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Comment by daenz | Hacker News Reader

>What makes this all so strange is that digital land doesn't have to be like physical land, in fact you kinda have to go out of your way to do that on purpose.

The fact that the author finds this "strange" tells me that they don't understand that the artificial restrictions are designed to make money. They go on to propose "solutions" for a "problem" that is not a problem to those who are making money. In fact, their "solutions" ARE a "problem" to them making money, because it lowers the artificial value of the digital real estate. If the people making boatloads of money were unhappy with the current situation, it would change.

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> The fact that the author finds this "strange" tells me that they don't understand that the artificial restrictions are designed to make money.

Author here! Of course I'm aware.

> it lowers the artificial value of the digital real estate. If the people making boatloads of money were unhappy with the current situation, it would change.

I'm making an argument about long term value versus short term value. Using digital real estate to make a bunch of short term cash? Excellent (if ethically suspect) business model.

Using digital real estate to make a long-lasting UGC platform where you expect players to create value for you? Seems undercooked.

Especially in video games, constraints are part of the gameplay. Without constraints it would be a sandbox without purpose. Now introduce money, and you've got yourself some pretty strong incentives to keep those constraints.

That isn't to say there aren't problems to solve, squatting and speculating may genuinely be bad for moneymaking, because if gameplay suffers, the game dies, and no-one makes money.

Not dissimilar from the real world, it's just that "quiting the game" isn't an option in the real world. Property speculating is ruining "the gameplay" for millions of people worldwide, but money is causing the incentives to be twisted so they don't patch the system.

I think that the artificial restrictions designed to make money are kind of the point. The digital realm is being constrained as if it were physical. These systems are being built on blockchain which is supposed to bring trustlessness and decentralized authority. Instead, virtual land is turning into land grabs the same way physical land does. The players profiting may be different, but the game is the same.

I know that FFXIV, at least, does have actual constraints on supply. Square-Enix is having trouble getting more server hardware at the moment, so they can't easily add more instances.

is that because they can't or are unwilling because of some expensive constraint. the average person can get ahold of a gpu for example if they are willing to pay a premium. I wonder if perhaps SE is stuck a little in the past as japan is with their fax machines. they could have moved to the cloud temporarily but im wondering if their app and scripts are not setup for that.

It's an interesting question. They literally stopped selling the video game due to a server shortage. I assume the money lost from lack of sales during the holiday season outweighs the cost of premium price on servers.

"Since July 2021, in order to accommodate the significant increase in the number of new players, we have been working towards building a new logical data center and adding new Worlds. However, due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have not been able to make any additions due to suspension of semiconductor production at manufacturing factories, decrease in production quantities, as well as a shortage of raw materials. Although we are investing much more money than usual, our attempts to alleviate the ongoing congestion situation are being delayed due to the physical shortage of server equipment."

https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/news/detail/e738898...

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