The Most Underrated Mechanic In Games

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Ever wondered why you don't really see games about negotiation? Combat, farming, building, investigating, talking, collecting cards and haggling are all small side mechanics that we managed to develop them into fully fledged standalone games. All of them… except for one. Why is that?
Relevant Links
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Twitter: bit.ly/3wGQ1TR
Discord: bit.ly/3wI5ovB
Useful Resources
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Extra Credits' video: • Shopping in Games is G...
a14games.com/deal-making-mecha...
Recettear Review | Capitalism Ho! | Merchant Edition™: • Recettear Review | Cap...
Video Contents
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0:00 Intro
0:35 Haggling In Games
3:15 Formalizing Haggling
5:46 Soft & Hard
9:15 Mechanical Depth
16:03 Principled Bargaining
Footage Used
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pastebin.com/RMQjeEq8
Special Thanks
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Twenty - Producer
TraZox - Co-Editor
Anubius - Community Manager
Jacob Lincke - jacob-lincke.com/ - Music
Tia - / void_eternity - Thumbnail illustration
Muracha
Leogrim
jonnali
Aryo
Extra Credits Team

[@MentalCheckpoint]

Tell you what, I'll give you some behind the scenes in exchange of a patreon subscription... www.patreon.com/mentalcheckpoint Capitalism HO!

[@iterenzi]

oh the reference...* chefs kiss *

[@ForWeAreMany]

Ha! i scoff at such an offer! My viewership is more than enough to suffice! However, I will be willing to give you a Like if you Heart this comment. What do you say?

[@nashineworks8318]

Did you ever credit the games anywhere in the video I can’t find the title to a specific card game I saw in the video that I want to know of

[@soccerandtrack10]

Read my comments below,i dont feel good now.

[@LucasPlay171]

hey so theres this potion game called potionomics that well uh, the CORE mechanic of it, it's very gameplay, is haggling so you could take that into account

[@haldir108]

At the time of writing this comment, the "return youtube dislikes" extension estimates there to be 1380 likes, and 4 dislikes on this video. A ratio of 99,7% likes, which would place this in the realm of "best video in it's genre, on this day" terretory. Well done, and well deserved.

[@rysea9855]

@@Flufferpup I disliked your comment >:)

[@I-ONLY-BUILD-MECHS-AND-DUSTERS]

@@Flufferpup Also people need to actually have the extension for dislikes to show up.

[@sephypantsu]

It now has 7900 likes and 101 dislikes, now at 98.7%

[@zyaicob]

That's bad science. People are much less likely to dislike when they know that only the creator will see it

[@eztak.]

@@rysea9855 I disliked yours ò_ó

[@JackOfGears]

Whenever you're building a system in a video game, you have to take into account how the system is contextualized by other mechanics. In most video-games, buying and selling items is less about simulating a trade, and more about making items fungible. You might have a pile of swords you can't use (because you're an archer), so you sell them to get more arrows. This contextualizes killing monsters and taking their things, because you can use them to buy more arrows so you can kill even more monsters and their THEIR stuff. It can also contextualize doing boring, repetitive or undesirable tasks, because a monetary reward can allow you to reach another primary goal. For haggling, for the process of reaching a transaction, to be meaningful, it has to be contextualized by other systems, and that can't just be money - because money is fungible. Doing one big trade, or ten tiny trades, doesn't matter if your only goal is the accumulation of more money, because all coin spends the same. An interesting game that, while having a very simple haggling system, does do a lot of heavy lifting when it comes to contextualizing everything else in the game, is Pathologic 2. In that game, only stores sell things for money, but you can trade with almost anyone. Everyone trades different objects. Adults want things like candles, tools, and soap, and will sell things like grindstones and thread. Children will trade with you as well, and they usually have food and medicine, sometimes have bullets, and occasionally have a CURE FOR THE PLAGUE, but they want things like hazelnuts, raisons, marbles, or chalk. People in disease ridden areas will trade extremely valuable items like watches and rings for medicine. There's even a character who will trade coin for human organs, and another that trades valuable items for trash like dirty bandages or spent vials of drugs. Every item in the game is given a contextual value based on who wants it, and who will sell it, and those contextual relationships change as the game goes on.

[@GameFuMaster]

that's no different to having vendors. The contextual trading is nice from a plot point, but mechanically, it's not any different to a fletcher not selling swords; or them only buying bows, or buying swords at a reduced rate (because contextually, they don't know how to judge it)

[@JackOfGears]

@@GameFuMaster A reasonable point, but there are two differences from your fletcher/blacksmith example that are subtle but important. The first is due to another contextualizing system. In Pathologic, you are ~always~ out of time. You have ten things to do, and time to do maybe four of them, and every second you play, all your timers are ticking down, eager to kill you. Even if you know the best deal to make, you might not have time to make it. You might not be able to spend the hour to run across the city to trade that medicine for the food you really need. You might be forced to make bad deals, because you need something ~now~. The second difference from your example is that, in your example, the fletcher is still dealing in a fungible currency. I can sell my spare sword to the blacksmith, and take the coins he gives me across the street to the fletcher to buy a new bow. The trading system in pathologic does not use fungible coins for most transactions. You are literally trading buttons for medicine, or sewing needles for fish. So rather than, in the fletcher example, always going: Item -> Coin Coin -> Item Even if you're trading at different exchange rates depending on the merchant, you're still getting a universal medium of exchange out of your transactions. But in Pathologic, almost all trading is just: Item -> Item You can't trade medicine, or buttons, or rubles, with everyone, only to some people, and only at some times. By removing a universal currency, it can put the player into awkward corners where you have a lot of money (or a lot of sewing needles, twine, or tinctures) but you can't do anything with that to solve your current problem. You might really need a fish because you're dying of hunger, but you're trading with a five-year-old who is only interested in marbles, cool looking bugs, and candy while all you have is a bunch of useless cash. This means that you can be both rich and poor at the same time. In a game that is defined by scarcity under extreme conditions, this does a lot of heavy thematic lifting.

[@GameFuMaster]

@@JackOfGears That makes a bit more sense, but trading a "certain item", I feel is no different to it being just having multiple fungible currency. I.e. USD vs Euro. Some people don't accept USD, some don't accept Euro, some accept both. But from what I've seen in the video Griftlands has the best haggling/negotiation system. You can fight someone and steal all of their stuff, but that may mean you can't trade or at least will trade for higher prices with certain other people. This system actually makes you decide how to go forth with your actions, because the effects are much more longer lasting, whereas the pathologic, it's still largely transactional, with the basis simply conditional.

