A player-built gas station in Dune Awakening is fueling the debate about a real in-game economy – if developer Funcom wanted it to.
Take a bit of desert soil, a few generators, and some storage space – and there you have it: the first free gas station on Arrakis. A player in the Deep Desert of Dune: Awakening dared to do just that and simply set up a few boxes from which you can get free fuel for your vehicles.
What initially looks like a nice gesture quickly sparked numerous fantasies on Reddit about how developer/publisher Funcom could still turn the survival game into an MMO with a real economy.
Someone built a gas station in my servers deep desert
byu/gh0st_fac3 induneawakening
The comments section exploded under the post. DarthTeufel sums it up:
That’s how you start an in-game economy. With paid access rights and specializations in crafting trees, a division of labor ecosystem would quickly form… If the crafting trees were also class-specific, there would be specialized crafters.
Fiercekittenz agrees and would like to see clear career paths so that not every player can suddenly do everything. Some even dream of automatic sales robots à la Rust or Fallout 76, which could function as sales stands.
Ultima Online as a model for a real in-game economy
At this point, memories of classic sandbox MMOs such as Ultima Online come to mind: There, each character starts with a certain number of skill points that can be distributed among professions such as blacksmith, tailor, or alchemist and then further trained. However, the total number of skill points is limited.
Those who specialize in blacksmithing, for example, cannot brew elixirs – and thus become important contacts for guild members and other players. The limited skill system forces specialization, creates scarcity, and natural trade barriers. The end result is an economy in which everyone has real strengths and weaknesses and is therefore dependent on bartering.
If Funcom really wanted to, they could introduce a point-limited skill system in which you have to specialize in certain professions and incorporate automatic vending machines or player shops. This would instantly turn Dune Awakening into a vibrant player economy with real professions and trading posts. But whether the developers really want that is, of course, another matter.
