Guild Wars 2

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/john-smith-on-the-guild-wars-2-virtual-economy/

Great stuff that I think the community would love to see more of.

EDIT:
It doesn’t have to be a fancy PhotoShop crafted image. Something simpler but covering all the same details would be sufficient. Graphs are always great so I guess some image construction still required.

Sans data, I think the community would enjoy reports like that. It’s also something you don’t see from other MMO developers (maybe because their economies aren’t as open as GW2’s).

Short answer: No

Short answer: No

Long answer: We will not see anymore analysis like that, (imo) b/c the data would show how far we have come from those “favorable” conditions. Purposefully showing the distance we are from said conditions would not be wise, thus…..the answer is no.

Kinda interesting that the trading post seems to be missing under “Gold earned”.

John Smith mentioned this awhile back, and he said that constructing an infographic like that takes a lot of time and translation (not sure why that is so tough though)

Vol.5241:

John Smith mentioned this awhile back, and he said that constructing an infographic like that takes a lot of time and translation (not sure why that is so tough though)

Mhh, yeah, about half a year back if I remember correctly. I believe the only thing that came out of it was those few numbers on the one year poster. That’s the way I looked at it.

Vol.5241:

John Smith mentioned this awhile back, and he said that constructing an infographic like that takes a lot of time and translation (not sure why that is so tough though)

Taking a snapshot of complex economy data and translating it into a visualization that will enlighten rather than mislead is actually way more work than it sounds like. There is a lot of expertise and thought required even for things that seem simple like whether to use a bar chart or a pie graph.

And then there’s the part where John probably has other work responsibilities that take up his time. If he really loved us though, he stop wasting all that time sleeping and interacting with his friends and family and give us some brightly colored charts to pick apart

Seems to me it would be a good “report card” on the economy. Also it’s in the vein of “open communication” which the community does enjoy.

I dug through some 1 year old forum topics and you can see a generally more positive attitude when GW2 was released. There was also lots of great new articles like the one I linked above.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Taking a snapshot of complex economy data and translating it into a visualization that will enlighten rather than mislead is actually way more work than it sounds like. There is a lot of expertise and thought required even for things that seem simple like whether to use a bar chart or a pie graph.

And then there’s the part where John probably has other work responsibilities that take up his time. If he really loved us though, he stop wasting all that time sleeping and interacting with his friends and family and give us some brightly colored charts to pick apart

Yes, but I thought John likes it when other players can show their expertise and explain it to us? looks innocent

Just let me tease a bit

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vol.5241:

John Smith mentioned this awhile back, and he said that constructing an infographic like that takes a lot of time and translation (not sure why that is so tough though)

Taking a snapshot of complex economy data and translating it into a visualization that will enlighten rather than mislead is actually way more work than it sounds like. There is a lot of expertise and thought required even for things that seem simple like whether to use a bar chart or a pie graph.

And then there’s the part where John probably has other work responsibilities that take up his time. If he really loved us though, he stop wasting all that time sleeping and interacting with his friends and family and give us some brightly colored charts to pick apart

Although some may view that as part of his work responsibilities. I imagine there are already internal reports within ANet covering the economy — any manager worth his salt would want such a report.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vol.5241:

John Smith mentioned this awhile back, and he said that constructing an infographic like that takes a lot of time and translation (not sure why that is so tough though)

Taking a snapshot of complex economy data and translating it into a visualization that will enlighten rather than mislead is actually way more work than it sounds like. There is a lot of expertise and thought required even for things that seem simple like whether to use a bar chart or a pie graph.

And then there’s the part where John probably has other work responsibilities that take up his time. If he really loved us though, he stop wasting all that time sleeping and interacting with his friends and family and give us some brightly colored charts to pick apart

They don’t have to make it complex, because complex economic data just isn’t appropriate for the average player. Maybe for other economists, but the average joe it’s not really all that enlightening.

I’m sure data like this can be exported to excel. Once in excel, if you have all sorts of metrics, you can quickly construct pivot tables to convey the information you want.

Some basic nice and interestings things that would be good to see:
-Average number of gold per player held at X time compared to Y time (of course inflation would play a part here)
-Total average number of gold per player spent towards TP/WP fees since account creation
-Highest priced item that has ever been sold
-Average number of gold per player per class (I bet Guardians are the richest)

Some more complex and difficult to parse data:
-Change in inflation rate since start of game (will need to come up with an index of items)
-% distribution of gold sinks in the game (TP, WP, repair, salvage, e.t.c.)
-velocity of money(gold)

I actually havent read this post yet and i have to agree that it would be nice to see something like that more often but I doubt it will happen unless its player driven.
Not sure how much data you can get from the API but when the wvw season started, someone made some really nice data sheets about every matchup.