[@JackOfGears]

@@GameFuMaster It's not a 'certain item' it's every item. Every item has both a use in game, whether it's to feed a meter (like eating food to avoid starvation or drinking coffee to stave off exhaustion) to repairing clothing, tools, or weapons, as well as at least a few people who are interested in it as barter. You don't have five or six currencies, everything can be traded and everything has a use. All traders (except stores, who only take cash, and then only take coupons once the Inquisitor starts rationing things), have multiple objects that they're interested in, and how much they value an object can be different. You can't eat dollars or repair your shirt with euros. It's not the same. In fact, that's kind of the ~point~ of the system. In Pathologic, if you try to only deal in currency, you're going to die of starvation. That said, I don't think the actual haggling in Pathologic is very juicy at all. It's a simple 'volume meter' like Mental Checkpoint described in the video. What it's good at, is contextualizing the other objects in a game. The process of haggling in Griftlands is much better than Pathologic, but the actual events you describe, attacking someone and taking their things leading to consequences down the line... that can also happen in Pathologic. You can mug people in Pathologic, which, because of another contextualizing system, the Reputation system, causes those Griftlands kind of consequences. Maybe you mug that kid for the fish, because you're starving, which tanks your Reputation, and now stores and most adults won't trade with you, and the only people who will take your coins are the criminals down by the train station. If your reputation system gets low enough, guards will attack you in the street, making formerly safe areas extremely dangerous. What I find interesting is that the actions in Griftlands for trade and negotiation are a lot better than Pathologic's are by far, but the end result can be similar because of some relatively simple contextualizing systems. The Reputation system is like ten float values that go up when you do good things, and go down when you do bad things. Your Reputation value is too low? Your ability to trade turns off. It's extremely basic but it gets the job done. Thanks for talking with me, it's made me re-think some stuff. It seems like it's possible to get some high quality results from very simple systems, provided you have enough other systems working in tandem to contextualize them.

[@sylbeth808]

@@JackOfGears yeah, rather than the systems itself, it's how they end up intertwining and telling their own story in their own way. Some systems may not work with some games, others will make incredible stuff. It's nice to see how rich the connections of simple mechanics lend towards amazing stuff, just as neurons make our brains, the connections are the most important thing to take in consideration. Is this the reason why it's so hard to make an amazing haggling system? We'll have to wait and see, or make stuff happen

[@blazeducks]

In games with haggling they could add an invisible scammer/altruist meter unseen by the player. The more it leans toward one side the more likely the customer is to drive the price lower or higher.

[@New3DSLuigi364]

Good Idea; that way; If I know that Someone is TRYING To Scam Me; I won't give in to them and won't adjust My Prices in a way that ONLY benefits them, and is a complete detriment to ME/The Player

[@williamrutherford553]

That doesn't really add complexity, it's the same mechanic of sliding a bar to be in the middle. No matter how much complexity you add (hidden or visible) the end goal is exactly the same; There is a base price, and there is some right answer where you profit as much as possible. That's why he talks about content outside of haggling like story. That WOULD work if it benefitted players who paid close attention to dialogue. But then the complexity is in communicating personalities through branching conversations with others and good writing, not predisposition.

[@aidanallen1976]

@@williamrutherford553 my instant thoughts too, that's a nice response you've got there

[@devforfun5618]

@@williamrutherford553 that is why recettear works, you dont always want the most profitable deal, because you also want to improve the adventurers, and there is a time window that incentivizes the player to accept bad deals now instead of waiting for a better deal later

[@Elvan-Lady]

I believe No Umbrellas Allowed has that, though you get to kinda see it.

[@blahblah6812]

Dude you dont know how happy it makes me to see someone reference Recettear and Moonlighter and games like these! I hope Muracha knows how many people, though small, really love their game!

[@lancepeterson7997]

I loved the little nod to Kingdom at 15:03. One of my favorite indie series

[@nillanapier1161]

A cartoon I saw had character get a heavy fur for cheap by pointing out to the merchant that it was almost spring, and if they didn't sell the fur now, they would probably have to warehouse it all year, and managed to get half off on some other items by persuading the merchant another store was selling it for less, I feel like this would be a good mechanic to play with, gathering, using, and manipulating information to try to influence prices

[@trevorodell5564]

I imagine this mechanic as collecting information in an "inventory" of sorts, and presenting those info bits as counters to objections in the haggling process. An item might be as simple as supply\demand trends, or as complex as a recipe that adds value to the item offered in trade. It's not just a nickel for a classic car; it's the 1928 Double-Stamped Buffalo Nickel from a Humphrey Bogart movie for an old Camaro I'd have to put some work into before it will start, so I have to get it towed.

[@goldwarlord]

​@@trevorodell5564 you could do these as cards, making it easier for people to understand right away how to use them

[@trevorodell5564]

Sure, cards, hints, evidence, contacts, all of the above and\or a mix of them, point-and-click adventure style. Then the player "detectives" their way through the negotiation by playing the appropriate "evidence."

[@solsystem1342]

​​@@trevorodell5564 Really old example but a mobile game I played called "star traders" made it so you could discover rumors at the bar (I think it had a cheap fee? Unsure but that would be cool) and that allowed you gather information about shortages, surpluses, pirate groups, trade bans. Wars that might open you up to attacks, etc

[@creatibbhaiya]

Haggling can be a more important mechanic in some rise to the top mafia game in which the negotiations you do have impact on how the other party treats you, your goods and your party. Basically what cyberpunk promised to be but for real this time. This could even utilize the superior method in which upon gaining certain info through side quests you can tackle a part of the main quest and grow stronger.

[@cookiedawg6977]

Great exploration into the topic. I'm in the planning phase of a "detective"/"adventure" game where I want the main component to be interactions with the characters and building a relationship with the residents of the city moreso than solving room puzzles. This got me thinking about the idea of negotiating with NPCs with the principled approach you discuss, to get important clues or items while also improving the lives of those you interact with. Anyone done anything similar to that before?

[@nascentspace]

Kinda reminds me of the movie Amelie

[@A_Toaster]

Didn't ask

[@heybye2147]

@@A_Toaster Mental checkpoint asked though???

[@A_Toaster]

@@heybye2147 didn't ask

[@Simon-xi7lb]

@@A_Toaster didn't ask

[@spikehammer3112]

Personally I feel like the biggest hurdle to haggling in games is player motivation. The reason people haggle in the real world just aren't reasons that players bring with them to the game.

[@ToyokaX]

Also the amount of friction that his mechanic causes seems like a detriment. What I mean by this is; if I'm playing a game focusing on comabt, I don't want to think about different currencies and haggling mechanics just to buy or sell something. It takes unnecessary brain power and slows down the pace of the game. Though to be fair, it doesn't have to be that way, but I imagine most implementations of that kind of system exist in this way. There needs to be a balance of "depth" of the mechanic and "interest" in continuing to pursue the gameplay loop without having to slow down or continuously manage something that should not need to be managed to excessively. I think 4X/Civ-type games handle this particularly well, because you are balancing different resources and bartering in a way that is tangible but complex enough to be engaging (ie. handling science/industry/money, time, units, etc. as resources in themselves).

[@Toonfish_]

Exactly. I DESPISE haggling irl, the only reason I would consider doing it is because I might have to due to monetary concerns. I'm pretty sure if games offered me haggling mini games I'd purposefully put the price higher to just get it over with ASAP.

[@godlyvex5543]

I think haggling shouldn't ever be a mechanic for small frequent trades, because players will get tired of it quick. It should be relegated to large trades, unless it's a game where haggling is one of the main mechanics.

[@davekachel]

@@godlyvex5543 if its a game about a merchants live it wont be out of place. its the game

[@godlyvex5543]

@@davekachel yes... that's what I said...

