Chapters * Title * Contents * Introduction * Place * System * Design * Using * Future * Bibliography
Sections
* Using * Composite_Story * Behavior * Supply_and_Demand * Trade * Central * Externalities * Chicken * Monopolies * Geography * Money
Money
What is money? The strange quality of public debates about the gold standard points out the general confusion concerning what
currency is for. The cash in MarketPlace is, in fact, anchored in that it has a value in points. However, versions of the
system (up until the final one) were tested with no points given for anything. Players still were willing to trade with each
other in the auctions. Players in the pilot study discussed the role of currency. They thought that if the point value of cash
were taken away that people would probably still trade cash for commodities. (However, they didn't think anyone would sell
anything if they knew the game were going to end that turn. Money is backed much by the expectation of being able to execute
future trades.)
One of the obvious things to imagine adding to MarketPlace is a barter facility. Players often bring it up and it's a good
opportunity to talk about the relative advantages and disadvantages of currency.
Players can easily imagine making a barter system work given the small number of commodities present in the MarketPlace world.
However, when they are asked about a situation in which the number of commodities is much larger, they can extrapolate their
MarketPlace based-model and see that barter would become very difficult.
The currency in MarketPlace is a bit deceptive as the agency that guarantees its validity is the game itself. None of the
players has to worry about being slipped a bad bill. In real life it costs quite a bit for an institution (usually a
government) to produce a legitimate currency.
Greg Kimberly/gregkimb@gak.com