Some math on Mafia Wars...fair warning: Geek alert.
So, Mafia Wars on Facebook. The Reward points you earn in the game can be used to buy other goods, including in-game money. You can also pay real US dollars for reward points, making it possible to develop a conversion factor between the two.
At today's rates:
You can puchase reward points at the rate of 42 for 8 dollars...
42 Reward pts / 8 US Dollars = 5.25 R pts / USD
And you can purchase in-game money as follows...
206000 MF$ / 10 R pts
Allowing for a calculation of an exchange rate between in-game money and out of game money...
206000 MF$ / 10 R pts = 108150 MF$ / USD
Okay, so, so far we seen some interesting stuff, but I'm sure you're asking yourself, "Damn Dave, you need to get out more." You're probably right, but the point to all this is the following:
Since I can also earn in-game money by playing the game, I can reverse this calculation and find out how much my in game money is worth in real dollars. This means that if I could sell my in-game dollars at the same rate they sell them to us at, I would have...
900,000,000 MF$ * 1 / 108150 USD/MF$ = 8321USD (rounded)
...over 8000 dollars in the real world. Not bad for for the spare time I've put into the game while checking facebook.
You may have heard of this in other games where people really are doing this: Link
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
28 November 2009
30 September 2008
Financial industry story
A friend sent me the following article which provides a bit more insight into the financial mess, and also contains a link to the NPR story it references.
13 September 2008
the myth of the free market...
With the recent news of the Fannie May and Freddy Mac bailouts, I thought it might be interesting to go over the exact process of a bailout.
So here's how it goes. A privately owned or publicly traded company gets itself into financial troubles, in this case by buying a whole bunch of debt (in the form of mortgages). Unfortunately, they vastly overestimate the face value of these items. (E.g., a 30-year mortgage for $250,000 ought to be worth $250k over 30 years (simplified here by leaving out interest). However, they purchased hundreds of thousands of these and overlooked the fact that many of these new homeowners had no possible means to to pay $250k, even over 30 years.) So they pay a bunch of money for something and actually get nothing in return. When this becomes apparent, everyone who's loaned them money comes asking for it, and the company approaches the verge of collapse. Then, for whatever reason (friends in high places usually), the federal government decides that allowing such a company to go under would be "bad for America" and steps in with a bunch of cash to fund the debt of such a company. That cash comes from tax payer dollars. The net monetary effect is to take tax money from every American and transfer it to a few Americans. (Slightly different this time, see below). It also prevents what free-marketeers say is the upside to a free market, that the company in question (and the people that invested in it) get punished for their poor choices, thus preventing such problems in the future. (This is why Dick Cheney was against the housing market bailout.)
Savings and Loan scandal of the late 80s/early 90s followed the same pattern. Bear-Stearns was similar, and rumor is Lehman Brothers is next.
This type of action, which occurs at regular intervals in America, is the antithesis of the free market.
The new wrinkle with Fannie and Freddy is that for perhaps the first time, the majority of the investors in question were foreigners. Meaning that rather than sending tax dollars to a few select Americans, we sent that money overseas. America is being sold for parts, and it's being done by the very institutions that are supposed to protect it.
~~~
14 Sep: Anne's link: NPR link
So here's how it goes. A privately owned or publicly traded company gets itself into financial troubles, in this case by buying a whole bunch of debt (in the form of mortgages). Unfortunately, they vastly overestimate the face value of these items. (E.g., a 30-year mortgage for $250,000 ought to be worth $250k over 30 years (simplified here by leaving out interest). However, they purchased hundreds of thousands of these and overlooked the fact that many of these new homeowners had no possible means to to pay $250k, even over 30 years.) So they pay a bunch of money for something and actually get nothing in return. When this becomes apparent, everyone who's loaned them money comes asking for it, and the company approaches the verge of collapse. Then, for whatever reason (friends in high places usually), the federal government decides that allowing such a company to go under would be "bad for America" and steps in with a bunch of cash to fund the debt of such a company. That cash comes from tax payer dollars. The net monetary effect is to take tax money from every American and transfer it to a few Americans. (Slightly different this time, see below). It also prevents what free-marketeers say is the upside to a free market, that the company in question (and the people that invested in it) get punished for their poor choices, thus preventing such problems in the future. (This is why Dick Cheney was against the housing market bailout.)