I also urge everybody to read Johns blogpost concerning the economy right before ascended weaponcrafting and account mf got introduced.

I am sure many of you already read it when it was posted but its actually quite interesting to read again now, after a couple of months.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/economy-report-brace-yourself-disequilibrium-is-coming/

Vol.5241:

They don’t have to make it complex, because complex economic data just isn’t appropriate for the average player. Maybe for other economists, but the average joe it’s not really all that enlightening.

Well the data IS complex – abstracting it to something a non-expert can find useful without drawing bad conclusions is what makes the task time consuming. I’m not an economist, but most of my career has been turning data into information (signal processing) . I could present Fourier Transform graphs to other Engineers but it wouldn’t be helpful in communicating with the business folks. It takes some thought and creativity to extract information from data for a general audience, and usually requires doing some significant analysis before you can figure out how to present what’s interesting.

Even in the financial world where I’m working now, interpreting a chart for a particular security requires expertise. There are a lot of folks with that expertise because there are generally agreed upon ways of presenting certain bits of information. That doesn’t exist yet for virtual economies.

Don’t get me wrong- I’d love to see another state of the economy. It’s just not as easy to throw together as some folks think it is, unless it’s going to be so simple that it’s impossible to extrapolate anything interesting from it. It would just be fodder for forum arguments.

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vol.5241:

They don’t have to make it complex, because complex economic data just isn’t appropriate for the average player. Maybe for other economists, but the average joe it’s not really all that enlightening.

Well the data IS complex – abstracting it to something a non-expert can find useful without drawing bad conclusions is what makes the task time consuming. I’m not an economist, but most of my career has been turning data into information (signal processing) . I could present Fourier Transform graphs to other Engineers but it wouldn’t be helpful in communicating with the business folks. It takes some thought and creativity to extract information from data for a general audience, and usually requires doing some significant analysis before you can figure out how to present what’s interesting.

Even in the financial world where I’m working now, interpreting a chart for a particular security requires expertise. There are a lot of folks with that expertise because there are generally agreed upon ways of presenting certain bits of information. That doesn’t exist yet for virtual economies.

Don’t get me wrong- I’d love to see another state of the economy. It’s just not as easy to throw together as some folks think it is, unless it’s going to be so simple that it’s impossible to extrapolate anything interesting from it. It would just be fodder for forum arguments.

I might be wrong here, but shouldn’t this type of thing already be happening as part of someone’s job over there as is? I really don’t think a simple “Good” is sufficient to the question “How is the in game economy going?” from the higher ups who make the decisions. They want information much like we do and I’m sure it’s within someone’s job to give them such.

Imo they just don’t want to share this info with us now that has evolved.

Essence Snow.3194:

I might be wrong here, but shouldn’t this type of thing already be happening as part of someone’s job over there as is? I really don’t think a simple “Good” is sufficient to the question “How is the in game economy going?” from the higher ups who make the decisions. They want information much like we do and I’m sure it’s within someone’s job to give them such.

Imo they just don’t want to share this info with us now that has evolved.

They surely have the data and also have to be really careful about what they release to the player base.

I’m sure John knows how to present and explain data. Very likely he has to do this on a regular basis as part of his job. Unless he gets away with “Trust me, I know what I am doing.” The question will always be how much he is allowed to tell.

At the end of the day, while I absolutely love statistics and graphs, there will be important data missing (for us) in order to correctly interpret them – so we will see and interpret them the way we would like to see them and the cycle of “give us proof” – “that is not proof” etc will continue.

John Smith.4610:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vol.5241:

John Smith mentioned this awhile back, and he said that constructing an infographic like that takes a lot of time and translation (not sure why that is so tough though)

Taking a snapshot of complex economy data and translating it into a visualization that will enlighten rather than mislead is actually way more work than it sounds like. There is a lot of expertise and thought required even for things that seem simple like whether to use a bar chart or a pie graph.

And then there’s the part where John probably has other work responsibilities that take up his time. If he really loved us though, he stop wasting all that time sleeping and interacting with his friends and family and give us some brightly colored charts to pick apart

This.

so you don’t really love us, or are you working on a new brightly colored chart?

=p

Or maybe his superiors never question his charts … because I seem to recall he mentioned that he never sleeps …

Wanze.8410:

Essence Snow.3194:

I might be wrong here, but shouldn’t this type of thing already be happening as part of someone’s job over there as is? I really don’t think a simple “Good” is sufficient to the question “How is the in game economy going?” from the higher ups who make the decisions. They want information much like we do and I’m sure it’s within someone’s job to give them such.

Imo they just don’t want to share this info with us now that has evolved.

They surely have the data and also have to be really careful about what they release to the player base.

