GTA Online - Creating an ACTUAL economy

[Lee Everett]

Contrary to what people might think, GTAOnline has no economy whatsoever.

 

A big part of any economy is being able to purchase items, sell items, and most importantly TRADE items. The actual value of Grand Theft Auto cash will never go down because of this.

 

Lets say 10 people had $1 billion to spread amongst themselves. There is a total of 10 billion in the economy. Now lets say there are 10 people with $1 billion, none of them able to trade with one another. There is $0 in the economy, because not only do their wealth not matter, but neither does yours; as once you're gone that money is gone with you (compared to when trading you could give the money away and that 1 billion would still be active).

For there to be any sort of economy, Rockstar would have to add the stock market. A good way to do this without damaging anything would be by adding stock fractions , and not whole company stocks. Let players invest in a fraction of the company. For example Burger Shot, let it have 4 fractions (this is an example): A, B, C, D.

 

Fraction A: Could be an investment on Burger Shots latest recipe. Either its a flop, or not.

Fraction B: Could be an investment on how many pedestrians actually visit the shop. Rises and Drops, and them being in competition with Cluckin' Bell could make it so this can be manipulated

Fraction C: Could be an investment on their supplies.

Fraction D: Could be an investment on their new brand

 

These are all imaginary, make the fractions whatever it doesn't matter. But onto the next point.

 

Now we have fractions right? A B C D. Now how do we introduce a stock market economy, without actually introducing new money not gained by players? (Like in single player)

 

Competitive stocks. If one stocks fraction is doing really good, the other fractions of the same stocks are doing poorly. So lets say me and my friend wants to invest in Burger Shot. He puts in $5,000 on fraction A B and C, and I put in $1,000 in fraction D. Now Fraction D is doing really good, meaning A B and C are doing bad. So the money that was in A B and C go into a box. Lets call it the deposit box. And when GTAOnline pays me, instead of giving me money from thin air, it gives me money from that deposit box (which is not a physical item, think of it as computer code). My friend just lost $5,000 which all went into the deposit box. And since Fraction D was doing good, I got money (maybe around $500) depending on how the stocks were doing, remember I only put $1,000. So $500 is a good amount. The other $4,500 that were in that box, what happens to it? Simple. It goes out to other players that are doing good in the stocks.

 

But wait, what if people are doing TOO good. We have money moving around, but there's no actual money SINKS (meaning people losing it). Besides the deposit box, add taxes. Tax people on their earnings. Someone just made 1 billion in stocks? Tax them 350 million. And guess what, all that money that was spread around. Was already in the economy earned by players!!

 

 

Other ways to make an active economy.

 

• Being able to trade and give money to friends
• Casino's and being able to bet money with people. Maybe GTAOnline poker
• Being able to bet on cars (and tax people for money sinks)
• Being able to do jobs and services, maybe have your own personal limo driver that takes you places and you pay him for that. Except make this an actual job with a timer (not "oh he said he was going to pay me but he didn't) make it so you actually have to call the player for the limo rides. If the player doesn't get there on time, or he dies, = no payments.
• Betting on horses

 

Full of possibilities, but you have to take them. Rockstar is too busy adding clothing, ratloaders and fixing bugs to do these things. If "hackers" spawned money and introduced it to other people this way, then it was all for nothing.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Lee Everett

[Gliding]

I'm of the opinion that any game with a pay to win structure can never have a fully functioning economy.

 

There are games out there (MMOs) which have membership schemes, but no pay to win system. The economies in those games are so evolved that the value of money and items is almost constant and will only fluctuate slightly unless something new is released requiring a certain item or product, that drives up demand and in turn drives up the price.

 

GTA will never be anything like this. There is no way for the user to be the supply. Rockstar will always be the supplier, and regardless of demand the price will remain constant because of an unlimited supply.

[Xyn]

All that sh*t you wrote...that was R*'s plan over time.

