Valve hires economist to enhance user experience

Valve has hired on an economist to study the various real, digital, and social economies at work in the company and its games, to enhance the user experience.

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Valve has welcomed a new staff member, one who doesn't quite fit into the usual mold of game development. Yanis Varoufakis is an economist, recruited by Valve to enhance the user experience for customers. While he calls himself a "total ignoramus of the world of video games," Varoufakis says that Valve wants him to help develop new services for the Valve "economy."

In a lengthy Valve blog post, Varoufakis explains how he was recruited by Valve, and his plans going forward. "I would become, in some capacity (that was to be hammered out later), Valve's economist-in-residence," he said. "My intention at Valve, beyond performing a great deal of data mining, experimentation, and calibration of services provided to customers on the basis of such empirical findings, is to to go one step beyond." He says he wants to "transcend the border separating the 'real' from the digital economies" and bring together lessons from Valve and the gamer economy.

CCP hired an economist for EVE Online, to help manage and plan its complex economy. These plans sound like they could be more ambitious, if nothing else than because his job will apply to various Valve games.

Varoufakis says he'll be offering weekly blog reports on his experiences into the social economies, and for the moment it's still a bit vague how all this will play out. Still, it's an interesting idea at the very least, especially as Valve opens up more in-game economies and item trading.

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  • reply
    June 15, 2012 12:30 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Valve hires economist to enhance user experience.

    Valve has hired on an economist to study the various real, digital, and social economies at work in the company and its games, to enhance the user experience.

    • reply
      June 15, 2012 12:35 PM

      TF2 hats vs guns and butter, GO

      • reply
        June 15, 2012 12:54 PM

        butter makes us fat, but hats make us tall.

        • reply
          June 15, 2012 2:49 PM

          hormones make people fat, not fat. typically high carb diets give a spiked insulin(hormone) respone which causes obesity. I speak from experience.

          • reply
            June 15, 2012 3:10 PM

            Would you rather have butter or guns?
            Shall we import lard or steel?

    • reply
      June 15, 2012 12:52 PM

      Valve is no ordinary studio, as can be seen by their job openings:

      http://www.valvesoftware.com/jobs/job_postings.html

      Especially the "Have a better idea?" entry.

    • reply
      June 15, 2012 1:18 PM

      Seems like a reasonable choice. I think I would have gone with someone who was more of an econometrician, but a game theorist is a good choice, too.

    • reply
      June 15, 2012 1:25 PM

      would be a funny interview game people vs economist.

      What did they ask him?

    • reply
      June 15, 2012 2:45 PM

      valve owns so goddamn much

    • ArB legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
      reply
      June 15, 2012 4:23 PM

      Because economics is just so much fun.

      • reply
        June 15, 2012 4:31 PM

        Yes, of course I have you say that since I teach it (high school level).

    • reply
      June 15, 2012 10:50 PM

      -Better Idea-

      Step 1: Fire the economist

      Step 2: Hire HL3 Developers

      Step 3: Profit


      (My apologies to the economist, but I'm simply not convinced that the world is ready for a hat-backed securities market).

      • reply
        June 16, 2012 11:22 AM

        It seems like they are just too busy with Steam to work on HL3.

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