In the last episode, we saw that many factors define the value of an item or a service. That’s all good and well, that allows us to price things at a right amount and even rise the price a little by wrapping the item in a cool story that makes it look better to the customer. But what if we could sell this item multiple times? What if we had the possibility to put a limit to the value of that item and, past a certain point, the item is virtually worthless.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call Obsolescence. Of course the obsolescence of something is not designed to be to the advantage of the customer, it’s made so that they need to come back and engage with the economy over and over.

There are 2 types of obsolescence: Explicit and Implicit.

Explicit Obsolescence

Simply put, explicit obsolescence is the type of obsolescence that is clearly indicated to the consumer/player.

For example, when purchasing a consumable of some sort, the player knows that the item will be valid once for a certain period of time. After the item has been used and the effect applied, the item is destroyed.

All games that rely on a strong economy require to have consumable objects. This create a baseline of economic interactions. By balancing the consumables properly, it is relatively easy for the designers as well as other players to figure out how many items need to be put in the economy and, therefore, how much trading volume each type of consumable represents.

Consumables and Explicit Obsolescence is an absolute cornerstone of every economy (one must simply look at the pharmaceutical industry revenues when it comes to insulin or cancer medication to see that) but they are not the most interesting or challenging type of items and, therefore, not necessarily the ones that are the most interesting.

Implicit Obsolescence

Implicit Obsolescence corresponds to all the ways that the system has to turn a perfectly functioning item into a virtually useless one.

Imagine a +2 Sword that you receive from killing a monster in the first dungeon of a RPG. When you find the sword, you are ecstatic because it deals much more damage than the stick that you used so far. For the next couple of levels, the sword performs wonderfully. However, when you enter the fourth dungeon, monsters are tougher and it feels like your +2 sword is not cutting it anymore (got it?). And when you find a +5 sword on the corpse of a monster, you end up tossing your +2 sword without a second thought. Did the Sword stop doing its job? No, it’s still perfectly working. Did you hurt the feelings of the Sword? Absolutely, even if you said “it’s not you, it’s me”.

That is a good example of Implicit Obsolescence, the sword was rendered less valuable not because it stopped performing but because external factors rendered it less performant than a newer option.

A real-life example of Implicit Obsolescence can be found with Apple products (especially with the Apple afficionados). When the next iPhone 17 comes around, the sheer hype and the status symbol that it represents will render the iPhone 16 obsolete. Does it mean that, all of a sudden, every iPhone 16 around the world will stop working? No but one or more of the aspects of the value of the iPhone 16 will have been diminished by the release of the iPhone 17. Why? because having an iPhone is less a choice about performance or abilities than it is about showing to the world that you are part of the cool kids and, as a cool kid, you need to have the latest iPhone. It is a status item (remember last lesson?).

If you don’t pick up what I am putting down, Implicit Obsolescence is the set of factors that will make the value of an item drop to the point where it doesn’t make sense for the player/consumer to keep it. In the case of the sword, the fact that the enemies were becoming stronger and that the player found a better alternative rendered the +2 sword obsolete. In the case of the iPhone, the fact that the value of the phone in part relies on being the nec plus ultra to be a status symbol rendered it obsolete the moment a newer iteration appears on the market.

Offering a solution to the problem we created

Implicit obsolescence for us is really important because it can be tackled in multiple ways. Either we offer the player to exchange their obsolete item for a new one (at a cost of course) or we give them the possibility to upgrade their item (once again at a cost).

These 2 approaches must coexist in the system though they must not compete with each other since they bring different things to the system.

Replacement

In the case of a replacement, the player simply gets rid of their old item and pick up a new one. In that case, the player doesn’t really have an invested interest in the object and changing doesn’t have any negative impact.

The first pro of that method is that the player doesn’t have to invest too much reflection in the process, they see an item that seems better than theirs, they take it. If it happens to not be a sound choice, they can simply change again. Another pro is that this method allows for a vast second hand market that can be profited from by both the players and the developers.

On the other hand, the main disadvantage of that method, at least from a developer’s point of view, is that a system like that requires lots of items. Though this can be mitigated by creating a semi-procedural item generation system. From the player’s point of view, that creates a system where, in a player-led economy, the market will inevitably end up being crowded by lesser items that nobody wants because they are not useful anymore. In that case, a garbage collection system must be put in place to ensure that things don’t get out of hand.

Upgrade

Upgrades imply that the player conserve the item they have and simply improve its characteristics. It creates somewhat of an history between the player and the item.

The first pro of this is that it really deepens the customization aspect of the item. The player can choose what upgrade to apply according to their kind of gameplay. Another good aspect is that it’s easier for the developer to create a somewhat infinite system of upgrades with ever-increasing costs.

However the upgrade system highly limits the direct economic impact of an item in the sense that the player will not sell the item, they will simply upgrade it more and more.

Another potential issue can be that it might be difficult to go back on choices. If the player has upgraded their item in a certain way, it might get troublesome for them to re-spec the upgrades.

That’s about it for today. Stay out there and keep an eye out for the obsolescence of your different items.