But, as we now know, it'll never happen. Ever.

Why discuss over milk that has been spilt, spoiled & turned sour?

[beat_savy_9]

OP, Carnagie Mellon much?

[Lee Everett]

I'm of the opinion that any game with a pay to win structure can never have a fully functioning economy.

 

There are games out there (MMOs) which have membership schemes, but no pay to win system. The economies in those games are so evolved that the value of money and items is almost constant and will only fluctuate slightly unless something new is released requiring a certain item or product, that drives up demand and in turn drives up the price.

 

GTA will never be anything like this. There is no way for the user to be the supply. Rockstar will always be the supplier, and regardless of demand the price will remain constant because of an unlimited supply.

 

This can be both true and false. Pay to win over time WILL destroy any economy, which is why the money sinks/taxes would have to play an important role. If someone just earned $1 billion, and was taxed $350 million, how many cash cards is that really? So it could work both ways.

 

Now in terms of being a supplier. A good way for something like this would be to create a new website where players can sell certain items. For example the Christmas event, a bunch of stuff was introduced only to be removed. What if they were introduced and actually stayed (only for people that were there during that time, like the Valentines Day special). Then people could sell and buy those items freely on that website. Alternatively, making job points actually useful. As of right now what is their use? Nothing that I know of. Why not after x amount of job points, you get access to purchase a certain vehicle or item that is not available anywhere else in-game. Then these vehicles are yours. If you get tired of it, sell it to LSC for $200k. Or alternatively, sell them to another player using the in-game website for $15m. A lot of things could be introduced this way, and can get the economy flowing gradually. The holiday items would only increase since you wouldn't be able to purchase them anywhere else but the players market-website.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Lee Everett

[DevsNzL]

All that sh*t you wrote...that was R*'s plan over time.

 

But, as we now know, it'll never happen. Ever.

 

Why discuss over milk that has been spilt, spoiled & turned sour?

Your damn delusional if you thought that was their plan all along, can you cite any damn sources that states we gonna make it so that you the users will determine the prices of items?

Edited March 14, 2014 by DevsNzL

[Lee Everett]

Being able to do jobs and services, maybe have your own personal limo driver that takes you places and you pay him for that. Except make this an actual job with a timer (not "oh he said he was going to pay me but he didn't) make it so you actually have to call the player for the limo rides. If the player doesn't get there on time, or he dies, = no payments.

 

I'd like to add something to that limo idea, because it sounded weird when I worded it.

 

Alright see how when you call up a taxi, the driver eventually comes and delivers you where you want to go? Well, remember the taxi missions in GTA III, Vice City, San Andreas, and so on? Where you could do odd jobs/taxi missions for pedestrians? Well that's how it would work. Lets say I want to be a taxi driver, to earn money as a past time. Then I would "apply for a license" and pay a fee of $500 (preferably at the taxi location, but could be anywhere). Now I have my license, good. (Lets move onto player 2)

 

Player 2 is in a shootout with police, or maybe he just wants a ride somewhere. Why trust the NPC taxi? Their AI is very low, and they don't avoid other players. Meaning sticky bomb and you are out. So, player 2 gets an option when he dials taxi. "Regular Taxi" and "Player driven taxi". When he chooses player driven taxi's he is then told to enter a certain amount (how much he will pay the driver; a cap on that could be added also), then every person in the current game that has their taxi license will get a text. "x needs a rides and is paying $2,500 (or whatever amount Player 2 inputted). We know the majority of people with the taxi license will of course rush to get to player 2, but hey, where's the fun in no challenge. Eventually someone gets to player 2, he gets in the ride, and you rush off to take him to his destination.

 

Now some ways to make sure this actually works how it's supposed to.

