How can you balance an economy?
About the Creator of the Octalysis Framework
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
In the early 2000s when Diablo II came out, the internet was not so connected.
People would farm items and sell them on eBay for real money (the black market). This was against Blizzard’s terms of use.
We know why people spend money to buy virtual goods.
Say someone spent 500 hours for a virtual good. And you want it. What would you be tempted to do?
You take your savings (labor from the past) and exchange it for those 500 hours. Spend money to save time.
In Diablo III, the developers tried to go behind the players’ back to benefit from this player activity. They designed a real-money auction house and made Blizzard the middleman.
Of course! People will love this!
Yu-kai actually knew people who worked to make hundreds or low thousands of dollars each month as a side business. They were mining Diablo III for virtual goods.
Biggest Fail in Blizzard’s History?
But this was one of the biggest fails in Blizzard history.
Apparently, the real money auction house was destroying the game.
How could this be?
The failure of the real money auction house resulted because of Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment — or rather, the LACK of it. According to the Octalysis Framework, Core Drive 2 is the motivational force derived from making progress, developing skills, and achieving mastery.
If you can buy something, it takes away from the struggle and strategy to attain it, and actually detracts from its value.
Related Reading
- Game Design Analysis of Diablo II through Level II Octalysis
- Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment
- Endgame Loot Design: World of Warcraft vs Diablo III
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- What is Gamification?
- Books by Yu-kai Chou