I have become a billionaire and I am bored with my billions. I need to find another way to buy the things that money can't buy. There has got to be another game than Mafia Wars. Mafia Wars is a fun little game on Facebook. I've been playing it for several weeks now and it has just hit the wall.
There are several objectives to Mafia Wars. Gain experience, gain money, gain associates. There are several ways to all of those things and one of those ways is a marketing backdoor called The Godfather who will grant you brownie points if you just buy from one of their many sponsors. Zynga, the developers have certainly made a tidy pile of money with this clever game and its variants.
To describe all of the complexities of the game would be something of a waste of time. I am drawn to describe its limits which are exactly the same as its virtues. For one thing, like most MMO games, there are always a universe full of players many orders of magnitude more powerful. But as you increase in stature, around level 70, the mega-players become a bit more availed to your quivering backside. The game becomes a lot more difficult in that there are fewer peers to compete with and fewer marks to pick on. You yourself become a mark, and suddenly the whole thing doesn't seem fair any longer.
Secondly, as predictable, there are no macro level events of the sort that would make things very interesting. For example, one of the things you can do is earn money and buy properties which yeild some cash flow. So there's a little microeconomic model which makes for the kind of price inflation and lower ROI so that you don't buy infinite numbers of properties. There are also ways to buy insurance so that when rivals attack your properties it makes it a bit harder for them. But there are no disasters that befall your property's earning power. You simply amass more cash and buy ever more expensive properties. I have something like 23 mega-casinos valued at 107 million each. But there's nothing bigger to buy.
Thirdly, you amass energy in order to pull off various heists and crimes. Completing a tier of such jobs gains you greater honoraria. From thug to associate, soldier and enforcer to hitman, capo and consigliere. You work your way up to underboss, boss and master boss. But the inflating costs of jobs means it takes me 24 hours to earn enough energy to finish one level. I'm almost a level two capo, but I don't want to work any more. I could buy more energy from the Godfather, but what's the point?
There is a 'friending' marketplace to attract other players to join your team. As you might imagine, it's like volleyball. Nobody wants duds on their team. Of course you can always go to the Godfather and buy friends.
You can buy health, energy and even money, but everything inflates. Every bank deposit costs 10%.
Playing Mafia Wars has made it perfectly clear to me how inflation kills all the fun of being a billionaire, and how, when you have billions, the longer you have them, the more you want to change the rules of the game and attempt to buy the things that money can't buy according to the rules of the game. It also makes it perfectly clear to me how foolish it is to lie about the nature of success. You never know which Capo will become Underboss or if they might become your friend.
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