 

- In order to ensure people don't pick someone up and just have a joy ride instead of taking them where they want to go, set a timer. If you're not in a certain radius before the time is up, your license is removed and you will have to purchase a new one. If you are within the radius but failed to make it to the spot they asked for, you failed to earn the cash

- In order to make sure people don't pick up these taxi missions just to kill the person that wanted the ride do a true:false statement, you can not attack the person unless you exit the taxi mission, and once you exit it, there will be a countdown for when you can attack him/her, like Passive Mode. (Forgot to say it previously but make it so you have to actually accept the taxi mission, like how you had to press the analog stick in on the PS2 when playing the older GTA's, but this time around just make an "Accept" button in your phone once you get the text)

- If somehow you are killed with the player inside, you fail the mission and have to pay for his insurance.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Lee Everett

[Fail_At_GTA]

Its not really contrary to anyones beliefs except Rockstar themselves. I know there's no economy, but Rockstar says glitching in lots of money is harmful to the economy but somehow buying that same amount of money isn't harmful at all. Rockstar logic.

[Gatti Sosa]

I am way too stoned to read this right now

But it sounds interesting

Edited March 14, 2014 by Shotty Pop

[Thrusty]

Contrary to what people might think, GTAOnline has no economy whatsoever.

 

A big part of any economy is being able to purchase items, sell items, and most importantly TRADE items. The actual value of Grand Theft Auto cash will never go down because of this.

 

Lets say 10 people had $1 billion to spread amongst themselves. There is a total of 10 billion in the economy. Now lets say there are 10 people with $1 billion, none of them able to trade with one another. There is $0 in the economy, because not only do their wealth not matter, but neither does yours; as once you're gone that money is gone with you (compared to when trading you could give the money away and that 1 billion would still be active).

For there to be any sort of economy, Rockstar would have to add the stock market. A good way to do this without damaging anything would be by adding stock fractions , and not whole company stocks. Let players invest in a fraction of the company. For example Burger Shot, let it have 4 fractions (this is an example): A, B, C, D.

 

Fraction A: Could be an investment on Burger Shots latest recipe. Either its a flop, or not.

Fraction B: Could be an investment on how many pedestrians actually visit the shop. Rises and Drops, and them being in competition with Cluckin' Bell could make it so this can be manipulated

Fraction C: Could be an investment on their supplies.

Fraction D: Could be an investment on their new brand

 

These are all imaginary, make the fractions whatever it doesn't matter. But onto the next point.

 

Now we have fractions right? A B C D. Now how do we introduce a stock market economy, without actually introducing new money not gained by players? (Like in single player)

 

Competitive stocks. If one stocks fraction is doing really good, the other fractions of the same stocks are doing poorly. So lets say me and my friend wants to invest in Burger Shot. He puts in $5,000 on fraction A B and C, and I put in $1,000 in fraction D. Now Fraction D is doing really good, meaning A B and C are doing bad. So the money that was in A B and C go into a box. Lets call it the deposit box. And when GTAOnline pays me, instead of giving me money from thin air, it gives me money from that deposit box (which is not a physical item, think of it as computer code). My friend just lost $5,000 which all went into the deposit box. And since Fraction D was doing good, I got money (maybe around $500) depending on how the stocks were doing, remember I only put $1,000. So $500 is a good amount. The other $4,500 that were in that box, what happens to it? Simple. It goes out to other players that are doing good in the stocks.

 

But wait, what if people are doing TOO good. We have money moving around, but there's no actual money SINKS (meaning people losing it). Besides the deposit box, add taxes. Tax people on their earnings. Someone just made 1 billion in stocks? Tax them 350 million. And guess what, all that money that was spread around. Was already in the economy earned by players!!

 

 

Other ways to make an active economy.

 

• Being able to trade and give money to friends
• Casino's and being able to bet money with people. Maybe GTAOnline poker
• Being able to bet on cars (and tax people for money sinks)
• Being able to do jobs and services, maybe have your own personal limo driver that takes you places and you pay him for that. Except make this an actual job with a timer (not "oh he said he was going to pay me but he didn't) make it so you actually have to call the player for the limo rides. If the player doesn't get there on time, or he dies, = no payments.
• Betting on horses

 

Full of possibilities, but you have to take them. Rockstar is too busy adding clothing, ratloaders and fixing bugs to do these things. If "hackers" spawned money and introduced it to other people this way, then it was all for nothing.

