What's the appeal of trading games?

[LarryTyphoid]

I've never found trading appealing before. I've never even attempted it. In games that featured trading, like Mount and Blade, Sea Dogs, or Sid Meier's Pirates, I completely avoided it. But if I'm going to continue playing space sims, it looks like trading is something I'll have to come to terms with.

Recently, I've been playing Space Rogue and Wing Commander Privateer. Both games heavily encourage trading as an early-game method of acquiring cash before engaging with combat. In Space Rogue, I've been writing down the buying and selling prices of every item in every space station so I can document optimal trading routes. Since you can't travel between star systems without navigating a somewhat challenging wormhole tunnel and having your hull eaten through in the process, I figured that it'd be ideal to keep cycling through two star systems that are right next to each other, as to minimize hull repair costs. I've been making decent profit by doing this, but is this really all there is to trading?

Is there something I'm missing? There's gotta be some autistic itch that trading scratches. Maybe I'm going about it wrong? What can I do to get more of a grasp on the space trading genre? I've never played Elite, or any space sim older than Space Rogue; should I do so?

 

[laclongquan]

Best trading has two series

Space Rangers Rise of Dorminators. You can investigate prices of goods several sectors away, then bring a trade goods there, then discover several other traders also smell chances and gather there thus drive price down. You can hoard goods in a system thus drive price down but supply is limited... various tricks to play.

Patrician 3 Hanse League. Same thing as SR but also has strong elements of production facilities building. F1 level of graphic.

 

[agentorange]

Is there something I'm missing? There's gotta be some autistic itch that trading scratches.

you answered this in your own post. it's about optimizing to see numbers get bigger, faster. you're not missing some secret layer. if you don't enjoy the sub-genre you don't enjoy it, that's it.

tagging Norfleet because i think he likes this kind of stuff

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Based on what I've read of other people's playthroughs of these kinds of games, the appeal is in optimizing things. Either through a system like Space Rangers mentioned above or by writing down/using a spreadsheet to store information about the prices of things on various planets. There's a reason why for a good chunk of these trading games combat is included.

Side note, if you do ever play Elite, play the Acorn Archimedes version, which you can get pre-set up here. Star Fighter 3000 is really nice too.

 

[Victor1234]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/games-trading

Here's the setup for every trading game in history: you're a fledgling merchant setting out into the world or galaxy with a modest ship with an empty hold, relying on your resourcefulness and/or shocking lack of ruth to carry you to global domination. It's a marvellous fantasy, and one that speaks to even the least capitalistic of us, as it can be completely non-violent, and even beneficial to the world.

Sure, in reality the complexities of economics and human behaviour make for countless abuses and atrocities in the name of profit, but there's plenty of room to make an honest living in many trading games through mutually beneficial agreements. They can often have their cake and eat it too, as piracy can be a fun challenge and a valid excuse for guilt-free action sequences.

The problem, though, is that in practice, I've yet to play a trading game that was about trade.

 

[Tweed]

Increasing profits makes my tism' tingle. In games like the X series it also goes hand in hand with straight up conquest. It gives me warm fuzzies to start at the bottom of the ladder and climb up, doing petty jobs for others and trading whatever I can. And then I start my own business, taking my profits and putting that into streamlining and expanding. From there I can take my winnings and start putting it into fleets of ships and take over the entire galaxy. Plus it feels really good when you buy your first big ship.

Games like Privateer do it on a smaller level, but no less rewarding. Finally trading in that busted old Tarsus for an Orion or a Centurion and outfitting her feels great, plus Privateer has a great story to follow.

 

[Matalarata]

Yes OP I became a billionaire in Elite: Dangerous before I asked myself the same question. Point is, I had fun up until that point. I don't think a game completely focused on trading would interest me but when the mechanics are present, it's nice to have something to plot your routes around to maximize resources and be efficient with numbers.

A game is a serie of interesting choices. It's all pertaining to, do those choices interest you, in particular?

 

[laclongquan]

The key is not gaining assets, though it's a large part of the draw.

The key is optimization, to design optimal ways to execute.

