Just ran into this post over on Reddit (good place, A++, will visit again).
The first (current) post is this nugget of economic theory gold…
Some quick background reading here and some longer reading (especially) here. The second link is the one I was going for in the title. You can boil all that stuff down, and indeed, a good deal of real world economic behavior, to getting what you think are good tips from your friends.
Reddit, being kinda game-like in and of itself and filled with people who have years, if not decades, of experience in unraveling a combination of cryptic and fragmented data in order to achieve a simple goal, aced Steam’s marketing team in this test. Usually these skills are used for problems along the line of saving a princess/taking over the world/killing the bad guys, however, in this case getting the best price possible…that’s not zero, is the goal. (The zero thing is important here, as the option to go “rogue” is much higher for pc gamers. Remember all pc gamers have access to free games, if they want to work hard enough, especially folks who hang on places that support wikileaks, ifyouknowwhatimsaying ).
Anyway, just a curious example of how economic theory and the real world collide; it’s usually just friend sharing tips. It’s just going to happen faster now (and you’ll have more people trying to play that role on the sly).
Robot Pirate Ninja 