Economics is the study of decisions people make and how these actions affect goods’ production, distribution, and consumption. Most teachers teach economics through the use of real-world examples, but what if I were to tell you that any person could learn the basics of economics through a game such as Minecraft?
Minecraft is the most popular game to ever be released. 13 years after its release with roughly 300 million copies sold, no game has even come close to the runner-up game GTA V only selling 190 million copies. It’s no wonder that a majority of our generation has played or at least heard of the game. None of this should be major news to anyone reading, but what If I told you that playing Minecraft at home could translate to you being able to ace the basics of any economics class without even reading the course material?
Enter Hypixel Skyblock, an MMORPG (mass multiplayer online role-playing game) game mode for Minecraft developed by the Hypixel server that has a fully functioning market economy run by players with taxes imposed by the admins. In this environment, you can interact with an economy and learn all its ins and outs without risking any money in real life.
Wants and Needs
Because Skyblock is a somewhat story-based game, there is an order of events that makes some items a higher priority over others. This prioritization of certain items teaches players the economic idea of the differences between wants and needs. Sure, a player may want armor enhancements so they do more damage, but they probably need new farming equipment because no one properly levels farming early in the game.
“The lessons of weighing your decisions and choosing the most efficient choice is by far one of the best lessons the game teaches,” said Albert Cheng (12). “The game needs you to be efficient and understanding of the market to succeed, which teaches us how to make the best decisions.”
Scarcity
The economic idea of scarcity is that there is a limited quantity of resources to meet unlimited demand. This is demonstrated through the auction house and bazaar prices (the two most common ways to buy items). Let’s compare a common resource like oak wood to an obscure item like the Wither Shield scroll. Oak wood is a common item that can be farmed by even the lowest-level players and is thus extremely cheap. As a result, oak wood is valued at a mere 32 coins per block. Wither Shield is an enhancement scroll for Hyperion, the strongest weapon in the game, and has a drop chance from the highest-level dungeon at 0.1459% per dungeon completion. To guarantee a drop at a completion rate of one dungeon every seven minutes, you would need to spend roughly 91 hours playing. HOURS. This caused the price of Wither Shield to be roughly 275 million coins. The more scarce an item is, the more expensive it becomes.
“Originally I was going to work towards getting a Hype[erion], but after looking at the drop chances of all its materials, I realized it would take me 380 hours to guarantee everything needed and I decided I could do better things with my time,” said Akshar Thakker (12).
Opportunity cost
Opportunity cost is the loss of the potential gain of investing something into something else. Let’s say someone invests 100 million coins into my armor instead of red gifts right before Christmas. The opportunity cost would be the profit one would get from reselling the red gifts during Christmas when they are in high demand. Because of all the different ways of progression, players are constantly thinking about the opportunity costs of spending their coins.
“I invested around 150 million into my farming setup and it made me good money for a while, but after the farming update introduced pests, I wish I had spent it on something else like dungeons or Kuudra instead,” said Rogan Balingit (12)
There are so many other small nuances one can learn from the economy of Minecraft’s Hypixel Skyblock, but that’s probably best saved for an actual economy class. The next time you find yourself immersed in the pixelated landscapes of Minecraft, remember that you’re not just building running dungeons and gaining skills experience – you’re also mastering the fundamentals of economics.
