by

BESSY Igor

Research supervisor

三上 浩司 | MIKAMI Koji

<aside> 📢

• May 27, 2025 - Cartography chart updated (more influences between Actors and Activities)
• April 4, 2025 - Abstract rewritten ; Notion page publication
• January 6, 2025 - Paper completed </aside>

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND

Interacting with a non-player character (NPC) to trade resources is present in countless games. However, trade is rarely considered as a player activity that can be used as side gameplay, despite being present in many game-loops. Typically, it is reduced to a user interface without any gameplay interaction.

This paper aims to analyse which mechanics are used in games that choose to add gameplay to their trade, to draw an overview of the existing landscape. Then highlight the potentials and flaws of these mechanics.

This research is intended for game developers looking to enhance their whole game or universe by using trade as a gameplay tool, to focus their production effort on an existing player activity to add side gameplay into their game, to explore the development of new non-combat or trade related mechanics, or those who are curious of the current state of gameplay around trade.

OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION

1. Process: How the games and mechanics were selected for the research
2. Limitations: What is excluded from the research
3. Definitions: Breakdown of important notions
4. CARTOGRAPHY OF TRADE MECHANICS
   1. Defining the mechanic of trade: How transactions work
   2. Affecting trade: Which parameters affect trade
   3. 3 satellites activities: The recurrent activities around trade
   4. Game actors: Important figures structuring a game
   5. Mechanics of haggling
   6. Mechanics of relationship
   7. Mechanics of economy
   8. Mechanics of inventory management
5. ASSESSMENT OF TRADE MECHANICS
   1. Lenses for game mechanics: Models to examine a game mechanic
   2. Case studies: Practical uses of the lenses

ABOUT TRADE AS THE CORE-GAMEPLAY

REFERENCES

1. PROCESS

This research aims to do a global analysis of mechanics related to trade.

I selected curated games and studied their mechanics around trade activity to conduct the analysis. Then, I extracted existing mechanics and grouped them by similarities and impacts.

The games selected were coming from 2 lists. One with recently released and popular games, filled by monitoring the popularity of newly released games over the last years. The other list focuses on games known for making trade differently. These games were found by searching previous works on the subject, looking in databases, asking communities and monitoring games.

Since the analysis aims to be an overview, individual mechanics from various games sharing determining similarities have been aggregated under single models. Thus, particularities specific to an individual game may be simplified or omitted from the big picture.