In this type of games, cheating rarely has desired effect because optimization need 100% manual and player involvement. Best they could cheat is instant buildup a facility. EVEN THEN that might affect the schedule where you time that completion to link with another part of selling strategy.

Example:
1. Space Ranger series. You have fun trying to find systems that lack goods and time your arrival on the dot. The tiny time difference when you arrive that lead to price up or down that make you scream is key moments of that game. The humongous storage you have on a planet somewhere faraway just dont mean much to you, really.
2. Patrician 3 and later Port Royale 2. You have fun set up schedule to buy sell items in a port and a series of ports. You have fun optimizing the transport goods from production port to selling port. Even if you cheat in a humongous number of goods in a port, that still need transfer elsewhere, and doesnt mean much. And if you cheat to buildup instantly a facility, say a wine brewery, you still need to transport grape from vineyard ports back and hire workers which need time to increase in a town.

 

[almondblight]

One thing I liked about Escape Velocity (the first, not sure if Override or Nova did this) you could rent a ton of freighters to make the trading go a lot faster, but all those freighters ended up attracting pirates you'd have to defend the freighters against.

 

[hayst]

Smuggling in Star Citizen was a vibe for a couple trips. However like everything else in that game its way too underdeveloped. Kenshi also has some interesting smuggling options but is also underwhelming. I like the high tension and stealth related components in moving that sort of cargo in games, but I haven't personally found any that do it well.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

How do you guys typically figure out all of the prices at each outpost or station in a trading game? I'm playing Wing Commander Privateer, which doesn't really have trading as its focus but encourages it in the early-game. I just buy one of every item, go to a different station, and write down all the prices I can sell each item for, then repeat. I keep wondering if I'm missing some way to optimize it. You get tips in the manual, like how you should sell minerals to agricultural planets and food to mining stations, but there's gotta be more to it than that. Space Rogue has an NPC in the first system who'll give you some tips if you run a mission for him, which is cool.

Maybe I should go back to the Sea Dogs games. Not space games, but I remember having a hard time ever getting into those, probably because I completely ignored trading. Those games, as I recall, automatically added the prices of goods in your notebook, complete with how much profit you'd make by selling from somewhere else. That's probably easier than having to write down everything yourself.

 

[mondblut]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/games-trading

Here's the setup for every trading game in history: you're a fledgling merchant setting out into the world or galaxy with a modest ship with an empty hold, relying on your resourcefulness and/or shocking lack of ruth to carry you to global domination. It's a marvellous fantasy, and one that speaks to even the least capitalistic of us, as it can be completely non-violent, and even beneficial to the world.

Sure, in reality the complexities of economics and human behaviour make for countless abuses and atrocities in the name of profit, but there's plenty of room to make an honest living in many trading games through mutually beneficial agreements. They can often have their cake and eat it too, as piracy can be a fun challenge and a valid excuse for guilt-free action sequences.

The problem, though, is that in practice, I've yet to play a trading game that was about trade.

?WOMAN? bored with excel spreadsheets, wants drama and romance in every shop.

In practice: buying shit now takes 50 clicks instead of 1, with a probability of getting kicked out for haggling too hard. Gee, vhat fun!

 

[Norfleet]

tagging Norfleet because i think he likes this kind of stuff

Honestly, trading isn't a very interesting aspect of the game in and of itself. It's a means to an end. You trade in order to acquire more resources. In most games, you tend to try to move away from it as quickly as possible: You go from travelling merchant to warlord or CEO. The actual act of trading itself is either impersonally boring, or disgustingly filled with irritating human interaction, and much like in the real world, we try to optimize that out of the loop, which is why eBay exists.

 

[laclongquan]

How do you guys typically figure out all of the prices at each outpost or station in a trading game?

The data checking is a mechanism games need to develop in each game on its own.
1. Space Ranger series has info station where you can search "online". So you can search name of trade goods to have prices in every station and planet. Then you saved results from planets/stations you are interested in. This is the best data checking for trade in any trade games you can find.
2. Patrician 3/Port Royale 2 permit you to buy office/warehouse/facility in each port, aside from having one ship there. So with that you can check market price in each port you have presence in. This is real time price list. Players typically make excel list and add them in. The excel will be necessary to develop several scheduled runs for several routes.