[@pumodi]

Yoooooooooooooo the Holy Potatoes nod caught me off guard. I had worked with that team making music for all their games (with the exception of Weapon Shop). Always exciting to find someone who knows the series

[@toyuyn]

I feel like soft haggling has the potential to make barter and trading a much more engaging and memorable experience, just as how Undertale made encounters more memorable by having players work out peaceful resolutions instead of what is essentially an uninspired rhythm game for attacking. Edit: another thing of note in Undertale is that if you peacefully resolve non-generic encounters, you often get the opportunity to talk to them later, outside of the encounter. Some other NPCs' dialogue even changes to reflect the way you resolved encounters. The actions you take during the 'core gameplay loop' isn't stuck in a vacuum, but affects the world around your character, which can also affects subsequent encounters. This is something a game centered around commerce could definitely utilize to build immersion and depth.

[@kintrix007]

I still don't understand how you are managing to make such high quality videos so frequently. Either way, awesome one as always!

[@Lazy_berry]

Well, dunno for him but there's AI that reads stuff for you with your same voice and intonation if you feed it enough data. So if someone focusses just on writing a script and editing then he's set. Could even outsource editing and get more free time as well

[@U.Inferno]

Potionomics looks so appealing, predominantly because of the artstyle. I'm definitely going to check it out

[@orbatos]

It is fun, but personally the card approach is not fun. I realise many people like this mechanism though, so try it yourself.

[@RocketSlug]

Boy did I not expect a brief shot of Katawa Shoujo in there. Also, I worry that depending on the writing, a principled win-win outcome can become too much like some of the Paragon/Renegade checks in Mass Effect where if you're far enough in either you can just bypass any interesting consequences of interactions. Knowing how gamers like to optimize for the best outcomes, I hope whatever game systems that utilize it can still present interesting choices to the player.

[@ryaeon9793]

i think that can be countered by the type of NPC. regular NPC, scheming NPC, good NPC, bad NPC, robot NPC, etc. you cant befriend everybody, if every NPC is mindless it will be boring.

[@cinnamoncat8950]

Do you know where the shot of katawa shoujo was? I absolutely loved that game and i was very confused when i saw your comment as im sure i would have noticed it if i saw it

[@RocketSlug]

@@cinnamoncat8950 19:33, it was real brief when he mentioned a game focusing on dialog

[@TheOrian34]

It was very surprising to see Kenji briefly, but a welcome surprise nonetheless.

[@Tarodev]

Such an eye opener. Haggling is something I've never given much thought, but this video shows just how much depth it has. Also, not sure if it was the videos intention, but I'll be picking up Potionomics when it's released! Amazing content man

[@husainzaki3098]

My eyes went wide when I saw the book and knew that some really grounded and quality content will follow, one of the books through which we were taught negotiating in law school was getting to yes and that along with the accompanying video, changed how i look at the art and changed the way i approached negotiation competitions.

[@equidistanthoneyjoy7600]

Something I noticed, in the few games where haggling and negotiation are fleshed out mechanics, they all seem to be turn-based/not real time games. Instant reaction means nothing when the game is essentially paused waiting for you to act. I'm not sure how feasible this would be, but I had the idea of what is essentially a fighting game centred around debating. Instead of trying to get something from your opponent, or even convince them, you're trying to sway a crowd; and the makeup of that crowd would strongly influence which tactics work best, with different combos representing different argument styles. A crowd full of the general public might be convinced by you shouting over your opponent and calling them a loser, essentially button mashing your way to victory as fast as you can, while a crowd full of academics would be best convinced by you leading your opponent into making fallacious arguments. The part where instant reaction would matter, however, is that if you notice your opponent make an obvious mistake you could let them talk even in front of a crowd that reacts well to you shouting over them; or if your opponent starts to make a really good point that destroys your whole argument, you could talk over them and try to shut it down even if the crowd won't like the breach of conduct. Furthermore, you could mix varying amounts and varying levels of education among the people in the crowd. Shouting might convince 60%, but the rest just think you're making a fool of yourself; or a well-reasoned argument might just go over the head of 30% of the audience. I think it could be a fun concept, but I dunno might be a disaster and not fun. I certainly don't have the skill to try to make it.

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

But again, it's not a solution to the problem to replace the mechanics with a different mechanic. Turning haggling into a fighting game is just a different mechanic wearing a mask, while it can make a good game (like Potionomics might see it's success) it IS NOT the original mechanic anymore. Cause remember, somebody coming into a game to experience a trading sim, or a debate game are not looking for a deck building or fighting game, so those mechanics let THOSE players down, and what's unfortunate? The people that maybe enjoy a fighting game or deck building game will have a chance to not care for the setting shrinking that audience too. As for the real time/turn based, we're talking about a conversation which if there were ever a thing that IRL was turn based... it's conversations. Not to say you're not wrong on that idea, just keep in mind that not everybody enjoys fighting games (or card games) so it's ideal to consider who your audience is when you're tinkering with a mechanic. When it comes to conversations about how to do different ideas, reusing existing genre mechanics is a shortcut.

[@crazydragy4233]

That sounds like a novel concept but Sherrif does have a point! Depending on how handled "masked" mechanics/games which merge very different ideas can suffer with audience. Reminds me of advice for writing comics - to not start your story with things that will never happen again/aren't core to the story. (Exmpl: No space battle for act 1 if 90% of your story is romance on Earth because it attracts readers of a story you're not writing, while turning away those who would read yours.) I hope my ramble is understandable haha, not very eloquent tonight.

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

@@crazydragy4233 Oooh sounds like you took a dramatic structures and genre class, you're exactly right and that is the core of the problem I was trying to establish.

[@ncamon]

In Recettear, you also have to deal with the adventurers that come in with good gear trying to by something weaker. To not override the good stuff, you have to overprice something so high it makes them walk away even when it breaks your combo.

[@Ashtarte3D]

Okay now I want to play Potionomics and it isn't out yet. =( It looks so cute and derpy, right up my alley.

[@DavidGuild]

Right? I think this video was secretly just an ad for that game.

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

@@DavidGuild Which is weird, because Potionomics is a card game, not a haggling game.

[@LathosZan]

The character design, artstyle, and animations get me so badly, omg

[@b3rzzz]

TBA and no place to mark it in a wishlist, theres the dev mailing but lol mails will get buried in less than a day

[@sephypantsu]

I know. Literally paused the video and tried to get it, and finding out it's not out yet.

[@lmarsh5407]

Fun fact! I made a haggling board game to explain how stores and stuff work to my younger sister! It is really fun and rivals family disputes like monopoly lol

[@lmarsh5407]

but I definitely a haggling video game! I often think to learn coding to make the boardgame online but it seems a big project

[@an_enigmaticdream]

Wait really? That seems like a really fun and cool idea! :000, and if you do get time to code it, wish of luck!!

[@macchicken98]

I‘m not a game designer and have never even considered to build a game but your videos, and this one specifically, have changed my perspective of what games are based on completely. As an outside Games and movies are just what the viewer sees, lots of effects or pretty pictures, but as you are showing, the trained eye sees deeper than that. Deep enough to reach the point at which it becomes clear that games like movies are based/ can be based on a single key idea or concept that is interesting to the creator. It may be societal phenomena like haggling or concepts like time that form the base of such a creation and which then through masterful integration get buried deep enough to become subconsciously accessible to the consumer. Fascinating! I now want to build a game. Thank you for that!

