don't trade so much as give freely to anyone who needs something, with the expectation that they'll do the same in return later.  Things aren't assigned value in the sense that they are now.  If somebody needs something and you are able to share, you do.

Wow, this is a strange thing. Fun to imagine. Would a free-range adventurer be accepted in this society? Kind of a sinkhole for resources, considering they'll probably die and not give much back. I suppose once you give things to a community they might accept you. Potentially interesting system for a game.

I think he was talking about a culture that wouldn't get currency...but that could be a neat idea for a game...until the player abuses the people, of course...

The idea behind an adventurer in this society is they bring unique contributions.  They're a gamble for the community, but one with potentially large payoffs.  This type of community deals with greedy non-contributors by shunning.  People who refuse to share get cut off from the sharing economy, and are essentially on their own until they come back with a different attitude.

[anzki4]

Currency is so easy, even a monkey can do it.

Didn't yet have time to read the whole study, but that is some interesting stuff. I wonder how long it would take for us to teach monkeys concepts of work and wage? How fast we could teach them some system of law, where they punish criminals themselves? How long it would take them to adapt to human-like society, if we slowly introduced more and more complex concepts and ideas?

I'm waiting for our monkey overlords.

[PanH]

I don't think currency can't NOT develop from barter. There's some games where the player base decided (without vote, just like that) for a common item/service that sorts of become the currency. But there's the influence of the real world currency.

Anyway, I think it would be interesting to consider video games in a world without even barter. Or even just how the society works.

[SalmonGod]

You kind of have to figure out how the society works in order to base a video game on it.  That's why the discussion has gone this way.