 

[Norfleet]

How do you guys typically figure out all of the prices at each outpost or station in a trading game?

It REALLY depends on the game. Some games have some facility for retrieving this data in-game, like the ones laclongquan lists, either by posting some kind of presence, or using some in-game search tool. Other games, you just sort of assume via general trends (mining bases have cheap ores, demand mining equipment and booze, etc), and still others, you just have to KNOW because prices don't actually fluctuate much if at all, and so knowing this information enables you to print money out of trading, not knowing this information (and having no way of finding it out normally in-game except by experience) makes trading deeply arcane and inscrutable.

 

[Victor1234]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/games-trading

Here's the setup for every trading game in history: you're a fledgling merchant setting out into the world or galaxy with a modest ship with an empty hold, relying on your resourcefulness and/or shocking lack of ruth to carry you to global domination. It's a marvellous fantasy, and one that speaks to even the least capitalistic of us, as it can be completely non-violent, and even beneficial to the world.

Sure, in reality the complexities of economics and human behaviour make for countless abuses and atrocities in the name of profit, but there's plenty of room to make an honest living in many trading games through mutually beneficial agreements. They can often have their cake and eat it too, as piracy can be a fun challenge and a valid excuse for guilt-free action sequences.

The problem, though, is that in practice, I've yet to play a trading game that was about trade.

?WOMAN? bored with excel spreadsheets, wants drama and romance in every shop.

In practice: buying shit now takes 50 clicks instead of 1, with a probability of getting kicked out for haggling too hard. Gee, vhat fun!

If you can look past who wrote it, there's a good overview of the trading game genre (all the right games are mentioned) and a good problem is identified. Most games in this genre are about getting to the 'fun' part of the game, which is not the part that involves trading. Fine, having Relationships (TM) is not necessarily the solution (although the devs of City of Gangsters thought so...), but the problem is real enough.

For me, I read a novel like Nostromo or Tai-Pan and there's an aspect of trading that's missing from every game in this genre. Uncertainty. Information doesn't travel instantly and many fortunes are won or lost based on who gets it first. Or someone is offering a literal silver mine ($$$) but nobody wants it because contracts aren't exactly enforceable in court and there's a new President every 2 weeks.

Most trading games are about making small, sure profits until you can afford bigger things to make slightly bigger sure profits with, but even real actual trade wasn't like that. A Portuguese dude gambling on a ship trading spices in Asia could make a 500% profit from a single trip, but maybe 50% of the time the ship would just disappear and nobody would know why.

Edit: Since we're talking smuggling, I always thought the Pirates of the Caribbean game with New Horizons mod did it best. You have to find an isolated beach instead of the main port, you have to make a contact in the town who'll take over the goods, and then you have to be quick with unloading everything, otherwise the coast guard shows up to try and kill you if you're too slow. Even if you do everything right, sometimes the dude tries to double cross you anyways and keep everything for himself.

 

[mondblut]

Most games in this genre are about getting to the 'fun' part of the game, which is not the part that involves trading. Fine, having Relationships (TM) is not necessarily the solution (although the devs of City of Gangsters thought so...), but the problem is real enough.

Maybe trading across an explored region with established routes and known sources of supply and demand is not terribly thrilling to begin with? You are being a glorified delivery service, and the most exciting things that could happen is getting into a storm, being mugged by pirates or having a competitor snatch a tasty load or fulfilling a dire demand just ahead of you… Which ideally you don't want to happen to you.

Now, throw in exploration, combat, humping an exotic princess… whoops, that's not about trading anymore again.

For me, I read a novel like Nostromo or Tai-Pan and there's an aspect of trading that's missing from every game in this genre. Uncertainty. Information doesn't travel instantly and many fortunes are won or lost based on who gets it first. Or someone is offering a literal silver mine ($$$) but nobody wants it because contracts aren't exactly enforceable in court and there's a new President every 2 weeks.