Wait...what?

[LightningLord]

Contrary to what people might think, GTAOnline has no economy whatsoever.

 

A big part of any economy is being able to purchase items, sell items, and most importantly TRADE items. The actual value of Grand Theft Auto cash will never go down because of this.

 

Lets say 10 people had $1 billion to spread amongst themselves. There is a total of 10 billion in the economy. Now lets say there are 10 people with $1 billion, none of them able to trade with one another. There is $0 in the economy, because not only do their wealth not matter, but neither does yours; as once you're gone that money is gone with you (compared to when trading you could give the money away and that 1 billion would still be active).

For there to be any sort of economy, Rockstar would have to add the stock market. A good way to do this without damaging anything would be by adding stock fractions , and not whole company stocks. Let players invest in a fraction of the company. For example Burger Shot, let it have 4 fractions (this is an example): A, B, C, D.

 

Fraction A: Could be an investment on Burger Shots latest recipe. Either its a flop, or not.

Fraction B: Could be an investment on how many pedestrians actually visit the shop. Rises and Drops, and them being in competition with Cluckin' Bell could make it so this can be manipulated

Fraction C: Could be an investment on their supplies.

Fraction D: Could be an investment on their new brand

 

These are all imaginary, make the fractions whatever it doesn't matter. But onto the next point.

 

Now we have fractions right? A B C D. Now how do we introduce a stock market economy, without actually introducing new money not gained by players? (Like in single player)

 

Competitive stocks. If one stocks fraction is doing really good, the other fractions of the same stocks are doing poorly. So lets say me and my friend wants to invest in Burger Shot. He puts in $5,000 on fraction A B and C, and I put in $1,000 in fraction D. Now Fraction D is doing really good, meaning A B and C are doing bad. So the money that was in A B and C go into a box. Lets call it the deposit box. And when GTAOnline pays me, instead of giving me money from thin air, it gives me money from that deposit box (which is not a physical item, think of it as computer code). My friend just lost $5,000 which all went into the deposit box. And since Fraction D was doing good, I got money (maybe around $500) depending on how the stocks were doing, remember I only put $1,000. So $500 is a good amount. The other $4,500 that were in that box, what happens to it? Simple. It goes out to other players that are doing good in the stocks.

 

But wait, what if people are doing TOO good. We have money moving around, but there's no actual money SINKS (meaning people losing it). Besides the deposit box, add taxes. Tax people on their earnings. Someone just made 1 billion in stocks? Tax them 350 million. And guess what, all that money that was spread around. Was already in the economy earned by players!!

 

 

Other ways to make an active economy.

 

• Being able to trade and give money to friends
• Casino's and being able to bet money with people. Maybe GTAOnline poker
• Being able to bet on cars (and tax people for money sinks)
• Being able to do jobs and services, maybe have your own personal limo driver that takes you places and you pay him for that. Except make this an actual job with a timer (not "oh he said he was going to pay me but he didn't) make it so you actually have to call the player for the limo rides. If the player doesn't get there on time, or he dies, = no payments.
• Betting on horses

Full of possibilities, but you have to take them. Rockstar is too busy adding clothing, ratloaders and fixing bugs to do these things. If "hackers" spawned money and introduced it to other people this way, then it was all for nothing.

Not the biggest fan of taxes in a video game but this seems incredibly awesome! It will add to the world! I know Warstock and Pegaus will get lots of money with people buying tanks and getting replacements. Hope Rockstar takes it into thought!

^_^

[Lee Everett]

bump

[Staten]

A working economy would be a recipe for disaster; imagine if, when all of the glitchers were giving out billions and trillions, it had devalued the GTA$? People would've been livid!

