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The Warframe Economy: Where Do Credits Come From?


ElHefe
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If you think about it, Credits really are odd little things ...

 

They are a fictitious currency - "earned" by completing regular missions, "made" by selling Inventory items, "spent" in Market and Foundry and "taxed"* in Dark Sector missions

 

But where do Credits come from?

In real world economies, currency is a representation of value established by governments and banks as a mechanism for the convenient exchange of goods and services

 

In Warframe, Credits just "appear" ...

Every day, untold number of Credits move in and out of personal, clan and alliance accounts with sundry transactions

But who "prints" the currency?

 

The obvious answer is that DE does ...

They are the Central Bank of Warframe - the DEcentral Bank if you like

And Credits are nothing more than a placeholder for potential activities - not a real currency

 

However, in light of the contentious debate over Rail "taxes", Credits are often CONSIDERED to be real ...

Considerable acrimony, distrust and disillusionment result from the perception that - like in the real world - the rich just get richer is true in Warframe

 

However, the number of Credits increases simply on the basis that the number of players - or consumers, taxable citizens - increase

This is a dynamic which does not have common real world correspondence

Furthermore, since an unlimited supply of currency (the "mo muneh mo muneh" Keesian adherents) typically leads to inflation (the "more costly more costly" Greenspan adherents) DOES NOT APPLY to Warframe, there are no consequences to the ever expanding money base (i.e. total Credits in the Warframe universe)

 

Therefore, while it may be so that the "rich get richer" the truth of the matter is that everyone gets richer

 

Now, this argument does not address the issue of how Alliances "earn" Credits (AND Resources) through ownership of a Rail ...

That dynamic is more like owning beach front property and enjoying PASSIVE income

 

However, I wonder if the whole debate over Warframe Economics might shift into a more neutral tone if things were kept in perspective

 

I end with some questions:

1. Do you have a better model for the Warframe Economy?

2. Do you have a better explaination for the Warframe DEcentral Bank?

3. Do you give a rip about any of this when it comes to Dark Sector conflicts?

 

I look forward to your responses and request that this thread not be considered a debate forum, just a place to post ideas

DISCLAIMER:  I am not a professional economist nor work in the financial industry and welcome correction and clarification of statements made in this OP

 

Edit:  In the opening sentence the term "tax" is used ...

A more accurate term would be "Currency Exchange" as technically one is taking currency out of a "sovereign" territory

Likewise, the term "tax" on Resources is also incorrect - "customs duty" or "export tariff" are more accurate

 

In Dark Sectors the term "tribute" is used ...

Derived from the Latin tributum (contribution) was a levied payment madeout of deference (respect) but most often in submission or allegiance to a sovereign

During the republic of Rome, this was typically a large amount and was used to wage war

So apparently both war and taxes never change ...

Edited by ElHefe
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@ PsychedelicSnake ... I just spit coffee all over my monitor with that post!  Hillarious

 

BUT, you did bring in a crucial point ... when players actually spend real world currency, then the pool of Credits also increases as most bought items will be leveled up, even those maxed but unused weapons or warframes can be sold for credits

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Credits are corpus currency and since the corpus have a monopoly on pretty much everything everyone uses them and since everyone uses them a few million tenno getting rich is not going to have a significant effect on the economy.

 

When a mommy platinum and a daddy platinum love each other very much...

However this answer is much more fun.

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I myself see credits as a electronic currency with chips given a downloadable denomination hence why we seemingly pick up millions but show no sign of storing them. Think of it as bitcoin but now able to be downloaded and stored in dedicated memory banks. All we do is change a little thing here and its ours. Hence when we trade we just input our code and there's our account with stored credits.

Short way. Credits are electronic and we store them via memory chips or simple.codes to D/L for later use.

