Join the new world

Many players are complaining about the broken eRepublik economy and saying how it needs fixing. It is true - eRepublik economy is in a state of great disrepair, which serves only Plato (which, I think, is why this state is so prolonged). In this article I intend to name a few things which I believe are wrong in the economy and which, if fixed, could breathe new life into the game.

1. Monetary black holes
Parts of the game where in-game cash is lost forever from the game, I like to call "monetary black holes". Such parts are currently: training center upgrades, factory/company upgrades, special items market and guerilla fights. Money which is spent on these may have played a role in the in-game market, influencing it subtly or substantially, and now it is lost forever. Subsequently the marktes will have to re-adjust to compensate for these losses.

2. Monetary white holes
These are the opposite of monetary black holes, i.e. they are parts of the game in which in-game cash is created and pumped into the game economy. This is mainly the loyalty program through which players buy in-game gold, but also medals, gold mines, leveling, new players coming into the game and potentially mission rewards.

These two influence the in-game economy subtly, but I believe significantly. They make the in-game world economy dependent on the outside (real) world economy. Consider a player building a Q6 factory with gold which he purchased. We could say that the gold came in the game through a white hole and exited immediately through a black hole, never touching the market. But did it really not influence the market? Soon, this player will begin producing and selling his goods on the market, hiring employees, etc. Even if he didn't influence the market yet (which he did), he would soon, by means the market hadn't even glimpsed. But how has he already influenced the market? Consider what would have happened if there was no option to purchase gold for factory upgrades: the player would have had to purchase gold off the in-game market. This would effectively raise the price of gold on the market by a certain amount. This, however, didn't happen, even though the good (the Q6 factory) did in fact appear in-game, virtually out of nowhere.

3. Flat salaries
Regardless of what the worker does - produce raw materials, food or weapons - his employer cannot help but pay him the same wage. Sure, he could give different salaries to different employees, but if his employees didn't like it, they can simply and quickly get a job elsewhere. Hiring workers to do one particular job rather than any job, would lead to wage diversification, thus helping the economy.

4. No way to offer competitive products
The only way to be competitive on eRepublik market is to offer the same product at the same or lower price than is already offered.

5. Insufficiently localized markets
There is only one market per country, and it doesn't matter which region of your country you live in, the offers are the same.

6. No incentives to keep workers
No matter what they do, everyone will always be equally productive at work. There is no way to determine whether to keep one worker over another, or hire one instead of another.

7. No incentives to keep a job
The only incentive an employer can offer his workers to stay at their current workplace is a salary that's higher or equal to the current job market top salary.

8. Insufficient variety
The market currently offers a mere 4 types of products, but there is a wide variety of stuff a player can have in his or her inventory. Why not make these other products produceable too?

9. Overproduction
There is always a huge excess of products on the market, and the reason is simple: all players can get their own, virtually unlimited number of factories fairly easily, and the amount they can produce is far more than what they can spend, so the products on the market are undervalued.

These are the problems of eRepublik economy as I see it.

Reason Sharp