[@Chaooo]

One of the games about mercantilism that I miss the most was a flash game that shut down back in 2018 called "Swords & Potions" (the first game). The concept was simple: you hire a crafter, you purchase basic resources from a supplier at the end of each day, and sell your crafts to people. Sometimes, adventurers and citizens would come by to try to sell you something - it could be an item you can easily craft in 2 minutes at a price that's more than what you normally sell it for, or it could be a rare and otherwise unobtainable crafting material that you've been looking for to unlock more crafting recipes. As you progressed through the game, you would eventually unlock all 4 crafters, but that only means more overhead to keep track of so you're always producing things. You didn't need to worry about any kind of combat, you didn't need to set up a fancy storefront, you didn't need to care so much about developing a relationship with your customers; you bought low and sold high. One mechanic that this game had that not many other mercantilism games don't have was: if a customer came to you asking to buy an item you did not have in stock, you could suggest another item for them to buy. This way, you can either salvage the sale (at least you sold something instead of selling nothing) or you sold them something else because you might need that item in a recipe to produce something of higher quality and rarity, but all-in-all, it was a huge gamble whether this was successful or not (it even told you the odds of success afterwards), and it did depend on the customer you're selling to; the shaman asking for a mana potion would be more inclined to buy a crappier health potion as opposed to trying to suggest a sword to sell to them. Two of the best things that S&P1 did was (1). Make you keep track of the items you buy off of customers, and (2). You didn't get to set the price of the items you're selling, the customers come up to you and ask you for X item for Y price. For the first point, if you bought a wizard staff for 90 gold coins (10 coins under the market price), you can remember that in a future sale when a customer asks to buy a wizard staff for 95 gold coins (5 coins under the market price). Yeah, you're not selling at market price, but you're also profiting 5 gold and put in no crafting resources towards making it. I do like the second point because, in other shopkeep games, it's very simple and single-minded to set the price to something close to the market value of said item, but when you make it so that you have to keep track of the aspect in the first bullet point, keep track of the cost of basic resources, the time it takes to craft things, your own crafters' skill levels, etc., then it makes this second bullet point more complex and interesting. It was fascinating. I miss that game so much, I only wish that it didn't abuse the freemium time-gating model and that they didn't make it into an online-only multiplayer game (for whatever reason), and the sequel was a very obvious mobile cashgrab that resembled nothing like its predecessor. It's no wonder the development studio closed.

[@Wishuponapancake]

recettear kinda does a lot of this

[@Chaooo]

@@Wishuponapancake Recettear has a heavy focus on "comboing" and then there's also the whole combat system that, after doing it what felt like 50 million times, I had no wish to continue doing it by the time I fully paid off the loan. In fact, I didn't even want to continue into the post-loan story stuff because of how mundane the combat portion of the game was, but also because it's just kinda dumb to look at a spreadsheet to keep track of a customer's preferences and wealth thresholds.

[@yair3230HD]

StarSector was the game that made me enjoy haggling the most, since it interacted with so many other game mechanics at the same time. I've made an entire planet starve and destroyed shipments of goods just to sell it all on the black market and earn a crazy amount

[@AbstractTraitorHero]

Damn supervillain shit there!

[@hoovyzepoot]

@@AbstractTraitorHero This is just called good business my friend.

[@AbstractTraitorHero]

@@hoovyzepoot Well of course, supervillany is capitalism in a nutshell~

[@cord4691]

I think this is a pretty good view on haggling in games, but there are some games I remember seeing or playing games that were centered around you as a customer knowing the base/normal price and getting your way out of paying a lot. If this wasn't in the vid, it could be worth a mention, or a comparison as to how it affects gameplay.

[@BreadGuy01]

If I'm remembering right, Digimon World for the PS1 had a section where you took over a shop for a Digimon and, based on near random chance, had to sell a certain amount of items to certain folk, trying to ascertain just from their species and way of talking the optimal price to sell. It wasn't great by any means but I think it was the first example of haggling in a game I'd seen for myself.

[@conductiv7113]

Trading as a whole is different then haggling, haggling is a back and forth about the price...trade is the transaction but may not hold much more then setting the price and saying..."don't like it...there is the door" the latter is fairly common in games and most stores in games have set prices for buying or selling goods...with no negotiation, its a take it or leave it affair. in the video, the examples given like battlebrothers have set prices, you cannot negotiate..but the prices fluxuate depending on location and what events are active (similar to tycoon games). you can trade by selling high and buying low...but you can't haggle. the other example griftlands does allow you to "haggle" but its effectively a succes or failure state on the minigame that pops up in very specific scenario's (you cannot haggle for every purchase)... its solve the minigame to get a set discount...you don't really haggle here. Haggling is convincing the other party why they should lower their price or pay more, its occasionally done by traders trying to land "bulk discounts", but its most common in yard sales where old "stuff" is exchanged that doesn't have an easily referable anchorpoint (in game "base value")

[@zacharyrenfro3716]

I like how you showed images of Gwent because I hadn't even considered the fact that you're essentially bartering how much winning a round is worth it to you with your opponent by playing cards before passing on the round. It's a really cool way to implement a mechanical soft bartering system and makes me intrigued how it can pertain to other mechanics

[@AssasinZorro]

Please list the games you've mentioned in the video. I would love to try two of them. I remember playing Recettear a long time ago, and it is rather rare to see this mechanic explored that well

[@Elvan-Lady]

In the description there's a pastebin of all the footage he used; it's not the easiest to parse through but it's something.

[@Juhius]

It's also interesting to further develop the currencies the player trades in. You can add a lot of gameplay and worldbuilding elements to it. You can devalue your players money if the new area they enter have the merchants no longer accept the coin they have. Maybe the currency is a gameplay commodity like ammo or healing items. What does the currency say about the area, factions and people who use certain currencies? Where does the currency derive its value from? If its paper money, what imagery is printed onto it? Why is it used somewhere and not somewhere else? Does using it have ethical/moral or even narrative complications? This can enrich the trading experience in a lot of ways, even in the more simple trading systems.

[@stefanmayer9047]

ADAM from Bioshock comes to mind

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

I love Spice and Wolf. One thing it does is spend an immense amount of time explaining all the different kinds of silver coins, how the silver in the coin is usually worth LESS than the actual value of the coin in the economy... cause otherwise people would just melt down the coins and sell the silver bars for more coins to melt down into silver bars... You know, an exploit. I would play a spice and wolf game simply if they actually bring along the writer's economic genius.

[@shaynewilliams4482]

You're really killing it out here, these videos are insanely good. I'm working on a game myself and it'll take a few years to make, and here you are out of nowhere discussing one of the key components! Honestly keep it up!

[@dylangreen192]

A bit different, but one of the best multiplayer economy simulators I've played is a game called Eco. The premise is that a meteor will be hitting the world in 30 (real world) days, and you and everyone else on the server must build and advance to make a way to destroy it. However, every player must specialize, and you can't do everything. A miner can crush stones that a Mason or Engineer will need, a Stonecutter can create materials an Engineer needs to make roads, a Farmer can grow food for Cooks, and textile materials for Weavers. Hunters sell carcasses to Butchers who will make materials other players need, and it goes on and on. So, how do materials move from person to person? Most servers form an economy, with currencies based on a resource or fiat, and the game quickly becomes an economy simulator, with players buying the materials they need, so they can sell the materials and products they make. Many players get so focused on making money that they completely forget about the meteor.

