Industry darling Valve has hired an economist and economics theory professor, Yanis Varoufakis, to help analyse the virtual economies of its games.
This decision is in line with Valve’s trend towards free-to-play titles such as Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2.
Varoufakis doesn’t have experience in the game industry nor is he much of a gamer, but the man has some impressive credentials nonetheless – he served as an economic adviser to former Greek PM George Papandreou and has done extensive work on Greece’s economic crisis.
Valve was having issues linking economies in two game environments in order to create a shared currency, and boss Gabe Newell recognised this problem as very similar to the current economic troubles between Germany and Greece. This spurred him to invite Varoufakis to be Valve’s in-house economist.
According to Varoufakis, in-game economies are an economist “dream-come-true”, as he doesn’t have to rely on statistics and inferences, but can actually see the data of every transaction made.
This is an impressive move from Newell, and certainly shows that Valve is willing to raise the bar in their operations.
Source: Gamasutra
Related articles
DotA 2 will be free to play for everyone
Free-to-play Team Fortess 2 is 12 times more profitable
DOTA 2 will be free to play, “with a twist”
Valve adds $100 virtual ring to Team Fortress 2
Team Fortress 2 players increased 5-fold since free-to-play transition
Loading ...
I am the only one considerer that they using a Greek economist a bad idea. if he was German economist then I would think good idea