Have you ever played a game and wondered what if you could do something that it doesn’t really allow you to do, for example being able to move around blocks in Minecraft fluidly instead of in sectors, edit the world in Hogwarts legacy with spells, be able to fly in a world like Elden Ring or Elder Scrolls with epic sky battles, have a sims game that simulates more than just sims needs, but whole economies, or a dystopian horror game set in a Minecraft style world. So I was wondering if anyone else had similar ideas for games or fantasies for possible games?
What’s your ideas for games that doesn’t really exist, or might not even really be possible to make?
I want a historically accurate trading simulation set in the early modern period: I want a multitude of ever-changing regional hard, soft and bookkeeping currencies, also bills of exchange, individual units of measurement for each product, paying in kind, putting sth. on the cuff, installments, various per item or volume based taxations, tolls, tithes, tenure, social privileges, staple rights, scheduled trade fairs, regulated fixed prices, lot sales, return freight, regulated transportational services, craft and trading legislation, significance of saint days, city level legislation, guilds and other corporations, the very relevant concepts of honor, contemporary obligations of social responsibility, familial structures and needs for a network of professional connections, monasteries as large economical entities, etc. pp.
All tycoons I have played just reproduce a shallow version of our current concepts of money and trade and skin it with historical images without even trying to research the historical setting they’re in. They add complexity in many other ways that don’t focus on trade (i.e. combat).
No fighting. No leveling. No building. Just trade.
That does sound fun. Would be difficult to make and play, but sounds fun.
It’s not historical, but you can play Eve and get all this. The economy is almost entirely player driven, and is tied into industry and logistics - also all entirely player driven. Prices and demand shift, and of course you can also scam people out of everything if you want.
You can be one of the most successful players and not ever fire a shot.
Thanks for the suggestion! Eve is a nice trading simulation, from all I have heard. Many friends have suggested it to me, but I have not yet played it. The required time investment and grind of MMOs is what‘s scaring me off. The older I get, the more I enjoy offline games that I can pause at any time.
However, I don’t believe (from my outside perspective) that trading in Eve is a good simulation of trade in the early modern period. Please correct me, if I’m wrong. Historically, prices were specifically not directly set by demand in most cases (instead there were daily fixed prices set by official commissions). Not anyone was allowed to just buy or sell (especially between local people and foreign traders). Holding various trading fairs was an important privilege of only certain cities/places. There were many, many special regulations (e.g. you were sometimes only allowed to buy highest quality product if you also bought the lowest quality product as a bundle, the second highest quality product if you bought the second lowest quality, and so on - cherry picking only the best produce was forbidden; or, as another example, often you were forced to unload all your wares at certain cities and offer to sell it before you were allowed to continue your journey, etc. pp.). Product was also very often not exchanged for actual physical currency (traveling with a large bag of gold would be most unwise) but instead for honor based exchange bills, which could themselves be traded like stocks or exchanged with each other at the end of the year and only the difference payed. It was heavily regulated when and where you were allowed to buy certain products and how and by whom it was to be transported and on what routes. Currency and measurement units and their meaning and exchange rates differed regionally (sometimes multiple meanings for the same unit of measurement within the same village). Agrarian products were often sold a year before they were grown. Import of certain goods was illegal in some regions (protectionism).
Yes, my dream game is rather convoluted mess of ideas. It would a weird mixture of Dwarf Fortress and The Patricians series, so to speak. That being said: In the past two weeks I am seriously pondering if I want to try making it, by the way. I am a Historian that specialized in historical economics during my day-job and a hobby game dev at night. Writing about these ideas is a good practice for sorting my head. I‘m very slowly gravitating towards „yes - do it“. ;-)