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just imagine the money u spent on foundry/modranking/etc 

is circulated over the universe to be just in the pockets of mobs and inside the cabinets and boxes that happens to be sometime deducted from the reward u get from darksector and clans pay people to fight for their cause and be claimed by plebs and the circle of creds contnues

 

the currency model is actually fine (im just lazy to think)

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I myself see credits as a electronic currency with chips given a downloadable denomination hence why we seemingly pick up millions but show no sign of storing them. Think of it as bitcoin but now able to be downloaded and stored in dedicated memory banks. All we do is change a little thing here and its ours. Hence when we trade we just input our code and there's our account with stored credits.

Short way. Credits are electronic and we store them via memory chips or simple.codes to D/L for later use.

Bitcoin thingies.

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Well since Corpus dominate the economy in the world of warframe, and they are our bitter enemies, it is safe to asume that Tenno buy and sell their items in the black market.

In invasinon missions you get payed directly by the faction you supported, but on normal missinos we could asume the money we get comes from the Lotus, where does she get this massive amount of money to support her endless army? Well maybe there are other factions intrested in hiring the Tenno's skills, factions that we never heard of (Red Veil anyone?)

Also we cant asume that that new money gets printed every time a Tenno wins a battle. It is possible that there are trillons of credits moving around, and the Tenno just have a small share of all that.

While credits are used by Tenno to buy services (starting items in the foundry or ranking  up mods) or weapons, platinum on the other hands seems to be the Tenno's proper currency, and in this case the Lotus (and by that i mean DE) would be the Central Bank.

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I think I'm too tired to bother with the grand scheme of this thread and credits economy in general.

 

All mmo's "suffer" from the same "issue" of money appearing out of nowhere, but they usually have "gold sinks" to compensate. I think DE tried to make solar rails into such a "gold sink" but with the freedom over the tax being so wide it turned into credit farms for clans in control.

 

One thing I know for sure though, I certainly don't have enough of them to carelessly spend them on anything I need.

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I think I'm too tired to bother with the grand scheme of this thread and credits economy in general.

 

All mmo's "suffer" from the same "issue" of money appearing out of nowhere, but they usually have "gold sinks" to compensate. I think DE tried to make solar rails into such a "gold sink" but with the freedom over the tax being so wide it turned into credit farms for clans in control.

 

One thing I know for sure though, I certainly don't have enough of them to carelessly spend them on anything I need.

Credits arent even that hard to farm as i am sitting at 5-5.5 millions constantly. And i dont even play the game that much.

 

 

 

I supose i will have over 6 millions when new Primes are released.

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Credit boosters will blow your mind even more.  XD

 

Collect one credit and get two in the bank?  lol.

 

giphy.gif

This reinforces my bitcoin headcanon with boosters having a special code that is added to each credit D/L allowing us to duplicate them. Plus makes sense that if you're near enough a teammate you both get the credits they picked up.

So in short. Credits=Bitcoin originating from maybe Orokin Era (explains why you get more credits in Dark Sectors and voids/Derelicts) and still in use due to Corpus obsession with Orokin stuffs. With platinum being the more universal of the currencies (profits trailer has the corpus board bidding in platnium at the millions level)

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I'd think that credits aren't just a form of money.  Why the heck do we use it for building in the foundry?  It *could* be a form of metal that is essential in building anything -- the basic framework for the rest of the materials to be built upon.  Think of creds like coins.  Coins of today are made of various metals (which are also used for making other objects) and have a set value, sort of like the green and blue creds in WF-- which means they are a standardized currency for convenience agreed upon by all participating factions (except infested for obvious reasons).  It could be the case that Grineer, Corpus, and the Tenno have a few places of Orokin era tech where the creds are forged that are then shipped throughout Sol.

Edited by hijinks_the_turtle
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Inflation isn't possible.

Credits are digital information which can be destroyed.

High free-to play-game-items usually stop any form of inflation or "richness" of the consumer.

Not to mention that a majority of credits are obviously held by those in the big clans.

If the money isn't spent, inflation doesn't happen and prices don't go up.

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-snip-

...I don't think DE intends for any economy for WF with respect to credits. It's really just another version of resources to build, trade and use items in the game. And I don't think they want to make anymore complicated than that. Thanks goodness. LOL
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