An analysis of the Glitch auction house
Glitch is gone, but it lives on in our hearts, and it makes for a fascinating case study. The game arrived, enraptured, and departed so quickly that a great deal can be extrapolated about the game. A new analysis over on Gamasutra focuses on looking at the game's economy over time, seeing how it kicked off and where it wound up, and uses that to draw conclusions about handling player-run economies in other games as well.
The article outlines how Glitch handled currency and items, then notes the market trends and how players interacted with both one another and the economy. It concludes that in addition to monitoring the economy, designers need to keep an eye on the small number of players who serve as major economic drivers and watch them closely. The behaviors of players will also vary over time, meaning that past data have to be checked against more recent data to be relevant. If this is your sort of analysis, by all means, read the article in its entirety.