Yep the reports created for management have a different focus than those for public consumption. There are regulatory considerations also when you start working with data that is related to a company’s profitability. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re trying to hide bad news; they may just want to take some care to reduce the risk that someone will take information out of context and start a PR nightmare. Not that that has ever happened before on the internet.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

John Smith.4610:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vol.5241:

John Smith mentioned this awhile back, and he said that constructing an infographic like that takes a lot of time and translation (not sure why that is so tough though)

Taking a snapshot of complex economy data and translating it into a visualization that will enlighten rather than mislead is actually way more work than it sounds like. There is a lot of expertise and thought required even for things that seem simple like whether to use a bar chart or a pie graph.

And then there’s the part where John probably has other work responsibilities that take up his time. If he really loved us though, he stop wasting all that time sleeping and interacting with his friends and family and give us some brightly colored charts to pick apart

This.

so you don’t really love us, or are you working on a new brightly colored chart?

=p

CONFIRMED! He really doesn’t love us.

No, Evon Gnashblade doesn’t love us. The whole ‘voting thing’.

But Evon is John Smith’s boss, so it’s nearly the same result .

I dont’ think John Smith want you to know a small portion of people hold all the wealth.

laokoko.7403:

I dont’ think John Smith want you to know a small portion of people hold all the wealth.

Just like the real world then…where 5% of the population control 80% of world resources/$.

Meglobob.8620:

laokoko.7403:

I dont’ think John Smith want you to know a small portion of people hold all the wealth.

Just like the real world then…where 5% of the population control 80% of world resources/$.

You know, in the real world I don’t mind that fundament inequity so long as I’m not having my nose rubbed in it. Its ok that there are Shadowy Overlords so long as they extend me the courtesy of staying shadowy…

Maybe its for the best we don’t have charts like that for this game being publicized. It would just be depressing.

Nike.2631:

Meglobob.8620:

laokoko.7403:

I dont’ think John Smith want you to know a small portion of people hold all the wealth.

Just like the real world then…where 5% of the population control 80% of world resources/$.

You know, in the real world I don’t mind that fundament inequity so long as I’m not having my nose rubbed in it. Its ok that there are Shadowy Overlords so long as they extend me the courtesy of staying shadowy…

Maybe its for the best we don’t have charts like that for this game being publicized. It would just be depressing.

It’s a certainty that some tp traders hold extreme disproportionate in game wealth. That is a given when trading goes unregulated.

On one hand it acts as a general funneled gold sink, which is good.

On the other it helps create item disparity, which is bad.

John Smith.4610:

Pandemoniac.4739:

Vol.5241:

John Smith mentioned this awhile back, and he said that constructing an infographic like that takes a lot of time and translation (not sure why that is so tough though)

Taking a snapshot of complex economy data and translating it into a visualization that will enlighten rather than mislead is actually way more work than it sounds like. There is a lot of expertise and thought required even for things that seem simple like whether to use a bar chart or a pie graph.

And then there’s the part where John probably has other work responsibilities that take up his time. If he really loved us though, he stop wasting all that time sleeping and interacting with his friends and family and give us some brightly colored charts to pick apart

This.

Forget the visualization part. The graphics are fluff anyways. Just give us the output in a tabular format. That should be easy unless you use an odd proprietary database format.

Assuming there’s more than one person at ANet, someone else could always package the data (as directed by John) into a nifty report.

If this is purely a one-man-show then the system will eventually fail.

The size of the staff has nothing to do with the disproportionate cost to benefit.

Nike.2631:

The size of the staff has nothing to do with the disproportionate cost to benefit.

That argument can be applied to everything — including putting any responses in these forums at all. So while it sounds good, it’s mostly a cop out.

Regardless, my response was directly aimed at John’s “^^” statement about not having enough time. Also I stand behind my “one man show” jab — everyone is fallible and teams with good process controls help catch problems before they leave your shop.

I think several folks in this thread have misconceptions about how much expertise and effort it takes to extract information from data. Anyone can make a chart. Most of those charts have very low information content even if they were generated from terabytes of data.

I can’t blame ANet for being careful when releasing this sort of information. Just scan through this forum and look at all of the posts that draw really wrong conclusions from the charts on Spidy if you need convincing that the general public has trouble understanding data that is too raw.

There are reasons that financial experts use tools like indexes and other values calculated using proprietary methodologies rather than looking at raw quotes (and they pay a fortune for access to them in many instances) . Of course they’re looking for information and not data they can use to confirm what they already believe.

There are two types or people, those that can extrapolate from incomplete data…

Nike.2631:

The size of the staff has nothing to do with the disproportionate cost to benefit.

juno.1840:

That argument can be applied to everything — including putting any responses in these forums at all. So while it sounds good, it’s mostly a cop out.

Except that some things AREN’T disproportionately difficult compared to their value – which is why with have occasional brief posts from Agent Smith .