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Neopia's Fill in the Blank News Source | 19th day of Running, Yr 26
The Neopian Times Week 64 > Articles > The Neopian Way: Economics

The Neopian Way: Economics

by harper_1618

NEOPIA CENTRAL - Like most faithful players, I often sit through my classes thinking of when I will be free to log on and enter the colourful world of Neopets - battling that pesky Pant Devil, playing endless games, looking at guilds, and restocking my shop, and in a class such as Economics, Neopets is certainly on my mind a considerable amount of the time.

The more I thought about it however, I realised Neopets was in fact to a certain degree, a game of economics. So, I actually began to listen to what my teacher was saying and I tried to apply the lessons to Neopets. I found an astonishing amount of similarities between the Neopian world and our own.

We have our wants and needs, just like in the real world. Food for our pets would be a need, while that lovely faerie paint brush is a want, something not required for survival but an item most of us players wish to own. I also noticed that Neopets was a free market, where the consumers decided the prices of items. There is no real government system in Neopets, so ultimately we decide how much to sell items for, which brings me to my next topic of discussion, the Law of Cost and Demand.

The Law of Cost and Demand will effect you whether you understand the meaning of it or not. Simply stated, the law says that as the price of a particular product goes up, the demand for the product goes down. As the price for that same item goes back down, the demand for the product goes up. Confused yet? Let me use a Neopian example. The Baby Paint Brush started off selling at 300K in the Hidden Tower. Not many people could afford that, so not many paintbrushes were sold. When the price was lowered to 200K, Neopians jumped at the chance to buy the paintbrush at a lower price. The demand for the item was raised as the price was lowered.

Another thing I have noticed here at Neopets in often there is a surplus of a particular good, such as the Tombola prizes. What happens when there is too much of a product put out into the market? That's right, the price drops until people are willing to buy the product. So what happens if consumers still won't buy the product even if the price is lowered? You guessed it. The good will sit on store shelves. This seems to happen often with the Tombola booty prizes. There are just too many in the market. Some will not even sell for 1 Neopoint.

Our last topic of discussion is competition. We all know what competition is, right? If you own a Neopian shop, you have most likely faced competition in the market before. You want your stock to sell quickly, and you also want consumers to buy your goods, not those of your neighbours. So what do you do? You lower your prices! People will buy from you if you can offer the lowest price for a particular good around. Let's use a codestone as an example:

Using the Shop Wizard, you find that the average price of a Mau Codestone is 3100 NP. You want your Mau Codestone to sell quickly, so you place it in your shop for 3000 NP, knowing someone will jump at the chance to buy it at a lower price. Well, another shop owner also has a Mau Codestone and they want THEIR good to sell fast, so they enter their codestone into the market at 2900 NP. When you see that people are buying codestones from that other shop owner, once again, you lower your prices. Do you see where I am going? Competition in the market affects you as a buyer and a seller. If you are looking to buy a Mau Codestone and you see that the price keeps being lowered because of competition between sellers, you will buy more Mau Codestones while they are being offered so cheap. This sounds familiar. It's the law of cost and demand all over again!

As you can see, economics is a big part of Neopets. This is only a very basic guide to what economics is about, but I hope it has helped you. So don't frown the next time your history teacher starts a boring speech about how the market effects us. Put on your thinking cap and try to relate how it ties into the subject you love the most--Neopets.


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