That’s very understandable 🫂

I hadn’t considered the relationship between high item prices, item availability and its benefit to the company, but that’s very interesting. Something similar happens in OSRS. There’s a huge price difference between mid-game, late-game and end-game gear, to the point where the average player (most of the playerbase are adults these days) really doesn’t have the time to sink into the exorbitantly long grinds to acquire either the items directly or the in-game currency needed to buy them. Buying in-game currency ends up being a no brainer for them because it’s the path of least resistance. Spend 6 months trying to get one item, or get it immediately and move on to the more interesting content.

In the case of OSRS I think the majority of actual prices aren’t so much due to market manipulation or flipping, although both do occur. There’s been some big scandals in the past involving clans and market manipulation so it’s a bannable offense. Rather, there’s a lot of item sinks that have been implemented to prevent supply getting to the point where it starts crashing the price. Regardless though the company still has the same interest, being keeping in-demand item prices reasonably high to sell in-game currency.

What game was it? Lots of online games have a black market where game currency/items can be traded for actual currency, which makes me wonder if there’s value in doing a Marxist analysis of game economies (Runescape, Counter-Strike, etc). If a means of transfer exists between in-game and actual currencies it appears somewhat analogous to crypto. Although with crypto there’s not much direct labor-power involved compared to a game like Runescape where you have to manually do in-game actions in order to generate wealth.

Reminds me of this gem

I’ve found it helps a lot to be overly kind to myself during those times. Treat yourself like you would a friend who’s going through that. As much as it sucks, under capitalism it’s a totally normal situation to be in and there’s a lot of us out there experiencing the same thing - you aren’t alone. I’m in a similar spot myself.