http://www.gamerprice.com/wow-gold-study.html
This is an interesting study of the exchange rates between Azeroth and our World. The difference between Europe and the US is astounding. The author implies that Blizzard polices the US servers more thereby creating a shortage of sellable gold. This actually makes sense:
If demand remains static and the money supply is reduced, the supply curve would shift left, thereby raising its price.
I am curious to find out if any savvy players have taken advantage of any arbitrage opportunities. I don’t know if this is even possible.
Government intervention can play a large role in exchange rates. Monetary, fiscal, and legal policies can have tremendous effects on inflation, and appreciation/ depreciation. Blizzard is the government of Azeroth and their policies seem to have a clear effect on the economy.
The author also suggests that American may have more dispensable income and are therefore more inclined to spend more money. An increased amount of discretionary income does not always increase the propensity to consume.
I find the idea of the interactions of real and virtual economies very fascinating and I am hoping to do more research in this area.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
While interesting, I felt the article failed to fully examine or discuss additional issues which may affect gold prices. Judging by the MS Word graphs and overall cheap look to the web page, it seems like the authors were pretty lazy.
I'd be curious to see a comparison of play styles/habits on US/EU servers. I'd also like to see Asian servers addressed. I'd also point out that the majority of gold farming, especially on US servers, is not done in America. Finally, no analysis of US/EU economics would be complete without addressing the poor performance of the dollar, which is half as strong against the Euro as it once was.
Post a Comment