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[inteuniso]

Entropia Universe.

Animal sweat harvesting, AKA the ultimate first job of the future.

[gomez]

I have been looking for a good economic game since Ultima online came out. I think the biggest problem with these games, in a multiplayer view, is that, there is nothing to stop a good player from having a finger in every pie.

As an example, Apple (IRL) make a huge amout of profit from selling iPhones, but they have to buy components from other companies, but if they were a company in a multiplayer game then they would have enough money to buy silicon mines, glass and cpu factories, shops, etc.

[FakerFangirl]

Regardless of how inflated the economy, the law of supply and demand will still hold true.

[Abram Jones]

Not sure if Off-world Mining Company meets your requirements (I may have suggested it last thread). The non-financial sector is sort of covered by patents and espionage.

Anyway, you're on Mars, you mine resources and make stuff from them, and sell to a global market where you're in competition with others. Think of it as M. U. L. E, but modern, real-time, and sexy'd up.

You can invest in and buyout other competitors (that's the win condition, to own everyone), and there's a slight investment market in the sense of owning hab and rec domes that get more valuable with time.

Kind of somewhere between Monopoly, Mule and Colonization I guess. Lots of auctions, but a floating market as well, yet only privately owned companies to buy. Also semi-private markets with your own rocket launches selling direct to Earth, so bigger margins than just selling to the global market, and there's base load resources used by your mere existence. Several economic models available too (robotic, miners, science, etc) so base loads and key resources and markets can alter game to game.

I wasn't able to find a game called Offworld Mining Company, did you mean Offworld Trading Company?

[Abram Jones]

It doesn't look like EVE has implemented any form of investment yet, I found this interesting thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/22zuze/is_there_a_stock_market_in_eve/

Eve doesn't need a stock market : you invest in real things (well, real in the game world) that you buy on markets, or through contracts.

There are players who make much more money than 99% of the usual players, only through trade. You can read about one of them here : https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/77hlsk/a_trading_ama_thats_not_politically_motivated/

It is definitely good to be able to invest in real things, but this can be done with any game that has tradeable goods. What I mean by investing is the actual ability to financially invest in other entities rather than just things... this is generally done through share trading or loans (loans granted by human players).

Eve.

It doesn't look like EVE has implemented any form of investment yet, I found this interesting thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/22zuze/is_there_a_stock_market_in_eve/

There isn't a great big 'invest in x corp' button, but I have a good 450b invested in various groups and projects.  These range from solo traders paying me bi-weekly dividends for letting them invest my isk in market speculation to a smallish (~20 man) w-space industrial corp specialising in t3 and capital ship production who pay me 20% of their net profit in return for having provided their initial seed capital.  I also rent out my home system and the relevant ships to some cool lowsec guys on the fairly frequent occasions when I can't be bothered clearing the sites and regularly donate to a few newbro/public focused pvp groups to help them keep doing their thing.

That's gotta tick your 'player side financial investment in other entities' box.

These investments/dividends you speak of sound awesome! But I guess my confusion here is... are you arranging these deals between yourself and others outside of the game, or are there game tools that allow you to do this. If so, how do they work?

[QuakeIV]

Loans, eh?

Starlords has that, you can use the diplomacy system to give out loans.  I tend to collect investment in my glorious empire that way (vastly helps build up my empire).

http://starlords3k.com/

[FakerFangirl]

Yes it's Offworld Trading Company.

[Abram Jones]

hmm, this is a hard subgenre to find indeed.

i suppose the Guild series might also be looking into; side investment tho, that's only doable by politics (mayor kickbacks man) or being a scholar and opening a bank and giving out loans. the loans really don't do anything, they're a sink that generates money over time and all interest is instantly put into your wallet while the principal is added back into the sink.

i also have a liking for the patron, i like having a croft generate my materials and opening a little public house and selling the beer and porridge directly, i know it's not the most efficient but it makes me feel like a proud small restaurant owner and eventually expanding a public house into other towns makes me feel like medieval mcdonalds. 

of course, without mods the ai will drive the economy to a halt: all those goods in the markets have to be produced by somebody and the neutral town ais can't run expanded businesses so...

I had the Guild games on there before, but I'm not sure about the loan system. When you grant loans is there a chance they won't be paid back? Is there anyway you can get information on the client you loan to before and after the loan is made?

