Amazon says New World’s economy is just fine, thanks

Some upvoted player complaints on Reddit and one doomsaying blog combined last week to paint a dire picture of New World’s in-game economy. According to a site called PlayerAuctions, a “currency crisis” in the game had led to a runaway spiral of deflation: There’s simply not enough money in the game to support stable economic activity, forcing prices for everything down and jacking the value of the currency itself so high that players were resorting to barter in order to acquire items and resources.

It’s hard to say how widespread this issue actually was, given that each New World server is essentially its own unique economy. For players who were running into it, crashed prices of in-game items meant that there’s basically no realistic way to make money through professions (and thus no incentive to pursue or level them up) because it’s effectively impossible to sell your stuff. Meanwhile, the skyrocketing value of currency because of limited (and shrinking) supply means that expenditures with fixed costs, like repairing equipment or paying taxes, can suddenly be out of reach. And because New World doesn’t have NPC merchants, there’s no easy way for Amazon to impose cost corrections by implementing minimum prices.