Find my gaming-inspired blog posts difficult to read? You can find a helpful breakdown of terms used in this blog post on housing in this term glossary. I explain there what terms like Players and Real Life mean to me, as well as other terms. Hint: I like to nerd out and get inspired by r/Outside.
It’s happening again, In Real Life. Or, more appropriately, it happened. The in-game economy (or at least investments within it) has crashed, causing uncertainty and fear amongst the player base. “I’m a mid-level player now, but how do I know the market will recover before I want to stop farming gold?” Is the outcry of the average millennial player who is filled with fear of the unknown. “I can’t dungeon dive forever!”
The truth is, no one knows when the market will recover. Guilds have whole teams of specialist players dedicated to predicting what will happen next. They call these players ‘Market Analysts’ and ‘Investment Managers’. They’ve made their whole careers investing deeply into the skill pool to predict the market and likely, about half of them will be right. No one financial oracle has been able to consistently predict the moves of the market (not even with a clairvoyance or guidance spell!) This is especially true when you factor in timing.
What should you focus on?
So, what should you do to maximize your gold output? Focus on the things you can control (like this article):
Is your gold invested well? A proper portfolio allocation insures you can rebalance and rely on your diversification while we wait for the market to recover.
Is your guild giving you enough gold? The job market in some sectors is as hot as its ever been! If you’re not being paid enough, you may want to consider a change in guild.
Are you setting enough aside for the late game? Your savings rate is one of the things you have the most control over. If your portfolio is set and you’re being paid enough, just make sure enough gold finds its way to that portfolio!
If you’re confident that you are making good decisions in those areas, you’re controlling what you can. In the meantime, take solace that the sages’ and scholars’ research shows that the market drops of past ages didn’t usually last long. It should turn around, we just won’t know exactly when.