[@itskatcraft2346]

I love the editing ;)) it’s looks professional and good

[@ThePiachu]

Hmm, would be nice to have some kind of game where you're not only playing as a merchant, but also the people you interact with, like Recettear. So you might have one segment where you're the merchant landing a sweet, high price for an item, and then have to play the person you upsold the item to having to deal with not having enough money for other things. Heck, maybe some people would be good at haggling and others would be bad at it and you'd feel how unfair it might be to be taken advantage of by everyone. Would definitely teach some empathy rather than "capitalism is good" mentality ;).

[@edarddragon]

this would certainly be interesting yeah

[@conductiv7113]

don't know how this pans out, seems like a "the game allowed to to make a good deal, and after that flipped the character on me...and I had to play the dumb*ss that used all his money on that one deal. if I have to play that character, let me know so I can (cut him slack) be prepared". its like giving the player the ability to score lots of points against the enemy team, and then swapping team later on...it promotes to hold back or account for the swap so you can "win" both parts...you don't "see" both sides, as from the initial perspective, there should be no incentive to hold back. not that its a bad idea, I just don't think its going to pan out the way you intend.

[@ThePiachu]

@@conductiv7113 Yeah, it would definitely fall under "a short indie game that does one gimmick and this is it", where it teaches you how to haggle for some good price, gives you a loser schmuck you can con out of their money, does its one gimmick, then makes you get sad and have to get hurt a bit and that's the end of it. I guess an alternative would be that you play a small village and realise that trading doesn't generate wealth from nowhere, only actual labour does and money is just a means of distributing accounting and what have you. But I guess we kind of already have that with some games like ECO multiplayer, except everyone is just themselves. The game does still want you to build prosperity through community, while letting you be a hyper-capitalist. Oh well.

[@sylbeth808]

@@ThePiachu I initially thought your idea was more about the fact of how the tables turn, as in, if you really punish someone by trying to get the most profit, be careful, cause your bad decisions can affect your business and make it sink. If that happens, you could find yourself as the one who's been taken profit from, if you ever have to buy something to the person you charged way too much for something they needed

[@AdobadoFantastico]

Damn, that's a really sprawling version of the idea. Would be hella cool.

[@gustavoecheverria4144]

This is an amazing video! I have never before thought about haggling in video games, but after watching your video I really hope that some of the suggestions you made get implemented in future video games, plus I got pretty interested in the games you showed, might as well try some of them out. I can only imagine all the work that went into making this video, you did an amazing job!

[@lachlanmccormick3486]

With principled bargaining, the other party wants to achieve something a certain way, so you have to provide them with a new _method_ to get what they want. I think some cool ways you could use this in games could be like offering an inferior product if you're charging more for the one they want than they're willing to pay (like a professional tool vs hobbyist tool) or maybe offering the item they want for a reduced price but only in bulk or paired with another item you're trying to sell.

[@stas1837]

I bet it has something to do with potion craft

[@StevenCojo]

When life gives you lemons...you make lemonade. The first game, that I remember, which had a heavy focus on haggling was Lemonade Tycoon 2. Sweet (or sour) memories.

[@Boiling_Seas]

One of the earliest video game examples of haggling would be in Starflight 2, which came out all the way back in 1989. There was an art to working out just how far you could push before you angered those you were trading with. Knowing what goods each race wanted to buy/sell would allow you to essentially build up a trade route to buy and sell commodities while also exploring and completing the storyline.

[@Elder_Keithulhu]

Starflight 2 was the first thing I thought of when I started this video. Haggling in that game was amazingly well realized even by today's standards.

[@DavidTriphon]

I'm so glad you mentioned the win-win approach. I don't see that given as an alternative action in a lot of games, besides maybe as an unlocked option as a result of skills.

[@gortab]

Alot of it could also go with story context or local events. Like say if the player is running a potion/spell shop in a fantasy setting and occasionally deals in other goods or sells/buys from other dealers. Suppose a community is having trouble with undead or werewolves who are making the roads and local farms dangerous. You could have farmers who need some holy water or repellent to keep themselves safe from the monsters, or medicine in case one is bitten. You could sell it for a lowered price, simply give them one on the house because you have spares and they supply you with herbs and ingredients, or maybe you keep a tab so you give them one now and they repay you later. Or, if the monsters are making roads dangerous and there is a shortage, the town could try implementing rationing to ensure all the families can get access to medicine and limit hoarding. There could even be one or more rich locals or traveling adventurers rich with dragons gold wanting to buy your whole stock of health potions even at an increased price. Though with the adventurers, if they need the potions for a mission to wipe out the monsters, it could be worth it (assuming they plan to deal with them in a timely manner and aren't going to just ignore that quest for weeks while they go fishing). I suppose for adventurers, it would pay to have a list of quests to give them along with rewards for doing so.

[@EarthboundBenjy]

I remember there was some haggling elements in Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland for the Nintendo DS. I don't remember how it worked exactly - it probably wasn't very sophisticated or nuanced, but it was one of the only times I saw this kind of mechanic in a game myself. Rosy Rupeeland is interesting because it's a game where you literally have only one stat: your money. You make progress in the story by dumping enough money into a fountain, and you can hire more expensive bodygaurds to increase your attack power (since Tingle is not much of a fighter himself). And when your money reaches zero, you die, meaning it's also your HP. ...Weird but interesting game. Not sure how relevant it is to this discussion though, but it does have some .kind of haggling system in place.

[@Doombacon]

My favorite thing about Recettears haggling is the push pull mechanical incentives that change throughout the sales day. In Recettears sales period you have 3 major mechanical goals, Increase your shopkeeper exp through chain sale bonuses and getting the price close to exactly what the customer wanted to pay, increase the invisible wallet level of various townsfolk who will be willing to buy more expensive items from your store if they have previously spent enough total money, and earning money so you can stock better items upgrade the store and avoid losing. As an experienced player these three goals can shift in importance dramatically based on visual information of who walks into your store and outside pressures like the debt payment coming at the end of the week. For example if the scammer is in your store you need to decide if it's worth going for safe low value sales to get exp and buy her super inflated item to keep the streak going or haggle more aggressively to maximise profit and sacrifice any chain sale exp. There are a ton of interesting scenarios that you can run into in Recettear like this when trying to optimize this part of the game in normal play which is incredible considering how rare it is for there to even be mechanical depth for this element of a game.

[@apresthus87]

They way i'm modeling negotiations in my new game (an MMA management game) for things like contract negotiants is that each fighter has a bunch of hidden motivations, each ranked in importance (some are negative, meaning they are irrelevant) to them and thresholds. Some are visible to player, for example grouped - "Cares about fame" indicates that their fameNeed is high, which is calculated based on their current level of fame compared to their desired level of fame etc. So in contract negotiations they agree to a contract when the offer reaches above a combined threshold of enough of their important motivations being met, with a random range of whether they accept or not if you are close, but say slightly under or over (to model doubt).

[@1gengabe]

Don’t worry I’m working on this type of game.

[@regi5436]

i wanna play it lemme know when you'll release it

[@1gengabe]

@@regi5436 it’s isn’t gonna be for a while I don’t yet have the art and sound skills/teammates to make it. But I will come back to this video when it is ready.

[@regi5436]

@@1gengabe aight lemme know if u need any help

[@thienngo8825]

I’m interested as well!

[@1gengabe]

@@regi5436 what can you do?

