Money Market Account and certificate of deposit in a game, good or bad idea?

I will define the words first so we came to a common understanding.:smile:

"A Money Market Account is a deposit account that pays interest based on current interest rates in the money markets."

"A certificate of deposit (CD) is a savings certificate with a fixed maturity date, specified fixed interest rate and can be issued in any denomination aside from minimum investment requirements. A CD restricts access to the funds until the maturity date of the investment. "

A Money Market Account Mechanic:
1) I would allow a player to put money in a bank.
2) The player can choose to put money into a money market account.
3)Next time, the player withdraws their money. I will use a random variable to create a random negative or positive interest rate.

A certificate of deposit mechanic:
1) I would allow a player to put money in a bank.
2) The player can choose to put money into a certificate of deposit.
3) A return rate would be guaranteed but the player cannot withdraw their money until a player kills the boss or something like that.
4)I will use conditional branches to make that happen.

Update: so many people here think is a bad game design the ideas above, so I do not do it. Now, I would use Yanfly more currencies plugin to create a money exchange center which a player can exchange their money anytime. I will create black markets' currency which a player gets amazing weapons.

Do you think it is a good idea to have those mechanics in the RPG maker? Any thoughts and any comments, I would be appreciated that.:kaoluv:

Please remember that Game Mechanics Design is meant to be engine neutral. Therefore any aspect which is particular to MV will be treated as off-topic.
Please, everyone replying to this thread, keep this point in mind.

I have played a couple of games which used a bank deposit system, both of which gave interest. By careful timing I was able to max out my money and use it to get all the items etc. that I needed. Okay, sort of, but once I'd maxed out, there was little point to the system.

As for negative interest, I think that would be deeply not-fun. Why would the player put money into this system if there is a chance that they will lose some and so have to go out and grind for more? Some of the points in the very closely related thread you started on taxes apply here. Why do this? What point does it have from the player's perspective? Unless the finance system is an integral focal point to the whole game, why should I, the player, have to be spending my time and energy trying to keep an eye out on what's happening in the game world to justify a change in the bank rate? If there are no plausible reasons for an interest rate change then this just adds a tedious (imo) additional hurdle to me having the money needed to buy essential items/gear. If, as you suggest with your use of the word "random" this is purely arbitrary, then why not just have a casino for the gambling. Because that's all you've done, created a gambling mechanism and put it behind the facade of a bank. (No, folks, this is not to invite a discussion about how that's the way the finance system works in RL.)

As a player I personally would be totally uninterested in such a feature. As a developer I can see no reason why I should put in the considerable amount of time needed to create a decent version of this, though it would not be difficult to do a simplified/simplistic pure gambling version.

@Kes, I thank you for reminding me and sorry for forgetting the rule.
I thank you for letting me know that it is a bad idea.

That is "a bad idea in my opinion". Others may think differently.

I have never seen a game where money would have enough value for me to even worry about interests (in most games I end up awfully rich in the endgame, because I manage my heroes well enough to not neet to spend too much on items). So no, I don't think it would be a good idea to bother with it.

I was thinking the same thing - who would put money into a bank account that could have a negative interest value? That's a loan, not a bank account. But then I realised the OP is possibly talking about something like trading forex markets - "money markets" - where the value of one currency can strengthen or weaken against another.

So if you have multiple areas that all have their own currencies, it would be like a currency exchange, but you are trading it (buying/selling the exchange rate to hopefully reap the benefits as the values change) rather than just having a conversion at a fixed point in time.

Personally, I'd just rather have the conversion, knowing at the time what the exchange rate is, and having the option to go ahead or leave and come back later, rather than having to risk my money and hope it changes in my favour but knowing it might change against me. Unless the risk contributes to the gameplay, I don't think it's a good idea.

@Shaz The way you were describing the money market aspect (multiple currencies moving at different rates etc.) was one of the things I had in mind when I said that as a developer I wouldn't put in the considerable time needed to make a decent version of the thing. Also think of the poor player who is faced with having X amount in currency A, they go to a different location and currency A doesn't work there, so they have to convert what they've got or start from scratch to accumulate currency B. Of course if the player is only ever in one location so that the other currencies are purely notional, that wouldn't be a consideration.