One thing that is totally missing from trading games is that most of the goods are perishable. If you can't sell your boatload of meat at a profit rite nao, you just wait for the price to increase, or set sail to sell it elsewhere. IRL, you have only so much time to sell most of your goods before they turn into rotten mold.

Moreover, pure games of chance are not very fun when you can reload at will.

even real actual trade wasn't like that. A Portuguese dude gambling on a ship trading spices in Asia could make a 500% profit from a single trip, but maybe 50% of the time the ship would just disappear and nobody would know why.

That gambling money should have come from somewhere. And that's probably a history of making small sure profits, which means trading spices in Asia is already endgame. That, or it's coming from the old money, and you have plenty of other investments (land owning, banking houses etc) and don't give a damn if a ship is occasionally TPKed offscreen at random. Which, by the way, is not exactly thrilling, too.

 

[Victor1234]

Most games in this genre are about getting to the 'fun' part of the game, which is not the part that involves trading. Fine, having Relationships (TM) is not necessarily the solution (although the devs of City of Gangsters thought so...), but the problem is real enough.

Maybe trading across an explored region with established routes and known sources of supply and demand is not terribly thrilling to begin with? You are being a glorified delivery service, and the most exciting things that could happen is getting into a storm, being mugged by pirates or having a competitor snatch a tasty load or fulfilling a dire demand just ahead of you… Which ideally you don't want to happen to you.

Now, throw in exploration, combat, humping an exotic princess… whoops, that's not about trading anymore again.

For me, I read a novel like Nostromo or Tai-Pan and there's an aspect of trading that's missing from every game in this genre. Uncertainty. Information doesn't travel instantly and many fortunes are won or lost based on who gets it first. Or someone is offering a literal silver mine ($$$) but nobody wants it because contracts aren't exactly enforceable in court and there's a new President every 2 weeks.

One thing that is totally missing from trading games is that most of the goods are perishable. If you can't sell your boatload of meat at a profit rite nao, you just wait for the price to increase, or set sail to sell it elsewhere. IRL, you have only so much time to sell most of your goods before they turn into rotten mold.

Moreover, pure games of chance are not very fun when you can reload at will.

even real actual trade wasn't like that. A Portuguese dude gambling on a ship trading spices in Asia could make a 500% profit from a single trip, but maybe 50% of the time the ship would just disappear and nobody would know why.

That gambling money should have come from somewhere. And that's probably a history of making small sure profits, which means trading spices in Asia is already endgame. That, or it's coming from the old money, and you have plenty of other investments (land owning, banking houses etc) and don't give a damn if a ship is occasionally TPKed offscreen at random. Which, by the way, is not exactly thrilling, too.

That's the literal problem the article was talking about, how to not make being a delivery service boring in a game without throwing in other stuff.

Uncertainty makes players save-scum, fine, but then what's your proposed solution? How do you introduce time pressure in a game that's about selling Colombian silver in San Francisco for American dollars? Neither of those goods spoil.

 

[mondblut]

That's the literal problem the article was talking about, how to not make being a delivery service boring in a game without throwing in other stuff.

You... can't? Ask any delivery guy, and he'll tell you that the best thing is when the shift passes entirely unventful.

Uncertainty makes players save-scum, fine, but then what's your proposed solution?

None whatsoever. I'm fine with RPG grind too, unless it is mandatory to proceed.

How do you introduce time pressure in a game that's about selling Colombian silver in San Francisco for American dollars? Neither of those goods spoil.

If that's the only thing you do trade in a game, that would be one boring trading game. Otherwise, you'd be missing on opportunities with 50 other goods which do spoil.

 

[Victor1234]

AFAIK, Taipan from 1979 was the first trading video game. You went around different ports selling 2 types of cargo, the only difference between them was opium was illegal (could be confiscated) and the rest were safe but didn't make much money. A time pressure element came from your starting bankroll being a loan that had to be paid back within X time, otherwise you lost the game, killed by your loanshark. The profits were certain but it was up to you to figure out how much risk to accept to get profit faster.