[@danielkjm]

I think the problem with Haggling In Games (and real life too) is that we don't see the outcome of our actions, we can scam people by selling objects at 10x the value of the object and they will not only buy it but also be happy aboth it. A good solution (but a hard one to do) would be to add an extra layer to haggle, make the person that bought your items to re sell them, and if you have been scamming or overpricing them, they go broke, lose the store or even ban you from his shop, and if you give them several good deal or even helped them by giving money or helping by quests they will grow, in size, items maybe even a family, and maybe with time he may grow more hostile and greedy or more calm and happier. Or in case the player is the store clerk you could buy and sell stolen goods or sell goods that have terrible quality to break soon forcing people to comeback and buy it again, maybe people in your town can grow tired of you and boycott your store, steal more often or even vandalize it, or open space for another store to open and compete with you.

[@PcGamerKenpachi]

Yo man, you've gone and made a video on a game mechanic and blown it up to an incredible level and I love it! Not only are you going to improve an entire little genre, these kinda games some of my guiltiest pleasures, but I hope you're gonna go on and improve alot of people's general mindset and well-being. You seem incredibly intelligent and have briefly touched on topics that people have issues with and the world would benefit from us all getting better at, like talking together as adults rather than it immediately turning into a shit flinging contest, or the principals of bargaining and how a slight perspective shift can turn what could've been an argument into a well resolved and amicable situation. Wishing you all the best and more mate, keep it up! :D

[@kodoy]

incredibly useful video - i've been fleshing out an idea for a thoroughly combined positional/principled bargaining type game and this is exactly the type of exploration of different approaches i wanted to watch. awesome!

[@JTCF]

Haggling isn't very present in real world among real people currently, usually we buy (or sometimes sell) items at a fixed price and haggling isn't welcome.

[@PrincessMadeira]

Except when buying houses or cars mysteriously

[@SweetPeteInTheBackSeat]

Liking the video before it even premieres! Booyah! Game designer algomoment!

[@playNsleep]

My dude, these videos are amazing and and you're doing so well for relatively so few videos on your channel, i bet if you could release one of these videos a week this channel would explode

[@skullsmitten]

oh, this is fascinating! i don't remember what i was trying to find when i found this video -- moral choice, agency, and unspoken designer-player promises in video games, i think? i'm glad the thumbnail caught my eye because i love it, thank you for the crash course on this bargaining triumvirate, and for exposing me to potionomics' system in particular! very, very cool stuff. instant subscribe :)

[@TraZox]

Capitalism Ho!

[@Christopher_Gibbons]

I am quite fond of the haggling mechanic in TES Oblivion. The actual slider itself was simple, and the mini-game was hit or miss, but the way it was integrated into the rest of the game was surprisingly deep. You could get better prices on the spot, but you could also influence prices through normal gameplay. Your interactions with the shop keep, their faction, your choices in quests, and your skill selections all influence your ability to get better prices even when those choices are far removed from the current situation. Such a pity the mechanic didn't carry forward.

[@starblinky4091]

Great video and inspiring too. In my game Cat Burglar & the Magic Museum there is a form of haggling. You just press “GO” and start looting the museum and try to return without getting caught. There is an invisible timer that tells when security starts to chase you. You have to get a feel for what the security will allow, which changes based on multiple variables, some of which you control. It rewards you for being more greedy but punishes you appropriately for being TOO greedy.

[@stuffstuff6932]

This partially just felt like an advertisement for potionomics, a game that isn't even out. I've looked at the trailer and other sites and It doesn't even look like it has any voice acting despite being a game centering heavily around conversing. Despite this the game is presented like the guy has already played it and having an interview with the developer just makes this video feel like a subtle advertisement.

[@smorcrux426]

15:19 I don't get it

[@croma2068]

I know this is late, but the game is called "Umbrellas Not Allowed"

[@smorcrux426]

@@croma2068 ah, OK. What is the game about? The prohibition of umbrellas? I didn't look at the game for too much but it seems to me from the 3 seconds I spent looking at images of it that it's a papers, please clone.

[@Gsoda35]

any kind of bargaining or haggling can be implemented with a set of rules based on personal values, market economy and much more. you may want at least two things affecting the rules or the game get boring fast. this video got some of the answers in it.

[@QuintenCoret]

>clicks on a video I think I haven't seen before >realizes it's just the haggling video with a new title >watches the video again anyway

[@SweetPeteInTheBackSeat]

Recettear gang let's go!

[@mementomori5580]

Frankly, when it comes to Haggling, my preference is that it's NOT in the game to begin with. And if it has to be inside, make it a simple as possible.

[@SherrifOfNottingham]

In a game like morrowind I absolutely disliked it, I prefer Skyrim's approach at that point. Because it's mechanical and hollow and not part of the game people are there for. I'm here to slay dragons and maybe crack the skulls of some bandits, and while modders have given me farming, base building, and other kinds of mechanics, when it comes to the base game design I'd rather the economy (as complex as you want to make mechanics like inflation or deflation or other economic changes) be a simple trade interface with "this is the price you pay" The problem is it takes a LOT to program in a really good haggling system, so much so that many games centered around the mechanic have yet to do an exceptional job at it yet. So implementing a half baked system almost doesn't make sense in the world beyond the fact that, yeah back in Skyrim settings we'd probably see all kinds of haggling and... well more importantly bartering going on. To have that system when there's no real money sinks to make it hardly worth even putting any skill points into your charisma for better prices makes the whole system pointless. I only used it in morrowind to be a "bribe" they couldn't refuse or get mad about by buying or selling things while basically giving me the "loser" end of the deal.

[@felix_wiseman]

this channel is by far the best at game recommendation. I've found more genuinely interesting and fun games by watching your videos than I have in the last 8 years of watching youtube, this is not an overstatement

[@ryzeonline]

I love this enlightening take on an often overlooked topic, I'm sure this will help many future game devs, thank you! :)

[@Plasmacticus]

evil mental checkpoint be like: Communism HO!

[@DerrickJolicoeur]

I always find video premieres kinda crappy. It's cool that you get a live event out of it, but the FOMO is real. All too frequently a premiere is out of my availability schedule and I feel like I'm missing out. When normally, a video goes up while I'm not looking and I simply see and watch it whenever I next check KZbin, considerably less anticipation and anxiety.

[@Joel-pl6lh]

Dude what fomo, the video is available on his channel you are not missing anything

[@Cruxin]

I hate fomo but I don't think this is it, premieres just suck because they're terribly designed. I mean, if you feel it I can't stop it, but seems odd

[@MoonLmao]

you have inspired me to start work on a haggling game where you are the shopkeeper in an rpg having to deal with the players trying to sell you weird items they found

[@yeet9420]

Honestly these videos are great. Game design and mechanics are so interesting.

[@LKTTRG]

Great video, ingame economy always intrigue me and this is one of the mechanic I never pay too much attention to

[@raisgamesnz325]

Great video! You sparked my interest! :) I think a really good way to have soft bargaining is if the people you sell things to you see repeatedly, help you or even sell things to you as well. This means depending on how you bargain with them, they will bargain with you differently in the future.

