The MMORPG Black Desert has opened an auction house for the super-rich in South Korea. This serves as a luxurious gold sink and sells items that break rules.
What is a gold sink? And why is it necessary
A “gold sink” refers to mechanisms in MMORPGs that remove in-game currency gold from the game. The problem in MMORPGs is that gold is constantly generated “out of nowhere”: players defeat a monster and it has gold. However, the monster does not take the gold from the economy’s gold circulation; it is magically created anew each time.
Thus, the amount of money in an MMORPG keeps increasing. Gold is worth nothing anymore – and inflation occurs. Players no longer think about gold, as they have a fortune they can never spend.
Some mechanism must fully remove gold from the game; it must flow out again, which is why gold sinks are necessary: In most MMORPGs, traders or other NPCs want gold for their services and goods, which thus disappears from circulation. But in most MMORPGs, that’s not enough: More and more gold is generated.
Black Desert introduces luxury auction house
In the South Korean version of Black Desert, a “Luxury Auction House” has been available in the southwest of Calpheon since August 17th.
The normal auction house in Black Desert is a strictly regulated player-to-player marketplace with prices that only vary within a set range.
The luxury auction house always has one item for sale, which goes to the highest bidder. The super-rich of Black Desert bid against each other. The auction lasts 10 days, with each bid extending this time by 1 minute.
Billionaires will soon bid on black Pegasus
The first item in the auction house was a “Combat/Skill EXP Transfer Ticket” – with which the auction winner could essentially make a “twink” into a new “main”. The larger character exchanges experience points and levels with the smaller character. The item started with a minimum bid of 2 billion silver.
Currently, the billionaires of Black Desert are awaiting September 29th. Then a black edition of the Pegasus will be available. The mount “Nightmare of Arduanatt” starts at 5 billion silver.
The “Luxury Auction House” was part of the content plan for Black Desert, which we presented at the beginning of August. It is likely to come to the West as well.
Here we presented further plans from Black Desert:
AFK leveling comes as a standard feature to Black Desert – What else?