Dope Wars versions from the 80's and 90's copied this formula, trading drugs around the neighborhoods of NY but every good was now illegal and the risk came from where you were selling them, being more likely to get caught in some places than others. You still had X time to pay back your starting cash though.

 

[Sunsetspawn]

 

[LarryTyphoid]

AFAIK, Taipan from 1979 was the first trading video game

Wikipedia says Star Trader from 1974 is the first example of a space trading game. Maybe there's an even earlier non-space trading example.

 

[anvi]

There's gotta be some autistic itch that trading scratches.

I think that is true for most of gaming. If you really stand back and look at what the moment to moment gameplay is in a lot of games. A lot of action games are just running around pressing a button to destroy everything on the screen, then you sort through the loot to find something with 58 because it is better than your thing with 57. And then you are supposed to grind onwards to find a thing with 59, etc. It is hard to justify that as a fun experience, it sounds more like a job.

 

[cigaretteEnjoyer_despirit]

That's the literal problem the article was talking about, how to not make being a delivery service boring in a game without throwing in other stuff.

Games that are heavy on trading should compliment that with engaging mechanics of delivering goods. That's mostly what's missing from the games I played that included trade - the execution amounts to - go there - click "deliver" - abandon the mechanic completely once you get enough money to engage in something more interesting. It would be really fun to anticipate profitable situations, plan out your routes, consider various factors like political changes and so on, if this was a leading element that precedes actual travelling and adventure, which is the part where you get to experience the challenges resulting from your choices in the planning component.

I imagine something like Death Stranding, except instead of getting fixed deliveries, you only know the position of various outposts and try to figure out who needs what and where to obtain it. As the game goes on, you slowly build up a fleet of vechicles, contractors, bases. You can invest in making an area more secure, so that opens a consistent supply of rare goods, or maybe use the influence amassed at a settlement to send a group of prospectors into a new region, resulting in a new source of materials. It would have to be interwoven, so that the player constantly influences the world, which is visible and recognized.

There is sometimes a problem of recognition and interactivity. You can always increase the amount of money you have through trade, but, can you actually build a reputation and become an entity recognized as a trader in the game world? Often that's not the case. Whereas you can probably do so as a bounty hunter, or a knight, often in the exact same game.

Other than that it is simply up to the player to enjoy increasing numbers.

 

[Norfleet]

A Portuguese dude gambling on a ship trading spices in Asia could make a 500% profit from a single trip, but maybe 50% of the time the ship would just disappear and nobody would know why.

Yeah, but is this a TRADING game, or a stock market game now? If the Portuguese dude is on the ship, doing the trading, then it's a trading game. If he's not on the ship and just putting down money as an investment on the voyage and hoping he gets a return, doing NO ACTUAL TRADING because this all happens automatically, is this actually a trading game, or is this a trading company simulator?

Edit: Since we're talking smuggling, I always thought the Pirates of the Caribbean game with New Horizons mod did it best. You have to find an isolated beach instead of the main port, you have to make a contact in the town who'll take over the goods, and then you have to be quick with unloading everything, otherwise the coast guard shows up to try and kill you if you're too slow. Even if you do everything right, sometimes the dude tries to double cross you anyways and keep everything for himself.

So now we're moving into the idea that trading, is, in fact, dead boring, so let's smuggle instead. But the same problems exist: Do we end up playing a smuggler simulator, or is smuggling just a means to an end? More importantly, does ANYONE smuggle in real life as anything other than a means to an end? Who, in real life, is addicted to thrill of the act of smuggling or trading itself, and does these acts for no other purpose other than the sheer thrill of engaging in it? Probably nobody! The goal is always to either acquire the funds to perform some greater, and probably more interesting task, or to retire (meaning quit the game). But you don't need a Quitting Simulator, as the player doesn't need virtual money to quit the game.

So the end goal thus becomes, if nothing else, to have the coolest and pimpest boat. That might have been enough in the simpler days of gaming, but modern players probably demand more out of the game.