[@Dominik-K]

Thanks a bunch, as someone that loves recettear, this was a great video and the points taken from this fundamental book have been well applied. Great work, love the ideas sparked in here

[@eris902]

The algorithm has brought me here a year late! Damn! I have always wanted a merchant / pawn shop game based around haggling with people. Some game have gotten some elements much closer than others. Oblivion has a whole emotion wheel system which, while clunky, does make haggling with merchants a puzzle rather than slowly lowering a bar slider and pressing Enter multiple times. There are also games like Recetear (I'm sure I spelt that wrong) where your a merchant who has to find the maximum price people are willing to pay for your goods; but most often once you find the magic number you can just forget about it until you find a new item to sell

[@craigyeah1052]

Great video. The whole time I was thinking about a game in the context of the first episode (episode 0) of an anime called Kado: The Right Answer. Rather than negotiating himself, he is an in-between that attempts to turn all negotiations into principal bargaining. D&D came to mind as well, where it's much easier to complicate negotiations with creative solutions and relationships that will matter in the long term, as there are always two humans there. I wonder how a game built around playing as an in-between could go, where you balance relationships and many variables among a community to create as many win-win scenarios as possible.

[@SebLeCaribou]

How didn't I find your chanel earlier? Great video, I'm preparing for a binge watch of your content.

[@NotSoSeriousGaming]

I got myself into game designing recently and I really loved the concept of this video and im 100% gonna make some random encounters thst have some epic haggling mechanics fosho!

[@rose_x86]

haggling should have a happiness (?) meter, wich s increased when their given good deals / free products, making them willing to spend more, however, making them unlikely to immediately offer loads

[@AtomTomZeitalter]

Recettear actually has a mechanic that kinda works like this. The game lies to you in the tutoriel, when it says you should aim for ~30% increase. Actually every customer type has a hidden budget, that goes up if you sell them items at their preferred price (usually around 107-108% of the original price). The more you sell to them at that price the more their budget increases. If you only do, what the game tells you to do, you won't be able to sell pricier items at all, because they are outside of the customers budget.

[@cypress67]

Very cool video. I will take this into consideration when I develop the trading system in my game

[@sspectre8217]

I’ve been working on a text-based game and I hadn’t considered adding a haggling system and after this video I realized that it would fit in sooo much. I still need to code and test a few more basic systems like inventories and relationships but this got me excited to get them done so I can start figuring out the haggling system.

[@Gatotraceur1]

Love this, it makes me want to intent to onmediatly play haggling games, very well narrated!

[@zomfgroflmao1337]

Recettear is still one of, if not my actual, favorite indie game. Many aspects talked about are actually in the game, like learning what customers usually pay more or less, but the dungeon crawling is also super crisp and there are so many different characters you can play around with (in haggling or in the dungeon). The only thing I wished more fore was a bit more flashed out lore about those characters.

[@woofferz]

Glad you mentioned No Umbrellas Allowed! I loved the depth of the price negotiation mechanic.

[@AlirezaTabasi7]

Glad to see this after all the hard work you put onto the haggling mechanic study.

[@018FLP]

I'm in the conceptualization phase of a future project, and Negotiation was a factor that i didn't thought about and will fit perfectly in the game core aspects. Thank you very much!

[@generrosity]

I'm scratching together a game based on establishing trade routes from scratch, and this is so good! It's somewhat based on a casual collection game I once played, but this address a narrative mechanic that would do really well 😊💚👌 I think the "opening a window in the other room" example really did it for me. Reminds me a lot of zen mini stories of unexpected solutions. Recontextualization examples like that are gold, I would love to hear more !

[@Ferret440]

This is a really well made video, great job!

[@kaspersteen9974]

This is some high quality content. (I sound like a bot, I’m not), well written mate, glad to have stumbled upon this. Subscribed

[@IcecreamRandomness]

I find the issue with haggling in games is that it focuses around merchants. The moment a 'product' is presented in a 'merchantile' haggling situation, it gets cemented into the tug-o-war principle. However, what I want from a haggling game, which I have never seen done well, when considering the principled bargaining method, is haggling during quests or diplomacy. Situations where you can agree with an NPC to try out one solution, but then they come back later and explains to you the outcome, which you can then try to remedy or improve upon. A few games let you bargain for how much you are rewarded for doing a quest or by just rewarding you more for doing a better job at something, but all bargains in games I've seen become a 'one-time' transaction. Reputation is a good starting point, but it could be expanded upon so much more if you make a game around it and add even more layers, as explained in the video. Let me paint a game example: You are a ruler of a kingdom with a magical ability to glimpse into the future. People from all over the kingdom come to you to help solve issues. Anything from petty squabbles, theft or bad harvests, to grand schemes, declarations of war or magical accidents. When one such person comes up to you and presents an issue, you are offered several arguments which, when moused over, gives you glimpses into the future, like a power-point slide of images with good or bad scenery in it. These glimpses are essentially the end game that plays out. So it'd be a multiple-ended story. However, as you read through the arguments, you are faced with having to explain yourself to the person and may end up getting doubted since you can't just tell others you 'have seen the future'. What if you have to deliberately cause a famine now for the sake of a bountiful season next year? You know only the outcome, but not the path to get there and must explain your way around it. Now, where does the haggling come in? The person presents you with a problem and a discussion ensues. You have to persuade them into doing the option you think will produce the best outcome for the future. But then they come back one day, before the foretold future has happened. They explain what they have done since last time, but this time, you see different futures. You're at a crossroad again, but this time the person and all of the kingdom has changed a little because of what you told them to do last time. They like/hate you more, there is less money, rebellious uprise brewing? Now how will you answer them? It is at that point, as a player, that you realise the future isn't set in stone, but you are always presented with a 'good' or 'bad' future in these interactions, forcing you to question yourself. What will you do now? Solve the here-and-now problem or aim for the brighter future again? Principled bargaining would come into play by figuring out a solution to a problem, where they have one desired outcome and you have another. Now try to make the best outcome for both. Sorry for long post. Thoughts?

[@adrixshadow]

The depth of a Shopkeeping/Haggling games resides in the "Customers". For Principled Bargaining I like to think in terms of Desires, Value Judgement, Favors that are outside of a direct monetary value. Like for example let's say you have an Assassin that comes to your shop, you would think at first for them to buy something for money. But that's not the only "service" he can provide, his real value is offing your neighboring shop down the street, and this is where you bring out the Super Delux Adamantine Poison Daggers with a very steep "discount" and a small "favor" added on top. What is the Value of "Desires" what is the Value of "'Favors", what is the value of Exclusivity, Rarity, Uniqueness and various "Services". You could have auctions where you could sell that to the highest bidder but just pure monetary value does not unlock all possible actions you can have or putting a monetary cost can make it very expensive for that service.

[@iaxacs3801]

Something that would be really cool to add to a haggling game would be the concept of returning customers. It would change the dynamic of letting cheaper deals slide by in hopes of establishing kinship to get better deals later on. Or maybe what happens on the other hand is because of the supply and demand mechanic mentioned you are forced to decide between using a harder choice vs a softer because you really need to make back your money on this merchandise but you also don't want to ruin your relationship with a good customer. In essence in could bring in that social aspect found in trading mechanics between players in games like MMOs. In short make a Sims like stat sheet for customers where some are dynamic through how you interact with them while others are static (such as community influence to get others into your shop). Bargaining is inherently social so one should try to incorporate social mechanics within these games.

