Neopets Inflation

[kikaown]

Inflation on Neopets is getting way out of hand. I know that people say that it is a natural part of the economy, or that it is the users, not TNT that is driving up prices, but there is only so far that you can take that argument. I took a four month break from neopets from July to now- in just those four months, the prices of many items I wanted to get have more than doubled. In June 2007, my wishlist cost 4 million neopoints. Now, that same wishlist costs 10 million neopets, and that takes into account the lab map that I bought a while back.

 

For the older, more experienced players, this is not a problem, because they have had time to get good at games/restocking, build up a stock portfolio, etc. However, in my opinion, many newbies are completely justified in complaining about the high prices on neopets, because it is much more difficult to get to the same point now than, for example, a few years ago.

 

Having said all this, I can't really say how to fix it. We have all hear the horror stories of Tarla or the Advent calendar deflating so many items, and that is definitely not the way to go. Putting items in shops will limit the price too much, like with the baby paint brush, and TNT cannot control how people use their random events, or how much random events will deflate the price.

 

Instead of fixing the problem through items, they could fix it through neopoints. Limit the amount of games that you can play in one day (more so than the 3x a day), and put fewer new neopoints into the economy. At the same time, take out many neopoints through things like bankruptcies, taxes, or NP charges for using things like the Shop Wizard.

 

I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but maybe TNT's NeoCharge April Fool's joke was a good idea. Just as in the real world, you must put in less money and take out more money. The depression in Germany after WWI was caused because the Germans printed so much money that the value of the Mark became virtually 0. During the American Civil War, the Confederates had the same problem.

 

What are your thoughts on the matter, and if you see a problem, how would you fix it?

[Absolute]

I understand what you're saying, and it is getting on my nerves... I'm used to having to pay around 4k for a codestone, and now some varieties are up to 9k. However... I don't think it's as big of a problem as you think. Unlike real life, neopoints aren't nessacary for survival. You don't die if you have no neopoints to buy food. You also don't have to spend hours performing backbreaking labor to earn neopoints. In the real world, there comes a point where the low value of money makes it nessacary for a complete economical turnover. However, an imaginary currency like the neopoint doesn't have to be worth much. It's just a game, and adjustments can be made to keep the deal fair for new users. Yes, inflation will occur as it does in any economy, but in this particular one I don't think it's really a big deal.

 

BTW, which items would your wishlist include? I know we have inflation, but that extreme is news to me.

[antiaircraft]

I agree that this inflation is getting really annoying, but I also agree that it might not be tremendously serious. Inflation is a natural occurrence in an economy (I know, I've had to study if for economics <_< ), but normally it's much slower than this.

 

If I were TNT, I'd probably just set up an account, put lots of neopoints in it, then buy hundreds and hundreds of, say, the 500 most expensive items in Neopets and put them all in the money tree - although I doubt that would be a permanent solution.

 

Comparing this inflation to the hyper-inflation in Germany is a bit extreme though. In Germany, the value of the mark dropped by about 2 million times! That's way more than the inflation in Neopets, although if it isn't checked somehow Neopian inflation might start happening at that rate. :grrr:

[Izzy ♥]

There's quite a good petpage the tries to explain about the inflation - http://www.neopets.com/~WhizNit#inflation

[antiaircraft]

Yup, that's pretty much the basic idea. *Is still sore from having it hammered into me in economics* But still, usually inflation only happens at around 2 or 3 % a year.

[kikaown]

:graduated:I understand what you're saying, and it is getting on my nerves... I'm used to having to pay around 4k for a codestone, and now some varieties are up to 9k. [...] I know we have inflation, but that extreme is news to me.

 

Well, it can't be much news, because the difference between 4K and 9K is exactly what I'm talking about.

 

I checked out the petpage that Isabel posted, and I don't entirely agree with it. It would be true in the real world that item prices are not inflation; rather they are a result of inflation. However, in Neopets, the money (and the items) are virtual, so there is nothing to base the value of money on except for the items. However, when the writer mentioned ways to take neopoints out of the economy, it gave me an idea. I'm hopeless at any kind of programming, so I don't know how feasible it would be, but if TNT put a time limit on certain 1-use items, like codestones or doubloons (so that there was a waiting period before you could resell them after they enter your account), it *might* encourage people to use them instead of selling them, thereby removing neopoints. Maybe people will just wait out the time limit, but, then again, maybe not.

 

Absolute mentions that you don't need neopoints for food, but that does not apply when talking about inflation, because food is free on Neopets (ie Omelet or Jelly), or you can buy it from a user shop for 1 or 2 NP.

 

I'm curious to know about whether or not other virtual economy sites have inflation also. I played Marapets for a few days, and I got so many random events giving me money that it seems as if the problem should be much worse on Mara.

 

Absolute , as far as I can remember (I didn't keep copies), my wishlist included:

lost desert PB (400K to 1 mil)

Rock (100K to 500K)

Broken Soup Faerie Snowglobe (which I can't even find anymore)

Mootix (2 mil now; can't remember former price, but when I donated one to the ALP, I got it by trading away a Baby Paint Brush)

Maraquan PB (2.5/3 million to 4.5 mill)

Maraquan PP PB (which actually went down; 90k to 60k)

Just so you know, these were not really actual, tangible goals. Most of these were more "if I won the lottery" type things. Former prices were as of 4 months ago, but I could be pretty far off on many of them, so someone correct me if I am wrong.

[Absolute]

Absolute mentions that you don't need neopoints for food, but that does not apply when talking about inflation, because food is free on Neopets (ie Omelet or Jelly), or you can buy it from a user shop for 1 or 2 NP.

 

I don't think you quite caught my meaning. I was comparing the neopets economy to real-world economies where without a certain amount of money you can't stay alive. Food was just my example. There are other things like housing and utility costs that cost a decent bit of money and, unless you live in a hut somewhere in Africa, are also nessacary to live. Those nessecities force a constant flow of money in the real world, but because they aren't nessacary on Neopets, money can just stagnate for a while and it's not a problem. Also, since money enters the economy out of nowhere when people play games (the neopian equivalent of working) instead of companies having to pay their workers from the money that they make like in reality, there's bound to be inflation at a faster rate than reality.

 

My point is, this is an imaginary economy where yes, inflation exists, but it isn't detrimental to people who are struggling to get by because there isn't anyone struggling to get by. As long as the proper adjustments are made for new members to prevent their account from saying "you have nothing" at the beginning, I don't think we really need to worry about inflation.

 

P.S. I'll take your word on those items, I really don't feel like looking them up right now ^_^ . But I think that those values are exaggerated because of the supply and demand deal that's going on with them. Since there's so few, any time that another one disappears (people buy and use whatever the item happens to be) prices are gonna go up. That's like basing real-world inflation statistics on nothing but gasoline prices.