@Kes

I played a game where there were 4 different currencies and liked the system. Though, the way it worked was to keep the player from "easily maxing out a ton of money and forcing them to trade in to the new currency". Essentially, it was an "anti-grind" mechanic that worked well enough.

Secret of Evermore.

The initial area you started in was a dinosaur land where your currency was "Talons", which were plentiful by the time you completed the area. Most players had 25,000 to 50,000 of them by the time they finished the area. But, then you hit the "roman land". They don't accept "Talons". After all, what's the use of a "Talon" to this society? I think the exchange rate was 1 "Gem" for every 3 "Talons". It never changed. But, it dropped your currency back down very quickly. On top of which, many of the Magic Components changed and even went up in price at the same time. Every area did this. Except the last one... Which would turn every 1 Talon into 4 Credits. Every 1 Gem into 3 Credits. Every 1 Gold Coin into 2 Credits. This gave the player a massive amount of money at the end... But, the prices were so massively outrageous that you needed this boost. A basic Magic Component at that point in the game had gone from 200-500 Gold Coins to 2000-5000 Credits.

It's a system I thought worked well and was quite fun.

But, gambling through a bank? It could be an interesting system if it were predictable in some ways and the player had to plan ahead quite a lot to make it work. Maybe if the RPG were based upon being a Merchant or something, it could work well. Something where you're directly tied into the Markets and can make the money in the bank go up or down... or you can minimize your losses. Though, I suspect such a game would require a lot of Quests where talking to people and convincing them to do different things would be the focus of such a game.

A game where you're a hero and you run around and kill monsters though? Such a system would be little more than a detriment to a player without some serious restrictions. Like say, if the player saves and quits or dies, the money they have on hand vanishes into the magical realm of "nothing". This would force the player to use the bank and be careful about how they do so. But, I can't see that being fun. After all, even in Zelda: Majora's Mask, they had to retcon the "reset" of 3 days for their bank just to make it fun/useful. Because grinding for money all over again was terrible and not fun.

I think it could work and even be compelling depending on the type of RPG you're creating. But one of the standard hack and slash kind? Probably wouldn't work well at all.

@Poryg, thank you for your thought.

@Shaz, great idea! I use Yanfly more currencies plugin. Nice to meet you.

@Kes, I respect your idea because you create so many successful games on stream.

@Tai_MT, thank you for your input. I try to think of some way to make the currency more meaningful to a player in late game. I use Yanfly more currencies plugin, so I can create black markets' currency which a player gets amazing weapons.

I think this would usually be an extremely bad idea, for at least three reasons:

1. The potential to break the game's economy through interest (whether the guaranteed interest of the CD or the average case of positive interest through a MMA, which would be required in order to make the feature useful in the first place) is enormous. As Albert Einstein once said, "the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest".
2. The system encourages players to not use their currency, constantly saving it up for later. This deprives the player the chance to have fun with their money and buy interesting (if not necessary) things in the first two-thirds of the game.
3. Nothing about this system would add so much enjoyment that it would be worth the extra complexity involved (or the massive pitfalls described above).

The only place I could see such a system potentially working well would be a time-management strategy game with a heavy emphasis on earning money, such as Recettear or (if you want a really deep pull in classic gaming) The Wall Street Kid. And even then, I'd generally avoid such a mechanic because of its enormous potential to break the game's balance wide open and render more interesting strategies obsolete.

@Wavelength, thank you for your inputs. Sometimes, I ask silly or stupid questions. I agree all of us like buy things more than saving or hoarding for tomorrow.

Saving money game would be boring because in real life all of us have to do that.

You're very welcome!

I don't think your question is stupid at all. Until you study game design, a mechanic like savings accounts is likely to sound like a cool idea because its existence adds realism and detail to your game world.

It's only once you examine what really drives the enjoyment in an RPG (or any other genre of game) that it's easy to elucidate why what seems like a good idea would actually hamper the player's fun (through the way it discourages you from "living for today" and spending your hard-earned cash) and sabotage your design (through its potential to destroy the game's economic balance of gold inflow and outflow).

That's why we have this subforum :)