Copyblogger recently advised marketers to tell their audience’s story, taking Downton Abbey as an example of excellent narrative marketing. It uses historical references that still fascinate people today, and creates strong characters who viewers can identify with, getting people wrapped up in a historical fantasy that feels relevant and real.

In my GDC talk, I’m going to argue that game designers should do the exact same thing with virtual economies. I will show how Final Fantasy games used fictional economics to tell their players' story, and that as their players' stories changed, so did the fictional economies of Final Fantasy games.

Economic Narratives

In 1988, Final Fantasy II featured a scenario in which players had to fight to acquire mythril for the resistance. They did this because the ruling monarch told them to; it was their job to follow the orders of the boss. By Final Fantasy VIII, released ten years later, things had changed. Weapons were collected not as part of the main storyline, but as an act of choice by players. With growing numbers of young people giving up on salaried careers in a post-bubble economy that could no longer guarantee long-term security, this tough independence would be particularly meaningful.

Giving players confidence

By changing weapons acquisition from an authority-directed act to a self-motivated process, Square were able to tell their players their own stories. Except that in these stories, they were heroes, with an unlimited inventory of valuable loot. In the real world, the chances of feeling like a winner were getting ever more slim.

Any game designer should try to do the same with a fictional economy in an online game selling virtual goods. Players should feel like your virtual goods economy is part of their story, part of their world.