[JimboM12]

if you loan to a player, that's always a risk but hey, that's what armed thugs are for.

the autoloan thing from the banker is more just a passive money gen when it's used by npcs; you'll get paid consistently as mini-loans are taken out and paid back again.
i can't remember if that's something the mods fixed.

[sambojin]

Yes it's Offworld Trading Company.

Yep. This.

[Abram Jones]

Transport Fever, Offworld Trading Company, Entropia Universe.

Not sure if relevant, but you may enjoy Diplomacy 3. Or any game with an auction house and a player-driven economy and crafting (if EVE Online counts then so do Albion Online and ArcheAge and the many browser-based spinoffs).

Transport Fever: I have looked through the mechanics of this game before, and just did so again now. I cannot find any information on a stock market... and the loans just seem to be generic loans granted by the computer. Is this correct?

Offworld Trading Company: This game is already on the list.

Entropia Universe: I will add this game to the list. While searching I also found Planet Calypso which seems to have the same features.

Albion Online and ArcheAge: What financial features do these games have?

Yes it's Offworld Trading Company.

Yep. This.

Offworld Trading Company is already on the list.

[Abram Jones]

Maybe Victoria 2 with the POP demand mod.

I can't find any financial features that would qualify this game (or mod) for the list.

Not *quite* what you've described, but I wanted to mention the not-so-well-known "Wall Street Raider" by Roninsoft.  "It's a corporate takeover and stock market game, in which players strive to build their corporate empires by fair means or foul", and it has stock market, commodities market, trading in financial instruments like bonds and swaps.  *Some* corporate actions to build and manage the companies you acquire.   Economic cycles  by industry group.  Gain control of insurance companies and banks and use their assets to fund your maneuvers (the Warren Buffet way, whee ), call in loans, issue stocks and bonds.   I haven't played it in a while, he's added a whole bunch of stuff.   

There's a shareware version to try.  http://www.roninsoft.com/wsraider.htm

Yes, I've played this game before. This would definitely be qualified if there was a non-financial industrial sector that the player could manage. Unfortunately I think this game is strictly financial in nature.

[SangerZonvolt]

You might wanna keep an eye on a game named Eco.

Itīs still in development, but if it stays true to itīs promisses it will not only simulate economy, but also ecology and lawmaking. For example mining for coal might polute the water, making local farms turn less of a profit. So now the farmers can suggest a law that prohibits to mine coal (in general or in certain areas) which of course the miners will lobby against. And all that while everyone has to work together to get to the endgame tech to destroy a meteorite thatīs head for earth. So you can try to maximise you own profits, but if you donīt watch the rest you can literally kill the whole server making all progress nill.

We will see if it can keep its promisses.

[Abram Jones]

I have been looking for a good economic game since Ultima online came out. I think the biggest problem with these games, in a multiplayer view, is that, there is nothing to stop a good player from having a finger in every pie.

As an example, Apple (IRL) make a huge amout of profit from selling iPhones, but they have to buy components from other companies, but if they were a company in a multiplayer game then they would have enough money to buy silicon mines, glass and cpu factories, shops, etc.

I know what you mean, it's because the world is smaller... and one person in a game can control so much... in other words it's not proportionate. However, in real life 1 company can still control the economy through investments and being a holding company. This is one reason why anti-trust laws are in place. I think with a lot of these games the game worlds are getting so big that they simulate the size of real economy much better. Anyway, does Ultimate Online have any such financial tools?

Loans, eh?

Starlords has that, you can use the diplomacy system to give out loans.  I tend to collect investment in my glorious empire that way (vastly helps build up my empire).

http://starlords3k.com/

Interesting, can you explain a little bit more how this works... and what is happening on the image you attached?

[QuakeIV]

Well, basically you can trade credits for materials either between you and an NPC tradebase or between you or a player.  Structures also cost credits to account for the labor of setting them up.

In this case, I am sending a payment of 3250 credits every cycle (every 10 hours) to Lord Sebim through the diplomacy system for fourty cycles.  33 cycles remain before the deal is done.  Total value of 130,000 credits.  These are consistent with terms I offered on universal chat to encourage people to invest in my nation.  In exchange he sent a one time payment of 100,000 credits.  The loan market is a bit over-leveraged, hence the horrendous terms, but it bears mentioning most of the investments I spent that on came online within approximately 12 cycles and took over for the loan payments.

I'd argue the game facilitates these sorts of investments, since you can cut these investment deals all in one transaction through the diplomacy screen.

In this case I marketed it on universal chat as my nation selling bonds.