Savings and Loan scandal of the late 80s/early 90s followed the same pattern. Bear-Stearns was similar, and rumor is Lehman Brothers is next.
This type of action, which occurs at regular intervals in America, is the antithesis of the free market.
The new wrinkle with Fannie and Freddy is that for perhaps the first time, the majority of the investors in question were foreigners. Meaning that rather than sending tax dollars to a few select Americans, we sent that money overseas. America is being sold for parts, and it's being done by the very institutions that are supposed to protect it.
~~~
14 Sep: Anne's link: NPR link
20 July 2008
psychosis
Long ago, I read an opinion about mental health saying that schizophrenia, where you see and hear things that aren't there, was the only true form of craziness. All other mental problems are simply exaggerations of normal responses or actions that, in the proper environment, would seem normal.
Agree or not, I always remembered the story because it illustrated the meaning of the word psychosis, disconnection from reality.
On the topic. Among many of the other things that is disturbing to me about the war is complete madness it has created among Americans. Specifically, one mistruth I hear all too frequently in the military: "The threat to the United States has never been greater than it has today."
Let us take a historical example not even very far back, this was in my lifetime: 1983. Do we really think that the objective threat to the United States is greater today than it was in 1983, when there were literally thousands of independently launchable and targetable nuclear weapons pointed at every inhabited inch of America, and the USSR? I don't think I need to go back to the Civil war for a better example.
The statement is objectionable enough as a falsehood, an illusion of a threat. But the real danger in it is that it is so hyperbolic, so out of touch with reality, that it pushes us towards actions that not only don't help, they create further problems for us and exacerbate the ones we have.
We are fighting a global guerrilla war, and what is important in a fight like this is a long term, relatively low-cost, persistent and consistent strategy focused on the very small minority of people who wish us ill. The low-cost is important because it must also be long term - we cannot allow the cost of the war to overwhelm our economy. (Incidentally, our economy has always been the heart of U.S. military dominance and thus deserves a great deal more stewardship than we have shown in my lifetime. Problems like the current housing mess need to be foreseen and avoided by conscientious and patient leadership, and we could also do without carrying the elephant of a $9 trillion dollar debt on our backs.)
We do not have this strategy now, which is why we are not winning.
Agree or not, I always remembered the story because it illustrated the meaning of the word psychosis, disconnection from reality.
On the topic. Among many of the other things that is disturbing to me about the war is complete madness it has created among Americans. Specifically, one mistruth I hear all too frequently in the military: "The threat to the United States has never been greater than it has today."
Let us take a historical example not even very far back, this was in my lifetime: 1983. Do we really think that the objective threat to the United States is greater today than it was in 1983, when there were literally thousands of independently launchable and targetable nuclear weapons pointed at every inhabited inch of America, and the USSR? I don't think I need to go back to the Civil war for a better example.
The statement is objectionable enough as a falsehood, an illusion of a threat. But the real danger in it is that it is so hyperbolic, so out of touch with reality, that it pushes us towards actions that not only don't help, they create further problems for us and exacerbate the ones we have.
We are fighting a global guerrilla war, and what is important in a fight like this is a long term, relatively low-cost, persistent and consistent strategy focused on the very small minority of people who wish us ill. The low-cost is important because it must also be long term - we cannot allow the cost of the war to overwhelm our economy. (Incidentally, our economy has always been the heart of U.S. military dominance and thus deserves a great deal more stewardship than we have shown in my lifetime. Problems like the current housing mess need to be foreseen and avoided by conscientious and patient leadership, and we could also do without carrying the elephant of a $9 trillion dollar debt on our backs.)
We do not have this strategy now, which is why we are not winning.
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