[@oopsy444]

Shout out to extra credits for bringing me here. Thanks zoey

[@rPepz]

These videos are amazing and underrated, you deserve much more

[@johnnysteed2878]

As someone who loves that game: DwarfFortress has also a very interesting Haggling system. It's only a part of thr game and you can play without it but using it is in some maps "needed" (i.e. wood). It is, like everything in that game, very entangled into other mechanics, but that is what i love about the haggeling in that game - you can't really powerplay it. Mechanics that are supposed to be there (some are hard to prove for me): - There is no money. There is an economy and value but you have to trade with objects of completely different values. - values are not fixed. There are stats for every dwarf(can be 200 or more) that determines the value of objects, if s/he is the broker. - willingness to trade is different. There are stats that lets you see how willing the trader is and not every trader is equally willing. - you can ask for goods for next year (priority->price up) and the trader has items for which he's willing to pay more. - there is a social system, i don't understand - there are mandates on goods from your nobel (i.e. mayor) - you have to run an entire fortress - every traders is seasonally - different traders, different items I'm not good at that game and there is plenty of stuff I don't know, but this is what came to my mind. It's really not a Haggeling-game and you are not supposed to be a merchant.

[@nikolozkipshidze]

Hooo boy, didn't expect the NL cameo in 7:24, pogged out of my gourd rn

[@Metaknigthbg2]

Another awesome video! A little request if i may - would be quite convenient if there was a list of games shown and mentioned in the video in case at some later point I wanted to search for one of them, or for quick reference in the future without having to skip through the video finding the point where the name was mentioned.

[@doltramir]

Well, you can tie different mechanics into one system, that will decide character's opinion in you, and from there you can have good basis for haggling, negotiating, and so on.

[@sephypantsu]

Recettear was amazing! So glad to see the video bringing it up

[@maliceruppert]

Someone linked me this video when I was trying to talk about Winkeltje: The Little Shop and what's missing from it. It's a shopkeeper game completely without haggling, the challenge boils down to buying or crafting items at a lower price than their fixed sales price. (which is influenced by events but you can't change your own profit margin) I like a lot of what this video suggests (specifically that haggling mechanics can benefit from Papers-Please-like ethical dilemma and that principled bargaining would make for a lot more interesting mechanics if you found a way to adapt it in a game) but interestingly, that's not at all what I primarily find missing in Winkeltje. (disclaimer I'm only 3h into it at the time of writing, I might change my mind). Instead, what I'm missing there is really just any more social and narrative component, dialogues with NPCs and missions that are actually given to you by NPC dialogue instead of disconnected, UI-only objectives. I guess what my point boils down to is that while haggling as a mechanic has a lot of unexplored potential, the shopkeeper genre could also do a lot of interesting things without even really gamifying haggling in the first place.

[@nosidenoside2458]

i feel like a max level haggling would be sorta like han solo, being able to straight up break promises and be a foolish bounty hunter dude and just get away with it, though han is also good at shooting and really good at flying like i remember play star wars battlefront 2's campaign (decent game terrible campaign, it's basically just practice for the multiplayer) and han solo somehow brought imperial tie fighters over a lake of one of his... acquaintances? friends? idk anyway, she was angry, and he even promised before this to not draw tie fighters over her lake again or something. anyway, he managed to get her like not angry. anyway, that level of glib tongue is what i think should be like max level.

[@edarddragon]

As someone with a business degree and a masters in economics id love to play more of these especially potionomics would definitely be fun to play things or see how real world tactics work in the game

[@randodox8375]

Wow, there's alot of interesting game with unique mechanic out there that I never knew in this video. I am excited to see where will the discussion on hanggling mechanic will go in the future.

[@sacrosanct23]

I think one of the most important things to manage in a haggling situation is the power dynamic created by what the buyer knows or doesnt know about the seller their product and its supply chain. Regardless of individual reasons for the purchase, the seller has something the buyer wants and the option to bargain leaves the buyer with sets of confounds that only the seller knows the specific values to (wholesale purchase price, required margins to break even, overall market availablity, present stock, desire to clear storage space, etc). As a buyer the first challenge is determining the specific confound values and employing that knowledge as leverage, and the second is implying to the seller that you can see through their pitch enough for them to capitulate without turning them off of the transaction entirely and having them dig in their heels with a price higher than your desired one. As a zero-sum seller the goal is to remain as opaque as possible regarding those confounds while coming across as helpful, informative, inspiring, and most of all transparent. It is largely the play of this power dynamic that brings up the ethical questions around haggling in the first place, and what makes the whole concept of haggling a compelling one (as well as the sweet sweet cash lol), and the underrepresentation of it being why haggling in games feels mechanical and lacking. Power balance is the x-factor which lets either side feel like they came out on top and swell with pride at fleecing someone

[@slizer452]

Learning that you write for extra credits made just how good your videos are WAY more understandable. I kept thinking that you've been around for like years already despite making your first video on this channel 6 months ago. Turns out I was kind of correct on that one.

[@SharkyShocker]

A lot of the examples used were games based around bargaining, but what I really like to focus on are market economics in games NOT focused on buying/selling items. This is just my opinion, but in many games you often don't want deep bargaining mechanics. For many players, you present them with a crossroads that can often feel like a lose lose because they ONLY want to play the main game. On one hand they can try to bargain the price of an item down/up to get a better deal, but it feels like a time waster if you want to get back to the main stuff. However, if you just decide to sell/buy the item outright you'll feel as though you're wasting your money and consequentially your time because you had to earn that money you're losing. By adding the bargaining system, selling the item at "normal" price actually makes the player feel far worse. That tug of war can often be the best solution. Because it's both simple and effective enough to keep the player engaged with the mechanic while not choosing to ignore it or cause them to get annoyed with it. This all being said, my favorite mechanic for market pricing are invisible factors. You find out the village alchemist has a sister in the forest who is a botanist. You run into said sister one day who has a boring botany quest, but remember that her sister is the alchemist. You do her quest, she thanks you and gives the promised small reward, and upon returning to the village the Alchemist actually thanks you and gives you discounts at her shop. That's what I love in games. Relationships and connections that don't require a 2-4 minute minigame every interaction, but instead incorporating them into the main game itself.

[@julianbailey2749]

And this is why traders of Genoa is one of the most underrated board games of all time. Every component that you have in the game can be traded. The contract negotiations in games such as Championship Manger and Out of the Park are key elements of the long term gameplay. As well as the pure cash elements there is the element of how key is that player to your team and how much will they get played. Also elements such as, buying a player from a rival team is more difficult than attracting a player that is out of contract. I always go hunting for players that are nearing the end of their contracts and have have not renewed their contract with their current team, it creates an interesting search for hidden 'gold' in the game.

[@greedy9310]

agreed, 100%. Trade is always a feature I love in games, be it strategy or adventure, as it adds an interesting dynamic which allows players to be really good at what they do and be rewarded for it in a non XP way. It's like a small aspect of Economics represented in a fictional world, which I'd love to see more of. I've always found being the Merchant or Trader more fun than the Knight or Rambo.

[@greedy9310]

Furthermore, Hagging could be expanded upon with trade interactions. That is to say, the game simulates third, second, and first sectors the economy (this is somewhat seen in games like Bannerlord). If a town is destroyed, maybe its primary export increases in value and you have a better shot of getting a good deal. However, by destroying the town, someone gets very angry and won't give you good deals, or refuse their citizens services withy you. Perhaps by investing in a town, future customers will offer lower prices. Haggling needs to be seen more in games. I wish being a Merchant was a truly viable option, but it sadly isn't despite being to fundamental in life.