 

Anyway, the share-buying thing would be useless, since success wouldn't be decided by financial acumen but by being subbed to the price-fixing thread on Reddit.

[Mattyp1514]

Fixed prices make it impossible for any economy to exist. As long as an Adder is $1M, the value of a GTA dollar will never change.

[Thr33X]

 

I'm of the opinion that any game with a pay to win structure can never have a fully functioning economy.

 

There are games out there (MMOs) which have membership schemes, but no pay to win system. The economies in those games are so evolved that the value of money and items is almost constant and will only fluctuate slightly unless something new is released requiring a certain item or product, that drives up demand and in turn drives up the price.

 

GTA will never be anything like this. There is no way for the user to be the supply. Rockstar will always be the supplier, and regardless of demand the price will remain constant because of an unlimited supply.

 

This can be both true and false. Pay to win over time WILL destroy any economy, which is why the money sinks/taxes would have to play an important role. If someone just earned $1 billion, and was taxed $350 million, how many cash cards is that really? So it could work both ways.

 

Now in terms of being a supplier. A good way for something like this would be to create a new website where players can sell certain items. For example the Christmas event, a bunch of stuff was introduced only to be removed. What if they were introduced and actually stayed (only for people that were there during that time, like the Valentines Day special). Then people could sell and buy those items freely on that website. Alternatively, making job points actually useful. As of right now what is their use? Nothing that I know of. Why not after x amount of job points, you get access to purchase a certain vehicle or item that is not available anywhere else in-game. Then these vehicles are yours. If you get tired of it, sell it to LSC for $200k. Or alternatively, sell them to another player using the in-game website for $15m. A lot of things could be introduced this way, and can get the economy flowing gradually. The holiday items would only increase since you wouldn't be able to purchase them anywhere else but the players market-website.

 

Reading this instantly made me think of DC Universe Online and APB Reloaded's marketplaces. They both are imminent failures, and it's the communities own fault. Given that a player is able to sell his own wares or put them up for bidding or make any kind of profit for it, you would think that they'd make it accessible. You would be thinking incorrectly then because 95% of the time, people just put up items, rare as they might be, for ridiculous prices. I remember seeing one particular item in DCUO, the rarest on the game, up for grabs for about 1,000,000,000 in game currency.

 

People would only use the ability to sell their items greedily, especially in the environment of GTAO where fair play is almost non-existent to begin with.

[PG.]

There is no economy because R* wants us to buy cash cards. It might sound stupid but think about it they removed the ability to give othee players cash and their excuse is the Hackers. They fixed the dns hacks for nearly 2 months now and we still cant give money or trade

[Fonshway]

An Economy system would be a brilliant idea! And maybe they can add websites in like a fake ebay or craigslist where you can sell stock Roosevelts or any item you can't get anymore for a set price, as well as a stock market (and maybe bonds)? Alltogether with a debt system. Would be sweet

[Judicious 7]

Bump!!!!

[Bozzah]

just imagine how it would change free roam if you could invest in let's say Atom Burger... If you destroy for example the Cluckin' Bell trucks, Atom burger earns more money...

 

anyway, this would be quite complicated... I don't think that you could earn or lose lots of money with that. I have no idea how they would make stocks work, there are so many players and people would just invest in the same (there are too few stocks anyway).

 

 

and with all the money glitchers... it would be their "business", legit players won't be able to manipulate it at all.

 

I think it would be an overall bad idea...

 

They would have to make the stocks VERY sensitive to any change (for example if you rob an ammu nation or destroy airplanes...)

even then, there are so many players, it's nearly impossible to change them... either everyone will invest in the same or the "rival stocks" would be equally split under the investors, making them stay the same anyway...

 

 

I am REALLY curious about how they plan do pull this off...

 

 

 

All the stated "business" ideas sound great, but just think about how money glitchers can exploit this system by giving noobs millions of cash...

