New World’s economy is suffering from deflation
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Amazon Game Studios MMO New World has a variety of problems right now but the biggest problem players are slowly noticing is that the game’s economy is suffering from rapid deflation. There’s simply not enough currency to go around to a point that some players have resorted to bartering items instead of outright paying for it with coin.
For those unfamiliar with the term, deflation is a decline in the price of goods or services. The common culprit for an economy facing deflation is usually the lack of money circulating within the economy. In New World’s case, currency is so valuable that not many people are willing to give it up through trade. This apparently resulted in some players resorting to the barter system to handle their goods.
Why the lack of coin? According to PlayerAuctions, the amount of coin you earn through quests and killing monsters in New World are simply not enough to sustain a player, especially one that’s hit the max level. This is a game that has taxes for owning property, taxes for refining and crafting items. The game even charges you when you repair or salvage items. There’s simply not enough coin to be earned to make people spend, thus making coin the most valuable item you can have in the game, and people are holding onto it.
It’s a big discussion in New World’s Reddit right now and hopefully the developers are taking notice.
I’m slowly experiencing this on my server as well as I'm struggling to let go of the items I've crafted and collected. Certain items and gear have become so cheap that it’s not worth buying as I would rather keep my coin and craft it myself. I’m sure many are thinking the same thing. Another problem is that I can’t sell my goods fast enough, resulting in a storage problem. I have 2,000 gunpowders in storage, and I can’t simply sell it fast enough even at a measly 0.01 coin a piece.
Naturally, when a player wants to get rid of their junk, they would sell it on an NPC vendor, flipping it to coin. But New World is a game without NPC vendors and all trades are done with other players only.
Because of me seeing no real gain from selling my goods through the game’s Trading Post, I purposely avoided the game’s Housing feature simply because owning property will result in you paying a maintenance fee. Something I don’t feel confident in sustaining.
Thankfully, my server hasn’t resorted to bartering but by the rate it’s going, Asia-based servers will experience the same thing in a few weeks once there are more players hitting the max level of 60.
So, what’s the solution to such a problem? Amazon needs to find more ways to make players earn more coin, or simply increase the amount one can earn from doing activities. If they don’t solve this growing problem, this could potentially turn off a lot of players, especially those that have spent time leveling a crafting or gathering profession.
