Value Added to MMO Items

In real life, people engage in production to make goods and provide services. In doing so, they hope to add value of the finished product above what it cost them in materials, labour and capital. Normally, this is what actually does happen, however in MMOs (massively multiplayer online [roleplaying games]), especially those whose skills are difficult to learn, items actually decrease in value as they are processed.

Like their real-life counterparts, items usually are assets, that is, they provide economic benefits to whoever is in possession of it. As part of production of a real-life asset, any combination of materials, labour and capital may be used in an effort to add value to it. This is usually what happens with an ingame asset as well.

As is the case both in real life and ingame, as a person/character repeatedly makes the same good or provides the same service, they learn more about how to do so. As part of an asset's total value (which includes its value as part of a finished product), there is value placed on its ability to facilitate such learning. When the materials/items are finally processed, such benefits are consumed and the total value somewhat falls.

Resources and Their Sources

Accounting is a practice that allows someone (or something, in the case of an organisation), the accounting entity, to keep track of their economic and financial details. It involves accounting for their economic resources, as well as the sources from which they are obtained.

In early accounting practice, businesses would keep separate lists of their resources and sources. It was soon discovered that both can be linked. Thus came double-entry accounting, where every transaction that is recorded would recognise both and implicitly relate the two together.

All accounting entities strive to accumulate resources, while being careful of how they finance them. Those resources help to satisfy the accounting entity’s economic wants by providing economic benefits.