 

 

the only three interesting ideas I can imagine in this game are:

 

* car trades, but you cannot sell the traded cars

* "jobs", for examplebeating another player in a 1vs1 for a max. amount of cash, let's say 25k or just kill him once for that money, like a "secret" bounty.

* casino, but I don't think they would do it because gambling isn't allowed in every country where people play gta online. But if it worked, they just HAVE TO implement russian roulette xD

 

up to 6 players, and you can set the amount of bullets in the revolver up to 5

Edited March 14, 2014 by Bozzah

[Kampioen]

Most of the people arguing that there is no economy are only doing so to justify their glitching of millions by saying that there is no economy to destroy by glitching, even though they've destroyed it before it could even be introduced through the stock market.

[Lee Everett]

Most of the people arguing that there is no economy are only doing so to justify their glitching of millions by saying that there is no economy to destroy by glitching, even though they've destroyed it before it could even be introduced through the stock market.

 

I'm one of the people that think there is absolutely no economy, but I don't think it has anything to do with glitching or justification of it. The value of GTA$ never goes up or down.

[ezfaun]

There's no economy because there's no exchange. The concept of exchange requires supply and demand. Both of which doesn't exist. It's a bit complicated to set something up like that in a game where we can steal everything anyway.

[Coin]

It's much too late now for Rockstar to implement a good economy, for an online game, without it feeling incredibly tacked on and ultimately failing like a lot of other games. It's something that needs to be considered early on in development, and systems built up with that in mind. There's only one game I can think of that I would consider as having a good economic model and that would be Eve Online. But Eve was always planned to be a game with a strong player-driven economy and it shows (they've also had an economist on the books since '07 I think, because that's how important the economy is to their game).

 

Some random thoughts

 

*Stock market won't work, as we'll just see what happened with it in Single Player. People getting together on Reddit (or where ever) to manipulate stocks and if you aren't following that, you're liable to get screwed.

*All our 'legitimate' income comes from illegal activities. We can't even own fronts. I don't think any economy where such a large amount of dirty money is in play is going to be a good thing for it. My two cents.. mileage will vary.

*Much too easy to introduce 'counterfeit' money into the system with the current game model. Glitching, modding, whatever.

*No real supply or demand.

 

tl/dr: GTA Online economy is pretty much the farthest thing away from being player driven and that ship sailed probably about 3 years ago. One can dream though.

[collad0]

How did a zombie make this thread?

 

But OT: Even though it sounds nice, I'm not to optimistic about the world of GTAO ever becoming like this. The only thing I might see happening is stocks but knowing this community, there will be glitches on how to abuse them hours upon its release.

[ezfaun]

Well at least kenny's back.

[Euan]

A working economy would be a recipe for disaster; imagine if, when all of the glitchers were giving out billions and trillions, it had devalued the GTA$? People would've been livid!

 

Anyway, the share-buying thing would be useless, since success wouldn't be decided by financial acumen but by being subbed to the price-fixing thread on Reddit.

Pretty much this.. RSTR Would need to sort their act out first.

[Lee Everett]

Well at least kenny's back.

 

Kenny is awesome lol.

[Lee Everett]

 

A working economy would be a recipe for disaster; imagine if, when all of the glitchers were giving out billions and trillions, it had devalued the GTA$? People would've been livid!

 

Anyway, the share-buying thing would be useless, since success wouldn't be decided by financial acumen but by being subbed to the price-fixing thread on Reddit.

Pretty much this.. RSTR Would need to sort their act out first.

 

 

Hopefully they can get this glitching thing all sorted out, I think we all agree the game would be better without bugs. Funny thing is, 75% of the bugs have come from LSC glitching, the other 25% from abusing races/missions/deathmatches.

[Lee Everett]

I'm going to give this a bump, I still think something like this would be amazing.

[ky1e1792]

Can you do a tl;dr version please?

 

I really don't want to read all that.