Intro

This is a quick analysis I did over the economy (or lack thereof) of Onigiri. I have a BA in Economics w/ International Trade and my nerd instincts kicked in and this is what came out.

Basic Supply/Demand

Minimum Prices - In economics, we call the the Price Floor. Essentially, this artificially raises the prices from their natural market level to the minimum price. This causes Q (quantity) to decrease to Qpc, meaning less gear, items, etc being “produced,” or farmed/sold.

Tax - As of now, each sale comes with a 30% tax. (why you get less than the minimum price.) This has the same effect as a price floor, further adding to a decrease in Qe to Qpc. In the real world the tax money is suppose to go back into the economy. However in Onigiri, the money simply vanishes. This is to take money out of the Onigiri economy and force people to buy more OC with IRL currency. (USD, yen, etc) The “tax” (monetary contraction) combined with the dead weight loss dramatically reduces the quantity of items being sold and “produced.”



Planned Expenditure

E=Planned expenditure
C=Consumption
c=MPC (Marginal Propensity to Consume) * (Income - Tax)
I=Investment
G=Government Spending



With c, (MPC), as stated before, there is a large “tax,” resulting into a lower MPC. “I” will also decrease due to a more in depth analysis i won’t go in to. Briefly, “I” can be thought of “investing” in the items you own and the ability to farm (produce.) You’re more likely to “invest” or improve your gear if you know you can easily sell it later for a decent price. You’re also more likely to “invest” if you know it will improve your “production,” or items from grinding. Since you can’t efficiently sell the items you get, then investment goes down. G is non-existent. Onigiri doesn’t spend the “tax” back into the economy.

TLDR: mpc and “I” go down, resulting in a lower planned expenditure. This causes lower income (your ryou, items, etc) and output (less items for sell.)

*Something to think about: income=output=GDP. GDP is used to determine how well an economy is in the real world. The analysis above indicates much lower GDP with the minimum price and “tax” in place.

Liquidity Theory of Money

MV=PY
P=price level
Y=output/income
M=money
V=velocity

With the lack of trading, V will decrease. V is velocity, or the amount of times a currency is traded. As seen before, Output/income (Y) decreases. Price (P) increases with these effects in place. So what?; This shows artificial inflation (Higher prices than a natural market!!!)

TLDR: WTF Does All of This Mean?!

This means less items are being traded/sold with a “minimum” price, a “tax” (without a return to the economy) and the lack of a trade feature. Prices are artificially high. A large amount (30% of sales) are being extracted from the economy (opposed to a real tax where it is theoretically suppose to re-enter.) This is done to force people to buy more OC, however, without these features and decreased cash shop prices, the sales of OC would increase and most likely INCREASE Cybersteps profits. However, this is another analysis entirely requiring data I don’t have access to. (their finance data)

Your Response!

Let me know what you think! If I messed up or you think I’m wrong, please state why rather than “this is stupid.”
Thanks!

Sounds good to me and I totally agree.

I think the "Tax" was also implanted to prevent constant trading with friends, random players, and your other characters. This is truly amazing in how they try to encourage players to buy coins. You don't have too though. IN another post someone mentioned that this game shouldn't be consider multiplayer. That is right and wrong. If you play 100% free you literally have to get the items/weapons/materials on your own but you can still get help from other players.

I have an example. I farmed Hell Mode in Sakurajima Depths in full party 20+ times. Why? To get Kibidango a super rare drop...and nothing... A player offered me for 8c since that is all I have at the moment. The minimum is 60c... and he wouldn't even receive the full 60c and Cyberstep would get the whole profit. I am planning on just buying the boost package every 3 month that is all.

I bet this probably works very nice when it comes to making $$$. I think its good idea overall for them anyways.

Basically the tax purpose is quick cash.

Yeah that could work pre-patch because the costumes are selling point, but not now.

To be completely fair, I believe Lucky boxes should count as G, as with milky holmes, as they are technically not events normally in the game. However, this is just a minor detail. Nothing should be adjusted based off of this, as the "government" would be spending much, much less than its earning in terms of tax, resulting in a simple surplus that they decided to pool, further validating your correctness, as it implies that the "government" is taking tax excessively, and not using it to increase the amount of public benefit, or standard of living (events, etc), causing all of it to go to waste.

The only thing that I can really think of, and want to point out that might affect some of the correctness of your statements is that, unlike in a real life situation, it's not only the central bank that "prints money", as players can also freely insert "money" into the economy. I'm sure I don't need to further elaborate on the implications on that. (More like I'm lazy)

SupremeTentacle wrote:To be completely fair, I believe Lucky boxes should count as G, as with milky holmes, as they are technically not events normally in the game. However, this is just a minor detail. Nothing should be adjusted based off of this, as the "government" would be spending much, much less than its earning in terms of tax, resulting in a simple surplus that they decided to pool, further validating your correctness, as it implies that the "government" is taking tax excessively, and not using it to increase the amount of public benefit, or standard of living (events, etc), causing all of it to go to waste.

The only thing that I can really think of, and want to point out that might affect some of the correctness of your statements is that, unlike in a real life situation, it's not only the central bank that "prints money", as players can also freely insert "money" into the economy. I'm sure I don't need to further elaborate on the implications on that. (More like I'm lazy)

Thanks, I haven't actually opened a lucky box yet and I wasn't entirely sure if there are "freebies" in the game.. I guess technically speaking I've had like 3 gasha tickets free.. but it's a drop in the bucket for longevity.
I agree about the central bank.. The cash shop acts as a contractionary policy while players buying currency act as an expansionary policy, but I didn't think it was worth mentioning. Perhaps it is though...

Thanks for your response~

Add ability to sell with Ryou, apply 30% tax on that, create minimum prices on these items that can't be abused in light of trading (level 50 unique sword with a base of say, 400,000 Ryou).
Take out 30% tax on CS sales (if anything, apply 10% tax), and reduce minimum price on these items to more reasonable numbers.
Reimburse the taxed CS from previous sales, because it was simply eating at people's wallets and taking money out of the economy.

sooo
Ryou vs OC
?

Ryou is heavily used and easily gained. I doubt they will EVER consider using Ryou that would be like setting themselves up for failure.

This is so unbelievably nerdy and I love it.