I have been working for quite a while on the reputation economy system Quantified Prestige (QP), but of course it also needs to be tested somewhere. This was one of the reasons for creating this small community platform. Sooner or later, I want to have a QP module in this forum, but that’s still a relatively restricted test.
Yesterday I had an idea about creating an economy simulation role-playing game in which QP could be tested within a simulated economy. It would be a browser game that people could register on. Then they can create one or more game characters.
The idea is to let the players participate in a simulated economy as workers, entrepreneurs, or freelancers, or as independent value providers. The players can participate in classical markets, but also use the game-internal QP system. Players can create goods and provide services. These can be sold regularly on a market, but exchange and distribution can also be handled with the QP system. They could provide digital goods for Prestige, for example. The Prestige would then generate the Fluido currency in the account of the player. Fluido can be traded for goods and for the standard currency of the game.
Ok, when players create products and sell them, there need to be buyers who purchase those game products. And those buyers are other players. Now why would these players want to buy game products from other players (for game money)? Because they have certain needs which they must meet! These needs would be a part of the game, and these needs will be modelled so that they are relevant to digital goods. Of course, it might also make sense to model basic needs like food and shelter/comfort, but there need to be in-game motivations for buying digital in-game goods.
So, my first ideas for such needs which can be met by certain digital goods are:
- Happiness: Relevant for overall product creation performance
- Inspiration: Also relevant for creation of certain goods, but may be a bit more specific to product types.
Furthermore, the consumption of certain digital goods could increase the player’s skill levels. With a higher skill level, players can create better goods.
And finally, some products might be tools (computers, software, etc.) which enable or support the creation of goods.
There’s of course the question what kinds of goods should be simulated. I definitely want to include digital goods which can be distributed for free, or sold. Nevertheless, it might make sense to also simulate non-digital goods to get a wider and more realistic simulation of the economy. It may also be interesting to see how those non-digital goods could interact with the reputation economy. So, there would be a distinction between digital (freely distributable and copyable) and non-digital (non copyable).
Here are some examples for digital goods that could be simulated:
- Books
- Software
- Art/music
- Data/knowledge (needed for certain products, and perhaps scientific research)
- Blueprints for 3d-printed objects
And here are some possible non-digital goods:
- 3d-printers and other machines used for production
- Food
- Apartments/houses/other buildings
- Computers/phones
- Clothes
- Medicine (for curing diseases, or augmenting the attributes of the players)
- Luxury goods (unspecified)
Ah, yes, there is the potential to also simulate human augmentation, so it would be a game that can be used to simulate the consequences of transhumanism 
For that we need some base attributes for players, similar to those known from various role-playing games out there. Here are some ideas for those base attributes:
- Happiness set point: Determines how easy it is for a player to become happier.
- Creativity: Necessary to create certain novel high quality goods.
- Intelligence: How fast can a player learn and improve skills.
- Perseverance: Determines how little willpower is used up for difficult tasks.
These base attributes would be randomized when a player creates a new character. They can be re-rolled during character creation as often as desired until an acceptable outcome is reached. The only way to increase base attributes after character creation is through augmentation medicine.
Ok, I could go on describing the game, but I hope you get the basic ideas. It’s basically a game settled 10-20 years in the future to test out how a futuristic economy might work out when a reputation economy (and also basic income) is used.
Now I got some questions for you:
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Do you think this game ideas makes sense overall?
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Would you like to play that game?
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Would you like to develop that game?
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What goods do you want to see in the game?
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What name should the game have?
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What (base) attributes would make most sense for the game?
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Do we need certain game mechanics to make the game a success?
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Do you have any other ideas?